Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
One pronoun turns a war report into an accusation: the thing we are fighting is ourselves. It fits the swamp's gloomy joke and became the slogan of early environmentalism, and it is quoted whenever pollution, politics or any mess is traced back to the people complaining about it. The poster's litter-strewn swamp image is the version most people remember.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for PogoShow the scene
Walt Kelly's line is a twist on Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's famously brief report after the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie, "We have met the enemy and they are ours". Kelly first aimed it at the environment: it appeared on a poster for the first Earth Day in April 1970, then in the Pogo strip itself in August 1970 in the mouth of Porky Pine. He reused it on a 1971 Earth Day poster and as the title of the 1972 collection. A similar thought closes his introduction to The Pogo Papers (1953), where he writes that people's ugly traits are as persistent as their nobility.
Sources (3)
- Wikiquote: Walt KellyPogo comic strip sectionReference checked
- Wikipedia: Pogo (comic strip)Pogo in other mediaReference checked
- Wikipedia: Oliver Hazard PerryBattle of Lake ErieReference checked
Context reviewed