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Welcome to George Orwell's Animal Farm

Overview

George Orwell's Animal Farm is a short, easily readable story with valuable lessons about how political and governmental organizations often work. Orwell wrote it as a parable about the Russian Revolution, as an example of how a revolutionary government could be worse than its monarchist predecessor, but it also could apply to many political organizations, labor unions, and the like. The key lesson is that the organization's bosses often manipulate the organization for their own benefit, and end up being as bad, if not worse, than the real or imaginary evils from which they are protecting their followers.

• Synopsis of Animal Farm
• Propaganda; educating and conditioning the organization's sheep.
• The problem with Handgun Control Incorporated. Niccolò Machiavelli warned us against people like this.
• Kweisi Mfume and the NAACP as useful idiots for the Ku Klux Klan
• Senator Dianne Feinstein, gun control "pig" from California.
• Labor union bosses and their relationship with Bill Clinton

Synopsis

The farm animals who inhabit the Manor Farm are mistreated and abused by Farmer Jones. The animals rebel, expel Jones, and take over the farm, which they rename Animal Farm. Soon, however, the pigs (who represent the party bosses) begin to take special privileges for themselves, e.g. extra food. They enlist the farm's dogs as enforcers to put down any dissent, and they teach the sheep (rank and file) to speak the party line on demand. At first, this is, "Four legs good, two legs bad"- animals (four legs) are good, humans (exploiters) are bad.

As time passes, the Seven Commandments (Animal Farm's Constitution) undergoes subtle changes as the pigs rewrite it to suit their own agenda. When Boxer the horse (symbolizing blue-collar labor, the "workers,") becomes too old to work, the pigs sell him to the horse butcher, whom they tell the other animals is really the veterinarian. The pigs eventually learn to walk on two legs, thus imitating the animals' original exploiters, and they teach the sheep to bleat, "Four legs good, two legs better!" The Seven Commandments become one: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." The pigs rename Animal Farm the Manor Farm- its original name- and invite the neighboring human farmers, who symbolize the elite class against whom the animals revolted, to admire the results: "...the lower animals on Animal Farm did more work and received less food than any animals in the county." As the story ends, the pigs become indistinguishable from their human visitors.

Click images for sound effects

"Four legs good, two legs baaad! Four legs good, two legs baaad!" [Caution: sound is 340K (long download), but it gives a really good idea of what political "sheep" sound like. The other sheep .wav is only 28K- short and to the point]   Pictures from CorelGallery Sound from Holy Cow! graphics collection

"Comrades!" [Squealer the pig] cried. "You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a privilege of selfishness and privilege. Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole managment and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades," cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, "surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?"

"All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards whom it intends to direct itself." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), Vol. I "...there was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, 'and this will always be the man in the street.' Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology... Hatred and contempt must be directed at particular individuals." -H. Trevor-Roper (ed), The Goebbels Diaries, p. XX, cited in Regan, Geoffrey. 1987. Great Military Disasters. New York: M. Evans and Company.

Goebbels' and Hitler's ideal audience: "Four legs good, two legs baaad! Four legs good, two legs baaad!"

The Problem with Handgun Control, Inc. and Similar Organizations

Key lesson: beware of the professional political activist who promises to "save" you from gun violence, global warming, the bogeyman, and similar real or imaginary enemies.
 

"As to private discords among your soldiers, the only remedy is to expose them all to some sort of danger; for in such cases, fear generally unites them." -Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War "Surely, comrades," cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, "surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?" "If the Jew did not exist, we would have to invent him." -Adolf Hitler (or one of his crew, I forget which) Machiavelli also warns in The Art of War that no person should be allowed to make war his only occupation, for it is then in his interest to create war and prevent peace. "...surely no one can be called a good man who, in order to support himself, takes up a profession that obliges him at all times to be rapacious, fraudulent, and cruel..." This applied in an era when a soldier's regular pay (if any) had to be supplemented by plunder. Booker T. Washington wrote, "There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs." See the section on Kweisi Mfume and the NAACP, below. Tort lawyers are an example of a profession that relies upon war, or its moral equivalent, for its livelihood. Hence the series of frivolous and abusive lawsuits against firearm manufacturers for the acts of criminals. But there are some situations, e.g. flagrant disregard for consumer safety (for example, cars that explode due to defects of which the manufacturer was aware) in which tort lawyers have a legitimate and constructive role. The problem is, there are too few legitimate cases to support all of them.

Why Handgun Control Incorporated will not stop until they have taken away every American's right to own firearms- or until they are stopped. HCI's leaders, having made "handgun" control their cause- their livelihood and their profession- cannot stop when they achieve gun controls they consider "reasonable." "Victory" would destroy their livelihood, so they would have to find a new cause, like long firearms (rifles and shotguns). Machiavelli (see left) warned us about people like this. In contrast, the National Rifle Association existed long before professional activists and opportunists made gun control an issue. It existed for the constructive purpose of promoting the shooting sports, firearm instruction, and safe firearm handling.

Kweisi Mfume, Useful Idiot for the Ku Klux Klan?

In his eagerness to blame firearm manufacturers for violence in Black neighborhoods, Mfune allows himself to practically quote the white supremacist party line on "Blacks and violence." Mfune also forgets that white supremacists enacted gun control laws to disarm Black people (so they couldn't defend themselves against Klan violence, "night riders," and the like.) Even the buzz word "Saturday Night Special" has a very ugly, racist, origin.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Gun Control "Pig" from California

Next we come to staunch antigun Senator Dianne Feinstein (Fine Swine?), D-CA, who wants laws that would force all Americans to surrender their firearms- but she has a permit to carry a handgun for self-protection. A permit that she doubtlessly got because of her influential position. Her justification is doubtlessly, "Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples."             Washington Post columnist Carl "Warning Shot" Rowan and Senator Ted "Machine Gun" Kennedy are two other antigun "pigs." That is, they want one set of rules for themselves (they can own guns, even in violation of local laws) and another for everyone else.

Meanwhile, she has taught her constituents to bleat, "Handgun Control, Inc. good, National Rifle Association baaad! Handgun Control, Inc. good, National Rifle Association baaad!"

Bill Clinton and Labor Union Bosses

Now consider a fairly recent strike in which union workers, the rank-and-file Joe and Jane Bluecollars, got $50 a week in strike benefits. The union bosses continued to collect their six-figure salaries while calling any worker who crossed the picket line a scab. "It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back!"

Unions also misappropriate portions of their members' dues and give them to political parties, usually the Democratic National Committee, without their members' consent. We can easily wonder who is worse- the company managers who supposedly exploit the workers, or the union bosses themselves. The conclusion of Orwell's book suggests that there might not be any real difference: "No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

[Mr. Pilkington, speaking genially to Napoleon, Animal Farm's head pig] "If you have your lower animals to contend with, we have our lower classes!" Pilkington, a farmer, symbolizes the ruling elite, the same class symbolized by the deposed Jones.

 

Finally, the union bosses tell the rank and file to vote for individuals like Bill Clinton to whom they've given the union members' money (without their consent). The bosses want their members to bleat...

"Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!"

"No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

-George Orwell, the conclusion of Animal Farm

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