American politics is honestly the pits. A series of cesspools in which idiots, their manipulators, and their clientele and victims splash around, spewing and spreading vicious evil. Some of the occupants of these cesspools are symbolic plants – ugly, bitter, even poisonous, noxious weeds. In fact, the Himalayan bitter goard above might not be the most accurate representation: it has some good uses. Perhaps this one is better:

That is a houndstongue, so named for the way its leaves feel before it blooms and produces nasty little nutlets, a kind of seed pod (see below). Its only concern, like that of politicians, is survival and self-serving reproduction.

The nutlets are barbed and will cling to clothing and animal fur. Although the plant only reproduces from seeds, they travel far and wide by “hitching a ride” with a person or animal or even machine passing by. No one intentionally gathers or eats these things.

But not all noxious weeds growing in bar ditches and cesspools are ugly. Look at this one:

This is a Scotch thistle. Indeed, it is a national symbol of Scotland and the United Kingdom. Beautiful (in the eyes of many people – and you can even buy seeds for it!) but nevertheless a noxious weed, damaging to other plants and animals and harmful to your local ecology.

Again, is this not symbolic of the parasitic human politician?

Their survival is all paid for by stolen money: taxes and fees squeezed out of people, families, companies. Even countries. Their power, which allows them to survive and reproduce, is the power taken from other people. The power to make their own decisions and accept the results.

And they are so photogenic! So silver-tongued! So friendly and oh-so-willing to be helpful!

But they are parasites.

While there are plants which are good, edible (and tasty) which can be grown using raw sewage sludge (including human waste), most such plants that thrive in and around sewage lagoons, outfalls, and cesspools are nasty: bitter as well as unhealthy, even poisonous.

The waste is generated by living: humans and animals. When there are large and dense populations of either humans or animals (livestock for example) the volume of waste can overwhelm natural and engineered systems of dealing with it. And then even good edible plants can become bitter and unusable. (This includes grasses, forbs, fruits and vegetables and the meat of animals.) The same thing seems to be the case with large numbers of people in politics. The bodies of “water” contaminated are bad for humans, for the environment.

Politics is no different. There is always some politics, even in very small and mostly unorganized communities. But that is not the case in 2024.

Our whole society is contaminated, and the fruit is bitterness. Consider again these pictures.

Another way of describing this is the yin-yang symbol:

We submit that neither is pleasant and neither will do anything but continue to produce bitter fruit of hatred, poverty, conflict, and such evil traits – in more and more people. That bitter fruit includes the words that come out of our mouths. We see this especially in this 2024 year of politics.

Perhaps we can think of lovers of liberty being the white parts of the two pictures above – and hope for the best.

Or we can teach and learn and train and act to reject not just the bitter fruit but the sources of that fruit.

The choice is ours.