A Pig Returns to the Farm, Thumbing His Snout at Orwell

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Yoshie:
>At 4:06 PM -0500 11/26/02, Todd Archer wrote:
>>>What's most interesting to me in the parable is the responses of
>>>farm animals to the beavers: "The book ends with the farm animals
>>>crying out for revenge against the fundamentalists: `Kill the
>>>beavers! Kill the beavers! Kill! Kill!'..." (@
>>><http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/25/books/25ANIM.html>).  Cries for
>>>revenge were not the only responses in the USA, but certainly they
>>>were the dominant strain in public discourse.
>>
>>Oh yes, no doubt about that part, but it's hardly subtle.
>
>Where's the evidence? One of my friends came to Chicago for the
>American Heart Association conference recently (the drug companies
>were all over it) and I took him and some of his doctor friends out to
>dinner and then to bar after bar after club, etc. I'll admit I had a little
>trepidation because 2 of the guys looked exactly like the 911 highjackers
>and Chicago's ethnic whites can be assholes, but there was no
>trouble all night. Nothing. The Pakistani friend however, said he 
>won't go back
>to visit his family in Pakistan because it's such a hassel, he said
>something like he might not be able to get back for 6 months.
>It's ridiculous.
>
>It's easy to forget, however, that Bush set the tone and took the 
>unprecedented step of going to
>that Mosque and saying Muslims aren't the enemy. Quite unusual for a 
>politician. I think Grover
>Norquist convinced him to do it.
>People will argue that the toppling of the Taliban was revenge. I'd argue it
>was to prevent future 911s and has worked thus far.
>
>Anyway, maybe Yoshie and Todd need to get out and talk to more Americans.
>Fox News and the Weekly Standard aren't the dominant strain of America.
>
>Peter

According to the reviews of _Snowball's Chance_ that I've posted 
here, the beavers don't represent Muslims in general -- rather, they 
represent religious fundamentalists, specifically of the Islamist 
variety.
-- 
Yoshie

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