The dragon flies, breathes fire, wipes out towns. It is a symbol of awesome power and unbridled greed. Yet, in the traditional American and English stories the dragon is defeated; outwitted by little hobbits, killed by dour warriors and noble knights. In the brutal dystopian world of “Game of Thrones“ and “House of Dragon,” its prequel (neither of which I have seen), dragons are tamed by humans more cruel and more ruthless who wield magic. But above all else, aside from the large monitor lizard that is the Komodo Dragon, the dragon illustrated above is legend, myth, and fantasy; it is not real.
The bear is also powerful; none more powerful than Nanuk, the polar bear. Yet they lumber. Rugged individualists, they have no capacity for teamwork. They do not know how to plan or learn from their mistakes or those of others. They don’t hunt, they forage. Berries, fish, seals, they see something, they grab it. Done, they win. But the Innuit of Alaska, Canada, Siberia, who, like other people, know how to work in teams, know how to plan, learn from mistakes, their own and others. The Innuit hunt and kill polar bears by folding seal ribs into a v, sharpening the ends, wrapping the folded bone in a ball of blubber, freezing it and rolling it toward a bear. The bear picks up the ball and eats it. The blubber tastes good. In the bear’s gut the string dissolves, the frozen bone warms, thaws, and springs back into shape, a natural switchblade, stabbing the hapless bear from within. It dies a slow and painful death, hemorrhaging, not knowing what happened.
And the eagle? The raptor nests and hunts, soaring high in the sky, looking for easy targets to bring back to the nest.
We aspire to live up to our national symbols. In Russia and China no less than here, altho we choose our leaders differently. Their leaders take power. We trust our leaders with power for a time. And only one out of 45, only one in 233 years, has refused to transfer power to his successor.
Putin will fall. Lumbering like a wounded bear striking out, slashing anything in his path, he will stagger, committing the war crimes of this second Holodomor until he falls.
Xi too will fall, is falling, his fall hastened by COVID. Regardless of the technology and intellectual capital he steals, China’s vaccine doesn’t work. He is worse than Trump. He knows COVID is deadly, says COVID is deadly, but rather than suggest his people drink bleach, drink poison, he gives them the Chinese vaccine. It is little more effective than a placebo. His economy, everyone knows but he won’t admit, is more dependent on the west buying stuff than we are dependent on China manufacturing stuff. We can, we will, we are gearing up for manufacturing here and elsewhere. They cannot sell their warehouses of stuff internally; they must sell to Europe and America.
The raptor is not tamed by the falconer; the two work together. Zelenskyy, a falconer, whose team include raptors, is defending his home from the Russian bear. The bear is strong. One swing of his mighty paw and he can kill the hunter and his raptors. But only if he can reach them. The falconer is smart, calculating, a step or two out of the bear’s reach. And he is joined in his quest by the American eagle. The bear is driven by rage. He does not think; he can not plan. The bear doesn’t stand a chance.
Biden’s mantra, “never bet against democracy,” like Warren Buffett’s, “never bet against America,” will again prove true.
“Trump will be gone but your dishonor will remain,” Liz Cheney’s curse, followed Oz, Mastriano, Lake, Palin, and Trump’s other candidates across the country. It will follow Walker, McConnell, McCarthy, Graham, Greene, Boebert, and all the rest, including DeSanti. They will be damned to Hell by the religion they profess to believe in, the derivative of Judaism that Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden understand better than virtually every Republican in power outside of Vermont and Alaska. They will be damned as fascist traitors in the history books they don’t want our children and grandchildren to read that we will give them anyway.