MAMMALIAN DAILY EXCLUSIVE

This is Part Two of The Mammalian Daily’s exclusive interview with 2014 Chief Archon Buckminster Moose. Click here to read Part One.

As the 2014 Chief Archon shifts his weight in the big lounge chair, the full burden of his new job becomes obvious.

“It’s a great responsibility,” he sighs. “And one that I believe hasn’t been taken seriously enough these past few years.”

Moose pulls no punches when it comes to his assessment of some of The Park’s previous governments.

“Tourism, controlling our citizens, pandering to Humans…this is not the work our government should be engaged in,” he declares.

The Chief Archon has his priorities and these do not include any of the above. Instead, the two issues that are foremost on his mind are equality among Animals and a decent standard of living for all who reside here.

Lest one think this should be easy to achieve, Moose explains otherwise.

“Because we are no longer a new zoocracy — we are a young zoocracy, but not a new one — we are running into problems that even Jor [The Park’s first leader and the founder of modern zoocracy) could not have anticipated,” he says.

“There is now a certain tension between those who were here before, some of whom established this great Park, and those who have arrived more recently.”

Moose, who is himself a second generation Park citizen, says he finds the situation disturbing, “but not surprising.”

“We are all a bit territorial at heart,” he says. “And, once we’ve been here for a while, once we have left our mark on a place, we do tend to think of it as ours and we’re naturally a bit wary of those who come after us — those who might alter it in some way, or even those who benefit from what has been our life’s work. It’s not as if we’re not generous or we don’t want to share; we are and we do. But that doesn’t stop us from claiming certain things as our own and being offended when newcomers want to lay claim to them, as well.”

Moose says he doesn’t have “the ultimate solution” to The Park’s problems, but he does believe that returning to the basic tenets of zoocracy, to the principles that were put in place by Jor, is the right place to start.

“We need to remember where we came from and the reason we established this Park. We need to cohere. We can’t break apart and become, as we seem to be doing, separate beings, each trying to outdo the next. That will only destroy what we worked so hard to create,” he says.

This interview appears here in a condensed form. The full interview will be published later in the month.

MAMMALIAN DAILY EXCLUSIVE

Sitting back in his lounge chair at the end of a busy day, The Park’s newly-minted Chief Archon takes a moment to close his eyes and ready himself for the inevitable onslaught of questions that will come from the reporter sitting opposite him. Conducting the two-day interview at his den rather than at his office is Buckminster Moose’s choice, as is the oversized chair in which he has parked himself. When he offers the reporter a chair much smaller in size, the Moose is quick to point out that the reporter is much smaller, too.

It’s that kind of take-charge attitude, as well as what both his supporters and his critics describe as his “relentlessly realistic” view of politics and governing, that has many Park Animals feeling optimistic about the future.

For the first time in many years, The Park’s Chief Archon has been openly critical of a previous government. And, in this case, his criticisms are aimed at more than just one government. You could almost believe that he takes some pleasure in that, if it weren’t for the fact that Buckminster Moose is deadly serious about politics.

“I think we’re in danger of losing what we fought so hard to gain,” he says bluntly. “I think we’ve been intellectually stagnant, living off the spoils of zoocracy, and not looking out for the enemy — both within and without. If we’re not careful, we’ll soon find that we’ve ceded power to forces that, by no means, have our best interests at heart.”

The Moose’s eyes dance with excitement as he speaks of “taking back The Park.” It is a phrase that he used no fewer than twenty times during his Groundhog Day speech and it’s a phrase that has both delighted and enraged Park Animals. Whenever he says it, you can tell that he means business. And, according to the Moose, the business of the 2014 Archons is to strengthen our zoocracy by returning to the values that created it.

“Sometimes, you have to go backwards to move forward,” he says.

NEXT WEEK: The Interview, Part II