I blogged this (too tired now to look up the cite, but www.armsandthelaw.com) and noted:
1. The octopus is a favorite of political cartoonists and propandists because it has tentacles that can grab things (esp. a world globe), a head that can be given a human image, and a somewhat sinister look. Few animals meet these requirements. Depicting an opposing political movement as a malevolent elk or sea bass or iguana just doesn't cut it. 2. It has been accordingly used to depict fascism, judaism, capitalism, communism, the World Trade Organization Standard Oil, the Southern Pacific Railroad, and about everything else. It has been endowed with the face of everyone from Joseph Stalin to Bill Gates. As a Mac user, I found the last most amusing. 3. There is actually a webpage, on a website run by octobopes (the correct plural, the noun being Greek and only coincidentally ending in "us" -- I only knew this from reading George McDonald Frazier's hilarious novel "Pyrates"),devoted to propaganda use of octopus images over the last hundred years. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
