The "New Abnormal" continues, but early spring has, at least, brought in a semi-super bloom in the desert. Winter birds were pretty sparse except for the invasion of Steller's and scrub-jays. Seeing a couple of scrub-jays during the fall is not unusual, but I've never seen Steller's Jays here, and the numbers of both kinds had everyone talking throughout winter. Maybe it was the late monsoon rains that merged into moderate winter rains and temperatures that contributed.The weather definitely contributed to the explosion of the invasive London Rocket mustard weeds.
Even with all the unnecessary craziness in the world, I can still feel the joy of the arrival of the first Vermillion Flycatcher, first Bell's Vireo, first Lucy's Warbler, first Gray Hawk, first Turkey Vulture, first lizard, first rattlesnake, and many more... (OK, maybe not the first kissing bug.) Life continues to find a way, if reduced, despite our selfishness. For now.
All the political concerns I wrote about a year ago have continued to progress. The billionaire class is now fully the ruling class, using conservative issues to further their power and inflaming liberals to do the same. All in service of creating an unstoppable oligarchy. It's a tried and true plan that has solid prior experience going for it. Seize power and demonize/eliminate the opposition or the "Other." Just look at the other two major superpowers in the world. The only difference here is the use of the fear of communism to achieve the same ultimate goals.
Every action right now is towards resource acquisition/domination, suppressing opposition, or pretending to do right by loyal followers. All sense of fairness, justice, or reciprocity have been replaced by control and domination. The world that the billionaire class appear to be aiming for is that of three or four empires stabilized through another cold war where the billionaires control the flow of all goods, services, and resources unrestricted by frivolous concerns about the health of the planet or it's denizens. It is a risky gambit that has all the ingredients for breaking out into another World War, which would also serve their purposes in that emergency powers could be justified in repressing those internally that oppose, much as they have been used here in the past and are currently being used elsewhere.
The question for me is whether the other 99% will wake up in time. They didn't in Russia or China. And if they do, what will be the reprocussions?
What is sad to me is that those who oppose this trend are branded as un-American or that they "hate America." It shouldn’t be an unexpected reaction to the left's use of shame-based political rhetoric. Both sides of divisiveness that ultimately serve the ruling class by replacing real power for citizens with fake dopamine hits. As long as we are focused on conservative vs liberal, left vs right, religion vs religion, state vs state, race vs race, etc… we will constantly be distracted away from the real issues.
For now, I am lucky to mostly live outside of the chaos and can be out in nature observing the fact that we really haven't emotionally evolved above the rest of the world's non-human residents. Unfortunately, we have the ability to ruin it for everyone else and keep choosing to use that ability over the alternatives. Will we eventually get over ourselves? Or, are we just going to keep heading down the road of violence and destruction? Do we even have a choice in the matter? Maybe we flatter ourselves even thinking that we do. I, for one, will continue to fool myself that we do have a choice and will attempt to evaluate my choices in light of the unattainable, and unreasonable, "Peaceable Kingdom."