Becoming Snowball - The Final State in WELS Abuse

All WELS pastors are brothers, equal in every respect,
but some are more equal than others.

George Orwell's satire of Stalinism, Animal Farm, fits the Wisconsin Sect quite well. Totalitarian groups demand complete obedience and submission to the Great Leader (see Bishop Stephan, then Pope Walther).

The rules are idealistic and strict, but they do not apply to the leader pigs.

Years ago I called one pastor Snowball. I had him read Animal Farm to see if it reminded him of WELS. Snowball is the ultimate loyalist. But Napoleon the pig has him driven off by the guard dogs and blamed for the subsequent failures at the farm, all of which are consequences of the leadership.

The leader pigs accept no responsibility for their problems. They rewrite history to make Snowball a traitor rather than the hero of the Battle of the Cowshed.

Snowball's supporters are forced to confess and are executed.

No one will admit the truth of this Photoshop -
that Valleskey, Bivens, Olson and others owe their jobs
to Fuller and other  Schools of Enthusiasm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Commandments#Animalism:

The original commandments are:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear them of accusations of law-breaking (such as "No animal shall drink alcohol" having "to excess" appended to it and "No animal shall sleep in a bed" with "with sheets" added to it). The changed commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded:

1. No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.
2. No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.
3. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.

Eventually these are replaced with the maxims, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", and "Four legs good, two legs better!" as the pigs become more human. This is an ironic twist to the original purpose of the Seven Commandments, which were supposed to keep order within Animal Farm by uniting the animals together against the humans, and by prevent (sic) animals from following the humans' evil habits. Through the revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda.