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Animal Farm 2009
The United States has gradually degenerated from a Republic based on individual liberties to a socialized oligarchy run by an exclusive few. The country was founded upon the platform of individual rights. We declared our independence from Great Britain because of excessive regulation and taxation. Americans fought for the right to live their lives free from the subjugation of an overbearing governmental body. The Founding Fathers declared our independence with these immortal words:
Since the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the United States has gone from taking personal responsibility for our own lives to dependence on government to make all decisions in our lives. There are 306 million Americans and we have defaulted on our responsibility for governing this nation to 535 corrupt politicians, 10 "too big to fail" banks, a secretive Central Bank, 17,000 corporate lobbyists, and thousands of government bureaucrats. Essentially 306 million citizens are managed by a few thousand elitist rulers. George Orwell’s classic novel Animal Farm was inspired by the a scene he witnessed:
Orwell wrote the novel during World War II and published it in 1945. It was a contemptuous indictment of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. He recognized that propaganda and abuse of language could smoothly control the opinions of enlightened intellectuals in democratic countries. He saw through the prism of Soviet propaganda to the true evil of Stalin and his KGB Dogs. Intellectuals in Great Britain’s Ministry of Information attempted to censor his right to publish the book because it would offend their supposed ally Joseph Stalin. He knew the truth, while intellectuals were horribly wrong. Stalin murdered 700,000 Russian citizens during the Great Purge of the 1930s. The plot of Orwell’s Animal Farm is quite simple. It follows the Russian Revolution from 1917 through 1944. Three pigs - Snowball (Leon Trotsky), Napoleon (Joseph Stalin), and Squealer (Vyacheslav Molotov) formulate Old Major’s (Vladimir Lenon) principles into a philosophy called Animalism. The animals defeat the farmer Mr. Jones (Czar Nicholas II) in a battle, running him off the land. They rename the property Animal Farm (Soviet Union). The cart-horse Boxer (Russian working class) devotes himself to the cause with particular passion, committing his great strength to the prosperity of the farm and adopting as a personal axiom the affirmation "I will work harder." Napoleon (Stalin) and Snowball (Trotsky) increasingly argue over the future of the farm, and they begin to struggle with each other for power and influence among the other animals. After a speech, nine attack dogs (KGB) burst into the barn and chase Snowball (Trotsky) from the farm. Napoleon (Stalin) assumes leadership of Animal Farm (Soviet Union) and declares that there will be no more meetings. From that point on, he stresses, the pigs alone will make all of the decisions for the good of every animal (Workers). Napoleon (Stalin) begins expanding his powers, rewriting history to make Snowball (Trotsky) a villain. Napoleon (Stalin) also begins to act more and more like a human being - sleeping in a bed, drinking whisky, and engaging in trade with neighboring farmers. The original Animalist principles strictly forbade such activities, but Squealer (Molotov), Napoleon's propagandist, justifies every action to the other animals, convincing them that Napoleon (Stalin) is a great leader and is making things better for everyone despite the fact that the common animals are cold, hungry, and overworked. Looking in at the party of Pigs and Farmers through the farmhouse window, the common animals can no longer tell which are the Pigs and which are the human beings. The perversion of founding principles is not limited to communist countries. On the farm there were the Seven Original Commandments:
All of the Seven Commandments are eventually broken by the pigs for their own gain. Squealer (Molotov) constantly changes the Commandments to the pigs' benefit, taking advantage of the other animals. Through the manipulation of language, the Pigs accumulate more power and privileges:
Ultimately, all the commandments are boiled down to one commandment:
Could this degeneration of founding principles happen in the United States? The distressing answer is that it already has. It has accelerated at a breakneck pace since 2000. Orwell’s themes are as true today as they were in 1944. Corruption
Our elected officials are supposed to represent the wishes of the citizens that elected them. They derive their just powers from the governed. In the early days of our Republic, citizens could freely enter the White House without hesitation. Federalist Papers 55 and 56 explicitly promised, without qualification, that there would be one Representative for every thirty-thousand inhabitants. The framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights intended that the total population of Congressional districts never exceed 50,000 to 60,000. Currently, the average population size of the districts is nearly 700,000 and, consequently, the principle of proportionally equitable representation has been abandoned. Our elected officials no longer represent the people. They represent the 17,000 corporate lobbyists who spend $3.3 billion per year to "persuade" them what is best for their special interests. This is why a Congressperson can receive 9 to 1 calls from their constituents against a $700 billion banker bailout bill and still vote for the bill. The ideals of our fledgling Republic have been corrupted by politicians who have sold their souls to corporate and banking interests. The corruption became more insidious with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the institution of the Federal income tax in 1913. The levers of money printing and raising taxes gave the select few (Pigs) the wherewithal to control and manipulate the working class population. Debt and taxes are the friends of a corrupt politician. The Cabal of bankers who control the Federal Reserve has been printing money for 96 years to such an extent that the U.S. dollar has lost 96% of its purchasing power versus gold. But, with Orwellian irony our government leaders proclaim a "strong dollar policy". This is a lie. The only way out of the current colossal debt dilemma is by allowing our currency to depreciate even more so that the debt becomes less burdensome in dollar terms. The National Debt is now $11.6 trillion. The National Debt in 1913 was $2.9 billion. Therefore, the National Debt has gone up by 400,000% in 96 years. FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND PERCENT! I had to go back and check my calculation three times. The people we elected to Congress have spent $11.6 trillion more than the government has generated in revenues, with $10 trillion of it accumulated since 1981. Despite this "investment" spending by our elected officials, the country’s infrastructure is crumbling, we import 66% of our energy supplies versus 28% in 1982, our public education system is on par with a Third World country, our healthcare system is bloated, expensive and corrupt, and we have racked up another $56 trillion of future liabilities for unfulfillable promises made by our myopic leaders. The Bills passed by Congress (written by lobbyists) exceed 1,000 pages, with payoffs and pork to constituents, corporate contributors and other influential allies. These Bills are not even read by our leaders before being passed. Hundreds of pages of amendments are added at 3:00 am. As the ruling pigs in Animal Farm are slowly corrupted, they take the spoils while the working class proletariat toil for nothing. Congress and the bankers are the ruling Pigs, we are the overworked common animals. Talk is cheap and lies are expensive.
Class Oppression
The American Revolution was fought for the ideals that "All men are created equal" and we had the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". The Russian Revolution of 1917 was based upon Karl Marx’ idealistic Communist Manifesto which pitted the oppressors against the oppressed. Communism was supposed to be a system in which goods were owned in common and available to all as needed. The ten conditions for a transition to Communism are:
George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm were biting condemnations of the Soviet Union, its perversion of the revolution’s ideals and class tyranny that ultimately widened in its society. The American Republic was constructed upon the individual and their freedom and liberty. After reading the above list of conditions, the United States is at least 50% of the way to a perverted form of communism as our leaders have instituted a progressive income tax, restricted the right of inheritance through taxes, centralized credit in the hands of the State, allowed corporate farms to dominate agriculture along with providing tax breaks and protective tariffs, gotten into bed with the Military Industrial Complex, banking industry, and auto industry, provide free public education to the working classes while they send their privileged children to private schools. By satiating the poor working classes with bread and circuses like welfare programs, easy credit, no income taxes, cable TV, fast food, cheap liquor, and drugs, the ruling classes are able to reap obscene riches through the systematic raping of the American public through the use of inflation and taxes on the middle class.
Gullible Working Class
The definition of democracy is: government by the people. Today, the United States is democratic in name only. The political class, which supposedly represents the citizens, has perverted the original concept of a representative democracy. Our representatives were supposed to personally sacrifice by taking time off from their everyday professions to do what was best for the country. After performing this noble duty they would go back to their original vocations. Instead 40% of Congress is lawyers, their goal is to make a career in Washington DC and after leaving Congress they seek riches as lobbyists. Once elected, they utilize the power and money gained from the position to maintain that position permanently. This is why incumbents win elections 95% of the time. In 2004, incumbents spent $700 million to get re-elected, while challengers spent $200 million. These obscene sums of money have perverted the original intention of the Founders. |
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"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." ![[Charts]](http://theburningplatform.com/uploads/image/clip_image003.gif)
The success of any system of government is ultimately dependent upon the integrity, honesty and honor of its leaders. If they become corrupted by power and money, the system will ultimately collapse. It may be a natural progression in all societies that intellectuals with superior intelligence will take advantage of those who perform physical labor. The intelligentsia in Animal Farm is the Pigs, who learn to walk on two legs, wear clothes, sleep in beds, drink alcohol and consider animals that walk on four legs as their inferiors. They perverted the founding principles of the revolution. The intelligentsia of the United States has perverted the founding principles that all men are created equal and we are each entitled to our individual liberty. The ruling elite constitute the 1% richest Americans and the politicians they have bought. The top 1% own 35% of all the net worth in the country. They own as much as the bottom 90% of Americans. They "earn" 22% of the income and pay 40% of the taxes in the U.S. I would contend that the majority of the intelligentsia has utilized their private education, Washington and Wall Street connections and ability to manipulate the financial and political system to further enrich themselves at the expense of the average American. (Source: CNN Money)