Saturday, January 07, 2006

World Ideologies as Explained by Reference to Cows

As we are originally a country of farmers, we tend to explain difficult stuff to our children with cows. Here it goes:

Feudalism
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Pure 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 all the milk you need.

Bureaucratic Socialism
Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need.

Fascism
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

Pure Communism
You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

Real World 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.

Militarianism
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

Totalitarianism
You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

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.

British Democracy
You have two cows. You feed them sheeps' brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.

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.

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.

Pure Capitalism
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

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.

Hong Kong Capitalism:
You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly-listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute an debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Isands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.

Enviromentalism
You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

Political Correctness
You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of the phallo centric, war mongering, intolerant past) two differently - aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

Surrealism
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Counter Culture
Wow, dude, there's like ... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk.

Bushism
You have two cows. One is suspected of being a terrorist and is sent in the middle of the night by private jet to a hidden prison in Syria. The other cow has the image of Jesus on its hide, and is given a talk radio show in support of the Republican Party. Mooooo!

18 comments:

Mother Sharon Damnable said...

I know where there's this bull

Unknown said...

This is great, Dimitri. I think the Hong Kong one is the best. It's too confusing to keep up, so who would even try?

Gary said...

And dear children, here is the President Bush model:

You have two cows. One is suspected of being a terrorist and is sent in the middle of the night by private jet to a hidden prison in Syria.

The other cow has the image of Jesus on its hide, and is given a talk radio show in support of the Republican Party.Mooooo!

JBlue said...

Dimitri, you should add Gary's idea to the list.

Thanks for voting on the shoes. Guess what, you won the door prize this round. I'll be needing your address to mail you those shoes....

lindsaylobe said...

Hi DA

What’s with all this high powered milk barter ? what about her butter and cow paddies which make such good soft ammo for target practice.

Methane, produced by cows at about 100million tonnes a year is in plentiful supply of gas, but its not too good for green house emissions.
And Its not the cow’s problem, its diet. !! Most of the gas comes out of its mouth and I think its being passed on by Euroropean farmers who love their cows. I think maybe a brain wave cow methane syndrome has spread and is infecting all political system in the world. Has anyone checked on the emissions from cattle on the ranch at GWB ?, Whats the gas rating ?

"Dr. Graeme McCrabb of CSIRO, has been carrying out measurements of methane produced by Brahmin cattle, fed on various diets typical of Northern Australia and other tropical regions of the world to find out how much methane is produced by cows on different diets.
He's estimated that at least 50 per cent of the world's two billion cattle, sheep and goats live in tropical and subtropical regions. They generally have poor diets creating high levels of methane.

He reported CSIRO has a number of projects underway investigating techniques for lowering methane emissions from livestock.

The chances of a technology being adopted by farmers in developing countries is good if a technology can be developed which both reduces methane and increases meat and milk production.

This could lead to a huge reduction in global methane emissions while greatly increasing food production, improving the diets of millions of people around the world."

Nerdine said...

OH my god! that's hilariuos... Have to copy this and email to my friends..

Gary's addition was oh so good too!

Matthew May said...

Great Post lol. :)

Pirate said...

Pure Capitalism or counter culture for the Pirate.

DA said...

MD, no need for looking further then :-)

Well Susie, your son is blessed with a mum with such nice shoes..

The Hong Kong connection seems best way to lose money fast Elisabeth..

Gary sharp as ever. I'll add it to the list!

Thanks RC, 'be seing you..

Good idea JulianB, wish I'd stayed away from your shoes though. Had terrible nightmares because of them..

I don't like the idea of meat production for humans Lindsay but your idea on using technology to reduce methane appeals to me. New techno will emerge rapidly next decade.

Thank you for enjoying Nerdine and matt.

How about two cows on a pirateboat skipper?

Kathleen Callon said...

Just found you at Fuzzy and Blue, and love your blog. I just did a post about Cy and gave you credit.

Racheblue Love said...

Fantastic post Dimitri!
(I came across your blog via Matt's Empathy).

Note to Lindsay - we don't need to increase meat & milk production; there is already more than enough food in the world for everyone to eat well. The problem lies in distibution of that food. Greedy 'developed' countries have too much and make it hard for 'developing' countries to get enough.
Also, I think technology may be responsible for the increased methane production but it cannot fix the problem. A simple, organic diet, free-range lifestyle and less antibiotic injections may help.

glasshill said...

like I soooo dig the counter culture thing man.... except can't do the dairy thing - like, so not fair man - where the h#$& is the soy representation? man! where is our 'equal representation'?

what every happened to there were these two soy beans? dude?

sheesh....

Unknown said...

I rarely laugh out loud but I did on this one. So very, very funny.

AJ said...

Funny stuff, you are in 4th place (and rising) for my choice of extreme humor contestants.
The winner will receive....(dare I say it)... a co-----

DA said...

Thank you Kathleen, just visited it. I'm honoured.

Interesting suggestion Ecomonkey. I so dislike bio-industry. Can't stand the thought of animals raised for human consumption..

Too funny Callooh, makes me wonder how soy tastes..

Glad to make a worried american laughing :-)

Thx AJ, honoured to have you here

Unknown said...

Lindsay--George Bush's cows probably produce twice the normal amount of methane. They are Republicans. You know what bags of hot gas they are.

-G.D. said...

excellent...

i've never quite seen this broken down with such eloquence and wit.

great blog

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