Park Finance Officer Milton Struts is taking criticism in the media and in shops around The Park this morning for remarks he made during the massive budget protest held yesterday.
As he moved through the record crowd, many Animals say they heard Struts complaining that the protesters had no budget-planning experience, so they had nothing to offer and nothing to “grouse” about.
“Ignorance breeds ignorance,” is another phrase that many say Struts mumbled. But what really disturbed participants was the second specist remark that Struts let slip from his lips on more than one occasion.
In reference to both the organizers and the strong supporters of the protest, Animals say Struts used the term “Whistlepiggery” on more than one occasion.
“He said the protest was just another example of Whistlepiggery in The Park,” says Adeline Hedgehog, who was present at the protest from the beginning.
“He said it and he didn’t look at all remorseful afterwards,” she says.
Another protester, Elton Zebra, said Struts had a “certain glint in his eye” when he said it.
“He knew exactly what he was saying and who he was saying it about,” says Zebra.
The term “Whistlepiggery” is a derogatory term that was outlawed in The Park a year after zoocracy. It is meant to characterize an Animal as conniving and untrustworthy.
As it happened, the Wednesday anti-budget protest was organized in part by Wellington Whistlepig, president of the Park Association of Shops and Services (PASS). It was also strongly supported by Wyatt Whistlepig, Jr., the organizer of the annual Groundhog Day celebrations, as well as by other organizers of Park events and the heads of The Park’s Animal aid services. Absent from the protest were members of The Park’s environmental groups and the Weather Makers, Producers and Sellers Alliance of The Park (WMPSAP), who are said to be quite pleased with the budget.
In a statement on behalf of his membership, Wellington Whistlepig expressed “deep disappointment” in Struts’s alleged attitude and called on the Finance Officer to make an official apology.
“If he did, in fact, say those things of which he has been accused, he owes us all an apology for the very unzoocratic way in which he has dealt with dissent,” the statement read in part.
Meanwhile, The Park’s storefronts all agreed to display a very unflattering caricature of Struts with his head in the sand, signifying that he lives in the “dark ages before zoocracy.” The storefronts will continue to display the caricature, they say, until they receive an apology.
Thus far, however, no apology nor comment has been forthcoming either from Struts or from the Park Finance Office.
