Looking Back To The Future

Bill and I have a game we play while traveling. We ask: "What was your favorite thing / biggest surprise / most memorable moment?" On a recent trip to Florida to visit my folks, one event stood out for both of us. Of course, it's an event I couldn't record because I didn't take the camera that morning (but that's another story).

The photo above shows what the scene looked like a couple of years ago. It's a place we enjoy walking with my parents. Since I don't have photos of the event itself, I'll just describe it for you.

Along one side of the lake, there were clustered two different types of birds: anhingas, which are common on Florida waters, and wood storks, which we've seen from a distance on other occasions. This time, the storks were just feet away from us but completely oblivious to our presence. They were too busy catching fish. It appeared that the anhingas were herding fish toward the shallows, and the storks were taking advantage of the easy pickings.

It reminded me of a traditional fishing method I learned about some time back, a method often used by the women of a village. Working collectively, a group would fan out and wade toward the shallows, driving fish ahead of them to where they could be more easily caught in dip nets or baskets. The birds' activity made  it easy to see where our ancestors might have come up with the concept of the fish drive.

There are still places in the world where this type of communal harvest method is used. In those places, they know two things.

First, by working together a group may be better able to meet the needs of the community than individuals working alone. In fact, a fish drive can be a very efficient harvest method.

Second, because the harvest is so efficient the group can be selective -- keeping what they need and throwing back the rest to feed them in the future.

There's a lot of food for thought in this. Particularly in Wisconsin, where fishing is practically a religion, and particularly now, when the new governor's proposed "budget repair" legislation threatens the collective bargaining of public workers. There's a lot more stuff in the bill that isn't getting much press -- things like no-bid contracts and the option to sell state-owned heating, cooling and power plants "with or without
solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state." I could go on, or instead you could read the bill here.

There's been much written and much more said about this situation. But one of the best pieces I've read came from columnist John Gurda in Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Before you head off to read it, let me share a short excerpt. Gurda writes:

Walker, in the end, does not represent any Wisconsin tradition that I recognize as mainstream. Through most of its history, our state has been animated by a broader, more generous conception of the common good. Republicans and Democrats alike saw government as the expression of our collective will, not an alien threat to our individual sovereignty.

After reading Gurda's column, you might want to dust off your copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed. 

For the common good, I'm in favor of going back to a model that looks more like communal fishing. To borrow a phrase from Gurda, I believe it's a myth that "the prosperity of the few will percolate down to the many." ("Try selling that one to the people of Chile or Argentina," he writes.)

You may not agree. But I'm sure we could work something out if we all actually wanted to work together.