Animal Farm 2009 and beyond.....

Just finished reading it tonight. My first thoughts are that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutley. To the point that you can't tell a pig from a man.

I'l spend tomorrow thinking on Clydes original premise;

"discuss the similarities of the allegory with today's put together our own Animal Farm cast of characters from today's government? "

 

We don't have to follow my original premise for the entire discussion, all insights are interesting to me.

 

Ran into another prohibitive library/Tracy time constraint. However, I did grab their audio online. It only has 3 chapters (?!). Is the book that short or is their file incomplete?

Had just enough time this afternoon to listen to the introduction and a snip of the book (1st chapter).

I love the song.

I'm rather intrigued to get to the rest of it, but it will have to wait until too late tonight or tomorrow, as I have to get to work.

 

Found an ebook. Done!

 

So when do we start the discussion?

I'll take the easy road.

Napolean would be Obammy of course. But I think that is giving him a lot of credit. I think the pig was smarter.

Then Squealer would be Nazi Pelosi.

Maybe Arlen Sphincter would resemble Mollie the traitor horse.

and of course G.W. Bush is Snowball. Gets the blame for anything that goes wrong.

The donkeys take control and promise a new world. But in the end power corrupts them into just another tyrant.

The barnyard animals think they are a diverse group. Horses, cows, chickens, donkeys. But in the end they are just a bunch of sheep, being led by a bunch of pigs.

 

That's odd; I had posted something about it being a (sadly) familiar fairy tale.

I don't have the ability to give present political names to the characters, as there are so few characters and so many who might fit their descriptions. I read it as a description - a moral, if you will - of how any organization can lose its founding principles as leadership become corrupt or self-serving.

 

IMHO, when there was no longer anyone to keep alive the 7 founding principles, all was lost. If the majority of our population allows any administration and 7 black robed judges to redefine our constitution as opposed to narrowly interpreting and applying it, the day will come when there is no one left who remembers the principles on which our country was founded. It is our duty to shout the truth from the rooftops lest the truth be twisted and and ultimately replaced by a new truth.

 

I was hoping for a lively discussion when Clyde first opened this topic. Although Orwell originally wrote this as an allegorical tale about Stalin's rise in the decades following the Russian Revolution, it remains contemporary today.

Anyone have any thoughts about Animal Farm and our history in the making?

 

Let's see if we can kick this mule.

So we rage against the abuse and or the indifference of our government, our leaders and our various agencies. So if we became the owners of the farm how would we insure that we did'nt become that which we replaced?

It seems our forefathers tried but sadly failed. The "principles" that they established are today ignored and blatantly trampled upon.

So how would we do it different? How would we, if we ran the farm, do things different? And more importantly insure that those who come after us adhere to the principles?

Any ideas?

 

Excellent! Thanks for the boost MM. It's been on my mind but I was starting to feel like a pest for resurrecting the thread over and over.

 

Only one. If We the People do as the Iranians are doing this (election) week in Tehran with Achmed douchebag, the oligarchy in Washington might get the idea. The basic difference these days is that we still have our arms. Which doesn't answer the question, but does point to the way out after the pigs usurp control. I have this notion that the progression is cyclic, inherent in society, cannot be avoided, and has to be dealt with when tyrrany becomes onerous. Won't happen before that point. Until that point is reached, about the best that can be expected is that the principles can be kept alive.

 

I've been watching the news reports of the rioting in Iran. I can't help but see the comparison to Animal Farm.
The Iranians overthrew the hated Shah and his oppressive, freedom depriving government. The animals took over the farm.
Ahmadinajad was one of the original revolutionaries. One of the pigs that chased out the farmer.
Now the pigs have become the new oppressors.
I think Orwells tale goes much deeper than a mere allegorical tale of communism. I think it is an indictment of human nature.
We invariably become that which we strive against.
Hasn't every dictator in recent memory come to power as a savior of the people? A hero of the masses who then becomes as bad as those he replaced. Stalin, Castro, Mao, Ahmadinajad.
If you look at it abjectly, communism is the purest form of governance. Everything owned by the people, for the people. So why is it the scourge of the world? Why has it failed so miserably?
Because it does not take into account the greedy, evil if you will, nature of man. The corrupting influence of power.
It is in our very nature that, if given the chance, all pigs will eventually become men.
All the heros of the people will eventually become their oppressor.

 

Much truth to that, which beggars the question, why has this phenomenon not yet taken place here? I venture that our government construct simply delays the inevitable progression. I'll be long pushing up daisies, but my money is on the same eventuality where the population has to rise up against a restrictive, controlling, intrusive government. We were pretty fortunate that our founders came up with a system that works, if honest men remain honest. Moreover, there were a bunch of them that damped down the more extreme thinking. Looking at the charismatic despots that you named, they had zero balance.

 

I believe our founding fathers well understood the intoxicating influence of unchecked power. They struggled to create a system of checks and balances, and a set of principles that would counter that influence.
And I would say that they succeeded for the most part. At least until the principles were changed, or ignored.

 

It must be said that the 1st amendment guaranteeing freedom of the press is our best hope for knowledge of abuses. While we can all agree that the media in general has a liberal bias, it is also important to remember that all media thrives on controversy and as long as the media outlets are not subject to state control, we will have access to information. The more venues for information available to us, the greater the chance that the truth of events will come to light. The internet has proved an excellent opportunity for the truly free and open exchange of information as long as it remains truly open and free of legislative encumbrances.

 

Agree that the media has a liberal bias. That said, the bias is inevitable when it becomes politically incorrect to use simple, direct English, when column inches is how the writers are paid and they have to use euphemisms and round about terms to fill the inches and avoid being drummed out of the copy room for calling a spade a spade. If one were to re-write Animal Farm to make it meet today's journalistic "standards", it would be at least twice as many pages to accommodate all the modifiers needed for correctness.

And I won't even start on the excessive use of superlatives, but I'll use one here. I say, and maybe me only says it: The finest bit, ever, of English writing is the Declaration of Independence, closely followed by the Bill of Rights.

 

I don't have as much faith in the media as some. I do think that much more truth than fiction is to be found on the internet. For now.

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
John Swinton, New York Times editor, in a speech before the New York Press Club 1888

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. ... It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."
David Rockefeller, Bilderberg Meeting, June 1991 Baden, Germany
　
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928)

"The ruling class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway the emotions of the masses."
Albert Einstein


"I have the greatest admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the West is carried out by experts who have had the best training in the world — in the field of advertising — and have mastered the techniques with exceptional proficiency ... Yours are subtle and persuasive; ours are crude and obvious ... I think that the fundamental difference between our worlds, with respect to propaganda, is quite simple. You tend to believe yours ... and we tend to disbelieve ours."
Soviet correspondent based five years in the U.S.


"The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands."
Spiro Agnew, U. S. Vice-President, 13 November 1969

 

I agree MM. However, nuggets of truth abound. We aren't spoon fed truth - we have to dig and delve. Unfortunately, there are many people who fail to question, who prefer to be spoon fed. Those of us who opt for the more time consuming job of using our brains have a distinct advantage. We study as much information as possible from what is available to us, always question, and then question again, and discuss issues to the point of annoying those around us. We can enlighten those who are just as happy to feed on the mush it gets from mass media.

I don't care to read the opinions of the editorial staff - I prefer to read facts and make up my own mind.

I never want to be a mush feeder and I doubt that anyone else in our little community would be satisfied by gruel.