General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThose lucky enough to have fruit trees to care for will understand this.
An apple or peach or cherry tree, well cared for, has no major problems caused by insects.
Dormant oil spray in spring, a good orchard spray at budding and flowering and fruit-set takes care of most of them, but an occasional spritz of fungicide might be required in wet years. And, then, there's the absolute necessity of pruning.
Broken branches, dead wood and crossing branches must be cut away if the tree is to prosper for many years. It may seem counterintuitive, but one must regularly cut away and discard part of the tree or it will fail.
Ignore any of the above for too long and the tree will either soon die or become an overgrown and diseased producer of small misshapen and blemished fruit.
And, that embarrassing eyesore is an invitation to the insects I spoke of above. They will happily destroy what you lazily took for granted.
Democracy is more like an apple tree than we acknowledge.
ShazamIam
(2,570 posts)suggest that the tree and need for maintenance is more representative of our government and laws than the people.
That tree, the federal laws and the orchard, the state laws, has been abused, neglected and is failing, not us the people.
Both sides aren't the same but when the media is controlled by one side, both sides have been misled and lied to.
Calling out to select people who are worthy is the trap we are in now, with one side in particular seeking to prune the necessary parts of our government as they have since the conservatives gained control back in 69 with Nixon.
The pruning needs to be kind of reversed and our individual rights need rebuilding, not more division.
We have to find and build a national consensus for having a democratic republic, ideas, not people need to be rejected.
Edit: word change to orchard
Atticus
(15,124 posts)officials and the "insects" who support and shield them.
ShazamIam
(2,570 posts)have a national media push supporting the idea.