elisi: (Democracy)
elisi ([personal profile] elisi) wrote2013-04-13 03:38 pm
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About Thatcher...

From various places on my flist:

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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] dweomeroflight.livejournal.com 2013-04-14 05:29 am (UTC)(link)
My favourite weigh in on Thatcher was the article by Russell Brand in The Guardian where he essentially said, yes it is sad that a little old lady died today, but this old lady never valued or taught compassion so why on earth does Britain expect compassion from those she leaves behind?

If you don't believe in society, why should society believe in, or care about, you? At the end of the day, for many to mourn would be either hypocrisy or the final heap of burning and shaming coals. Because at the end of the day she ruined peoples lives with her policies. Why do we expect people whose lives have been ruined to mourn the source of their misery?
Edited 2013-04-14 05:30 (UTC)