The octopus as a symbol of grand conspiracy/monopoly/etc.

[Code Unknown]

Branching this topic out from here:
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=18973&start=15

Sorry for my hasty answer Code Unknown, turns out it was indeed used before nazi used it in an antisemtic context, here's a very long thread about it from The Octopus News Magazine Online, Your Octopus, Squid and Cephalopod Information Center:

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=889

Thanks, Pierre - some interesting info and commentary on that thread. Such as:

An image-maker searching for an animal to use as a stand-in for a community or polity of aggressive, expansionist repute really can't ask for more than an octopus provides. Flowing and plastic, its outlines can be stretched to envelop territories large or far-flung; the lack of a "face" makes for a blank canvas on which to project any desired visage; because octopus are shy and dexterous, they can represent any group or state that outsiders consider sneaky and conspiratorial.

I think the opaque nature of cephalopods to most people is key, here: poorly understood, they can represent any entity that defies the comprehension of those who find it threatening. Between Arab and Israeli, Communist and Capitalist, Fascist and Democrat is a fundamental chasm, a critical lack of engagement and understanding. The use of an octopus to arouse fear of "The Other" amounts to a tacit admission of moral and intellectual failure: "We don't understand you, and we don't to." [sic]

A little more hunting on my part also found this, showing a cartoon against the Southern Pacific Railway monopoly dating back to 1882:
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/power/text1/octopusimages.pdf

There's also this rather Lovecraftian reference from Jung in his visionary gnostic meditation Seven Sermons to the Dead:

Abraxas generates truth and falsehood, good and evil, light and darkness with the same word in the same deed. Therefore Abraxas is truly the terrible one.

He is magnificent even as the lion at the very moment when he strikes his prey down. His beauty is like the beauty of a spring morn.

Indeed, he is himself the greater Pan, and also the lesser. He is Priapos.

He is the monster of the underworld, the octopus with a thousand tentacles, he is the twistings of winged serpents and of madness.

But I already knew about that one. (In fact I happened to reread the Sermons directly after waking up from my dream - not having read it in over a year and not recalling it had any reference to octopi. Coincidence?)

Anything pre-1882 then? Linking octopi to conspiracies/monopolies/etc. Anyone?

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

"A greenbacker cartoon of the 1870s shows a gold-nosed government octopus strangling labor, farmers, and small business. The greenbackers fought gold payment on bonds."

http://www.startabank.com/history/money ... 1_2007.pdf

[Code Unknown]

This Serio-Comic War Map for 1877 with Russia as the octopus is at all the
usual cartographic haunts online (eg. Barron Maps, British and other libraries &c)
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2006/08/assorted-plunder.html

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

Coloured serio-comic war map of 1877, by Frederick Rose. The map shows Russia as an octopus wounded from by its defeat in the Crimea, and Italy as a girl playing with a puppet pope.

http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/_/viewer ... 333806.jpg

[Code Unknown]

Jinx!

[Code Unknown]

The lottery's heyday came in the 1880s. In 1890 the company's estimated gross earnings exceeded $28 million. Because its influence reached throughout the entire North American continent, the Louisiana State Lottery Company earned the nickname of the "Octopus." The United States postal system allowed people from all over the country to purchase tickets in the hope of striking it rich.
http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/cabildo/cab11a.htm

[Code Unknown]

And yet:

NRA depicts Bloomberg as octopus, an anti-Semitic symbol

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

same time!

Here's another version, from 1904

[Code Unknown]

"I've invented this symbol I'm using in my e-mail. Its five dollar signs. This is to avoid all the other conspiracy theories. The five dollar signs represent the one half of one percent of the world's population that controls almost all the wealth. They may hate one another, they may fight with one another, they may conspire against one another, but they have interests in common which are not the interests of the rest of the world like you and me, and everybody we know. And they do act as a unified force whenever its in their interest. In fact, I think there's a Japanese word for it. Its when all the competing forces in Japan in industry and banking, when they all decide to work together to get rid of some common problem annoying all of them. That doesn't mean they're not going to go back to competing with one another, and back-stabbing each other next week. But when they have one common problem, they all work together. A reporter named Danny Cassalero discovered this. He didn't even know the Japanese word for it. He just called it "The Octopus". He discovered that all the power forces in the world, no matter how opposed they seem to be all work together when there seems to be a challenge that challenges all of them. He called it "The Octopus." I represent it by five dollar signs, representing the people who own almost all the money on the planet."

- Robert Anton Wilson

[slimmouse]

ignore.

[Code Unknown]

A bizarre digression in that interview:

The conspiracy theory that's my favorite, is the one I invented myself. That's the TSOG. Not to be confused with the ZOG. The ZOG is a right-wing conspiracy: The Zionist Occupation Government. I haven't ever found any evidence of any Zionists in our government.

[Code Unknown]

Freelance reporter Danny Casolaro spent the last few years of his life investigating a pattern which he called "The Octopus." According to Casolaro, Inslaw was only part of a greater story of how intelligence agencies, the Department of Justice and even the mob had subverted the government and its various functions for their own profit.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw_pr.html

From Issue 1.01 (!), Mar/Apr 1993.

[barracuda]

The Mycenaean warrior of 1400 BC went into battle nearly naked, armed defensively with only a shield. These shields would be decorated with complex and startling designs in order to distract, fascinate then frighten the opponent, and in this way gain the slight advantage during the attack. The Gorgon Medusa may have originally derived partly from such a totemic shield. The octopus was certainly used in this manner as early as the period of the vase above, circa 1400 BC.


Here's a nice Minoan example, more naturalistic.


Octopus shield (lower right) on Bronze age English tombstone, showing a Greek influence.


A Gold Mycenaean octopus ornament, about 12th century BCE. The ancient greek word for this animal hasn't changed very much at all in 4000 years. Such an old word for this old creature, Posieden's warrior. Ancient Mycenaeans couldn't walk around the block without running into one o'these critters so they developed a rich pictoral use of the motif, which they extended into battle decoration. This might have been a diversion, but you did say pre-1882, and this is as "pre-" as it gets!

Meanwhile three thousand years later... Of course the Renaissance Florentines had to conquer everything and honor that with a sculpture, bless their hearts.


Fontana di Nettuno by Giacomo della Porta, 1574

Neptune represented as a portrait of Cosimo de Medici, spearing an octopus. The "dominion over the sea" iconography may be due to some confusion of the meaning of more ancient sources which probably displayed the octopus as a totemic cult allied to the priesthood of the sea god, rather than in conflict, as seen here. I know this stuff is kinda OT, but, you know, the birds like it, so.

[Gouda]

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"over 5,000 years of experience..."

[Code Unknown]

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