Poultry Politics

            In the spirit of Occupy Wall Street, I set up a teach-in the poultry yard. A milk crate turned upside down provided an acceptable seat and a heavily scratched patch of dirt over by the duck pond sufficed as a horizontal chalkboard. “Come HEAR, Chick-eee, Chick-eee, Chick-eee,” I called, scattering some corn about, and the six ducks, eight pullets, eight hens, and two roosters came running to my improvised classroom.

“This is Occupy Wall Street,” I explained, drawing a horizontal line in the dirt. “They are using a flat governance structure to make decisions, thus allowing for a more inclusive democratic process.” Annoyed that he had been fooled into a lesson, Franklin leapt upon Henny-Penny and exercised his droit de signeur.

I took a deep sigh and drew a vertical line in the sand. “This is how you all organize yourselves. Franklin is at the top, next come the layers, below them the pullets, and at the bottom of the heap is Beaumont.” Freed of Franklin’s insistent embrace, Henny-Penny turned on one of the pullets that had wandered too close. The pullet squawked and ran off, scaring Beaumont to the edge of the poultry yard.

“You see what I mean? You chickens waste a lot of energy because you can’t work together. Franklin makes the decisions and the rest of you just react to his whims.” Franklin rose up on his toes and puffed up his chest feathers, beating the air with his magnificent wings. “Aren’t you tired of dominating the hens? Don’t you want meaningful relationships with other members of the flock?” Franklin scratched a series of vertical lines into the ground. He had no use for this new-fangled politics.

“Hey!” I said, trying to reestablish some order in the classroom, “democracy is not so hard, just look at the ducks!” Feeling our gaze upon them, the six ducks froze in place, each head tilted to the exact same angle. We watched in silence until the ducks simultaneously broke the tableau, moving in perfect unison to the east. “See?” I said to the chickens. “No one duck is in charge. They move as a unit, attentive to each others needs.” Sheila, a black layer, seemed skeptical. “That’s not what I see happening in the kiddie pool,” she clucked to Dora. “I’d say those drakes are definitely in charge.”

“Reproductive habits aside,” I continued, “the ducks are quite adept at practicing a group mind.” Franklin looked as if he might attack my drawing stick, but thought better of it. It was always more effective to ignore me than make me the center of his attention. Once Franklin turned away, the rest of the flock lost interest. A teacher without students, I was beginning to feel rather pathetic, until Beaumont stepped out from behind the duck house.

According to the master plan, there should be no Beaumont, no beautiful bantam boy. Two weeks ago, all the cockerels were plucked from their roosts and deposited into their final habitat. “Must we kill Beaumont?” I pleaded with my fellow chicken harvesters. “You can’t have two roosters,” they said. “If we don’t eat him, Franklin will kill him. If we don’t put him in the poultry yard, a fox will eat him.” Anyway you looked at it, Beaumont had to go.

When the sun rose the next morning, all the cockerels but one were in the Special Hut.  “I didn’t do it,” I said. “He got out by himself.” “We’ll see how long he lasts,” said a fellow chicken harvester. But Beaumont has a powerful survival instinct in that little head of his. Given the battles to be fought inside and outside of the poultry yard, Beaumont threw his lot in with his own kind. During a moment when the electric fence was turned off, he squeezed through a tight gap near the hoop house. Franklin asserted his dominance and Beaumont ran for the opposite side of the yard. Beneath the layers, beneath the pullets, as long as Beaumont accepted his place in the pecking order, his life would be spared.

No wonder then that Beaumont was the most attentive student at my impromptu teach-in. He, too, had looked wistfully at the duck’s solidarity, at their cooperation and communication. He was eager to know what successes the humans were having in Zuccotti Park. “Americans,” I explained, “have a hard time thinking like ducks. They tend to be very individualistic and become anxious about anything smacking of a general will.” Beaumont gave a quick cluck of understanding. “By the same token,” I continued, “leftists have a hard time thinking like chickens. They tend to eschew all hierarchies and become anxious about any use of power.” Beaumont gave a quick nod of the head. “You can see why they need a lot of teach-ins at the Occupation. They are charting new territory and going against deeply-held beliefs.” Beaumont cocked his head as he contemplated the difficulty of this political experiment.

“But even with these difficulties, the people are going forward. The General Assembly meets and makes decisions. Those decisions are then implemented until someone screams foul and complains that the GA is too hierarchical. Then the GA has to stop and explain (again) the horizontal principles that undergird the decision-making process. Finally the group is able to go forward.

“If Occupy Wall Street were peopled by ducks, the organization would be more cohesive,” I suggested. “If it were peopled by chickens, the decisions would be more respected. Ideally, it would be nice to have elements of both.” “Maybe they’re like me,” Beaumont added, looking over his shoulder to make sure it was still safe. “They couldn’t stay out on their own. They had to throw their lot in with others and try something new.”  

“Nice analysis,” I said. He started to puff up a bit, but noticed Franklin watching.