Pup Politics - I Think Luky Preferred Bush, Sr.

I have asked Luky about politics many times. It seems to me that the past six years have seen a polarizing of people's attitudes like never before in American history, and I figure Luky must have some general ideas on the subject - even if he is not registered to vote.

Well, finally, the other day he responded to my question with an interesting story, and though it took me a while to figure out what he was talking about I think it has something to do with his position on what's been happening to our country. It was rather lengthy and had to do with Wolf history and legend, so I have to ask the reader to forgive me for paraphrasing Luky's words which naturally reflect his higher mental processes - and especially for my inability to translate his peculiarly lonesome Moon howls that usually mean something like, "here I am in my territory, with my den mates, and I hope that any lost members of our pack-family can hear my cries and find their way home . . . and, perhaps bring some Milk Bone Biscuits with them . . . ," or something close to that.

Anyway, it's apparently a famous Wolf legend that long ago, when North America had many fewer human beings and many more trees and wild animals, there was an enormous Wolf pack to which many of today's packs and lone Wolves still bear resemblance. Among all the Wolves of the world this pack was called the "Lobos Vespuccis" - if I heard him right Luky was saying they descended from a Spanish pack that was known for its exploration of new forests and territories.

The Lobo Ves pack enjoyed decades of good hunting and overall pack health. Over the years the pack grew large - much larger than most Wolf packs ever grow, and larger than is normally healthy for Wolf culture. But the prevalence of prey animals and uninterrupted wild range permitted the pack to subdivide, creating friendly, extended families of the original, central pack - and all of which maintained their own local society, while respecting the central pack leadership.

During those years a succession of central pack leaders proved inspirational and motivating to all the pups, and achieved a continuing loyalty among the extended family packs that made for an overall strength that was above almost any challenge. One of the pack leaders during those wondrous years was a very intelligent male Wolf named "Beobush" (pronounced "Bay-o-bush") who came up through the ranks and won loyalty based as much on his mind as his muscle. He was superior at creative solutions to problems - especially those brought by intruders - because he had traveled widely during his pup years, and served the pack as an emissary to many other animals and far beyond the pack's marked territory. He was not known for his brawn and killer instinct, but he knew how to enlist close support from male Wolves, like "Rummyclaw" and "Chainpee," both of whom were reasonably smart and quick to urinate on the rocks and trees of other packs - and thus, Beobush was able to act thoughtful and compromise while Rummyclaw and Chainpee acted dangerous behind him.

The next leader was also smart - actually much smarter than Beobush - and though the pack enjoyed super success during his reign, with good weather and healthy prey adding to the bounty of those times, this new leader, known as "Clintwoody," offended many of the pack's more fearful members. He was irreverent when it came to some of the unwritten rules of sire-bitch relationships, and though there was plenty of precedent for that, there was a large contingent of pack members who were afraid of those tendencies in themselves and wanted to have them publicly whipped out of any Wolf who exhibited them. Luky says that ethical behavior and leadership are two different things, and he argues that trying to combine them always leads to self-contradiction . . . he had too many examples for me to list here, but essentially it comes down to the situation where some of the conservative pack members actually wanted to outlaw any other Wolf's rampant, or even just loose, marking habits, while at the same time, those same conservative Wolves would go along with bribery, extortion, unlimited corruption - things like Wolf-owned gaming glens, and crazy stuff like log bridges between the pack's territory and someplace where even mosquitoes didn't want to go - and on and on. So Luky just thinks that the overly law-abiding Wolf is pretty much what the packs call a "John Wolf Gazy," i.e., a pup-eater dressed as a clown.

However, according to the legend, Clintwoody kept lifting his hind leg and it not only scared some hypocritical moralists within the pack, but it gave a few of the counter-strategists the ability to use the fear of that hypocritical percentage to attack Clintwoody's leadership. And, according to Luky, that's when the pack set upon a path that would ultimately lead to its near total demise.

Apparently, Beobush had had some pups of his own, and even though neither of them could measure up to one-half of Beobush's wisdom, both were able - simply based on the strength of their sire's name - to gain some level of leadership within one of the pack's extended families. And then two separate circumstances contrived to push the pack to its irretrievable downfall. First, the least intelligent of the two pups - a young Wolf named, "Neobutch-Son-of-Beobush," and sometimes called "Nub" for short - became far more seduced by power than his littermate, and most of the other pups in the pack. And second, another outsider Wolf - a manipulative, greasy-coated creature, known as "Crawl Rover," started hanging close to Nub and acting like that nervous, wormy thing that lived on the shoulder of Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi. And apparently Rover was willing to do almost any sort of bribe, blackmail and distortion to help Nub - even attempting to manipulate that previously referenced hypocrisy and fear with falsehood to destroy the reputation of one of the pack's most honorable warriors to promote Nub's name.

So, Nub, the pup, became leader of the pack with the help of the fearful who were easily manipulated by Rover. Plus, Nub came to the central pack with Rummyclaw and Chainpee because they had been hanging around Beobush's family ever since Beobush's retirement. Of course, Clintwoody was partly to blame as well. If he had not lifted his leg so much he would have left less opportunity for the fearful, but regardless, the history is written.

According to Luky the end came quickly because Beobush's wisdom was no longer there to keep Rummyclaw and Chainpee in check, and Nub was simply too ignorant to understand the implications of those two unleashing their dangerous impulses on the world. So all the pack's honor and integrity was quickly lost. All the Lupine philosophy - freedom of howling, openness to change, caring for Wolves and other animals that were less fortunate - not only got sacrificed, it was abandoned outright in the name of fear . . . and ironically, individual Wolf freedoms were often obliterated in the name of pursuing "freedom." In short, fear and insanity prevailed! Problems were dealt with by prejudice and reptilian aggression instead of scientific inquiry and analysis.

The rest of the world's animals began to shun the pack. Even some of the great leaders of other Wolf packs across the seas, those that had unwisely supported Nub even after the corruption and fear-manipulation was exposed, began to lose the confidence and loyalty of their own packs. It was the downfall of Lobos Ves, and the beginning of a long lonely time for Wolves the world over.

Luky says that there's a famous, old Wolf saying which was first inspired by this legend - it translates something like: "rare is the son that can match the brilliance of a shining sire."

And that is why Luky doesn't like to talk about politics. Geez - can you blame him?