‘Going Galt’: Whatever Shall the Rest of Us Do?
Eric Etheridge, New York Times:
The right has a new hero to lead the Tea Party revolts Rick Santelli started: John Galt.
According to the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, sales of Atlas Shrugged hit an all-time high last year, and have “almost tripled” in the first seven weeks of 2009 against last year.
Michelle Malkin is the Norma Rae of this Galt moment, walking the virtual shop floors of the country’s “wealth producers,” but instead of “Strike!” her sign reads “Going Galt!” In her syndicated column this week, Malkin explains:
While they take to the streets politically, untold numbers of America’s wealth producers are going on strike financially. Dr. Helen Smith, a Knoxville forensic pathologist and political blogger, dubbed the phenomenon “Going Galt” last fall. It’s a reference to the famed Ayn Rand novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” in which protagonist John Galt leads the entrepreneur class to cease productive activities in order to starve the government of revenue.
Wait. John Galt?
