To All the Other Animals' Dismay, The Pigs Were Seen Now Standing.

[David Zephyr]

Jim Conte's amazing graphic below pretty much sums it all up for me these days. It's just the way it is. George Orwell saw it all long ago. Here's a link to Mr. Conte's website: http://www.jimconte.com/

[kentuck]

1. An actual real-life animal farm...

and standing proudly, too.

[David Zephyr]

4. A picture is worth a thousand words.

;-)

[kentuck]

12. Yep!

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others...

[phasma ex machina]

2. Then they put on top hats and tails.

[David Zephyr]

6. Looks like they are punching a hippie.

Great graphic. Thanks, phasma ex machina.

[beam me up scottie]

3. Perfect.

Would make an awesome t-shirt.

Recommended.

[AsahinaKimi]

5. We had to read Animal Farm in High School

and I loved the Animation of it. Yes, he was spot on, that this is how things would begin to look.

[Agent William]

28. ''we had to read Animal Farm''

no no, you GOT to read Animal Farm... lol, I know you mean though. I wish that book would have been in my school curriculum. This was a fantastic metaphor for the Soviet Revolution. It's amazing how well Orwell analysed the unfolding of socialist ideals, IMO

:hi:

[AsahinaKimi]

32. Well

There was a list of required reading and then we had to submit our list of books that we wanted to read. One of the books on the required list that year was HIROSHIMA by
John Hersey. It was one of those books that stayed with me most of my life.. I don't even recall the books I chose, however I do recall reading Animal Farm, and Charles Dicken's book Great Expectations, Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Ray Bradburry's Fahrenheit 451, George Orwell's 1984, among others...


Oh, now I do recall one of my chosen books; James Clavell's Shogun.

[H2O Man]

7. I think George

Harrison wrote a song about this.

[David Zephyr]

8. You mean the one on the White Album?

"stirring up the dirt..." ;)

[kentuck]

13. "...in their starch white shirts"

The best Beatles album, in my humble opinion.

[H2O Man]

15. "clutching forks and knives....

to eat their bacon..."

There is no better album to be found.

[Jamastiene]

9. Another great thread.

K&R

[Newest Reality]

10. Time to bring home some BACON! -NT

[nenagh]

11. Is that Mitch in the middle?

Note to self: If you can't say something nice, don't say it at all.

[LoZoccolo]

14. I think that's an apt metaphor today.

The pigs were communists. Today we have lefties like Jane Hamsher and Ralph Nader doing the work that Republicans want done, so it woefully applies today; they are the pigs of today.

[xchrom]

16. centrists and moderates are, democratic ones. nt

[H2O Man]

17. comic genius!

[bread_and_roses]

19. oh yeah! those lefties blowing up babies and sucking up trillions of working families $$

you surely cannot be serious?

[LoZoccolo]

20. Without Nader, there would not have been the Bush* tax cuts nor the Iraq war. n/t

[Jakes Progress]

21. dupe

[LoZoccolo]

23. What did I get wrong? n/t

[bread_and_roses]

25. ROFL

Just off the top of my head and without giving the matter any thought at all, how many babies died under Clinton's draconian sanctions against Iraq? How much of the people's wealth continued to flow to the upper few %? How many East Timorese died with Carter's support? I don't know what world you live in, but in the one I see there's no more than a few, powerless voices in DC opposing the militarism and money policies that got us here. Once upon a time the Ds threw a few scraps and bones to the hoi polloi to quiet us if we got too rowdy. Now, they can't even give the jobless unemployment and are complicit in the dismantling of anything resembling the common or social good. But just keep blaming those lefties!

[Jakes Progress]

22. I used to have students who didn't understand the book too.

So don't feel too bad about getting your connections so completely wrong.

[LoZoccolo]

24. What did I get wrong? n/t

[Jakes Progress]

26. Your need to attack the left

has colored your reading. The ones doing the bidding of the republicans are the centrist blue dogs, the dlc, and this administration.

[LWolf]

18. Worth a thousand words. nt

[Uncle Joe]

27. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, David Zephyr.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

29. Napoleon is always right. (n/t)

[Spike89]

30. Not communists, authoritarians

Technically, all the animals in the book were communists and staged a worker's revolution. The pigs corrupted the revolution and set themselves up as the privileged class. Animal Farm is a great book, but the pigs are a very strong metaphor for authoritarian abuse--you can't simply plug in your target enemy and say they are the pigs. Nader and other voices on the left "may" have had a role in Bush becoming president (I don't think it was the main reason, but that is another discussion). For Nader to be an Animal Farm pig, he'd have had to have won himself, then corrupted the movement he used to gain power...
The republicans are not the pigs (they are pigs, just not Animal Farm pigs). They are not promising a worker's paradise then exploiting the worker...they are the farmer who the animals revolted against. The closest analogy could be Obama and the mainstream Democrats, but of course they have done none of the pig-like behaviors in regards to gaining power--if anything, they've allowed the farmer to take over the farm again.
So, in essence, Animal Farm is a powerful story, but it doesn't really fit the dynamics of the current climate.

[Me.]

31. Off To The Greatest With You

Ok, so you're already there, but it sounds so good.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

33. Welcome to 1984