elisi: (Democracy)
elisi ([personal profile] elisi) wrote2013-04-13 03:38 pm
Entry tags:

About Thatcher...

From various places on my flist:

tumblr_mkyy2xUgAW1qguulqo1_500

Mark Steel: You can't just shut us up now that Margaret Thatcher's dead
(If someone robs your house, you don’t say: “I disagreed with the burglar’s policy, of tying me to a chair. But I did admire his convictions.”)

And finally, the poets always say it best:

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General
By Jonathan Swift

His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he’s gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He’d wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we’re told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
’Twas time in conscience he should die
This world he cumbered long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that’s the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow’s sighs, nor orphan’s tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that, his friends may say,
He had those honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he died.

Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles raised by breath of kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing’s a Duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turned to that dirt from whence he sprung.

[identity profile] eaweek.livejournal.com 2013-04-14 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks also to the link to the Glenda Jackson video! Man, she just ROCKS!

[identity profile] eaweek.livejournal.com 2013-04-14 05:14 pm (UTC)(link)
In a youth-obsessed culture, it's so nice to see a mature, intelligent woman clearly articulating her stance on something of substance. Too often such women are dismissed as shrill "femi-Nazis," as if there's something fundamentally distasteful and immoral about expressing an opposition to grinding poverty, ever-widening income disparities, and the devastating impact those things can have on entire societies. So my hat is really off to Jackson--the world needs more women like her!