Realizing that it could no longer sustain itself under the weight of the vines, that huge tree summoned all of its remaining strength and released it in a series of horrendous convulsions over many years, creating violent storms within itself. From time to time, the earth rumbled and shook and the birds fled into the sky in terror. One by one, the top limbs of the tree, the only ones left with green leaves, were torn from the trunk, and as each fell it broke off some of the brittle and almost leafless limbs below, tore some of the bloated vines from the trunk, and came crashing to the ground.
For many years before, that massive oak had produced an abundance of acorns that had been dispersed by winds, birds and squirrels. A few of these had also fallen into the pond, and after many days of being tossed on the water, washed up onto the western shore. With the rising of the warm Spring sun, these seeds found themselves on virgin, fertile soil, caressed by gentle rains, and they took root, and they grew.
As these saplings, which were called colonies, grew taller, they recognized that although they were not big trees, they could achieve greater strength and stature by working together. After a great deal of thought and debate, they fought off old vines that tried to hold them back, proclaimed themselves States, and joined together into one large trunk that branched in all directions. They called themselves the United.
In the process of accomplishing this union, and although they knew what vines had done to the tree from which they came, they also knew that it was necessary to allow a few, small vines called Government and Law to grow upon them. Although these vines, like all such vines, consumed sap from the tree but produced no sap, and grew from the top down with roots only into the tree, they helped to provide order in the tree, regulate and promote the production of sap and protect the tree from blight, termites, worms, and storms. This arrangement worked well for many seasons, and after a new protective vine called Insurance was also allowed to grow on the trunk and limbs, the tree grew ever stronger and taller.
Through almost two centuries this tree that was separated by the pond from the rest of the forest remained relatively unscathed by storms called wars that raged through the forest from time to time. After fighting the greatest of these storms and at the end of a very long and hard winter, the tree found itself the strongest, and one of only two giant trees left, in the whole forest. The other tree, across the pond, was called the Socialists.
Although a few twigs and leaves had been lost by the United tree, many new limbs, branches and leaves had been grown in order to fight the storm and these allowed the tree to produce more sap than ever. The roots, called Industry, had branched out below the soil to gather more minerals and water, and the trunk had grown thicker to carry the raw materials to the many new twigs that sprung from the branches. Green leaves sprouted from buds on every branch and twig, and the tree was most prolific.
The vines also grew and consumed more of the sap of the tree, but they boasted that they were responsible for the strength and growth of the tree, and were respected and honored by the tree in this new, warm springtime.
Basking in the glory of the greatest growth and prosperity ever recorded in the forest, the vines one day decided that natural laws no longer applied to them, and that they were far too wise be constrained by the Laws of Mother Nature. In arrogant defiance, they made new laws they said would allow the tree to eliminate all rot and adversity, and to even touch the sky. The tree, busy producing sap and growing, trusted in the wisdom of the judgment of the Government and Legal vines who had long ago become entangled with one another.
Thus were the well intentioned, but ill conceived, Great Entitlement vines created, but not from soil, seed or tree, and through these conduits great quantities of the tree's sap were diverted, some to the dying and hopelessly damaged limbs and other nonproductive parts of the tree, but most to the vines themselves. These vines, although they had beautiful, scented flowers, benefited only themselves and those parts of the tree that produced no sap, and prevented them from producing any. These parts of the tree and their vines would have, under the laws of nature, either become productive with the help and support of other parts of the tree, or been discarded as the parasites that they actually were.
The Social Assurance Trust sap stored in the wise and strong heartwood of the tree to preserve it, by the benevolent and once wise Social Assurance vine, was confiscated by the Government vine along with its name, with the promise that it would be somehow magically restored in the future. This sap was given to the new and unnatural vines, which were growing very rapidly, and consuming great quantities of sap faster than the tree could supply it. The vines not only knew that the Trust sap could never be restored, but assured the tree that it was still there!
Over the next few years, although the tree continued to grow slowly, the vines grew more rapidly, to huge proportions, and shifted more and more sap from the lower trunk and limbs of the tree to a few strong limbs at its very top, called the market, saying that it would dribble down and create prosperity. Sadly, this was only one of many lies, and the vines who were overcome with greed had conspired among themselves, and had turned from their original and noble task of organizing and protecting the tree, to serving only themselves and the top branches of the tree. They touted this philosophy and their self proclaimed success to all of the other trees and vines in the forest, and called it the New Forest Order.
In the great tree, the roots, trunk, branches and leaves worked harder and harder to produce enough sap to survive after the Tax tendrils of the Government vines, as well as those of the Legal vines and the Insurance vines took ever greater percentages of their sap. Many of those limbs of the tree called Banks and Thrifts, that had stored sap and used it to help grow new limbs, twigs and leaves, were allowed by the Legal and Regulatory vines, that were supposed to protect them and the tree, to be devoured by termites and worms. To make things worse, most of these termites and worms were allowed by the vines to continue and to prosper, since their activities diverted even more sap to the top of the tree!
The tree became ever more top heavy, the uppermost limbs bloated and full of sap and their huge dark leaves, without chlorophyll, trapped the warmth of the sun and denied it to those who struggled against the rot, termites and worms, in the cold twilight below. The vines proclaimed that these troubles were the result of there being to few vines and created more, and the Tax tendrils grew and sucked more and more sap from the tree, as did those of the Legal and Insurance vines, but only a very few of the vines actually did anything at all to help the tree.
As less and less sap moved back down the tree, the Industrial roots that supported the tree, called Agriculture, Steel, Mining and Manufacturing, began to starve and die. The massive trunk and lower limbs called Business grew dry and brittle, and the leaves on all but the small, unproductive, topmost branches and those of the vines, began to turn a pale, sickly yellow.
Before very much longer, twigs and small branches began to die and fall to the ground as their now pale and tattered leaves could no longer produce enough sap to sustain both themselves and the vines. Soon, only the top of the tree and the vines had any green leaves at all, and although they had enormous quantities of sap, the bloated, black vines near the top of the tree, as well as the market and its huge, dark and barren leaves, were now totally blinded by greed, and refused to return any of the sap to the exhausted tree below. The tree was dying.
Across the pond, the tree called Socialists, only its vines and very top branches still healthy, suddenly collapsed under the weight of its Communist vines and exploded from within. Its dismembered, hollow trunk and branches were sent flying through the air and destroyed smaller trees all around it as they came crashing down. Small storms raged within it, and bolts of lightning ignited many of the dry, helpless limbs upon the forest floor.
The vines on the United tree loudly proclaimed that the destruction of the Socialists tree was good! They had hidden from themselves and the tree for years now the fact that, other than in name, there was little difference between the black and bloated vines that had destroyed the Socialists tree, and themselves. The vines, with a combined mass now nearly one-third of that of the tree but with no roots and no ability to produce sap, asserted that they were very strong and it was they who actually supported the tree, not the other way around as many had mistakenly believed!
The colorful singing birds, called the news media, had long proclaimed that their honorable mission was to keep the tree well informed of the truth, by reporting their observations from their lofty perches. For too long now though, they had spent all of their time feeding on the colorful and filling, but lacking in substance, fruits of the vines. Most have now become merely as parrots, who simply repeat that which they are told by the vines. They find themselves too weak and afraid to tell the truth, even when they finally take flight, and looking down recognize the lies of the vines and their empty and destructive philosophies for what they really are.
Now weakened and heavily burdened by the vines, the United tree is only beginning to understand that it must wrest control of its destiny from the parasitic, self serving and destructive vines, but it must not fail to sustain and support the few that are honorable and legitimate. In doing so, it will have to face painful and difficult deliberation and decisions, and undertake the responsibility for its own future. Will it act in time to survive the impending, harshest and longest winter that it and the forest will ever have to endure?
As the great, vine covered tree writes in its now narrow and almost sapless rings the final, perhaps tragic chapter of this the twentieth, and in earlier decades most dynamic and productive, century in the history of the forest, the clouds in the sky above have begun to turn black, hiding the sun, and strong, cold winds blow from the North.
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