tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post5496505523828855725..comments2024-03-28T12:29:39.157-07:00Comments on Graphic Firing Table: Four Weddings and a FuneralFDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-25880023818056413832011-05-17T13:21:04.429-07:002011-05-17T13:21:04.429-07:00I note the queen's visit to Ireland this week....I note the queen's visit to Ireland this week. Words like reconciliation are being used.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-74094262615516434972011-05-12T12:11:33.199-07:002011-05-12T12:11:33.199-07:00I will agree with this:
"But I will say this...I will agree with this:<br /><br />"But I will say this - it embarrasses me powerfully to hear U.S. citizens going on about it. We were supposed to have put aside that sort of thing."<br /><br />It seems that tendency to idolization is hot-wired into the human being. The Brits don't have much if you take away their (however moth-eaten) royalty. I think it's hard to understand the mindset if one is not a Brit, but that however misbegotten (today) pride is still there. It's hard to go from the Sun Never Setting on your Empire to the Falklands.<br /><br />It also fulfills another archetype hard to bury, that of the charming prince who will redeem the young charwoman.Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08839236994990699117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-76262319914795117052011-05-11T16:19:57.122-07:002011-05-11T16:19:57.122-07:00Pluto: Probably less irritating and divisive...
A...Pluto: Probably less irritating and divisive...<br /><br />Although I think it's worth noting that the invitations issued to the wedding (technically a "private" and not a state function) went out only to the two surviving recent Conservative PMs and NOT the two most recent Labour ones.<br /><br />Of course Elizabeth and her family are Tories. But the degree of partisanship they showed in their choice of political pals, well...they're no Juan Carlos. I'll just say that.<br /><br />But hey, as Johnny Rotten reminds us: <i>"God save the queen<br />'Cause tourists are money"</i>FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-82971110194551255592011-05-11T13:58:16.686-07:002011-05-11T13:58:16.686-07:00I guess that part of this comes from catching an o...I guess that part of this comes from catching an occasional glimpse of the HBO "Tudors" series.<br /><br />Now THERE were some "royals"!<br /><br />Mad, dangerous, irresponsible, reckless, profligate...but very much in the center of things. Kings in the great, brutal feudal tradition.<br /><br />The very notion of a king or queen as the "First Gentleman" of the nation...well, it seems a very tame sort of ideal. Anyone can be a nice sort of toff. Where's the excitement there?<br /><br />It's like Charles wearing the admiral suit. Yes, I understand the tradition. And in 1745 you had to have a royal at the head of the Army and Navy to prevent either some ambitious admiral or general from getting ideas above his station, as well as countering all those damn Stuarts (Tudors, whoever...) who were coveting your throne.<br /><br />But we're NOT in 1745. And the royal family hasn't led British troops (and I mean LED, as in being the Supreme Warlord sort of led) since the 18th Century. So if Charles wants to dress in his Navy togs, why not as the LCDR (Retired) that he is, or in a colonel's outfit of one of the several regiments that he's honorary colonel-in-chief of?<br /><br />I think the reason that this gets me is the way it reveals a national unwillingness (at least at the level of the royal family) to be the Britain of 2011 and not the one of 1745 or even 1945.<br /><br />Being proud of your past is one thing; acting like it ISN'T past...well, that's another, and sort of sad.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-80654630048721868372011-05-11T10:56:57.479-07:002011-05-11T10:56:57.479-07:00Yes, Pluto -- our "royals" are an even p...Yes, Pluto -- our "royals" are an even punier lot (lest anyone doubt we have our own, crass, economic caste system.) Witness Donald Trump et. al. Q.E.D.Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08839236994990699117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-6990388619377912032011-05-11T05:12:48.433-07:002011-05-11T05:12:48.433-07:00My take on this is that the British royalty are so...My take on this is that the British royalty are somewhat more useful than the American royalty (movie stars and retired high-level politicians) and probably cost less as well.<br /><br />nuff said.Plutonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-40480607992754899122011-05-10T20:48:34.102-07:002011-05-10T20:48:34.102-07:00"the banality of them all!" -- indeed.
..."the banality of them all!" -- indeed.<br /><br />So many do love to be swept up by the pomp -- be it a murder or a wedding (sometimes the same?) Hence one of the more successful ad campaigns, "Calgon, take me away!"Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08839236994990699117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-54098176084875694242011-05-10T06:27:28.946-07:002011-05-10T06:27:28.946-07:00The last intervention of the House of Windsor was ...The last intervention of the House of Windsor was when the Queen expressed her frustration with Tony Blair in 2007. Within a month or so, he was seeking alternative employment.<br /><br />In Canada, our Governor General intervened in the prorogation of Parliament. There was intense discussion of which way she should go. It is good to have some uncertainty as it tends to keep the pols towards the middle of the driving lane.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-70928830685910033542011-05-09T21:38:58.373-07:002011-05-09T21:38:58.373-07:00But if that were the case you'd expect the soc...But if that were the case you'd expect the social contract in Britain to be in much better heart than it is in the U.S., and whilst I'd argue that they're marginally better off than we are most of that is the lingering results of the social engineering done right after WW2 when Labour put in stuff like the National Health. The British oligarchs have been beavering away at returning their proles to serfdom and just started further away from the goal than their U.S. counterparts. <br /><br />I don't see this famous living social contract doing much to make the ordinary British sod's life all that such of a muchness.<br /><br />And whilst I'm sure that chairing welfare committees and opening charity bazaars is a long, Somme-like slog, I suspect that any penny politician could manage the work for a fraction of the cost.<br /><br />But in all honesty it's a Brit thing and, like all personal quirks, its useless to deplore to the person who's enjoying it. If the entire "royal" nonsense looks silly to me at this remove it's not my rice bowl. So long as the British public is willing to pay the freight, well and good.<br /><br />But..."safety valve"? Since when? When was the last time the House of Windsor intervened in public life for good or ill? You'd have to go back to the days of the House of Lords veto, I'll bet.<br /><br />The only real rationale for the Windsors is the one you started with; as tailor's dummies for the Flag, Queen and Country, Keep Calm and Carry On...hey, if it's stupid and it works it's not stupid.<br /><br />But I will say this - it embarrasses me powerfully to hear <i>U.S. citizens</i> going on about it. We were supposed to have put aside that sort of thing. It's a nasty form of celebrity culture, nasty because it celebrates a principle that should be deeply antithetic to the values of a U.S. citizen, and just emphasizes that a hell of a lot of us are political and intellectual six-year-olds at heart.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-86218973260603257582011-05-09T17:56:55.302-07:002011-05-09T17:56:55.302-07:00I have seen the royals in action. It is hard, unr...I have seen the royals in action. It is hard, unrelenting work performed in a well lit fishbowl. I would not want the job and you would have to do it for love or duty.<br /><br />The shocking thing is that they appear to be willing to continue their work. (If you were an 85 year old ailing multi-billionaire, would you spend your time handing out awards to an endless succession of snotty kids, all the while pretending to to enjoy it so as to not ruin the illusion? <br /><br />Also, note that they are not actual rulers, rather they are safety valves. If safety valves work, great. If they don't work, oh well, it is no worse that if they were not there at all.<br /><br />Finally, constitutions are over rated. Living social compacts are much more powerful. They have at least the potential to take an active action, whereas a constitution is just a thing.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-19750120326442293962011-05-09T16:43:06.179-07:002011-05-09T16:43:06.179-07:00Ael: Like I said; the royal family doesn't see...Ael: Like I said; the royal family doesn't seem so much "bad" or "wrong" to me as much as just "sad", like the old soldier I used as an example. He might have been a hell of a stud back in teh day, but now he's just a pale shred of himself and it seems like a mercy to retire him.<br /><br />I'd buy the whole royals thing more if they really had some role other than as a thanks-for-breathing Symbol of the State. The problem with that is that, humans being humans, if they're The State personified, but not given any actual work to do, they'll probably devolve into a bunch of wankers laying about getting into trouble or developing eccentric ways. That sort of thing ends up making the State look even more fatuous than usual. <br /><br />Plus there's the temptation for one of the "tame" royals to go off the reservation - that seems to me like asking for a WHOLE bunch of trouble.<br /><br />So like I said; give me a real tyrant, let 'em at least have the relatively restrained powers that they had up until the miiddle of the last century, or tell the gang it's time to roll up the tent, pension 'em off, and write some sort of Constitution to be The State.<br /><br />And Juan Carlos? Nice guy, but where was the Spanish royal family when Franco was running the joint as a wholly owned subsidiary of Fascism, Inc, the last one in all of freaking Europe? The guy was the right man in the right place when Franco croaked...but the point is, everything depended on him BEING the right man. IF he was a fool, or a fascist, or power-mad, or any number of other things, well...<br /><br />The problem with royalism is that you get one shot per generation to get things right. If the royals are a fucking mess - and a lot of royal families are - then you either then have to wait for the ruler to die, or you have to overthrow him, and that's usually a problem. Both Spain and Britain have had good fortune in their current monarchs; but the combination of the anachronism, the chance inherent in depending on the character of the monarch, and the problem of what to do with the monarch's parasitic brood...well, the minuses outweigh the pluses, IMO.<br /><br />And as for the unis, well, Andrew was a pilot thirty years ago, the same as I was a young trooper. But those lights, he should either wear his subaltern's uniform to church or I should be able to dress up like a fucking General of the Army. I'm fine with the notion that a young aristo gets to play Army or Navy. But the ridiculous convention that shoves these former lieutenants and captains into admirals' and generals' togs? C'mon.<br /><br />The sun has set, the old regiments have been amalgamated and re-amagamated until they're a mockery of their old selves. There's nothing wrong with reshaping yourself to reflect the changes that have taken place. Clinging to this stuff doesn't make me think of the history or the glory, it just looks like an unwillingness to face the facts.<br /><br />Hey, I love tradition, too. But there's a time when tradition just becomes too heavy a burden...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-41880834895051450322011-05-09T10:05:31.137-07:002011-05-09T10:05:31.137-07:00The Royal's are center-pieces of the British R...The Royal's are center-pieces of the British Regimental system. It would not be the same without them. <br /><br />Besides, having a tame royal family is a good way to fend off military dictators as the troops bind to the monarch. Look at what happened with Juan Carlos.<br /><br />Finally, I think you are too harsh on them. Andrew was a helicopter pilot in the Falklands (decoy and surface strike duties). Harry was a troop commander in Afghanistan till someone "outed" him and he had to come home.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.com