Private vs Public

After twenty years of aggressively
attacking canoes, English swan
known as “Hissing Sid,” relocated.

Bubblehead: So nice to have you surface now and again with another snide comment. I had almost forgotten the Gannon/Guckert thing, I’m glad you reminded me. I still find it fascinating and I still wonder who it was that was so powerful they could keep it completely under wraps for all this time. I have always thought that all other news should be discontinued until we get to the bottom of it. It should certainly be worth as much attention as Michelle Obama’s trip to Spain, or President Obama’s birth certificate, or even his despicable golfing. I wonder why the MSM haven’t pursued it, perhaps, you think, too close to home?

Whatever happened to the concept of the “public good,” or the “public interest,” or “public well-being,” or whatever you want to call it? It seems to me that historically speaking this must have been merely some kind of myth. When, seriously, did anyone in the U.S. truly pay any attention to the public good? Consider, for example, the fate of the Passenger Pigeon. There were an estimated billion or more Passenger Pigeons at one time. They disappeared fairly rapidly, being hunted to extinction. People harvested them by the thousands, partly I guess to feed the slaves. Passenger Pigeons did not become extinct because of any government control designed to protect the public interest in this resource. Of course there were also the buffalo, estimated at 50 million at the time of contact, soon reduced to a mere few hundred, shot for their tongues and hides by anyone who chose to do so. Was this in the public interest? How about the salmon, many runs extinct now and others threatened by private interests who demanded power and dams? Here in the Kootenai River there were burbot (ling cod) so thick you could apparently almost walk on them at times, now extinct, or so close to it to be probably inevitable. People harvested them by the wheelbarrow load to feed to their pigs. The Kootenai River sturgeon basically the same, on the verge of extinction because of lack of control over private interests.

I bring this up now because of the controversy over continuing deep offshore drilling. Apparently there are some 4000 people dependent upon this industry for their employment so they, rightly I think, at least from their point of view, want it to continue. But is it in the public interest? Is it somehow in the public interest that the Gulf should continue to risk serious contamination that will threaten the well-being of not only the environment, but also all the others people who depend upon its resources? This is similar to the fishing industry in various places, the fishermen desperately needing employment but at the risk of overfishing to the point of the destruction of the very species they were dependent upon. The timber industry the same, loggers needing employment but at the risk of decimating the very trees they needed to continue, trees, that unlike some vegetation, but similar to the fish, are not annually renewable. I remember one old man here who said to me, “if it’s a choice between an owl and jobs I’ll go for jobs every time.” He did not seem to understand it was not about the owls, but about the forests that supported them, forests that if depleted would mean no jobs at all. But, of course, he had a point.

There are different ways of looking at this, at least in historical perspective. For example, it would seem to indicate a tragic failure of leadership throughout all of human history. I mean, what was/is the function of any form of “government” if not to look after the public interest? Even in the most “primitive” of societies, when the game became scarce they chose to move on until the hunting grounds could regenerate. Or when the soil was exhausted they were convinced to move by their leaders, or when the fishing became difficult they moved elsewhere at least for a time. The leaders, chiefs or “big men,” or clan elders or whomever were responsible for the public interest, that was their major function besides keeping order and performing the proper rituals. On the other hand you can see this as a failure of the species itself, a species so greedy and short-sighted they simply paid no attention to their behavior or where it might eventually and inevitably lead them. You can argue cynically, I suppose, that the only reason American Indians didn’t themselves exterminate the buffalo or the Passenger Pigeons or other species was because there weren’t enough of them and they didn’t have the proper technology. There might even be some truth to that. But they didn’t and we (supposedly “superior,” more “rational,” and more “civilized” people) did. And we seem intent on continuing this ultimately suicidal behavior. So there may be well be more offshore drilling (not in the long-term public interest), more nuclear energy (also probably not in the long-term public interest), more “wars” for natural resources ( not in the long-term public interest), and more “privatization,” (the very antithesis of the public interest). It appears we have decided that anything in the public interest is “socialism,” and “bad,” while anything that is “privatized” (by definition opposed to the public interest) is “good.” We are, I believe, truly a strange species, perhaps in evolutionary time, “short-timers.”

You can describe this situation in any terms you like: rich versus poor, capitalism versus socialism, class versus class, management versus labor, “haves” versus have-nots, bourgeoisie versus proletariat, royalty versus peasants, lords versus serfs, “Insiders” versus others, Government versus the people, or whatever, but it has existed for a very long time and threatens to keep us from every living in peace and harmony. Perhaps peace and harmony are themselves merely stupid myths designed to keep the Gods (if there are such things) amused for a time.

LKBIQ:
We have among us a class of mammon worshippers, whose one test of conservatism or radicalism is the attitude one takes with respect to accumulated wealth. Whatever tends to preserve the wealth of the wealthy is called conservatism, and whatever favors anything else, no matter what is called socialism.
Richard T. Ely

TILT:
Lenten dinners of muskrat are traditional in parts of Michigan.