Animal Farm: Yes We Can

Until I graduated from school, I never really had time to read. That may sound funny, but reading then was always for a paper, a project, something stressful. Recently I picked up a book that I had seen on my mom's bookshelf for a lot of years, Animal Farm. The book basically tells of a group of animals that decide they want change, they want more equality. They kick out the humans and try to equalize everything among them. The book shows the move to socialism and then to a socialist dictator regime. Some animals on the farm were obviously smarter than others and soon found ways to leverage their intelligence over the less educated animals. A group that particularly got my attention were the sheep. The sheep were unable to follow a lot of the political happenings going on in the farm. They did however pickup a slogan "Four Legs are good, two legs bad." It was easy to remember, and when people started fighting about things, that's what they started shouting.

The last little while, politics have really grabbed our attention in the media. There's a lot going on and it's easy to 1) get caught up in all of the rhetoric 2) get completely lost on the issues 3) start spouting off what we've heard in the media. One thing that I noticed right away was the slogan "Yes We Can." All the sudden people are screaming for change and shouting "Yes We Can." I think the phrase is a good one, if it was more honest and more sincere. More than that, I wish it was backed up with appropriate action. More often than not, however, it seems to be a retaliatory cry to excite the crowds and drown out the critics. I have a couple questions to those who have been using this phrase so much.

1) Who said we couldn't in the first place?

2) If there was someone who said you couldn't, why did you believe them?

3) Why did it take someone someone you've never met, in nice clothes on a flashy stage to get to you to believe you could again?

Yes "we" can, implies you. That's right, you. The slogan isn't "Yes the government can" (which we're seeing isn't really working anyway). Many people are sitting back, waiting for the government to pull them out of their miserable state. They want the government to take care of their bad debts, their health and healthcare, their groceries, and many other aspects of their lives that they are fully capable of handling themselves. I honestly believe that there are those who really do need help in some of these areas, people that have done all they can, and still come up short. They shouldn't need to go hungry. They should be able to get medical help. But I believe a large proportion of those shouting "Yes we can" have yet to discover the I and Me in this particular WE.

As Orville's book Animal Farm comes to an end, the sheep are still shouting slogans, though slightly modified. Their situation has worsened significantly, and yet they still look to others to solve their problems. I certainly hope that isn't our fate. I do hope that people change this particular slogan, however, to "Yes I can, and here's how I'm going to do it."