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LIVING IN INTERESTING TIMES

©2021 Burt Prelutsky

 

Allegedly, it is an ancient Chinese curse that one's enemies should live in interesting times.  Unfortunately, it's not just those we dislike who are forced to survive them.  Decent people are also along for the bumpy ride.

Some would say America has never suffered through worse times than these, but each generation likes to think that things have never been tougher.

The fact that so many people are convinced non-existent racism, bigotry against transgenders and something called climate change, are three of our greatest concerns is proof that our times don't even come close on the misery index to what Americans lived through between 1929 and 1945.

That's not to say that various presidents haven't made things worse than they needed to be.  For instance, when Barack Obama and Eric Holder put into place something called "Fast and Furious," it was supposed to allow us to track guns going into Mexico, but instead armed the drug cartels with weapons they then used to kill American tourists and drug agents.

Still, that pales compared to the 85 million dollars’ worth of military hardware Biden handed over to Middle Eastern terrorists.  Heaven only knows how many innocent lives will be lost thanks to Biden's brain freeze, a freeze that actually took place back in the 1980s.

But for a proper historical perspective, we should pay attention to what Paul Galvin has to say on the subject.  In his estimation, the two worst years in American history were 1937 and 1913.

In 1937, without having to pack the Supreme Court, as he'd tried a year earlier, President Roosevelt was able to get the Court to rubber-stamp every piece of his Socialist agenda.  He took advantage of his new powers to expand the federal government in a way that the men who came up with the Constitution thought they'd made impossible.

All the limitations they'd placed on the executive branch of the government vanished nearly overnight.

For all intents and purposes, FDR became the monarch that George Washington had refused to be.

In 1913, four disastrous events took place in a matter of 10 months, for which we are still paying the price.  It began with the passage of the 16th Amendment, which created the federal income tax; a month later, Woodrow Wilson, an internationalist who was only too happy to surrender our sovereignty to a world government -- which would come to be known as the League of Nations -- took office; a few months later, Congress passed the 17th Amendment, which called for the direct election of U.S. senators; and, rounding off the year, the Federal Reserve was invented by a sleazier-than-usual gang of bankers and politicians who met on J.P. Morgan's private preserve, Jekyll Island, Georgia..

Mr. Galvin concluded by suggesting that, morally speaking, 1973 was the worst because it saw the loons on the Supreme Court making Roe v. Wade the law of the land, sanctifying murder under the guise of protecting privacy.

Still and all, I'll point out that it's only September.  It's still possible that 2021 can out-do them all, what with Joe Biden in the White House and Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi running Congress, and Kamala Harris, the cackling cuckoo, lurking in the wings.

⦿    Speaking of blasts from the past, we have heard so much absurd hyperbole about the mini-riot on January 6th that we seem to have forgotten that on November 7, 1983, the M-19 Communist Organization detonated an actual bomb in the Senate.

The only reason that the bomb didn't kill anyone is that an evening session had been canceled.  But it did blow a big hole in the second floor of the building.

There were seven jackasses who were involved in the act of terrorism and who, at various times, also called themselves the Revolutionary Fighting Group, the Armed Resistance Unit and the Red Guerrilla Resistance, and who apparently changed their name more often, knowing Communists, than they changed their underwear.

So much for people like Nancy Pelosi who insisted that the harmless trespassers who showed up earlier this year, wearing funny costumes and waving American flags, were the worst assault on the Capitol and democracy in the nation's history.

To make such a foolish claim, the Democrats would also have to overlook what occurred on August 24, 1814, when during the War of 1812, the Brits torched the city of Washington, D.C., burning down the White House and sending President James Madison and his wife, Dolley, fleeing the nation's capital.

⦿    After I made my case against such things as Brussel sprouts and asparagus, I heard from David Evans.

He claimed that he agreed with me about the sprouts, "which is bad tasting soft cabbage that grows strangely on a useless stem.  On the other hand, I like asparagus...with butter, but especially with Hollandaise sauce.  And it is healthy, which is another dubious reason to eat them."

"Dubious, indeed," I replied.  "I suspect the Hollandaise sauce counteracts whatever might be healthy in the vegetable.  But let's face it, even snails are nearly edible if renamed escargots and drenched in butter and garlic.  It also works with cardboard."

⦿    Norm Silvers shared a meme that suggested that "If you feel particularly useless today, keep in mind that somebody worked as a lifeguard at the Olympics."

There was even a picture of the guy sitting poolside, looking as bored as I do at a superhero movie.

⦿    Laura Ingraham expressed a thought that must have occurred to a lot of people over the past several years: "Somebody needs to open an investigation into the Democrat Party to find out if they have any ties to America."

⦿    There's a cruel irony in the fact that Joe Biden left so many dogs behind in Afghanistan since he, himself, is a son of a bitch.

⦿    Arthur Lourea passed along a meme that should be hand-delivered to Anthony Fauci: "The hardest part of 15 days to flatten the curve is always the first 18 months."

⦿    Speaking of which, Todd Dierdorff sent me a picture of the First Assembly of God's bulletin board.  Its message: "I want to be like Saul.  I want to be on the road to De-Mask-us."

⦿    Jan Hooper let me know that someone in Prague had written the following clear-eyed assessment of American politics: "The danger to America is not Joseph Biden, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency.  It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of a Biden presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.

"The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Biden, who is a mere symptom of what ails America.  Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.  The Republic can survive a Biden, who is, after all, merely a dunce.  It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president."

It is a thought I have often expressed, especially during the years that Barack Obama was in the White House.

The difference now is that the fools didn't elect Biden.  If the election had been on the up-and-up, Trump would be back in the White House and Biden would be back in his basement scarfing up ice cream while Dr. Jill fed his delusion by calling him Mr. President.

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Site Creator's Note: 

 

Burt Prelutsky is a well known Hollywood screen writer, and most all reading this have seen much of his work over many years.  More information on him and his career is available by Googling his name. 

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I had the privilege and honor to get to know Burt recently through his writing and know of him in the seventies through his newspaper column.  We hit it off, traded barbs and wit, and he passed away before I had a chance to meet him in person. 

 

I regretted that I never met him personally, as I think we would have become even better friends.  He was unique and made a great contribution to the national discourse)

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