POLITICAL SCIENCE  101 FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes most of the milk. SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows. The state takes one and gives it to someone else. COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you 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. FASCISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk. TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned. MILITARISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you into the army. BUREAUCRACY: You have 2 cows. The State takes both, kills one and spills the milk in the sewage system. PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk. REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone who will tell you who gets the milk. SINGAPORE DEMOCRACY: You have 2 cows. The government fines you for keeping 2 unlicensed animals in an apartment. 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", but supports the president. The cow sues you for breach of contract. Your legal bills exceed your annual income. You settle out of court and declare bankruptcy. BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have 2 cows. You feed them sheep's brains and they go mad. The government doesn't 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. MEXICAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government takes both, shoots you and sends the cows to Zurich. FRENCH DEMOCRACY: It doesn't matter if you have two cows, ties, wine, whatever. You cannnot export your products to America, period You're banned, thankyouverymuch. RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY: You are still queuing for the first cow. MALAYSIAN DEMOCRACY: The cows are now controlled from grazing and you are jailed for being unfit to rear cows. JAPANESE DEMOCRACY: You have 2 cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don't ask awkward questions about who you are giving the milk to. CAPITALISM: You have 2 cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You retire on the income. HONGKONG CAPITALISM: You have 2 cows. You sell 3 of them to your publicly-listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then you execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all 4 cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping 5 cows. The milk rights are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all 7 cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns 8 cows, with an option to purchase one more. Meanwhile, you kill the 2 cows because the 'Feng Shui' is bad. 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 nonspecified gender. You are so torn by feelings of guilt, your psychotherapist recommends a treatment center. You spend six weeks there, paid for by the community health plan, and graduate into Guilty Anonymous. COUNTERCULTURE: Wow, dude, there's like...these two cows, man. Uh, so, like, you have really got to do some of this milk, like, fer shur, it's awesome, man. SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons. -Unattributed BACK