It's amazing that a book with only
39 different words can manage to be
propaganda, created to
infiltrate our children's minds.
Richard Scarry, also known as
East German spy Überman Aflait, created this 21-page book in
1991, in a half-hearted attempt to save the
Soviet Union from its inevitable fall.
Summary of Indoctrinative Themes: This book uses colorful pictures and simple class metaphors, in order to better embed itself into the minds of American youth. FBI file # 553.22sb indicates that Scarry/Aflait and his cohorts planned to insert subliminal messages into the text.
Page 1-2: In the relatively clandestine first few pages of the book, Scarry/Aflait (or should we say Aflait/Scarry) introduces the key characters. The first is Mr. Rabbit. Clad in his conservative hat and waistcoat, Mr. Rabbit walks down the street reading a newspaper (magnification reveals the December 1991 issue of The Daily Worker), the very image of the Soviet proletariat. A construction crew (run by socialized funding, no doubt) paves a new track down the center of the road. A raccoon can be seen digging an unneccessary hole in the road. The needlessly happy behavior of these figures teaches children the value of pointless government work, a neccessity for creche-level training in communist government. Caption: "Here comes Mr. Rabbit."
Page 3-4: Mr. Rabbit walks directly into wet cement, engrossed in his subversive publication. The raccoon's hole is growing deeper by the moment. Caption: "Is he looking at his feet? No. He is looking at his newspaper."
Page 5-6: The crowd around Mr. Rabbit notices his predicament. Most are pointing accusing fingers. A police officer runs toward him aggressively. All of these reactions encourage conformity, and discourage the actions of free thinkers who would choose to walk into wet cement. A street sweeper observes quietly, a victim of Cultural Revolution. Caption: "Now he is looking at his feet. His feet are stuck in the street."
Page 7-8: The workers of the previous scenes band together in a government-mandated effort to push Mr. Rabbit from his natural rights (i.e. the right to be trapped in cement), attempting to push him out with a pole. Scarry's Lowly Worm stands on the pole, providing no assistance. He is rendered useless by a lack of arms. The name of this character implies his uselessness to the communist scheme. Worm represents the bourgeoisie, whom the Reds would have us believe are "dragging society down", as Lowly Worm does. Hidden in the back of this scene, a badger driving a cement truck dumps its contents on an unsuspecting pig, who is trapped and ignored -- an enemy of the state. Caption: "Can we push him out? No!"
Page 9-10: The badger driving the cement truck is now driving a truck full of rocks, and attempts to use it to pull Mr. Rabbit out. Note that the badger has not been in any way reprimanded for the death of the "capitalist pig" on the previous page. Meanwhile, the raccoon digs a hole deeper and deeper around himself. Visible in the background is a World War I flying ace, whose plane bears symbols suspiciously similar to the Nazi emblem. Caption: "Can we pull him out? No!"
Page 11-12: In this vignette, a specially trained worker attempts to blow Mr. Rabbit from the cement using a giant fan. The end result? Mr. Rabbit is stripped of the nicer parts of his clothing, his money, and his newspaper by the "revolutionary wind". Another World War I uniform is visible, a tribute to the Russian October Revolution of 1917. Caption: "Can we blow him out? No!"
Page 13-14: Inept public-service workers attempt to squirt Mr. Rabbit out with a firehose. Socialist training forces their uniforms to be composed largely of pots and pans. Caption: "Can we squirt him out? No, we cannot! His feet are good and stuck." Note the use of "good and stuck", implying that it is best that Mr. Rabbit is trapped.
Page 15-16: A bulldozer arrives to save Mr. Rabbit. His torn-away clothing is visible on the side of the page -- missing are his expensive jacket, money, and newspaper. He has been stripped of his hard-earned posessions. Caption: "Aha!"
Page 17-18: The bulldozer extracts Mr. Rabbit. The raccoon's hole is so deep that only the top of his head can be seen. Caption: "We can scoop him out!"
Page 19-20: Mr. Rabbit is returned to the street. He bears cement on his shoes, a permanent reminder of his encounter with censorship. The raccoon's hole has been filled in, and he is nowhere to be seen. Caption: "Mr. Rabbit is not stuck now. There goes Mr. Rabbit. He is looking at his newspaper again."
Page 21: In the most shocking scene of the book, Mr. Rabbit walks eastward, reading a new, state-approved newspaper. We look down to see him about to walk off of a pier wearing "cement overshoes" from his previous encounter. Mr. Rabbit's dissident views have ended in his death. Caption: "Watch your step, Mr. Rabbit!"
The title "Watch Your Step, Mr. Rabbit" implies that Mr. Rabbit must stay within the bounds of communist rule or face his inevitable fate, as depicted in the last pages. Please, resist the Bolsheviks and ban this book from our public schools!