No more finest hours
The 50th Anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill.
Britain stood alone.
In today’s terms, the liberal punditry and political machine would tell us that Britain was on the wrong side of history, and that the rising tide in mainland Europe needed to be accommodated, joined, and imported, not fought.
Except Britain wasn’t on the wrong side of history, because the number of countries and people adhering to an ideology doesn’t make right or wrong. Not then, or now.
Britain had a leader who saw that point.
50 years ago today Winston Churchill died.
He had his finest hour. And so did we.
But that was then. This is now.
Unless the political and cultural trajectory in the West changes with regard to the rise of tyranny in the modern world, and unless we elect leaders willing to fight it and call it what it is, I’m not sure we will have that finest hour again.
(More on that video image in a later post)
Update: New related post, No-Jew-Go Zones.
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RIP Winnie.
Hope someone like you emerges – and prevails – today.
A thousand years from now, when historians are writing books about the demise of western civilization, Churchill will stand out as one of the heroes who fought for its survival.
The best leader of the 20th century … there can be no doubt.
“Cometh the hour, cometh the man.”
I’ve often pondered how true that saying has proven down through history. At times of great extremity, when a true cataclysm has threatened or a great advance was possible, we have found that the people were there to make it possible or to successfully defend against it.
1776 had a whole constellation of very bright lights, bringing into the world a blaze of new ideas. We always think of the Declaration, and we should, but that’s the year Adam Smith published “The Wealth Of Nations”. To my mind, no less a declaration of new, free ideas and ideals.
In the very darkest days of WWII, in the face of one catastrophe after another, the free world had Winnie. He was faced with absolutely awful decisions (such as the one respecting what to do about the French fleet), and he did not flinch from making them. He rallied this people to perform impossible feats. And he encouraged them day-to-day to do the sordid work of living in a nation under siege, in wont, and suffering daily loss.
We also had George S. Patton, who had been preparing all his life to fight the war we needed him to fight, never knowing if he’d be called on by circumstance to apply what he’d learned, what he’d taught, and what he invented.
These reflections should give us hope. Especially when we consider that Winnie was considered a nutter and Patton was a mere colonel before the war, also considered a nut. We sometimes do not recognize our saviors-in-waiting.
I’ve long considered Churchill the greatest modern leader in the world. I attribute the uncommonly good common sense to his mother, an American.
RIP, WC.
Considering Churchill’s effectiveness in protecting Western civilization, it makes sense that one of the firsts acts of our boy-president was to return a bust of Churchill to the British embassy, which had loaned it to George W Bush:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10415601/Churchill-bust-welcomed-back-to-US-Capitol-after-Obama-snub.html
I want that bust back.
It’s a far far better bust than is currently in the Oval Orifice.
Remember, the Nazis petitioned Britain numerous times to reach a pact with them but Churchill refused to allow that to happen.
If our current leaders were then in place (and Churchill was not around), the Axis might have been the USSR, Germany and the US.
A dreadful military strategist, an imperialist through and through – but a great man in spite of it all. Churchill is always on my list of the 5 people form history I would love to have at a dinner party. Winston must be turning over in his grave when he sees “multicultural” Britain with its slavish devotion to political correctness and appeasement of Islam.
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.”
Winston Churchill
The Australians remember him for Gallipoli, the Irish for the Black and Tans and his threat to level the country. He was a great man if he didn’t send you on a military adventure ( to be fair, Gallipoli, like Anzio, was poorly executed by the slow moving generals on the ground ) or have to fight against him.
Carlo D’Este’s recent bio of Churchill, “Warload”, is excellent.
I would direct readers to the last DVD episode of Simon Schama’s superb “A History of Britain” which deals with “The Two Winstons”… Winston Churchill and Orwell’s 1984 Winston Smith. It is a very good look at Churchill. There are two Churchills… the not so great domestic policy one and the absolutely essential war/foreign policy leader. It is beyond shamefully tragic what the present “anti-colonial” anti-US anti-libertarian Administration has done to both the US and the UK. The administration blindly and clumsily stumbles around looking for their policy goals in all the wrong places and with all the wrong people. Oh, to have clarity now which once was!!
A most interesting Churchill story illustrating how humble The Man truly was, despite his standing as the preeminent statesman of the Twentieth Century:
In the summer of 1941, Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for climbing out onto the wing of his Wellington bomber, 13,000 feet above the Zuider Zee, to extinguish a fire in the starboard engine. (!!!) Secured only by a rope around his waist, he managed not only to smother the fire but also to return along the wing to the aircraft’s cabin. Churchill, an admirer as well as performer of swashbuckling exploits, summoned the shy New Zealander to 10 Downing Street. Ward, struck dumb with awe in Churchill’s presence, was unable to answer the prime minister’s questions.
Churchill surveyed the unhappy hero with some compassion. “You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” managed Ward.
“Then you can imagine how humble and awkward I feel in yours,” said Churchill.
(The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, Clifton Fadman, General Editor, ©1985.)
He did lead well, but got soft on Joe Stalin. Ask the Europeans who lived under the Iron Fist after Yalta.
http://polishgreatness.blogspot.com/2012/02/yalta-conference-secrets-lies-and.html
Churchill warned Roosevelt about Stalin many times but Roosevelt ignored him and went along with uncle Joe. Roosevelt’s administration was full of Stalin supporters.
Shortly after the war was over, Churchill was no longer in power and the US and others were tired of war and Stalin’s American followers did all they could to promote the cause.They continued the message given by the terrible US propaganda movies which were made to justify our saving the USSR and which glorified the Communists.
Some of my family are WASPs not too far removed from the green and sceptered isle; they do kinda believe that there will always be an Arthur(Alfred, Drake, Wellington, Nelson). Imagine all the face palming over it being BiBi. When Bibi speaks to Congress, I hope he does channel Winnie, and give the speech of his life.