Image

A Children's Fable: Party Sez Grass is to Toke, not Stow

User avatar
"WANT IS WEALTH
POVERTY IS PROSPERITY
SQUALOR IS LUXURY"


Once there was an island rich with resources, beautiful with hills and trees, with good weather for growing food. People came to the island from other islands and brought with them what they learned from those places. The island became populated by people who believed the great Creator Who Had Come gave them rights that couldn't be bestowed or taken by other people. They formed a government that was different from where they had come from, so their island's new government was small and didn't interfere much with or take much from the people. Therefore, anyone who wanted to was free to make and grow things that benefited him and his neighbors, and the people prospered. They were the only islanders who had the strength and wisdom to build stone houses, whereas the best houses on the other islands were made of grass. Those who didn't want to or couldn't care for themselves were cared for by their families or by those who believed in the great Creator Who Had Come. The prosperous island trained fierce warriors so none of the other islands dared go to war with them.

The prosperous islanders were hated and feared by all the chieftains of the islands in the archipelago that bound them. The other islands' chieftains took whatever they could from their people and as it was being taken, the chieftains' representatives always told their people how they loved them and were doing what they did so they would be the best, happiest people of all the islands in the archipelago. The chieftains never understood why their own people left them for the prosperous island. The chieftains had their people make fences and take up clubs and spears to keep people who wanted to leave from leaving them. Those who did escape were welcomed by the people of the prosperous island and the immigrants usually took on the customs of the prosperous islanders, and usually became prosperous members of the community themselves.

But there were some disgruntled people who wouldn't care for themselves or others and thought they were better and smarter than the other people on the prosperous island. They heard the immigrants' stories and thought the other islands' chieftains knew better how an island should be run. They dug through garbage and found writings from the other islands, writings that had been carried over by people who had immigrated in and thrown them away when they saw how much better their lives became when they adopted the ways of the prosperous islanders. The disgruntled knew they were the real gods, they knew the imaginary Creator Who Had Come was just an old story told by old people who were really very dumb, and they knew that they could run the island better than it had ever been run before, and better than all the other islands were run, because they were smarter than the other islanders, their island had more food and made more things, and thus they could take those resources to make bigger programs to rule their people. Those few knew better than all the others what all the others needed and wanted. Sometimes they would get elected to government offices because they told the people how much they loved them and wanted them to be the best, happiest people of all the islands in the archipelago. They passed laws and rules and made it harder for the people to make and grow things. They took more of what the people produced and spent it on their plans to make the people better and happier. They told the people that the earth and the moon were displeased with all the things being grown and made and that's why it was getting warmer and colder than it had ever been. They rejoiced when people felt guilty for having a lot of food and for making and having nice things. The people started to become poorer and had to do more to satisfy the government's requirements and more became disgruntled. The disgruntled trained the children to know that they needed to be disgruntled too. They told the children that they were better and smarter than their parents who believed in the imaginary Creator Who Had Come, and that they could use their power to make a better island, just like the islands that were around them but better, because they were so smart and had so many resources to spread around. The disgruntled people made rules so the warriors wouldn't be trained as well as they had been and took their weapons away, because no one would want to make war with such good, smart, disgruntled people when everyone was disgruntled. They told the other islands' chieftains to send all their people they didn't want to the prosperous island because they knew the unwanted people would help make the prosperous island just like the islands they came from, which everyone knew was far better than being surrounded by so many people doing what they wanted to do and not being controlled in every way.

One day the disgruntled saw they had made so many of the prosperous islanders just like them, it was time to usher in their dream. They presented a chieftain who they told to say “The old ways just don't work anymore. I want to make you into the best, happiest people of all the islands in the archipelago. When I'm your chieftain I'll make all the other islanders love us. The sea will lower so we can walk to the other islands and be part of the Archipelago Community. We will fundamentally transform what we have been into a single, fair island of hope and change, a change for justice, a justice I know we need, because we have been an unjust, unfair island. We are the ones we have waited for. We will change to be what we should always be. We will care for everybody and everybody will love and be loved and have enough.”

The expanding numbers of the disgruntled liked what they heard. They knew the one who would show them the way, care for them, feed them, and make them loved by the other islands and their peoples, had finally arrived. Even better, he looked a little different from every chieftain that they had ever had before, and the disgruntled told them that made the chieftain-to-be a better chieftain, since the old chieftains were evil because of the way they appeared, not just what they believed. The one who would be the new chieftain was from those who would make a new, better island for everyone. So the disgruntled islanders didn't want to know anything more about the one who would be the new chieftain, they just wanted him to start changing things for them.

And change things he did. He told them how they would care for each other, and their medicines became scarcer and more expensive. New medicines were not developed because the new laws forbad their use – they were too expensive and anyway they were bad for the islanders, it was said. Their medicine men were told to do with less, examine patients less rigorously, treat them in less rigorous ways, spend less time on each islander, and the islanders were no longer the healthiest in the archipelago. The new chieftain directed that the products of the islanders who made and grew things be given to those who did neither, and to him, and be shipped to other islands, and the people became poorer and thinner, like the people on the other islands. Many of the people stopped being productive because they couldn't feed their families with what little was left them.

The chieftain told the disgruntled that he grew up with and surrounded himself with to go get more islanders to join in the cause of talking down and taking more from the believers in the Creator Who Had Come, and those who talked of the old ways, and many of the island's singers and dancers and clowns were very successful denigrating the believers and traditionalists to the delight of the throngs of the disgruntled. The chieftain created enforcement positions and had those he placed there pick apart the stone houses of the people and throw the stones at the people who had built the houses. Soon people became too malnourished to build stone houses anymore. It was made illegal to do so in any case. Many people had no houses, and just like on the other islands in the archipelago, those who cozied up to the chieftain had, at best, a grass house. In the seventh year of his reign, there were no more stone houses – even the house of the chieftain had collapsed into rubble. No one had the knowledge or the strength to build a stone house, even if it had been legal. But the chieftain did have a grand two-story grass house built for him, and many of his acolytes lived and played with him there. They would occasionally even raid the other grass houses of those who became disfavored, tear them down, and smoke them.

A new tradition was established. Every year, the chieftain insisted on having a new throne built for him out of the rubble that had once been houses. He forced only those who were outlaws – those who still clung to their beliefs of the Creator Who Had Come and the old ways – to build the thrones, and the disgruntled loved the chieftain the more for it. Every year the chieftain would sit in his newly built stone throne and call out the decrees and rules that his acolytes and minions created for him, to make for a fairer, more just island. Usually this ceremony was held over a two-week-long period, since there were so many decrees and rules that had to be made to correct and modify the previous year's decrees and rules, and the chieftain loved to hear himself speak – and he was told everyone else loved to hear him, too. Then that year's throne would be stored on the second floor of the chieftain's grass house, never to be sat in again, by his own decree.

One calm night when the moon was shining bright in the twenty-first year of the chieftain's rule, just after his thirteenth throne had been stored in his grass house, a terrible tragedy occurred. His house, which had never been designed well from an engineering standpoint – engineering skills had been some of the first to go in his reign, as they were a part of the old, unworkable way of doing things – had a major structural failure, and collapsed on the sleeping chieftain and many of his acolytes, killing them all. The weight of the thrones had induced too much stress on the structure, and it finally gave in to the pressure.

Here our story ends, but what would become of the islanders? I leave that to your imagination, dear reader. But there is a moral we may take away from this tale:

People who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones.


User avatar
I have a feeling we'll soon be telling this story around our fires made with government wood rations. It'll be just like Homer.

User avatar
fairness.png
To be really fair, we should not only redistribute the good things, like someone else's income, but also the bad things, like sickness, stupidity, ugliness, and disability. No one should be healthier, smarter, more attractive, or more able than anyone else. Those that are healthy should be made sick. Those who are more intelligent should be made dumber. Those who are more attractive should be disfigured. And those who are more able should be crippled. Those who disagree should be executed. It's only fair. All Heil Lord Obama!

I'm Barack Hussein Obama and I approve of this message.

User avatar
Dedhedvedev wrote:
fairness.png
To be really fair, we should not only redistribute the good things, like someone else's income, but also the bad things, like sickness, stupidity, ugliness, and disability. No one should be healthier, smarter, more attractive, or able than anyone else. Those that are healthy should be made sick. Those who are more intelligent should be made dumber. Those who are more attractive should be disfigured. And those who are more able should be crippled. Those who disagree should be executed. It's only fair. All Heil Lord Obama!

Don't worry Comrade. I'm sure that just as with 1984 Dear Leader and the Party view Harrison Bergeron as a guide rather than a warning.

User avatar
KrystynaKorrekted wrote:Don't worry Comrade. I'm sure that just as with 1984 Dear Leader and the Party view Harrison Bergeron as a guide rather than a warning.
The film "2081" should be mandatory viewing in all our public schools, so every child will grow up to hate anyone who: has more than he does; enjoys better health than he does; is smarter than he is; is more attractive than he is; or more agile than he is. All Heil Lord Obama.

User avatar
Dedhedvedev wrote:
KrystynaKorrekted wrote:Don't worry Comrade. I'm sure that just as with 1984 Dear Leader and the Party view Harrison Bergeron as a guide rather than a warning.
The film "2081" should be mandatory viewing in all our public schools, so every child will grow up to hate anyone who: has more than he does; enjoys better health than he does; is smarter than he is; is more attractive than he is; or more agile than he is. All Heil Lord Obama.

By the time 2081 rolls around - if it ever does - there will be no need to view the film since it will be old news.

User avatar
Captain Craptek wrote:
Dedhedvedev wrote:
KrystynaKorrekted wrote:Don't worry Comrade. I'm sure that just as with 1984 Dear Leader and the Party view Harrison Bergeron as a guide rather than a warning.
The film "2081" should be mandatory viewing in all our public schools, so every child will grow up to hate anyone who: has more than he does; enjoys better health than he does; is smarter than he is; is more attractive than he is; or more agile than he is. All Heil Lord Obama.

By the time 2081 rolls around - if it ever does - there will be no need to view the film since it will be old news.
By the time 2081 rolls around, there may be no one left who remembers how to make film or run film.

User avatar
or read calenders so they know it's 2081...

User avatar
Dedhedvedev said wrote:...Those who are more intelligent should be made dumber...

We've taken care of that. Do I note a blank stare with a hint of anger at Teabaggers in your eyes and a dribble of saliva on your chin? Been watching your daily ration of HuffPo, CNN and MSNBC, haven't you, Comrade?

User avatar
R.O.C.K. in the USSA sez: wrote:
Reminds me of a cartoon I once saw, Comrade!

A most heinous bit of Teabagger agitprop, Comrade R.O.C.K.er! Of course everyone knows that we would make The Glorious Proletariat Students would study as hard as we told them to necessary. And we do not have to grade them in this Glorious World of This Tuesday. Such a barbaric and unworkable capitalistic debauchery might deflate their overwhelming self-esteem we have inculcated into them!

User avatar
Captain Craptek wrote:or read calenders so they know it's 2081...
Comrade, are you referring to the year 72 AO?

User avatar
R.O.C.K. in the USSA wrote:
Captain Craptek wrote:or read calenders so they know it's 2081...
Comrade, are you referring to the year 72 AO?

Yes - "After" being the operative word. Yes - with high hopes and great expectations. And with any luck (and Obamacare) I should be well into my 150's and ready for action.

User avatar
R.O.C.K. in the USSA wrote:

Reminds me of a cartoon I once saw, Comrade!

G a s p! This is sedition, Comrade R.O.C.K. Sedition, I tell you!

PROG OFF:

KIIIIIIILER POST! KILLER, I TELL YOU!

User avatar
Commissar Redumdimski wrote:"WANT IS WEALTH
POVERTY IS PROSPERITY
SQUALOR IS LUXURY"

Holy Tokes, Commissar Redumdimski!


I salute your glorious return to the People's Cube! Welcome home!


[img]images/clipart/Prog_Off.gif[/img]

As expected, you call to account all those prigs/progs (I habitually make that typo)who deny the exceptionalism of America. To support your view, I have actual humans telling me about the "myth" of America. In addition, they tell me about those scary people who just don't realize what they need, i.e., Individualists. Very scary.


I was recently told by a "friend" (a prog from NYC) that a "new paradigm" had occurred, somehow during the Reagan administration, whereby people did not know what they actually needed. Government was needed to tell them that.


When I gave him the facts, and links (with actual words spewing from their mouths) he let me know that these were my "fantasies" and had deleted them all.


[img]images/clipart/Prog_On.gif[/img]

There is a reason my darling Theo gave you the title Commissar.

User avatar
Pamalinsky wrote:
Commissar Redumdimski wrote:"WANT IS WEALTH
POVERTY IS PROSPERITY
SQUALOR IS LUXURY"

Holy Tokes, Commissar Redumdimski!

...Individualists. Very scary.

I was recently told by a "friend" (a prog from NYC) that a "new paradigm" had occurred, somehow during the Reagan administration, whereby people did not know what they actually needed. Government was needed to tell them that.

When I gave him the facts, and links (with actual words spewing from their mouths) he let me know that these were my "fantasies" and had deleted them all.
Pamy, Thank you O Faire One.

As we all know, one of the Most Glorious elements of a huge, bloated, overbearing bureaucratic mess of a "government" that wants to consume us all in its crushing embrace, diabolically undead and wheezing like a creature straight out of hell, our Beloved Dear 0'Leader's Most Amazing Magical Mystery Trippin' Tokin' Beloved Beneficent Reign For The People™ is that (t)HE(y) think(s) for us, because (t)HE(y) know(s) having hundreds of millions of individuals thinking for themselves would cause our collective head to 'splode, like in Scanners only AlGorier. (Well, we are coming up on Halloween, and Nanski Pee. and Hairy R. are already dressed up for it.)

Just look to your NYC "friend". If he'd not deleted your links, no doubt his head would have 'sploded!


 
POST REPLY