This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!
Adolf Hitler, 1935
One of the most useful products of the modern world is WD-40. This American made substance was created in the 1950s to protect the surface of Atlas missiles from rust. Supposedly, the name came from the “40th formula” created. This marvelous lubricant is now used for tools, jet airplanes, farm equipment and home appliances.
Spraying my garden shears with WD-40 started this essay. Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors. When asked about his stories he said they begin with a single thought and then reveal themselves through his imagination. My stories begin with a single thought and then trigger other memories and relationships.
My readers know I am a movie fan, and I often explain myself through the shared vision of a movie. I remember “The Wizard of Oz” and the Tin Man who was caught in the rain and frozen by rust. Fortunately, Dorothy found him and oiled his joints back to a lively function. I only wish the aerosol spray of WD-40 was available for the joints of seniors like me.
I just finished a wonderful book about Winston Churchill and World War II by Erik Larson called “The Splendid and the Vile.” Several years ago, I read another book by Larson about a serial murderer during the 1893 Exposition in Chicago. I don’t care for murder mysteries, but “The Devil in the White City” is more a story of the Chicago world exposition. I was struck by the two titles and books, juxtaposing good and evil.
“The Splendid and the Vile” is a novelized history of the first two years (1940-1941) of WWII in England, under the leadership of Winston Churchill. And the similarities between President Trump and Winston Churchill are stunning.
In the early 1900s, Winston Churchill rose to power in the British Empire and was First Lord of the Admiralty during World War I. He orchestrated the Dardanelle campaign in 1915 to open a new front and break the stymied trench warfare in Belgian and France. Tragically, the campaign, depicted in the movie “Gallipoli,” was a failure and Churchill was dismissed from government. In Martin Gilbert’s book “The Wilderness Years,” he wrote of Churchill’s banishment from power and his repeated warnings about the rise of Nazis and Adolph Hitler.
Churchill returned to Parliament in the 1920s and in 1940 he was elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom where he served until the end of WWII. In my opinion, Churchill’s pugnacious spirit and leadership kept Britain in the war, ultimately leading to the defeat of Hitler and the Nazis, fascist Italy and militaristic Japan. Without Churchill, the appeasers in England, like Neville Chamberlain, would have made peace with Hitler and America would have faced a war against Europe, Asia and, perhaps, Russia.
President Trump is our Churchill. I know this will make the heads of progressives explode; good! Churchill was elegant, but smoked cigars continuously, drank heavily, was quirky in his personal habits and he was capable of ruthless verbal barbs. But he saved England and perhaps our country. Then two months after the war, the English people voted him out of office saying they wanted socialism and a government to take care of them. Trump is the brash man from Queens who is indelicate in his speech at times. He is now out of power and in the wilderness years.
We live in unique times. But every time is unique if you study history. Supposedly, we put a competent leader out of office and elected an impaired man who is a shill for the progressive-socialist-left and Democrats. Together they have given us a border crisis, inflation, rising gas prices, an increasing welfare state where people won’t work. Our enemies no longer respect us and leftists further divide the country with the class warfare of “wokeness.” Big Tech remains unchecked and runs roughshod over American freedoms. And the media continues to promote “The Big Lie.” Did you know that the Big Lie was conceived by Adolph Hitler in his book “Mein Kampf?” The Big Lie was used effectively by Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and is still used today. Isn’t it amazing how history repeats itself?
Some years ago, I read a book called “The Old Man’s War.” This is a science fiction yarn where technology could download an old person’s mind into the young body of a Navy SEAL warrior. Wouldn’t it be better to send old guys with street smarts to war instead of young people? Imagine the mind and grit of ninety-year-old Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry’s body. I don’t have a young body, but I am committed to the old man’s war to save our country.
Retirement has changed many aspects of my life. I’ve learned how to clean toilets, vacuum and do laundry. I actually like grocery shopping and I am now in charge of meal planning. It seems only fair because Becky did this for four decades. You can teach an “older” dog new tricks – I am not an old dog. I just learned about setting the table during war. Turn the knife blade out during war and inward with peace. Becky told me she’s been using the war placement of flatware for six months. We are both part of the “older” person’s war.
President Trump may be in his wilderness years, but he remains in the heads of leftists and “neoliberals,” who are scared of seventy-five-year-old Trump. I guess they prefer malleable Ole Joe. Maybe they have seen and heard the Toby Keith song and video, “Don’t Let the Old Man In” featuring Clint Eastwood. They better include us in their fears.
Becky and I vow to fight the neo-Cultural Revolution of wokeness. We will resist the Big Lies. We call out our own quisling mayor complicit in the rising murder rates in Knoxville which landed our town on national news. Join us in the fourth Great Awakening.
iPOTUS says global warming and white supremacy are America’s biggest threats. Those are “big lies.” I wonder if he even knows it.
