Down On the Animal Farm

A modern interpretation of an old allegory

 

Just a short time ago, I was challenged to prove that George Orwell's short novel, "Animal Farm", could be correlated to the United States government and what that government has become.  If you are familiar with the original story, then you know that it was written, specifically, about the USSR and their revolution.  Each character or group in the story is linked to either an individual or group of people associated with the era in which it was written ─ WWII Europe.

 

As an example, Napoleon, a Berkshire boar, of whom is an allegory for Joseph Stalin, enters an alliance with Mr. Frederick, of whom is an allegory for Adolf Hitler.  For a full explanation of the person or group to which these animals (and a few humans) are associated with (if you are unfamiliar with the story), then I would recommend the Wikipedia page on "Animal Farm", which can be found at this link: Animal Farm

 

Now, it must be understood that Orwell's original story is based on a specific historical time, while my interpretation will take place over the course of 240 years (the length of time that the United States has been a nation unto itself).

 

We start with the animals of the farm, having become tired of laboring under their human lords, staging a revolution.  They have little to combat the humans, save their resolve to liberate themselves, but, nevertheless, they are able to push the humans off of the farm and take it over for their own devices.  Here we have the American revolution, taking the country from the British.

 

Rules are then put in place to ensure that all animals on the farm are equal and spoken for in the government that is installed by the victorious animals.  The pigs, being the most intelligent amongst the animals, make the rules and have regular celebratory festivities, honoring their heroes of the revolution.  The rules for Animal Farm are reasonably simple:

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

It is here that we see the animals of the farm creating what is analogous to the American constitution or a bill of rights.  At this very moment, all is well on the farm.  The animals now have a working government, a government that will equally protect them and ensure that every animal is treated equally under the eyes of the law.

(Digression 1: There is minutiae in the original story that I shall not touch on here.  A good example is, "In a very little while the animals had destroyed everything that reminded them of Mr. Jones" [p8].  Mr. Jones being the allegory for the British government and the destruction being small things like Noah Webster's revision of spelling words like 'colour' to 'color' to form an American version of those spellings, thus destroying things that reminded us of the British.)

So the formation of the country, Animal Farm (the United States), had begun.  There were problems, like the cows who needed milking but had no humans to do the job. Nonetheless those problems were overcome with ingenuity on the part of the animals (but mainly overcome by the smart ones who were in charge - the pigs).  They all worked together to sort these problems out and they had the pigs to show them the way.  The pigs used the harness room for their meetings in order to ensure that Animal Farm continued to run smoothly and that all animals were represented and taken care of.  In those days the pigs worked together for the good of all, but, as with any scheme of this nature, the power begins to corrupt and some pigs were having a problem with other pigs who didn't share their own, personal concept of what Animal Farm was and what it should be.

The analogy here is reasonably obvious.  The pigs (what will become career politicians) begin to take advantage of the power that they were given.  Slowly, the laws that gave them the position of ruling were tweaked here and there to make the job more lucrative.  We can see this in the rationing of the animals, the pigs taking a bigger share for themselves, because, well, they needed it to ensure that their thinking would be clear and the other animals didn't object (it made sense to them at the time), compared to the career politicians who give themselves raises and more benefits.  It's still early on, so these extra perks that the politicians give themselves make sense to the general populace.  The politicians (not quite career minded individuals, as yet) do attempt to make things better, while still ensuring that they have special perks, are as yet altruistic in their beliefs and meet in a simple place, the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. (not quite the White House and congressional buildings, at this point).

Time moves on and the laws and rules are tweaked.  Things are going well for Animal Farm, even though the pigs are getting the better of things (they get better rations and more milk than the other animals, but they need to keep their thinking clear and this makes sense), but war must eventually break out as a result of the losing side.  The humans strike back and attack Animal Farm again.  The specific causality and reasons mean little, it is only animalistic behavior that requires war to solve issues.  Ultimately, the animals win this war, but at a high cost.  This can be loosely correlated to the War of 1812.  The United States wins the war, but the capitol is burned to the ground.  This brings about the updated capitol, the White House and the congressional building and ultimately the Pentagon.  For the pigs, though, it means that they move into Mr. Jones's farmhouse and start creating more laws and rules that ensure that they (the pigs) remain entrenched as the ruling class (the career politician is born).

(Digression 2: Again, there is a great deal of minutiae to be found, like the dogs being used to enforce the laws, for right or wrong, which corresponds to the FBI and/or the Secret Service, and so forth.  Minor points like this are open to debate and argumentation, but a strong case can be made in favor of the overall points in this article, so I feel I must mention them here.)

It is here that we see some major changes being made the laws of the animals.  They have changed as follows:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.
7. All animals are equal.

These revisions allow the pigs to further rule as they see fit, just as the rules begin to change for the career politicians, who now have several generations of minor changes that make their career all the more lucrative (even though the original government was not set up for citizens to make a career out of politics).  The specific revisions allow the pigs to legally eliminate any animal that attempts to put an end to their reign and further allows them to rule as they see fit.  Do I really need to explain the correlation, here?

Ultimately, one pig decides to take over the government and realizes that he must eliminate another pig to do so.  This is when Napoleon, the strong pig, decides to eliminate Snowball, the weaker of the two.  It is at this very point where specific characters in the story no longer correlate to specific people, but rather become metaphors for the government in general.  The elimination of Snowball can be seen in the assassination of John F. Kennedy where a greater power, the government itself, run by a shadowy group, takes over.  Just as the exact details of what happened to Snowball are obscure and mysterious, so to was the assassination of JFK.  Snowball is made a scapegoat, but this is not exactly true of Kennedy.  All in all, the analogy stands, though.

At this point, the pigs have taken over and what was once an altruistic endeavor has been replaced with a government controlled by people who continue to make laws and rules and regulations that effect the common masses of citizenry, while staying outside of those rules and regulations and laws themselves.  The career politician has come into his/her own.  They have ensured that their pay and their benefits are far beyond the common peasant, and they manage to do it with the blessing of their constituents, just like the pigs managed on Animal Farm.  These career politicians use falsehood and fear to continue to keep their people in line, just like the pigs on Animal Farm.

As we take a final look at Animal Farm, the original rules for Animal Farm have been boiled down to one rule, and one rule only:

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

If you need someone to look to for in that simple, single rule, then look no further than Hillary Clinton.  Look at all the mysterious deaths that surround her and her husband.  Look to the fact that Bill Clinton is a sexual predator, protected by his wife, Hillary, and how they managed to skirt any laws that would put anyone else behind bars.  Look to how she makes statements that are nothing more than half-truths to downright lies and how her followers continue to blindly march in lock step, like the animals following the pigs.  And don't fool yourself into believing that Hillary Clinton is the only 'animal more equal than the others', look to every career politician who is making a living off of the back of the taxpayers, the taxpayers who struggle every day to put food on their table and feed their children, while these career politicians, on both sides of the aisle, are clinking their champagne glasses and getting fat, both in body and financially, to the detriment of those who they proclaim to serve.

The final nail is driven home by the final words in the Orwell book, "Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike.  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."  The pigs and humans looked exactly alike, so to do the career politicians and the kings and queens look alike.  Sure, we vote for our kings and queens, but that vote, that single action, is the only difference.  And, really, does it matter which king or queen you vote for?  Is that not the "Grande Illusion"?  To believe that you have a choice when there honestly is not choice at all?  The faces change, but they all look the same.

And that, dear friends, is "Animal Farm" - the perfect analogy for the United States, even though it was written about the USSR.  You know, that's the true irony of it, because it was Nikita Khrushchev who said, "Your children’s children will live under COMMUNISM. You AMERICANS are so gullible. No, you won’t accept COMMUNISM outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of SOCIALISM until you will finally wake up & find that you already have COMMUNISM. We won’t ever have to fight you; we’ll weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands."

I reckon at 19 trillion in debt, Orwell was more of a fortune teller than author.