Animal Farm – The Burning Platform

The Speeding Exemption

Guest Post by Eric Peters

In Orwell’s other book – Animal Farm – we read about a mutiny against the farmer by the livestock, who draw up a kind of Declaration of Rights premised on the idea that all animals are equal. This is painted on the side of the barn for all to admire.

Over time (and in the dead of night) caveats and exemptions are inserted – by the pigs – culminating in the new idea that some animals are more equal than others. The pigs begin wearing clothes, sleep inside the farmhouse – while the other animals sleep outside or in the unheated barn.

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Weaponized Consensus by the Collective Establishes Counterfeit Premises to Control Contrived Contingencies

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

– 2 Timothy 3:13

They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

– Psalm 1: 4

Many years ago I read a book entitled “People of the Lie” written by Scott Peck, an American psychiatrist. It was a fascinating analytic study of malignant narcissism and deceit. I came away from the book with an understanding that a very significant percentage, if not the majority, of people in the world are not decent.

Other conceptualizations presented by Peck in “People of the Lie” included disguise as a main motive of evil, along with descriptions of people assessed as such to being self-deluded, as projecting their own actions onto others, as utilizing the pretense of love to actually hate, and as possessing an inherent intolerance to withstand criticism. The author further identified evil as the opposition to life; even acknowledging the word “evil” as “live” spelled backwards. Dr. Peck also claimed evil could be measured by its consistency and conceded that decent individuals have difficulty in cognitively processing the concept:

Continue reading “Weaponized Consensus by the Collective Establishes Counterfeit Premises to Control Contrived Contingencies”

PIGMEN WIN AGAIN

“The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they’re an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They’ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.” – George Carlin

After the disgusting example of politicians of both spineless parties bowing down before Wall Street, the military industrial complex and corporate interests this weekend with the passage of a bloated pig of a spending bill totaling $1.1 trillion, how can anyone not on the payroll of the vested interests not admit there is only one party – and it serves only the needs of the wealthy business interests. Obama, champion of the common folk, signed this putrid example of political corruption and corporate capture of the American political system. For all the believers who voted for the red team in the November mid-terms, this is what you got – a bipartisanship screwing of the American people.

The entire episode has been nothing but Kabuki Theater. Both parties have proven to be puppets marching to the tune of Wall Street moneyed interests, while further entrenching the status quo by voting to allow more corporate influence over the election process. Each side of the aisle allowed just enough dissent to make it appear they might not reach an agreement. But at the end of the day Pelosi, Boehner, Reid and McConnell joined hands and gave it to the American public good and hard. And of course we had the candidates for president in 2016 Warren and Cruz playing to their constituents with speeches and maneuvers designed to make them look like fighters for the common man. It was nothing but a show, as they did nothing substantive to stop the bill from passing.

What this entire debacle has proven is that voting doesn’t matter. Your vote is meaningless. Political parties are nothing more than a front for the vested interests. The corrupt politicians are bought and sold by Wall Street and corporate interests. The bills are written by lobbyists for the vested interests. When a spending bill is over 1,700 pages, the purpose is to obscure, hide and insert provisions that will benefit those with money to influence the process at the expense of average Americans. None of the perpetrators in Congress actually read this bill. The public had no say regarding this bill. If this is what bipartisan cooperation looks like, I’ll take gridlock. The system has been so completely captured by those pulling the wires, they no longer even pretend to care what we think. They keep winning and care not about the consequences of their ruthless despicable pillaging.

Politicians decry money in politics when they are paraded onto the mainstream media talk shows. They profess to be men and women of the people, fighting for our rights. So how do they go about getting money out of politics? They dramatically expand the amount of money wealthy political donors can inject into the national parties, drastically undercutting the 2002 landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul. A wealthy donor who could only give a maximum of $32,400 this year to the Democratic National Committee or Republican National Committee can now give ten times as much – a total of $324,000. Do you think these wealthy donors might have ten times more influence over government policies, laws, regulations, and tax codes? Do you think these donors are contributing these funds to fight for the rights of average Americans making $50,000 per year? This change just further entrenches the rich vested interests. Your vote just became even more meaningless.

The most outrageous provision in the spending bill is Wall Street putting the American taxpayer on the hook for when their $250 trillion of derivatives of mass destruction blow up the worldwide financial system again. Elizabeth Warren, playing her part in this farce, feigns outrage, knowing it will pass anyway:

“Mr. President, Democrats don’t like Wall Street bailouts. Republicans don’t like Wall Street bailouts. The American people are disgusted by Wall Street bailouts. And yet here we are five years after Dodd-Frank with Congress on the verge of ramming through a provision that would do nothing for the middle class, do nothing for community banks, do nothing but raise the risk that taxpayers will have to bail out the biggest banks once again. You know, there is a lot of talk lately about how Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. There is a lot of talk coming from CitiGroup about how Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. So let me say this to anyone listening at Citi —I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. It should have broken you into pieces. If this Congress is going to open up Dodd-Frank in the months ahead then let’s open it up to get tougher, not to create more bailout opportunities.”

Senator Warren does hit at the heart of the matter. The Too Big To Fail banks should have been made too small to matter after they created the 2008 worldwide financial collapse. Congress should have reinstated Glass Steagall, the insolvent Wall Street banks should have been liquidated or sold off piece by piece, and the American taxpayer shouldn’t have had to pay one dime. Instead, those banks became bigger, more powerful, more arrogant, and more reckless. And now they are writing the laws supposedly regulating them. Regulatory capture at its finest.

Dodd-Frank was already a behemoth mess of a law, written by bank lobbyists, and so complex it was always destined to fail. The law that set up America’s banking system in 1864 ran to 29 pages; the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 went to 32 pages; the Banking Act that transformed American finance after the Wall Street Crash, commonly known as the Glass-Steagall act, spread out to 37 pages. Dodd-Frank was 848 pages long. One of the few beneficial sections of the law was the provision that required banks to “push out” their derivatives trading into separate entities not backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Essentially, this provision prohibited the Too Big To Trust Wall Street Banks from using the deposits of customers to gamble on derivatives, with no capital behind the gambling. Any Wall Street bank that wanted to trade derivatives had to do it in non-insured subsidiaries, and when these trades blew up in their faces, the banks would be solely on the hook. They prefer the they win you lose method.

This spending bill included language written directly by Citigroup and inserted by the politicians in the back pocket of Jamie Dimon and the rest of the Wall Street cabal. Dimon showed no shame as he personally called lawmakers to insist they pass this bill with the gutting of Dodd Frank. Wall Street bankers can now gamble with the deposits of their clients with impunity generating obscene insider profits, and when they inevitably blow up the financial system again the American taxpayer will be on the hook for the losses. In a shocking development, the members who voted for the spending bill had received vastly more political contributions (bribes) than those who voted no. Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, concisely sums up the goal of this provision:

“It is because there is a lot of money at stake. They want to be able to take big risks where they get the upside and the taxpayer gets the potential downside.”

And there will be downside. Like Captain Renault in Casablanca, Jamie Dimon and the rest of the Wall Street CEOs will be shocked to find there has been gambling going on in their upstanding institutions of finance, as they cash their $10 million bonus checks. The markets are already overvalued, built on a foundation of debt, and rigged by the Wall Street scumbags. They make Bernie Madoff look like an upstanding citizen. It seems awfully coincidental this provision was inserted into the 1,700 page bill just as the markets have begun to tremor. Wall Street wouldn’t be preparing for another earthquake, would they? The fact that Obama signed this bill is a reflection of him being a spineless toady figurehead, doing the bidding of the ruling class.

The Republicans have run against Obamacare since the day it was passed in 2009. They have threatened to overturn it, de-fund it, and scale it back. This spending bill fully funds Obamacare just as it was passed. Dozens of Republicans voted for a spending bill that fully funds the program they despise. Obama recently subverted the U.S. Constitution once again with his latest executive order allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S. and enjoy our wonderful welfare system. The Republicans were morally outraged and their response was to fund Obama’s executive order to the tune of $2.5 billion. There’s $948 million for the Department of Health and Human Service’s unaccompanied children program — an $80 million increase. The department also gets $14 million to help school districts absorbing new immigrant students. And the State Department gets $260 million to assist Central American countries from where of the immigrant children are coming.

So much for principles, ethics, and courage. You see bipartisanship in Congress means that one side will agree to fully fund the welfare state as long as the other side will fully fund the warfare state, while both sides do whatever Wall Street instructs them to do. Neither side cares that the National Debt increases by $2.5 billion per day. That’s what the Fed is for. The neo-cons in the Republican party were happy, as their dreams of World War III come closer to fruition. There’s $1.3 billion for a new Counterterrorism Partnership Fund; $5 billion for military operations to combat the Islamic State, including $1.6 billion to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces (I thought we already trained them once before); $500 million for a Pentagon-led program to train and equip vetted Syrian opposition fighters; $810 million for ongoing military operations in Europe, including requirements that at least $175 million is spent in support of Ukraine and Baltic nations. And you were worried about Defense cuts. The military industrial complex will never allow their profits to decline. If we run out of real enemies, we just make them up out of thin air – ISIS, or go back to the Cold War playbook and declare Russia to be an imminent threat to our safety and security.

Despite running $800 billion actual (not the BS reported deficits) annual deficits, the political hacks of the ruling party still funnel $3.1 billion per year to Israel, $1.3 billion to the dictator in Egypt, and $1 billion to our puppets in Jordan. This hyper-interventionism in the affairs of countries around the globe, either through military intervention, supplying arms, overthrowing elected leaders, or funding dictators has destabilized the entire world. Russia is not the aggressor on the world stage, as portrayed by the mouthpieces for the state in the mainstream corporate media. The American empire has created the conditions for havoc, disarray and war to flourish. Someone will ultimately do something stupid and the fury of hell will be unleashed across the globe. And it is our fault.

You’ll be happy to know the trucking industry still has some pull in Congress. Their drivers will be allowed to work 82 hours per week, versus the far too restrictive 70 hours per week. When you are driving your economy car on the interstate and that 18 wheeler is barreling down on you from behind, thank Congress when the drowsy dude behind the wheel is working his 81st hour of the week. And if you were a hard working middle income blue collar worker in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets and were promised a pension, tough luck. Hidden inside the bill was a haircut for pensions. This provision allows the promised pension benefits of up to 1.5 million workers and retirees to be cut. It affects the pooled pension plans — called multi-employer plans — of mostly union workers across a bunch of companies, where it looks like the plans won’t be able to cover full benefits in coming decades.

Could it be any clearer that we are nothing but lowly peasants and the aristocracy inhabiting the protected luxury skyscrapers suites in New York City and the government buildings in Washington D.C. have nothing but contempt and scorn for our plight, as they gorge themselves like pigs at the trough of working people’s wealth? They use taxes and inflation to siphon your savings and earnings, rig the markets so they always win, write the laws to favor themselves, and use the mass media and the police surveillance state to crush dissent, control the message and intimidate the masses. The ruling class fears the masses and continues to prepare for a coming conflict. Within the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2015, passed this week, was written a new section that grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American.

Sec. 309 authorizes “the acquisition, retention, and dissemination” of nonpublic communications, including those to and from U.S. persons. The section contemplates that those private communications of Americans, obtained without a court order, may be transferred to domestic law enforcement for criminal investigations. Sec. 309 provides the first statutory authority for the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of U.S. persons’ private communications obtained without legal process such as a court order or a subpoena. The administration currently may conduct such surveillance under a claim of executive authority, such as E.O. 12333. However, Congress never has approved of using executive authority in that way to capture and use Americans’ private telephone records, electronic communications, or cloud data.

The majority of American people still believe they live in a democracy where their vote matters. Sadly, they are living in a delusional fantasy world, as they actually live in a corporate fascist welfare/warfare surveillance state run by one party of vested corporate interests. Until consent is withdrawn and the pigmen are violently confronted, nothing will change. The existing social order will be swept away within the next fifteen years as this Fourth Turning reaches its bloody conclusion. You may think we are all equal under the law, but Orwell knew that some are more equal than others. Can you distinguish the pigs from the men?

“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, Animal Farm

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” ― H.L. Mencken

QUOTE OF THE DAY

In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the aging horse Boxer who had done most of the hard work on the farm was sick and could not work anymore.

“He looked forward to the peaceful days that he would spend in the corner of the big pasture. It would be the first time that he had leisure to study and improve his mind. He intended, he said, to devote the rest of his life to learning the remaining twenty-two letters of the alphabet.”

Then a van came to take Boxer away to the ”veterinary” for his ailments, according to the ruling pigs who had moved into the Farmer Jones’ farmhouse.

“The animals crowded round the van.”Good-bye, Boxer!” they chorused, “Good-bye!

But the donkey, Benjamin, shouted, ”Fools! Do you not see what is written on the side of the van? ‘Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willington. Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal, Kennels Supplied.’ Do you not understand what this means? They are taking Boxer to the knacker’s!”

Boxer’s friend, the mare, Clover, cried in a terrible voice, “Boxer! Get out! Get out quickly! They’re taking you to your death!”

“All the animals took up the cry of ‘Get out Boxer. Get out!’ But the van was already gathering speed and drawing away from them. It was uncertain whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said but a moment later his face disappeared from the window and there was a sound of a tremendous drumming of hoofs inside the van. He was trying to kick he way out. The time had been when a few kicks from Boxer’s hoofs would have smashed the van to matchwood.

“But alas! His strength had left him; and in a few moments the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away.”

The pigs then explained to the animals that the glue factory writing on the van only meant that the veterinary had bought the van and had not yet changed the wording.

The animals were relieved and believed. Later, the pigs explained that Boxer had died at the veterinary and for some reason Boxer’s body could not be returned.

Such is the pathetic belief of Americans in a system not only draining away their freedom but their lives and estates, a system constantly funneling the work of their labor and savings to the pigs in the farmhouse, the owners and operators of the Federal Reserve System.

Comment from JR on Zero Hedge

ANIMAL FARM (Oldie but Goodie)

Originally published in July 2009.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” George Orwell – Animal Farm

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:

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

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:

“I saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat.”

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:

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are created equal.

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:

No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets;
No animal shall drink alcohol to excess
No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.

Ultimately, all the commandments are boiled down to one commandment:

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

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

“All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” George Orwell

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 beone 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.

Do as I say not as I do because
The shit so deep you can’t run away
I beg to differ on the contrary
I agree with every word that you say
Talk is cheap and lies are expensive
My wallet’s fat and so is my head
Hit and run and then I’ll hit you again
I’m a smart ass but I’m playing dumb

Standards set and broken all the time
Control the chaos behind a gun
Call it as I see it even if
I was born deaf, blind and dumb
Losers winning big on the lottery
Rehab rejects still sniffing glue
Constant refutation with myself
I’m a victim of a catch 22
Green Day – Walking Contradiction

Class Oppression

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
George Orwell

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:

Abolition of property in land application of all rents of land to public purposes.
A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Abolition of all right of inheritance.
Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a National Bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equal distribution of the population over the country.
Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

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.

“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.”
George Orwell

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

Gullible Working Class

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. George Orwell

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.

Candidate Status	U.S. House	U.S. Senate
Incumbents	$456,859,509	$223,964,295
Challengers	$112,498,172	$79,852,117
Open-Seat Candidates	$127,051,491	$238,890,389
TOTAL	$696,409,172	$542,706,801
SOURCE: Federal Election Commission

The combination of a permanent political class with an undereducated, uninterested, gullible, naïve electorate has permitted the few to wield immense power over the majority. In Animal Farm, the working class is represented by Boxer the workhorse. He is a hard working non-thinking animal that repeats over and over that “Napoleon (Stalin) is always right”. He is representative of those who believe everything that Barack Obama says is gospel. Ultimately, Boxer is sacrificed so that the Pigs can live more luxuriously. A highly educated involved electorate would be dangerous to those in power. An atrocious public education system is actually beneficial to the Pigs. There are 34 million Americans without a high school degree, constituting 15% of those over 18 years old. Another 112 million have graduated high school without progressing any further with their education. Many of these people are functionally illiterate, can’t add, can’t spell, don’t know when World War II happened, or who is the Vice President. Only 69% of entering 9th graders in the public school system graduate high school. The graduation rates and educational achievements of minorities are dramatically worse than these numbers. Only 26% of the population has a bachelor’s degree, with only 6% possessing a master’s degree.

Source: Wikipedia

The proliferation of drugs among the poor keeps them dazed and sedated. Various welfare programs and easy credit keep them from rioting as they can “purchase” luxury cars and electronic gadgets enjoyed by the upper classes. The bad debts are picked up by the taxpayers. As a further control, those in power have put 2.3 million people in prisons, most of whom are poor and 60% who are minorities. By distracting the majority of people in the country with cable TV entertainment, the internet, Twitter, cell phones, sports, movies, and shopping malls, the Pigs who run the show are able to oppress and control the masses. The highly educated use the idiocy and naïveté of the oppressed to their advantage by using the rigged financial system to generate ever more riches for themselves. The banker gods peddled fraudulent mortgage schemes throughout the world in order to enrich themselves. When it blew up in their faces, they turned to their government co-conspirators (Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and most of Congress) to keep their riches. Their Congressional benefactors have obliged by stealing trillions from the taxpaying classes and redistributed it to the Pigs running Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, and Bank of America.

Abuse of Language

George Orwell’s most pointed criticism of political leaders was their misuse of language to further their wicked agendas. He exposes the outrageous abuse of words in 1984 and Animal Farm. The ruling elite manipulate the language as an instrument of control over the masses.

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.” George Orwell

The intelligentsia understands that the masses can be manipulated with convincing talking points and misleading slogans. Politicians never tell their constituents they are doing some pork barrel spending. Every dollar of new spending is spun as “investment spending”. We have evidently made $11.6 trillion of “investments” in our National Debt. Somehow we enacted “campaign finance reform” and still manage to spend $1.3 billion on political campaigns. Our beloved numbskull Vice President Joe Biden said last week, “We have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt”. President Bush said, “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free market system”. President Obama insisted that the only way to save our country from catastrophe caused by excessive debt was to borrow $700 billion and spend it on infrastructure projects, of which only 3.5% was allocated to our crumbling infrastructure. During the Vietnam War a U.S. Major declared, “It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.” In 1947 the government changed the name of the Department of War to the Department of Defense, as we today have garrisons of 100,000 troops in 117 foreign countries. The Department of Homeland Security, Patriot Act, and War on Terror are all deceptive titles and slogans purposely meant to hoodwink Boobus Americanus.

“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” George Orwell

President Obama and his cronies hammer away that 47 million Americans are uninsured. It is a lie, but that does not deter them from continuing to make the claim. The latest Census report says that within the borders of the United States as of 2007 there were 45.65 million people without health insurance. But this number included 9.73 million foreigners, leaving only 35.92 Americans who were uninsured. Among the uninsured in the United States there were also 9.1 million people making more than $75,000 per year who did not choose to purchase health insurance. Therefore, we are imposing a trillion dollar solution for 28 million people who are poor and uninsured. That is $36,000 per person while imposing a huge invasive bureaucracy on the lives of the other 278 million Americans. The masses believe the lies.

Green Extremists have convinced children and dullards that global warming is destroying the planet. They state their position as fact, when their thesis does not meet the scientific method criteria as fact. Their contentions are based on computer models. Our financial system was also based on financial models that said that worthless mortgages were really gold. We know how that worked out. The facts are that the earth has warmed prior to the industrial revolution and has cooled. The sun, water vapor, earth’s orbit, volcanoes, interstellar clouds, cosmic rays, tectonic plates, land use, CO2, sunspots, gravitational pulls, ocean currents and solar flares all impact earth. It is far too complex to declare that we know what is happening. Let’s get tomorrow’s weather forecast right first. Men plan and God laughs.

Must have been a lot of cows farting in the 1400s

The Orwellian language of Big Government turns people into pliable subjects. It lulls us into passively accepting ever-increasing taxes while encouraging our reliance on an embedded and mutating bureaucracy administered by corrupt career politicians and backed by corporate sugar daddies. Wall Street shysters have mastered the art or twisting and distorting reality to benefit themselves. Subprime loans, which triggered the worldwide financial crisis, were called “nonprime”. The billions of worthless toxic loans that still sit on the books of our biggest banks at original cost are now referred to as “legacy loans”. How quaint. The lowest rated bonds of the worst companies are referred to as “high yield debt”, not junk bonds. We describe our economy as “free market”. There is nothing further from the truth. Bailouts for corporate failures and rewarding the excess risk takers are not hallmarks of free market capitalism. Government takeovers of banks, insurance companies, and auto companies are not free market capitalism. It is a warped form of corporate fascism – the intermingling of the State and corporations for the benefit of a few. Kevin Depew from Minyanville.com described the Orwellian lies of Hank Paulson as he sat before Congress explaining his criminal actions last Fall.

“Paulson asserted throughout his testimony that he, almost single-handedly, averted an “economic collapse” and, moreover, that we should actually be thanking him for it. The ugly assemblage of half-truths, obfuscations, smarmy evasiveness and prickly showboating would have embarrassed Bernie Madoff. But it wasn’t Bernie Madoff. It was a former United States Treasury Secretary.”

Myopia

“Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.” George Orwell

Animal Farm represents any human society whether it be capitalist, socialist, fascist, or communist. Leaders are capable of being corrupted by power within any form of government. The myopic thinking of the Pigs in Animal Farm will eventually destroy the farm. Orwell ends the novel with the animals watching the Pigs mingling with farmers through a window. They couldn’t tell the difference between the supposed revolutionaries and those they had fought against. If he had looked into the future he would have seen that the Soviet Union would decay from the inside as the corrupt few eventually came to believe their own lies and propaganda. It collapsed 44 years later as a corrupt, bankrupt, shell of a country. The combination of myopia, greed, wickedness, ignorance and indifference are a brew that are leading the United States down the same path. As the Pigs in our society have enriched themselves, the average American has seen their real standard of living stagnate over the last 40 years. The Pigs have manipulated government inflation statistics so the masses think they are getting ahead.

The myopia of our politicians has put the country into a predicament that we can’t escape without tremendous pain and suffering. In order to keep their positions of power they have passed bills for decades that promise trillions more in goodies than we can possibly pay for. They have paid no thought to the long-term consequences of their actions because they don’t care. Future generations are of no concern to gluttonous power hungry Pigs. During the eight years of the Bush presidency the ruling class used fear tactics and propaganda to ram through laws which allow Government to monitor the movements and communications of every American. Liberties have been stripped and freedoms have been restricted. Now President Obama is attempting to take control over the few aspects of our lives that remain relatively free. The Orwellian phrase “Cap & Trade” sounds much more innocuous than an energy tax of $1,500 on every household in America that will drive manufacturers out of the country, along with millions of jobs. “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act” is the Orwellian name for a bill that will create a massive new bureaucracy, cost at least $1 trillion, cost small businesses billions more in health costs, give government the final decision on whether you are worth saving, and provide more freebies to poor Americans. This will keep the poor sedated and less likely to cause trouble for the ruling class.

Bill of Frights

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances except when the Department of Homeland Security determines that you are a domestic terrorist who is a member of the Libertarian Party and attend Tax Day Tea Parties.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances except when the Department of Homeland Security determines that you are a domestic terrorist who is a member of the Libertarian Party and attend Tax Day Tea Parties.
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed except when the government fears you will use those arms against them.
Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized unless we suspect that you are a terrorist or anti-government activist.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation unless politicians decide that a shopping mall would be a better use for your private property.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense unless we classify you as a non-combatant and put you in prison for two years without charging you or providing counsel.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law after you wait for two years for your speedy trial.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted unless approved by Dick Cheney.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people unless activist judges determine otherwise.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people except that all these powers have been usurped by the Federal government. “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” George Orwell

As we look through the window at the raucous party between the Pigs and the farmers it is impossible to distinguish between the imperial monarchists who taxed the colonies to such an extreme that it caused a revolution and the revolutionaries that have adopted the same characteristics and traits of those they revolted against. The American people are like sheep being led to slaughter. Our Founding Fathers declared that the common people were in control. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government. The time has come to abolish the corrupt system and institute a new Government.

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away;
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.
You better watch out,
There may be dogs about
I’ve looked over Jordan, and I have seen
Things are not what they seem.

What do you get for pretending the dangers not real.
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes.
Now things are really what they seem.
No, this is no bad dream.

Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead!
You better stay home
And do as you’re told.
Get out of the road if you want to grow old.
Pink Floyd – Sheep