I finished, "Animal Farm," last night, ask me anything! n/t

From the Leninist pantheon?

You know, from DU I saw so many references to Orwellian I decided I had to read it. The strange part of the story was, what ever happened to Snowball? I think Snowball started a militia and eventually helped the enslaved animals find freedom once again!

Fell out of favor with Stalin. Escaped and found asylum in Mexico. Was finally tracked down by Soviet agents and assassinated there.

For years after he left the Soviet Union, Trotsky was the scapegoat for anything that went wrong.

It was also a clever pun on Orwell's part; Trotsky -> trotters

in college. I think of it as Clinton, the repugs blame Clinton for everything that has gone wrong. The book was brilliant and depressing to me. I bet it'll be banned if Bush gets four more years, along with many other things. Does anything ever change? Society is a strange thing, we think we're all so civilized and intelligent yet these same actions have taken place thousands of years ago and still occur in the 21st Century? That's why I've always believed education is the answer, because as long as we have people willing to take up a cause without thinking and kill for it, we'll have wars and injustice.

Thanks for the info, it's really appreciated! I really wish I would have read this in college and discussed it in class. I know I didn't get half of it because I don't know the whole background of the story.

From Faux "News" and their repeated chants of "4 legs good, 2 legs bad!" every time it seems someone might have a thought of their own to the young pups being recruited from Amerikan Nazi University ("For Christ and Liberty")

http://www.phc.edu/news/docs/200403300.asp

to later rend us with their fangs when they are matured into power as well as ready to initmidate, frame and kill anyone not a "Real Amerikan" to us at DU, who are the tired and cynical Benjamin the Donkey Imperial Amerika is fully represented in that novel just as ALL Totalitarian Nations are represented therein.

scene in "Bowling for Columbine," when Michael Moore was talking to Marilyn Manson because the mass media did a slippery slope from violent kids to Manson's music must be the result, and when Michael asked Manson what he would have said to those kids and he said, "Nothing, I wouldn't have said a thing, I'd have listened to what they had to say." How empty kids must be these days, even with all their toys, their distractions, their spoiled lives, that they still are so easily brainwashed into these fanatic worshiping groups. It amazes me.

That scene had a lasting impact on me - we need to listen!

(Edited to add reference & Link)

Snowball: Orwell describes Snowball as a pig very similar to Napoleon at least in the early stages. Both pigs wanted a leadership position in the "new" economic and political system (which is actually contradictory to the whole supposed system of equality). But as time passes, both eventually realise that one of them will have to step down. Orwell says that the two were always arguing. "Snowball and Napoleon were by far the most active in the debates. But it was noticed that these two were never in agreement: whatever suggestion either of them made, the other could be counted to oppose it." Later, Orwell makes the case stronger. "These two disagreed at every point disagreement was possible." Soon the differences, like whether or not to build a windmill, become too great to deal with, so Napoleon decides that Snowball must be eliminated. It might seem that this was a spontaneous reaction, but a careful look tells otherwise. Napoleon was setting the stage for his own domination long before he really began "dishing it out" to Snowball. For example, he took the puppies away from their mothers in an effort to establish a private police force. These dogs would later be used to eliminate Snowball, his arch-rival. Snowball represents Leo Dawidowitsch Trotsky, the arch-rival of Stalin in Russia. The parallels between Trotsky and Snowball are uncanny. Trotsky too, was exiled, not from the farm, but to Mexico, where he spoke out against Stalin. Stalin was very weary of Trotsky and feared that Trotsky supporters might try to assassinate him. The dictator of Russia tried hard to kill Trotsky, for the fear of losing leadership was very great in the crazy man's mind. Trotsky also believed in communism, but he thought he could run Russia better than Stalin. Trotsky was murdered in Mexico by the Russian internal police, the NKVD - the precursor of the KGB. Trotsky was found with a pick axe in his head at his villa in Mexico.

http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/summaries/animf.html

I went to High school in Mexico. Learned about the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the rise of the Bolsheviks in World History class. When I later read Animal Farm, I was able to identify which Soviet leaders Orwell morphed into which book characters. It is too bad that Soviet history became a taboo subject in America because to really appreciate Orwell's Animal Farm, you need at least a thumb-nail sketch of Soviet history.

This is what is really sad to me about the US School system. More and more teachers are being turned into day-care wardens with scarcely any time devoted to actual teaching. Is it any wonder that we as a nation are being duped by a band of Republican Thugs armed with Nazi-style propaganda? Look around. See the devastation caused by four years of Republican thievery and ask yourself, why is this election even close? Why isn't *'s popularity in the single digits? The answer is that we have the most ill-informed electorate of all the industrialized nations. And I don't think it is an accident. George Bush is no friend of the Public School system.

To have an informed citizenry it's not enough to know that Communism failed; we should also know why it failed to keep from repeating the same mistakes (the corrupting power of power). If the Democrats ever get back in control we as a nation will need to reform the public school system and get teachers back to the business of teaching us to become informed citizens. The alternative will be a whole country of burger manufacturing engineers.

is so damn addictive, the knowledge here is more than I've learned in college in history classes. Also, the way it relates to real life makes it more interesting. Thank you for taking the time to write such an interesting and educating post! I'll have to reread it a few times to get it to sink in.

Cats wanna know!

Napoleon's meat,

or Snowballs bacon?

you should read his other famous novel "1984". It is the phrases from that book, "double think", "Big Brother", "minute of hate", "ministry of truth" that people are referring to when they use the term, Orwellian. Also, if you saw F/911, at the end, Moore read a brillian excerpt from 1984 about permanent war -- like the war on terror.

TV last night, but I wanted to finish Animal Farm. Besides, I prefer to read than have something translated to me on the tube. Thanks everyone to the education I've received here on DU. I'll take the advise and read 1984 next.

The hardworking middle/working class who tries their best because they believe they are doing the right thing only to be chewed up and spit out by the party in power.

Benjamin the donkey: Stubborn and reserved, he is one of the very few animals on the farm who does not actively support the rebellion, though he does not condemn it either. A cynic. He is devoted to Boxer.

Even though Boxer keeps supporting the pigs!

(edit for clarification)

In another book, "Why I write.", Orwell explains

"
.
I think there are four great motives for writing, at any
rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in
every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will
vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in
which he is living. They are:

1. Sheer Egotism - Desert to seem clever, to be talked about, to be
remembered after death, to get your own on grownups who snubbed you
in childhood, etc.
<snip>
2. Asthetic Enthusiasm - perception of beauty in the epheral world
<snip>
3. Historical Impulse - desire to see things as they are
<snip>
4. Political purpose - desire to push the world in a certain direction
."

I think the last point, i'd call "educating", rather than political
purpose.


4. Political purpose - using the word 'political' in the widest
possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction,
to alter other people's idea of the kind of society that they
should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from
political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do
with politics is itself a political attitude.

-- "Why I vote" by George Orwell pp. 5

My bad for being lazy and not typing in the full quote.

is our mirror. Even indifference is a statement in the book. When the human being can be broken down into a very few personality styles is all makes sense why history repeats itself.

n/t

(edit to extend Moses' description)

Dick Cheney is Napoleon, more adept than Snowball at building alliances among the other animals. He is also more politically astute than his rival.

George Bush is Moses the Raven, the only animal who doesn't work. He's also the only character who doesn't listen to Old Major's speech of rebellion. Orwell narrates, "The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about by Moses, the tame raven. Moses was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Mountain, to which all animals went when they died. It was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses said.

Ronald Reagan is Old Major: the old and venerable pig on the farm. He is the animal who inspires everyone else to dream of being freed from slavery under the humans.

Bill Clinton is Mr Jones, the cruel farmer who holds the animals of the farm in slavery and condemns them to eight years of peace and prosperity. :eyes:

My second grade teacher thought the movie must be for kids because it was animated. She apparently wasn't paying attention because she let us sit through the whole thing.

barnyard thing was cool. I'm the only democrat in my noo-clea-ur family! You should send a thank you card to that teacher,if she's still alive.

She actually made us pray in class. This was long before I knew she wasn't supposed to be doing that.

I grew up in a very political, very liberal family so I like to think I understood the movie better than most, but at that age, probably not.

Several of my classmates were quite upset over some of the scenes.

the "crowd" starts chanting "4 more years" on cue.

As far as the shrubco comparisons: (for fun)

Old Major = Nixon
Napolean = Bush/Cheney
Snowball = Democrats
Squeeler = Rush (of course!)
boxer = the lower middle class
Moses = Fawell
Benjamin = the upper middle class

You only needed one in that sentence.
Duckie

I think that's about where we are right now

Right now I'd have to say it could only be the rat...

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.