WORLD
IDEOLOGIES EXPLAINED BY REFERENCE TO COWS: FEUDALISM You have two
cows. Your lord takes
some of the milk. SOCIALISM You have two
cows. The government
takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone
else's cows. You have to take
care of all the cows. The government
gives you a glass of milk. FASCISM You have two
cows. The government
takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk. PURE COMMUNISM You share two
cows with your neighbors. You and your
neighbors bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most
"need". Meanwhile, no
one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation. RUSSIAN COMMUNISM You have two
cows. You have to take
care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as
much milk as you can and sell it on the black market. PERESTROIKA You have two
cows. You have to take
care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much
milk as you can and sell it on
the "free" market. CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM You have two
cows. The government
takes both and shoots you. DICTATORSHIP You have two
cows. The government
takes both and drafts you. PURE DEMOCRACY You have two
cows. Your neighbors
decide who gets the milk. REPRESENTATIVE
DEMOCRACY You have two
cows. Your neighbors
pick someone to tell you who gets the milk. BUREAUCRACY You have two
cows. At first the
government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them.
Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks
the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill
out forms accounting for the missing cows. CAPITALISM You don't have
any cows. The bank will
not lend you money to buy cows, because you don't have any cows to put
up as collateral. PURE ANARCHY You have two
cows. Either you sell
the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill
you. ANARCHO-CAPITALISM You have two
cows. You sell one
and buy a bull. SURREALISM You have two
giraffes. The government
requires you to take harmonica lessons. OLYMPICS-ISM You have two
cows, one American, one Chinese. With the help
of trilling violins and state of the art montage photography, John Tesh
narrates the moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of
growing up in a suburb with (gasp) divorced parents, then mentions in passing
that the Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and watched
its parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the competition,
severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million
dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese cow is led out of the
arena and shot by Chinese government officials, though no one ever hears
about it. McDonald's buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing
restaurant. AMERICAN CORPORATE
CAPITALISM Both cows are
bloated with toxic steroids. They are set
out to graze on privatized public parks, release massive amounts of flatulence
that destroys the ozone layer, die from excess ultraviolet light, and are
processed into meat-like products that look great as a result of clever
and unprincipled marketing strategies. When you mortgage your artificially
devalued farm at high interest rates in order to buy meat, you consume
the poisoned material and develop terminal illnesses because there is no
health care plan to treat you. The corporate management uses your purchase
price to acquire THEIR meat from cows raised "naturally" on tree-free rain
forest land outside of the country where labor and resources are cheap. BRITISH REPRESENTATIVE
DEMOCRACY Both cows are
mad. ORIENTAL
TIGER ECONOMIES You thought you had two cows.
