There are signs of spring coming in Minnesota and it is almost mid-March. We just passed through the usual Minnesota late-winter “blizzard” and while it was advertised as a “major event,” it wasn’t that much of a storm. This isn't a Happy Spring though. About the only thing I have to look forward to is spring cleaning. Trump and the American Fascist Party have launched an illegal war, sent armed, violent, lawless, and undisciplined ICE goons into American cities (particularly Minneapolis), murdered and kidnapped American citizens and legal immigrants, and the economy and the entire US economic system is on the verge of toppling into chaos.
Usually, the sound of early spring in Minnesota is full of birdsong. Not this year. Thanks to bird flu, a federal Administration that too stupid, gullible, and superstitious to comprehend any area of science, and our rapidly changing and highly unpredictable climate, birds are dying in droves. Last year, we saw volunteers along the Mississippi carefully picking up dead birds and disposing of them: geese, ducks, cranes, swans, and songbirds. We are living in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. And while we didn't cause this die off with poisons like DDT, we caused it with the poison of carbon dioxide and we probably helped it along with the GMO herbicides and insecticide toxins. This year, the skies are empty of migrating birds and bird watchers across the country are wondering “Where did all the birds go?”
As usual, Americans are distracting themselves with the trivia of the MAGA/Trump insanity, our ruling class-manufactured cultural divide, and the continual dumbing down of an already foolish, gullible, and suicidal American public. I wouldn't feel nearly as bad about this if I didn't think we were taking the rest of the world down with us. The loss of 300 million Americans would barely be noticed in a world population of 8 billion, less than 4% of the world population, if it was noticed at all. Everything about the current moment reads like the explanation of how America fell in The Handmaid's Tale. That’s because it is exactly the same. Religion and other superstitions, oligarchy corruption, an uneducated and uneducable population, and an economic world that is quickly moving past and away from the American Century have put the United States in exactly the “right” place for a violent overthrow by the ruling class. If/when that happens, our current kleptocracy will establish itself as the “owners” of everything and everyone below them. This is the world those same people sent Southern working class fools out to fight for in 1863 and they’ve been trying to destroy our poorly-created shambles of a democracy every since slavery was abolished.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend (Charles Yancy), “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” The MAGA crowd, proud examples of the end result of centuries of Dunning-Kruger breeding, happily creates its own facts, ignores expertise and science, and lives on feelings rather than rational thought and analysis. As of November 2024, it is well-documented that at least 77,303,568 stupid, lawless, felon-loving, misogynist, racist fools live and vote in the United States. That is a stunning statistic and one that goes a long way in explaining how and why the United States is no longer a leading first world nation.
In fact, we’re likely on our way to becoming several smaller, less-powerful, less internationally influential, and much poorer nations. With luck, there will be a couple of spots on the coasts remaining democratic and functional, while the inner red state core of the US, which is already very dependent on the blue states’ financial support, becoming North America’s Bangladesh. If/when that happens, Putin will have accomplished Khrushchev’s 1956 warning, that whether the West liked it or not, "history is on our side. We will bury you!" The unintended MAGA outcome will be that communism (through Russia and China becoming the world’s super powers) will outlast and naturally replace capitalism. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation remains the second-largest political party in Russia, after United Russia (Putin’s party, even though he is listed as “independent”). Putin may not be loyal to the Communist Party, but he has ambitions to return to the Soviet Union’s old super power status and the MAGA crowd and the pitiful remains of the Republican Party are solidly in Putin’s pocket.
So, spring this year isn’t coming with the usual hope and optimism after a long, cold winter. In fact, most likely another kind of “winter is coming” right behind the seasonal one.
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