Lyric discussion by necroticworld 

Cover art for Testify lyrics by Rage Against the Machine

Thats true that its a George Orwell quote, but George Orwell was an anti-communist, his books 1984 was about what will happen in a futuristic communist society, and Animal Farm was a satire of communist Russia. So George Orwells quote "Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past." is saying that the future is controlled by the past which is controlled by the present, so you have to watch who controls the present becuz they control everything. Rage took this quote and added "Who controls the present now?", which is saying that Orwells quote is true, but that our government isn't one that we want to leave in control of the future either.

Orwell was not an anti-communist, he just doesnt support communism in its extreme form, or in a twisted fascist form with a dictatorship. In 1984 the fascist political party of big brother was INSOC which was English socialism, but that doesnt mean that orwell was agaisnt socialism. He even supported types of socialism, he just recognized that people had to be careful with socialism and not let the government have to much control, regulation, and power which is true for any form of gov. Animal Farm was about communist Russia, but it blamed the terrible situation on fascism disguised as...

There were three pigs actually, The first pig, old major, could be Lenin but resembles marx more closley. and then the two main pigs, which i was referring to before, snowball and napolean definitely represent soviet leaders. snowball who i thought was Lenin also seems to represent trotsky after reading it a second time and studying the history of russia in more depth. and napoleon definitely represents stalin.

@necroticworld Orwell was actually a socialist himself, opposing it when it is wrongly implemented or taken to extreme forms. In truth, socialism is a horrible economic system in ANY form. Orwell was just smart enough to see it was dangerous. but apparently not smart enough to see that it was intrinsically detrimental.

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