The Rebellion

The further I read into Atlas Shrugged and the more intense the economy declines, the more policies that the Wesley Mouch passes, and the further the American people sink into poverty the more I keep questioning why it has only been the “brains” of the country that have risen up and rebelled. The past history of the United States has shown that we have rebelled against much smaller offenses. We are currently considering going to war with a nation who, although committed a crime against humanity, committed no actual crime against the United States. There are also the examples of the Korean and Vietnam War. There was enough public support, at least in the beginning, to give up the lives of fellow Americans as well their own, and yet in Atlas Shrugged as their children die of starvation and freeze during the winter, the country remains dormant. It is this part of the novel that seems most unrealistic. One could argue that these rebellions such as the American Revolution and the Civil War where actually supported by higher leaders and governments and that these leaders actually manipulated the people into rising up or fighting and that in Atlas Shrugged, without the government’s support and pressure of sending the citizens to war, a revolution from the common people could never happen.  Yet I still believe that the “American spirit” that rises up every time the government attempts to pass a policy, would have fought back years ago. This is one of my biggest challenges with reading this Atlas Shrugged. Too often I try to relate Rand’s arguments and opinions it back to how America actually looked then and how it looks today, which are in the end incompatible.