"It was a pig walking on his hind legs.
“Yes, it was Squealer. A little awkwardly, as though not quite used to supporting his considerable bulk in that position, but with perfect balance, he was strolling across the yard. And a moment later, out from the door of the farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all walking on their hind legs. Some did it better than others, one or two were even a trifle unsteady and looked as though they would have liked the support of a stick, but every one of them made his way right round the yard successfully. And finally, there was a tremendous baying of dogs and a shrill crowing from the black cockerel, and out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gamboling around him.
“He carried a whip in his trotter."
George Orwell, Animal Farm
This past weekend, in the middle of nomming on three slices of succulent thick-cut bacon, I looked up from the page of my morning read, and much like a revelatory pork-laden burp (yes, a burp can be revelatory), this phrase popped out of my mouth, "It seems the pigs have been holding the whips for some time now, Mr. Orwell."
Holding the whips, indeed, and it appears they won't be relinquishing their grip anytime soon.
The pigs of Washington, of course, grip the biggest whips, and when they aren't using them on us lowly creatures here on American Farm (a once enlightened republic now devoted to the production of bananas), they're always willing and able to unleash their dogs of war against the world’s foreign farms if necessary.
They say they do this for our security, but I have reluctantly come to the conclusion, my fellow American Farm animals, that the pigs are in it for themselves at our expense. Their promises of "progress" and "safety" are only hollow intoxicants, an opium the pigs offer to us to keep us dreaming their dream. The political ideals of American Farm are no longer equality before the law or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but perpetual and arbitrary sacrifice in the service of American Farm.
Wake up, my fellows! Wake up! I am by no means calling for a revolution; revolutions usually only end up with a new set of pigs and a new need for another revolution. I am by no means calling for utopia. Utopian dreams when taken literally often end in a nightmare of orthodoxy and disappointment. As a wise old animal, Orwell, once said, "To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance."
In that spirit, I do not claim to offer any particular ideology or creed. I personally long for liberty, equality and solidarity with all of you, but I cannot force you to agree nor would I wish to do so.
My message, if you have the ears to hear it, is simply this: use your mind!
Engage in politics skeptically. Skeptical of the cynic and the sentimentalist. Skeptical of these very words. Beware the lure of political authority. Beware political parties and their ideals. Do not trust their false promises.
Political parties are about power. Nothing more, nothing less. They stand for ideals only when they are not sitting on a seat of power. And with power as the goal, any political project of any political party runs the almost certain risk of treating people, even their comrades, as a means to their ends, as disposable tools, as experimental objects, as sacrificial animals, as broken eggs for their big omelet breakfast.
Politics, nine times out of 10, is a march to slaughter. Some animals just know it better than others and accordingly make it to the dinner table alive at the expense of those unfortunate souls who provide the meat at a very high price.
We are all caught up in the trappings of power often against our will. Whatever role it is you play, the trick is to not become too domesticated, too fat and happy in the service of some master, for if you become too reliant on the whip of authority, prepare for it someday to be used against you.
Beware those who talk only of loyalty, love and sacrifice as they all the while hold a firm grip on the whip, for they most likely do not love you for you and your talents but as a resource to be rendered and controlled.
Beware their diehard followers. Their wooden tongues — preaching obedience and promises of unearned pride — are worse than any crack of the whip. They are the folksy face of power. They bring power to the common man like the plague: unintentional, unsolicited, very contagious and deadly to healthy traditions and common sense.
Beware your lust to rule over others. Fear the day you look in the mirror and begin to feel the urge to dominate your fellows. Man has no business reigning over man. It is the tyrant within you and your own voluntary amnesia — a carelessness when it comes to remembering important facts — that engenders perversions of the law and enables the ruthless tyrant without.
The pigs of Washington and the pig within you are hoping you do not know these things. You personally may very well find my description of our American Farm and my warning regarding political power too severe. If so, I hope and humbly suggest you reconsider.
My point is not to smear. My point is not to belittle those who engage in politics. My point is plain and simple: as Lord Acton said long ago, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely."
Don't be corrupted, for we are not pigs but human beings with minds that grant us the ability to set ourselves free from the pointless war of all against all. It is up to you to use your mind for the true, the beautiful and the good — to stand against those pigs within and without who will most certainly try to exploit and prey upon you and your fellows.
Let the closing words of Orwell's Animal Farm be a final word of woe that even when things seem to be going well, it only takes one wrong move — in this case, done by two cheats playing the same card — to cause a great calamity and make people forget what it means to live a beautiful and dignified life as a free human being:
"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."
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 9 am-12noon. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback please email newsandviews931@gmail.com. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
