George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” was first published in 1946, and was seen at the time as a commentary on Stalinist Russia.

Today it offers a look into other totalitarian regimes, as well as one tremendous way we could improve the political system in the United States. There are not many lawmakers in the U.S. who do much that is drastically different from their peers, which results in year after year of seemingly similar results.

Napoleon the pig offers a strategy I would love to see implemented on the Senate floor as he and a rival pig argue about the merits of building a windmill on the farm. His opponent has drawn a complex set of plans that sits on the floor of a shed. Napoleon enters.

“He walked heavily round the shed, looked closely at every detail of the plans and snuffed at them once or twice, then stood for a little while contemplating them out of the corner of his eye; then suddenly he lifted his leg, urinated over the plans, and walked out without uttering a word.”

Now that is politics at its best. Of course in the Stalinist style of government, Napoleon later became the leader and claimed that he was in favor of the windmill all along.

Orwell said himself that his writing was always directed against totalitarianism. “‘Animal Farm’ was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.”

If you close your eyes, so to speak (hard to read if you actually do it), you can forget about any comparisons to Communist Russia, or current day North Korea and Iran, and see the artistic beauty of a story about animals overthrowing their masters to take responsibility for their own lives. Of course, you can’t keep those blinders on for long as the comparisons fly off of every page.

After years of Napoleon’s rule, the farm has less food than ever and has an overpopulation of pigs (the ruling class) and dogs (the security force). Orwell describes the pigs, especially Napoleon and his main deputy, as fat while the other animals are struggling to eat. Of course this comes as the pigs convince the other animals that there is no food shortage and that, in fact, there has never been more food at the farm.

Sound like any current nation to you?