Opinions

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

America is becoming more stratified. The gulf between the haves and have nots is getting wider.

We’re not talking about the growing inequity between the ultra-rich in America and the rest of us, though that matters to our country’s future. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett, the three richest men in America, have as much wealth as the bottom half of our country’s people. Three men with the wealth of the 165 million Americans.

The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans own 75 percent of household assets.

The inequity that concerns us will empower those who have hoarded wealth onto themselves and rigged politics to ensure they become even more obscenely wealthy. We are talking about the creation of information elites.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

Nearly 3 billion birds have disappeared from the U.S. and Canadian avian populations since 1970. It is a stunning number and one that should give us a sense of shame, dread and motivation.

We’ve always heard about the species that go extinct  - the dodo and the passenger pigeon being among the most well-known. Now a study published by the journal “Science” brings light to a disturbing tragedy unfolding in plain sight, but so slowly that we don’t really notice.

Using past research, counts provided by bird enthusiasts, the Christmas Bird Count, the North American Breeding Bird Survey, and 143 NEXRAD weather radars spread out across the U.S., researchers looked at what was happening with most of our common bird species. The weather satellites not only capture rainfall, but flocks of migrating birds as well.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

Three entrepreneurs have approached the City of Benson in recent weeks who were inquiring about starting a business here. Swift County’s Rural Development Authority has also been contacted by three people looking at possibly opening a business in the county. Great news! Exciting news!

All six of those contacts have one thing in common – they were all with people limited, or no knowledge, of the English language. Great news! Exciting news! Was that your reaction? It should be.

America has been steadily, dramatically culturally changing in recent decades. In western Minnesota, like in much of rural northern plains states, diversity has been slow to materialize. Still, we have seen change, and we will see a lot more in the coming years. It is a change we had better be ready to accept and capitalize on for our future growth.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

Founding Father James Madison said: “A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to farce or tragedy or perhaps both.” We fear the farce and tragedy are unfolding.

President Thomas Jefferson also saw a real danger in the general population becoming disengaged from what their leaders were up to and where that could inevitably lead us.

 “If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves,” the nation’s third president wrote.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

We recently met a driver for UPS while dining out who gave us some insight into just how pervasive Amazon’s sales are in rural Minnesota. He said that 60 percent of the deliveries he makes are Amazon packages. Now multiply that percentage across rural Minnesota and rural America. It will give you some insight into the online retailer’s dominance and growing impact on the health of small businesses.

Amazon isn’t content with its current market share and what it offers customers. It wants to grow. It seeks to overwhelm its competitors, large and small. It wants to spread from retail, to groceries. It seeks to replace UPS and FedEx with its own delivery system.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

 “I just wanted to find out if I can show up or not?” rural Danvers resident Mark Hughes told the Swift County Board of Commissioners at their meeting last week.

Hughes was referring to a meeting of the Community Perspective Committee established by the commissioners at their May 7 meeting. It consists of two members appointed from each of the five county commission districts. It was formed in response to strong citizen opposition to a proposed $17.5 million justice center.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

When you see a headline on a story like, “The Rural America Death Spiral,” it can be dismaying, make your blood boil, and create doubts about our future. Then you have to consider the source. Axios, the publisher of the story, is based in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., about as far removed from the extraordinary diversity of America’s rural landscape as you can get. Still, it stings.

“Many of the nation’s current pathologies are taking a heavy toll on the majority-white population living in rural America, which was severely impacted by the opioid crisis and has dealt with falling populations, job losses, and rising suicide rates,” Stef W. Kight and Juliet Bartz write for the news website Axios.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

 “Trust is an essential elixir for public life and neighborly relations, and when Americans think about trust these days, they worry.” That was key finding in a report written by Lee Rainie, Scott Keeter And Andrew Perrin for the Pew Research Center titled: Trust and Distrust in America.

Trust in our government is a near historic low, Pew’s study says. But that is no surprise when 76 percent of Americans think a low level of trust in the federal government is justified.

We are also less trusting of one another with Americans saying that people just aren’t as reliable as they once were. Pew’s study also found that those who don’t trust other people have less trust in our public institutions.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

“If I learned anything from 25 years in the F.B.I., including a stint as head of counterintelligence, it was to trust my gut when I see a threat unfolding,” Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant F.B.I. director for counterintelligence, wrote in a piece published in the New York Times July 31 – four days before the shooting in El Paso.

“Now, instinct and experience tell me we’re headed for trouble in the form of white hate violence stoked by a racially divisive president. I hope I’m wrong.” He wasn’t.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires will come to you
From the Disney Movie ‘Pinocchio’

Meteors flaring across a night sky hold in wondrous delight a child lying on his back in the summer grass. Above is the Big Dipper and Polaris, the North Star, at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper. It’s nearing the middle of August and the Perseid meteor shower is starting to peak with as many as a dozen or more blazing across the backdrop of the Milky Way.

It’s an idyllic scene. Too bad most Americans can’t share it.