The Patriot Post® · The Trite and the Tedious

By Burt Prelutsky ·
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/61096-the-trite-and-the-tedious-2019-02-18

I have found that one of the biggest drawbacks to trying to stay current with the news is having to listen to the stupid comments of Leftist politicians, which are then repeated ad nauseam by all the talking heads in the media.

For instance, whenever something sensible such as closing the border to illegal aliens or respecting the Second Amendment or denying welfare to the undeserving is suggested, some simpleton like Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer is certain to rise up on their tiptoes to signal they are claiming the moral high ground in declaring “That’s not who we are as a nation.”

It invariably evokes the following reaction from me: So, just who in the hell are we? Well for openers, we grant foreign invaders any number of advantages over American citizens; we don’t execute murderers, rapists and child molesters, but we kill babies by the tens of millions, leaving the life or death decisions up to creepy women and doctors who violate their Hippocratic oaths every time they channel their inner Dr. Josef Mengele without even giving it a second thought.

Millions of us allow ourselves to become addicted to marijuana, cocaine, meth and heroin, providing billions of dollars to hostile nations and enriching gangsters, warlords and terrorists.

We crave an endless flood of pornography, giving little or no consideration to the fact that we are thus encouraging the victimization of enslaved women and brutalized children.

We elect ignorant, immoral politicians who promise us the moon, while ignoring the fact that the result of electing Socialists is inevitably the horrors of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Cuba, China, Cambodia and Venezuela.

Whereas Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Chavez and Maduro, all knew exactly what they were doing, people like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are merely ignoramuses, “useful idiots” as defined by Vladimir Lenin, but the end result is always the same: poverty, slavery and death.

Who are we as Americans? Well, an awful lot of us have made Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a 29-year-old who, in my day, would have lost in a competition with a 13-year-old when it came to Civics, English and Math, their hope for the future.

The rest of us can only hope that this female Pied Piper turns out to be leading not the rats of Hamelin, but the lemmings of America, straight over the cliff and into the sea.


The taxpayers of this nation saved General Motors from extinction with their tax dollars in 2009. Although the company, technically, has paid back the loan in money and stock, the American taxpayer has been shortchanged to the tune of $10 billion. That’s because the stock never recovered its previous value.

But if anyone expected GM’s gratitude, shame on them. At the same time that they are shutting down plants in the U.S. and firing thousands of American workers and managers, they are expanding their factories in China and Mexico.

I, for one, hope they feel the full wrath of President Trump, who famously warned American companies there would be severe consequences for that sort of behavior.


In other unpleasant news, three black players on the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots announced they would be boycotting the traditional visit to the White House.

If they hadn’t announced it, I doubt if anyone would have noticed their absence, especially since none of them are named Tom Brady, Julian Edelman or Stephon Gilmore. If I, who, like team owner Robert Kraft who happens to be a fan of the President’s, owned the Pats, I would see to it that defensive backs Jason and Devin McCourty and free safety Duron Harmon were traded to the Oakland Raiders or the New York Jets, so they’d never have to worry again about being invited to the White House as a member of a championship team.

Duron Harmon said he would prefer visiting Barack Obama. I wish him well. His only problem might be getting past Obama’s immoral wall and the immoral Secret Service agents lurking on his property.


I’m always a sucker for happy endings, so I was delighted to discover that in 1943, most show biz insiders predicted a quick demise for a musical titled “Away We Go!” But when a new song was added in New Haven, where the show was previewing prior to its Broadway opening, it not only led to the show changing its title (but keeping its exclamation point) to “Oklahoma!” but it went on to make musical theatre history.

Instead of closing after opening night, the show ran for 2,212 performances and led Richard Rodgers to experience even greater success with his new collaborator, Oscar Hammerstein II, than he’d enjoyed for about 25 years with his initial lyricist, Lorenz Hart.


As Stephen Hanover reminded me, “Medicare for All,” the new catchphrase for the terminally demented Socialists, would entail 150 million Americans losing their personal health care insurance and 800,000 people working in the insurance industry losing their jobs.

The V.A. has been offering its own version of that health care plan for years. But I haven’t heard about a lot of people wanting to sign up for that nightmare that involves long waits and criminal negligence.

And this time around, I don’t wish to hear anyone’s claiming that if you like your doctor or your current insurance plan you can keep it.


A story circulating on the Internet claims that Theodore “Dutch” J. Van Kirk, who was the navigator on the Enola Gay when its crew dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, was invited to speak at a grammar school. When the young teacher introduced him as a veteran of World War Eleven (as in WWII), the old veteran stood up and walked out the door without saying a word.

As wretched as our public school system has become, I found that story hard to believe. On the other hand, the rising young star of the Democratic Party recently called for an end to cars, planes, fossil fuels and cows, and received high-fives from her congressional colleagues, so it’s anybody’s guess.


I don’t read a lot of magazines, but one that I subscribe to is Reminisce. Except for an opening statement by its editor, the entire magazine is written by its readers and illustrated with photos of times gone by those same people.

The patriotic monthly is dedicated to reminding us of what, at least in its nostalgic pages, can honestly be called the good old days.

Men and women of a certain age recall how they met their mates; what games they played and hobbies they pursued 40 or 50 or 60 years ago; how they happened to meet a sports hero or got to dance with Dorothy Lamour at the USO on their way to the South Pacific.

Other people share the experience of watching TV for the first time or learning to drive or about taking family vacations. They recall friends or teachers or neighbors who helped them when they needed help the most. They remember a time when they appreciated getting something other than an apple in their Christmas stocking. Some of them recall cherishing the apple.

Some recall the hardships of the Great Depression, others recall anxiously awaiting word about their children or husbands or fathers who were fighting the Nazis and Fascists in an existential battle for civilization they knew enough to call World War Two, not World War Eleven.

If interested, you can contact their Subscription Fulfillment Center, PO Box 5278, Harlan, Iowa 51593-0778.