How fascism and MAGA are destroying democracy

 I agree that all these things are being used by conservatives to destroy democracy by turning it against itself.

It goes without saying that Trump is a fascist who has espoused fascism.

MAGA, of course, with its red beanies, golden shoes and unquestioning belief in Trump has coalesced into mass insanity where no one is allowed to be different or have an individual thought and only fulfills the will of the leader Trump, who is unquestioned.

Freud pointed out that crowds think as one, which is the opposite of democracy. Fascists are excellent at using this human weakness against democracy.

The Supreme Court has no integrity but has become a political and monetary tool and currently sides with fascism more often than not because that's where the money is.

Voter ID is used to strip citizens of their right to vote and is espoused and put to use by fascism with regularity, as it has many times in the past in this country. See the three-fifths compromise in the Constitution.

Free speech has become so twisted by fascist propaganda use that is unreliable and unable to voice a lucid, believable position, since it is now based on money and politics and not reason.

Free speech is being used by fascists in a death struggle against democracy in which it intends for democracy to commit suicide, to turn it against itself and strangle itself with lies.

All this is done with the intention of destroying intelligence and making democracy into fascism. MAGA checks all the boxes of a fascist organization. It screams out freedom but then takes freedom away though lies and violence and group-think and twisted religious dogma.

An Early Spring Panorama of a Forest Overlooking a Creek

The forest above the Neshaminy Creek on the first day of spring hasn't recovered from winter.

 

A Young Bald Eagle Oddly at Rest

 

A young female adult bald eagle looks down at the people below.

The only explanation I can give for the bald eagle that I photographed yesterday being so tolerant of people is she must be young and foolish.

Who else would put up with humans just forty feet below her for hours and hours?

I realized when she flew in that something must be a little off about her. I was sitting on a bench by a wide creek when the geese started cackling and rushing this way and that, either flying away or rushing for cover on the bank. The eagle flew almost directly over me and the geese and settled on a thick branch. I got up and hustled to a spot where I could photograph her through the thick-but-still-bare trees.

She didn't seem to mind at all.

I hustled from point-to-point looking for different views. The eagle moved to another more-comfortable branch and then did something I was very surprised to see her do: she ripped up lichen off the branch and ate it. She did this several times. I had never seen an eagle eating lichen before, and I wondered if this was normal behavior or if she had gone totally bonkers.

After all, there were people walking by below her. Some had stopped to stand beside me to see what I was photographing. Still, she perched up there and ate lichen. We humans didn't make a bit of difference to her.

I thought at first that she was so tolerant of people because she must have just breakfasted well. Maybe she had stopped by a squirrel's nest or attended a fish fry somewhere up the creek and was satiated for the day.

She just sat up there eating lichen and ignoring the world below.

I had the odd thought that maybe that's how I'd end up, considering my opinions about humans in the current state of the world.

I'd end up nuts and alone and eating lichen.

Yest, she is eating lichen.

Uniforms destroy the individual in political movements.

 All political movements that put their followers in uniform are dangerous and wrong. Hitler and Mussolini had their brown shirts and Stalin had his cap with the red star. Put on a MAGA hat and you immediately erase your individuality and ability to think as an individual in favor of what the leader demands of you. MAGA is intellectual castration and erasure of the individual.

What is it about geese in flight?

These two geese must like each other to fly that closely.

Why do I even bother to photograph geese in flight?

It's been done a million times better than I can do it. It takes a lot of time and effort that I could have been spending on other things. And no matter how often I do it, I'm never satisfied with the result.

My geese in flight photo are never good enough. They're clichés. I almost hate myself for never learning that I'm not a very good goose photographer.

So why do I keep doing it?

Maybe I just can't believe I can't get these types of photographs right. It's too much of an insult to the ego.

After all these years of trying to take a good photo of flying geese, I still can't do it.

My camera isn't good enough. That's the excuse most photographers give for their failure. In my case, it's true. I never spent $6,000 for a camera body and $12,000 for a long lense. I took the photograph above with a used bridge camera that cost me $329. It's definitely not good good enough to take pictures of birds in flight.

So why do I keep doing it?

It might have to do with the ambition I have to fly. I've had that ambition since I was a boy, which was seven decades ago, and I've never learned yet how to fly.

Geese can fly.

I envy them. I think if I ever gave up trying to photograph geese in flight, I'd have to give up my ambition to fly. I see them doing it and think it's got to be possible for me.

I guess I don't want to give up my childhood.

After all, if you don't want to fly as a child you might as well give up on life.

I'm not ready to do that yet.

 

Waiting for the Bees and Crocuses

One of the first of this year's bees.

Every year I wait for the bees and crocuses to come out. It's about the same time each spring, with the crocuses flowering first, and then the bees waking up or growing up or whatever it is that bees do to come to life on the warming planet. 

It's one of the few things that makes life still worth living.

I've been at this apartment for nearly 22 years. I planted my crocus bulbs 20 years ago. Some of them have survived for that long, although most of those I see these days are offspring of my original plantings.

It is, of course, a miracle to see these two different symbiotic creatures emerge at the same time. I know their emergence has evolved over millions of years and was originally a result of happenstance. Flowers randomly came about out of the quad trillions of random atoms and life forms lurking about the universe, and then bees came along to service them out the the same mish-mash of a time too long ago to understand.  

Why do they keep doing it?

In my short stay in the mish-mash I've come to understand that I will never know, that even asking the question why is an absurdity.

This is simply how things turned out. Despite the absurdity of it, it's one of the things that makes me an environmentalist. It makes me want to wake up on spring mornings.

It's a beautiful thing for an old man to wait for each spring, and I hope it lasts forever.