I read "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss yesterday evening to my 5-year-old. My wife had borrowed it from the library. I was expecting an amusing kid's book like "Green Eggs and Ham" (also by Seuss), but what I got was tiresome environmental, anti-business agit-prop. Ugh. Almost everyone on Amazon has given it 5 stars -- no wonder Obama is president.
I think the language in the book is dumb, too. Why invent words like "biggerer" (used repeatedly) instead of using the word "bigger".
It's too bad I need to screen children's books for political indoctrination. I wonder if there are sites where conservative parents have recommended books.
83 comments
"Why invent words like "biggerer" (used repeatedly) instead of using the word "bigger"."
You haven't read much Dr Seuss, have you?
I am sorry that the theme of this book, which was WRITTEN FOR YOUNG CHILDREN was too deep for you to grasp. Its really quite simple. Living things. including humans, need clean air and water. If we cut down all the trees, there won't be any trees left, and the results will be disastrous. Thus, keeping the world livable is more important than making money.
This is not a conservative issue or a liberal issue. It is a matter of human survival.
Anti-business? Yeah. Because no business can possibly operate sustainably.
Pro-tip: The Onceler’s sin was not being a businessman. It was dumping raw sewage and other shit in the rivers, pumping toxins into the sky, and cutting down every last tree that fed his business without ever planting a new one to keep that business going. In short, he was a total moron that didn’t have the foresight to maintain a line of resourcces to keep himself in business.
Why is it these fuckin’ idiots can’t understand that environmentalism is the pragmatic course of action?
Jeeezus! The Lorax was written when? Okay, Wiki says published in ... 1971?
And they're claiming propaganda *now*?
*epic facepalm*
(mutters to self: I do not like him, Sam I am)
OK, why not write your own kids book which shows how it's great to keep dumping toxins into the environment and cut down all our trees as long as you're making money doing it?
No, wait, I shouldn't give them any ideas...
"It's too bad I need to screen children's books for political indoctrination."
I'm sure the only political indoctrination your kids get is yours. Heavan forbid they should be exposed to any other points of view.
Is Amazon a bastion for left-wingers? Strange; it looks rather right-wing from here.
Look, dearie, environmentalism is very simple. Plants produce oxygen from carbon-dioxide, people (and other animals) produce carbon-dioxide from oxygen. If there is only people and no plants, we'll all die of asphyxiation as there will be no oxygen, only carbon-dioxide.
That business man in the book was anti-business, as he destroyed any means for sustainable life, thereby destroying all customers and employees for the business.
A. "Biggerer." You miss the point of Dr. Seuss.
B. It seems you miss the point of the Lorax story.
You are truly ignorant and stupid enough to be a great Freeper. Congrats.
Don't you understand the point of the neologisms? They are there in order to fit the meter... and as an aside, Dr. Seuss wrote in a very strict and demanding meter making it almost impossible for his books to be translated.
And how is telling people not to recklessly waste resources and pollute everything a bad idea? Do the anti-environmentalists even comprehend what they're saying?! I can just imagine this guy reading the book to his kid and entering a rage once he gets to the explicitly environmentalist parts. I wonder how he smoothed that over with his kid...
You really think that having less pollution and global extinction is a BAD THING!?
You really love pollution, death, and toxic sludge?
Man, these people are warped almost beyond hope of fixing.
For fucks sakes, why is taking care of the planet considered such an unpardonable sin in Freeperland? I understand being too lazy to care about the environment but to be actively working against people that do care is something I can't ever seem to understand. I swear, you're all like Captain Planet villains: destroying the Earth just for the lulz.
It's too bad I need to screen children's books for political indoctrination. I wonder if there are sites where conservative parents have recommended books.
And another thing, why is hypocrisy (as shown elegantly in these 2 sentences) the highest holy sacrament of Freeperland?
Sustainability: The idea of protecting business from destroying themselves by consuming resources faster then they can be replenished.
Environmentalism: The idea that poisoning our food and water is a really bad idea.
If you are opposed to either of these ideas then you might as well teach your kids that they can fly by leaping off cliffs.
{I think the language in the book is dumb, too. Why invent words like "biggerer" (used repeatedly) instead of using the word "bigger". }
Because Dr. Seuss is obviously a leftist hatemonger who wrote his books only to frustrate angry conservatives who try and find invisible agendas in everything fun in life, not because it could just well be a children's book.
Pathetic as it is, the logging industry did in fact crank out a clumsy response to Dr. Seuss, featuring "Truax the friendly logger," who tells an embittered hairy-hippie Lorax about how much clear-cutting really HELPS the planet. I'm serious.
But even in that one, I suspect the words are too big for reagnut1.
"I think the language in the book is dumb, too. Why invent words like "biggerer" (used repeatedly) instead of using the word "bigger"."
IT'S A FUCKING CHILDREN'S BOOK. THE LANGUAGE IS SUPPOSED TO BE INTENTIONALLY STUPID.
I read "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss yesterday evening to my 5-year-old. My wife had borrowed it from the library. I was expecting an amusing kid's book like "Green Eggs and Ham" (also by Seuss), but what I got was tiresome environmental, anti-business agit-prop. Ugh. Almost everyone on Amazon has given it 5 stars -- no wonder Obama is president.
So teaching children to be responsible with the Earth is bad?
I think the language in the book is dumb, too. Why invent words like "biggerer" (used repeatedly) instead of using the word "bigger".
1) It's a children's book.
2) It's a Dr. Seuss book, of course there is going to be made up words. It's part of the charm.
It's too bad I need to screen children's books for political indoctrination. I wonder if there are sites where conservative parents have recommended books.
I'm so sure you would feel the same about "Miss Kitty: The Republican Cat" or "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!" Yes, these are real books.
Better not read your kids Where the Wild Things Are either -- Maurice Sendak is one o' them homa-seck-shools .
(Whenever I see Dr. Seuss mentioned, I just get fond memories of studying in the Dr. Seuss Library -- OK, it's officially the (Theodor Seuss) Geisel Library -- at UCSD when I was in high school.)
> I wonder if there are sites where conservative parents have recommended books.
Yeah, there are. You can find one at www.not-on-bonfires-(yet).com .
In addition, this morning my alphabet soup spelled a word that eerily resembled "Obama". Campbell's soup manufacturing company is very clearly in bed with the left-wing propaganda machine.
@Dr. Shrinker
STFU U DAM LIBRUL MARXISTCOMMIE.
"I read "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss yesterday evening to my 5-year-old. My wife had borrowed it from the library. I was expecting an amusing kid's book like "Green Eggs and Ham" (also by Seuss), but what I got was tiresome environmental, anti-business agit-prop. Ugh. Almost everyone on Amazon has given it 5 stars -- no wonder Obama is president."
I'll bet he wasn't even a real doctor either, the fraud!
"think the language in the book is dumb, too. Why invent words like 'biggerer' (used repeatedly) instead of using the word 'bigger'."
Seriously? You can't figure this one out yourself?
"It's too bad I need to screen children's books for political indoctrination. I wonder if there are sites where conservative parents have recommended books."
Recommend them for what? To be burned? To be banned? Not to read , surely.
I second the WTF tree and add a wharrgrbl dog.
It's a children's book. It's meant to teach an important lesson in a way children can understand and be entertaining. All the crap you said about it is batshit rambling.
Anti-business? They cut down all the Truffula Trees and turned everything into a wasteland and the Once-ler business went under because they used up all the resources. Only a brain dead idiot would believe that using the land until it's a dump and destroying the environment is a good thing. Did they actually read the entire book?
And, really, made up words in Dr. Seuss? That's impossibilifyingly unpossible!
Usually I'd be the first to disagree with someone who's finding leftist propaganda in a children's book but honestly, I find the whole "businesses are bad, save the environment!!1!11!" rhetoric quite tiresome too..
@Percy Q. Shunn
I can't be the only one who read that last line as "estrogenated"; that being, presumably, analogous to "hydrogenated".
I know that's not what they meant to say...
For fucks sakes, why is taking care of the planet considered such an unpardonable sin in Freeperland?
I wonder if it isn't because it forces them to recognise they're not perfectly independent of all outside coercion, in that they are constrained in action by natural limits. A lot of libertarians, randroids and other right-wingers in favour of minimal government do have a strong sense of responsibility, but with an even stronger condition - they insist it be perfectly voluntary, and on being free to reject it at any time. Conservation is the wrong kind of responsibility for them - the kind they have no choice but to accept, unless they deny it even exists.
It's made a million times worse because if they accept that responsibility and look after the planet, even just to help themselves out in the future, they cannot help but improve the lot of everyone else as well, and they really don't like the idea of involuntarily helping others, even as a mere side effect of helping themselves at no additional expenditure.
Hey, reaganaut, Hedorah, the Smog Monster wants to say thank you for your anti-environmental views...
image
Amazing the number of people (usually of the right) who consider any adults passing on views they disagree with 'indoctrination'. On the other hand, it's OK to pass on conservative views. That's not political indoctrination, oh no.
Um...a LOT of Dr. Seuss's books have been political.
Yertle the Turtle was written to mock Adolf Hitler.
The Star-Bellied Sneetches is a blatant Holocaust reference.
And seriously, you're surprised that an author who uses names like "Yertle," "Lorax," "Grinch" and "Hoober-Bloob" is making up words? Have you ever read any Seuss books other than Green Eggs and Ham?
Mad. Mad. Reganaut is mad. Tries to make kids' books look bad.
The word 'biggerer' isn't used even once in The Lorax, let alone 'repeatedly'.
Dickhead. Why invent words like 'bigerer' instead of using the actual word in the book - 'biggering'?
"I wonder if there are sites where conservative parents have recommended books."
There are probably only ones where they have recommmended burning some books.
@Brain_In_A_Jar:
No, it's because the billionaires have programmed them to believe any stupid thing they're told, then told them any kind of environmental protection law is idolitry and heathenism and atheist muslimism and communism etc. so billionaire factory owners can keep their money instead of spending it on not dumping heavy metals into the nearest river.
@mefamwee
Usually I'd be the first to disagree with someone who's finding leftist propaganda in a children's book but honestly, I find the whole "businesses are bad, save the environment!!1!11!" rhetoric quite tiresome too..
Can you tell me how a business will run without any natural resources to draw upon?
People and, by extension, the businesses they run, are dependent on the environment. If you fuck the environment, you fuck yourself and your business.
It's fair to point out Doctor Seuss was a liberal -- check out some of the cartoons he did for adults in the Forties.
However, as others have pointed out, the point of The Lorax is "don't be short-sightedly wasteful, save some so you can use it later." It's only in the insane worldview of Free Republic that's a bad idea.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome wraths outgrabe
...
Oh dear, Reaganaut1's head appears to have exploded.
GODDAMN COTTON-PICKING LEFT-WING PROPAGANDA! I NEED TO FIND SOME GOOD, PROPER RIGHT-WING PROPAGANDA FOR MY YOUNGUN!!
Oh, and also, what do you people have against the environment? We live here.
He criticizes Dr. Seuss because he makes up words.
Lol, I love the irony in his statement. "I have to censor what my kids read because of 'political indoctrination'. So I'm going to indoctrinate my kids with my beliefs".
It's not anti-business, it's anti-corruption. Not all businesses are evil. If you can only do business by polluting when others can do so without polluting, then you're doing something wrong. The policies aren't wrong.
@ Mister Spak:
Well, I'm pretty sure that the billionaires doing the programming are the ones who believe in what Brain_in_a_Jar was postulating. I'm beginning to think that the upper echelons of society are filled with sociopaths, myself.
Here's a nice pro Conservative story! "Pelanegrita and the Three Hard-Working American Bears". It ends like this:
Then Baby Bear said "Someone's been sleeping in my bed, and the little bean eater's still there!"
Papa Bear yanked Pelanegrita up by her long black braids. "Why did you break into our home?" he roared in her face. "You ate our food! You broke our furniture! You took our jobs!"
"Como?" said Pelanegrita. "No hablo Ingles."
"Speak English!" roared Papa Bear as he mauled the little immigrant to pieces. And they lived happily ever after.
Other titles!
Sarah Palin and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Election
Heather has a Daddy and a Mommy, and by Golly That's the Way It Should Be!
A Christmas Carol II: How Scrooge Undid His Horrible Brainwashing Experience
Little Women Need to Stay Barefoot and Pregnant
The Liar, the Bitch and her Wardrobe: A Tale of the Clintons.
Actually, he's right, albeit in an insanely overreactive and out-of-touch-with-reality way. Seuss' later works do have a liberal ideology to them.
It's the kind of liberal ideology that it's hard to oppose, unless you're completely insane, but "all people are equal",
"destroying the planet for short-term gain is a bad idea" and "creating nuclear weapons wasn't the smartest thing humans ever did" are pretty much liberal ideals.
That's kind of why I'm a liberal.
"Why invent words like "biggerer" (used repeatedly) instead of using the word "bigger"."
Well, this is Dr. Seuss, so the extra syllable is in there to fit with the meter.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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