The Wolves Survive

It’s around midnight and we’re headed for a possible freeze tonight. There’s a small rain falling … turning to snow … not enough to do much good in a parched countryside but more than enough to dampen a cat’s spirits, and they are complaining.

Of our two cats, Poco is the one who grouses loudly. Willow is much more the stoic. Her attitude is to silently shrug her shoulders and take on a look that says quite clearly “Whatever.”

As for me, I take a sip of my tea and thank the gods that be for central heating and a good roof.

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I dunno, there are days when I think that president Cluck is giving billionaires a bad name, don’t you? Most of the oligarchs that I know personally* are not showoffs at all, but much prefer to do their work behind doors or Chinese screens or on yachts well beyond the reach of landlubbing paparazzi and their telephoto lenses. But Cluck can’t stand it if the attention wanders even for an instant from his ever-enlarging corpus.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I can sympathize with many of the sayings that have accumulated over the centuries about the ultra wealthy. Let’s examine just a few of them:

• The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs. Karl Marx
• When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die. Jean-Paul Sartre
• It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus Christ
• Behind every great fortune lies a great crime. Honore Balzac

There is one saying that goes all the way back to a guy named Plutarch, and that is: “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” That’s one we are dealing with right now. The amount of the world’s wealth that is today in the hands of a very few men and women reliably excites emotions like jealousy and envy among the not-so-fortunate, as it creates a class of people who feel they have little to lose by resorting to theft or violence.

Innately we know that such a situation cannot long endure, but eventually is likely to end in some form of high unpleasantness.

*Actually, I don’t know a single oligarch personally. My family of origin is 100% oligarch-free.

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It’s not too hard to see how this Los Lobos song from 1984 can be applied to the confusion and disorder of today. The lyrics have become less a metaphor and more a documentary.

Through the chill of winter
Running across a frozen lake
Hunters are out on his trail
All odds are against him
With a family to provide for
The one thing he must keep alive
Will the wolf survive?

Driftin’ by the roadside
Lines etched on an aging face
Wants to make some honest pay
Losing to the range war
He’s got two strong legs to guide him
Two strong arms keep him alive
Will the wolf survive?

Standing in the pouring rain
All alone in a world that’s changed
Running scared, now forced to hide
In a land where he once stood with pride
But he’ll find his way by the morning light

Sounds across the nation
Coming from young hearts and minds
Battered drums and old guitars
Singing songs of passion
It’s the truth that they all look for
Something they must keep alive
Will the wolf survive?
Will the wolf survive?

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While we’re on the subject of wolves, one of my photographer heroes died on April 4 of this year. Jim Brandenburg was his name and most Minnesotans have seen his work, even if they didn’t always know his name. He had two galleries, one located in Luverne MN, where he grew up. The other was in Ely MN, one of my favorite places in the world.

Brandenburg’s work was published many times in National Geographic magazine, giving him a following well beyond the borders of my old home state. Every one of the photographs in every one of those books he published is so good it makes me want to just throw away my camera. Truly extraordinary.

Here’s the briefest of galleries of his work. Want to make someone who loves the natural world happy? … give them one of his books, or perhaps a print. Or, even better, a print and a book.

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David Brooks is my favorite kind of conservative. One with a functioning cerebrum. His op-ed piece in Friday’s Times is spot on, and quite different from his usual take-it-easy approach. The title of the piece gave me a chuckle.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IS NOT NORMAL. AMERICA NEEDS AN UPRISING THAT IS NOT NORMAL.

What he is saying is what a growing number of grassroots organizations have been telling us for a while now, and having only relatively recently waked from my own personal stupor I am glad to see Brooks join the movement.

So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks. In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they’re attacking our universities. On yet another front they’re undermining NATO and on another they’re upending global trade. But that’s the wrong way to think about it. These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.

David Brooks: What’s Happening Is Not Normal, New York TImes of April 18, 2025.

So David is thinking about hitting the streets, and that will be good for his soul and the causes he believes in. He will attract others more cautious than he is. If enough Brookses and like-minded folks get out there together under the same banner the right will prevail. History has shown the way.

I remember the day when, after years of scattered protests and much impassioned rhetoric that I watched the news and saw a very large parade of mothers marching against the war in Viet Nam. It was at that moment that I knew the war was finally over, and President Nixon was going to have to wind it down the best he could. Such a broad and passionate political force could not be withstood, and he was smart enough to know it.

Cluck’s lust for power has already created an effluvium that now touches the life of every single person in this country, mostly for ill. When enough people wake up and realize what is happening to them, there won’t be a parking place to be found anywhere near the rallies that will erupt around the US. At that point, this “war,” too, will be over.

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(Migra or La migra is an informal Spanish language term for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), United States Border Patrol, and related institutions. It has negative connotations)

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