<nettime> Fw: Political Ideologies

[Jean <spods@dircon.co.uk> (by way of richard@hrc.wmin.ac.uk (Richard Barbrook))]

An Easy Guide to Political Ideologies using 2 cows.

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the 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 have two cows. Your neighbours help you take
care of them, and you all share the milk.

APPLIED COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them,
but the government takes all the milk.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and
shoots you.

NIGERIAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government takes both,
shoots you and sends the cows to Zurich.

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

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets
the milk.

SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government fines you
for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbours pick
someone to tell you who gets the milk.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: The government promises to give you two cows if
you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for
speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate". 
The cows sue you for breach of contract.

BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You feed them sheep's brains
and they go mad. The government does not do anything.

EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY: 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. After that 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 have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

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 a 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 Islands company 
secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the right 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 of bad feng shui.

LESBIANISM: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal
calf.

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

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: You are associated with (the concept of
'ownership' is a symbol of the phallocentric, warmongering,
intolerant past) two differently aged (but no less valuable to society) 
bovines of Non-specified gender.

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

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