There’s something really notable about this image. Most cartoons feature the octopus as the villain; this one has the cephalopod representing the good guys, the 99%, strangling the villainous mammal. It breaks the stereotype!
Is it weird that I identified with the mollusc and felt a little happy uplift when I saw that?
(Also on FtB)
Is it weird that I identified with the mollusc and felt a little happy uplift when I saw that?
Yes, it is. But then, I must be just as weird.
Answer: Yes. :)
Just watched Night at the Museum II with my kid. The octopus is good guy, even though it’s misunderstood at the beginning.
I note that the octopus is riding the bull, the traditional symbol of a rising market. Everybody wants to be part of rising markets and rising economies.
Nobody wants anything to do with the Bear, the representative of falling markets and shrinking economies. Not even the anti-capitalists.
Silly ol’ Bear.
I actually saw two or three “octopi..” signs when I was at Occupy Toronto. The Cephalopods are quite popular!
Is it riding the Bull? or is it sodomising it? I cant tell.
But wait, if Goldman Sachs is a vampire squid, don’t we have a cephalopod civil war occurring here?
An old kid’s film, Jack the Giant Killer, had an octopus-like creature that saves the hero/friends from an evil giant/ogre. (Unfortunately while young kids will think the movie is great, adults will find it sucks badly…I experienced both emotions since I hunted the film down years later to see it again thanks to my memories of it as a child)
Fascinating how a golden calf is still the symbol of idolatry :)
That’s pretty awesome. I might have to print that up and put it on my next sign for my local Occupy protests.
Can’t it do both?
WTF? Where the hell did that come from???
Oh come on, don’t call the 99% calamari. They already think that we’re consumable goods.
Glen Davidson
Glad to see that. I was afraid the bankers had all the suckers on THEIR side.
Seriously, I just don’t get why anyone would identify with an octopus.
Damn it, I was going to use the sodomizing line. Well regardless, the bull is getting what he deserved. What shocks me though is the brain drain that goes into supporting this whole Wall Street mess. Those very same bankers, economists, and financial analysts could very well have spent their intellect and time to improve humanity (instead of fiddling with derivatives…as I believe Michael Moore stated), but instead, engage in the particulars of imaginary money. The obvious problem here is the lack of government support for research and development, as well as the sciences. What fuels technology now is what it fueled a hundred years ago…mainly war, greed, and power (and probably porn). Such well entrenched institutions don’t necessarily have to be disregarded, but we can surely add wonder and curiosity into the equation. Instead of saying hey kids, you can grow up to be anything you want, as long as it’s fame, money, or power. It would just be better to reframe this whole thing into kids, you can grow up and use your mind to uncover the secrets of the world..in fact, you can do that right now. The problem of course is the ignorant parents who want their offspring, like them, to remain in the dark ages, worshiping a mysterious invisible man or an invisible hand.
@lordshipmayhem #4 – “A rising tide” and all that.
Actually, the bear does not represent falling markets and shrinking economies. A bear market is one that moves like a hunting bear: a few steps forward, stop, a few more steps forward, a slight detour backwards, a few more steps forward, etc. While backtracking is common in a bear market, the general trend remains upwards. A bull market, in contrast, is one that runs forward at full tilt and damn anything that gets in its way.
Historically, the US economy has been a bear. Recently, though, we’ve had a very unusually long running of the bull, which is the source of our current economic progress: things were done in the mistaken belief that the bull would never get tired, never decide to run the other way, never decide to gore the people on the street.
Economic problems, I meant to say. Not economic progress. :-/
Two tentacles are unaccounted for in the picture.
I like its jaunty attitude.
Says the guy called Cuttlefish .
I’ve seen enough hentai to know where this is going….
Glad you like it. My buddy Squeegie put that together for me and told me I should share :)
PZ, You’re just a self-hating mammal.
More evidence of the superior intelligence of cephalopods in comparison to bankers
I am always amazed/amused at how Christian Conservatives worship Wall Street … and its “golden calf.” As prohibited in the Bible.