The real question is how that voice came out of that little boy.
Defenders of Diana point to her charity work, those who defend the royals point to some fairly nebulous claims, substantiated with unproven ‘facts’ which are usually propaganda.
I really am not interested in the slightest about her charity work, I could not give a fuck how cheap the royals are to run in comparison to , say, a president.
The whole issue fucking sucks, these people are funded by taxpayers and are the pinnacle of a whole system that instutionalises the idea of ruler and subjects, its is an undesirable leftover from feudal times.
Justifying these people and their system is simply akin to polishing a turd, because it will always be a turd, no matter how it is dressed up.
Most of the worlds industrial nations somehow survive without this inbred soap opera, albeit replaced in media terms with the likes of the Hiltons, but at least I do not pay for them unless I choose to do so.
There are so many things wrong with defending this ghastly institution, it is simply an unjust and anachronistic concept.
The upper levels of UK society have every reason to continue with the status quo, in the hope of being awarded honours, which is a very real and influential way that the peerage system is used.
Remove the royals and you get rid of the last justification for the worthless honours system, the last vestige of a feudal club that really should be destroyed.
The Royals–the nobility and the aristocracy bring big bucks into UK as a tourist destination, like it or not. And historically, amidst the racism, classism, entitlement and nobless oblige, the same groups did a lot of good for the world. We wouldn’t speak English or perhaps have the government we have but for England (although the Gment was more of a moving totally away from what England had).
I don’t undestand the position that states royalty et al is BAD and so anyone involved in it is BAD by definition. It is what it is–and if England ever wants to get rid of it’s Royals, it will have no problem in doing so–they’re good at laying down the line (King John anyone?). Diana did well, given her circumstances. Would she have done better (and perhaps not died) if she had made wiser judgements in her life? Most likely. She once said in an interview that she was given no credit for growth --her very own statement that she was “as thick as two planks” was never forgotten. I think those that want to deify her as well as those who want to demonize her don’t give her credit for growth. Who she really was is nobody’s business but her sons, really. But she seems to provoke hostility or devotion in people.–that alone will keep her in the media eye, sadly.
Very true. Without monarchy, Variola vera, and other plagues America as we know it would not exist.
Exactly where in my post did I decide how people should or should not grieve?
I stated that those people who were sobbing their fucking hearts out were doing it over a person they had no personal knowledge of.
Who the fuck am I?..a person with a damn sight more sense than those idiots I saw in that park, that’s who I am
Whatever Diana was or was not, the fact is that she had so many opportunities based solely upon the existance of the institution of the monrachy.
This sucks hard.
She was not special, gifted or talented in the roles she took up, she didn’t exactly study hard at school for her role, the job of ‘peoples ambassodor’ simply dropped into her lap, based only on the fact she was married to that inbred goof.
…and there’s another thing, her PR people attempting to reach out to the public by pushing the line she was the ‘peoples princess’ - which fucking people ?
When asked how she met Charles her response was
“At a polo match like everyone does”
Who the hell does she think ‘everyone’ actually is, did she imagine that attendance of polo matches was a routine activity for the ‘people’ or perhaps she just meant the people who are worth talking about and screw the rest of the lower orders.
The charity thing is just a smokescreen and it seems to have worked well on some posters here, the whole frigging royal shennanigans should not exist at all.
The next defence, the royals bring in lots of tourists, so frigging what ? it still does not justify unearned privelidge, it does not justify the way our honours system works (which is sometimes corruptly abused)
If Diana happened to start off as a scientist, or researcher, or perhaps even someone who set up an effective business that employs thousands, and had made a real contribution to public welfare and life, then maybe this undeserving harridan would be worthy of recognition, but even then she didn’t.
None of the royals deserve any sort of special recognition merely for the fact that they happened to be born.
Diana was just a particularly incompetant add-on to the royals.
A staggering number of women have a bizarre princess fantasy going on in their bubbly heads. They latched onto Diana as a symbol of this dream, as a pornographic device to satiate their desires. So when Diana’s guts were strewn across the asphalt that was them, in their minds…their fantasy was abruptly destroyed, hence the histrionic grieving and the continued interest. It’s like a part of their psyche died.
But Diana, the person? I don’t know much about her. She seemed nice enough. She was certainly beautiful enough to play the part. But her death is…sickly satisfying. But then I’m the type who was glued to his TV, wishing Katrina would be spiral out of control and that New Orleans would forever be an underwater tourist destination. I’m an asshole like that.
Marshmallow: You just nailed old son…apart from the strewn across the tarmac bit the first part of your post was spot on.
I’m a bit surprised we haven’t had the Diana vibrator on the market, yannow for women of class and breeding
Where you called them idiots for grieving. Or were you endorsing idiocy?
I see nothing sensible about ridiculing the grief of others.
Wrong, wrong, fucking wrong.
I asked and wondered what was wrong with them and called them idiots for behaving in the way they did over some person who they knew not.
I did not decide how and why or when they should grieve.
If they want to sob and buy flowers and other crap for a woman who really didn’t know they existed then yes, they are idiots.
Ridiculing the grief of others, man you should have been there, it was pathetic
Not that I want to ruin a good rant whose spirit I absolutely agree with, but it is my understanding that most of the industrial nations do, in fact, have royalty of one sort or another, from Japan to Norway to Canada. Quite a lot of European countries seem to have them still hanging on, at any rate, Germany and France being the only big exceptions that come readily to mind. And even there you still get minor nobility, so it’s not like feudalisms 100% dead there either.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned before, but you can relive that experience next Saturday. Yay!
Brilliant bit of programming, that. Sure to please Express readers who have worn out the videos they recorded at the time.
Oh goody.
Look out for me in the park, I’m the one without tears, flowers, candles or cuddly toys
It was pathetic enough here, chowder. Shrines of flowers in front of the Union Flag on the road to the art museum in Philly (that I cannot remember the name of but has lots of different nations flags). People coming up to me in the street when they heard my accent and commiserating with me for my loss, tears in their eyes.
(Response to earlier post on how the grieving process - dammit I thought it was the last one…)
While the fact the majority of the British people seem to want to keep the monarchy is an indication that it probably won’t be abolished, it doesn’t make it a good thing. Lots of bad things are popular, and lots of right things aren’t.
And I wouldn’t look to Runnemede as being a great sign of rights for the people, unless you mean rights for one segment of the aristocracy as opposed to the monarchy. Better moments in British history to look for the refusal of people to accept tyranny are moments such as the Peasant’s Revolt, the Levellers, Peterloo, Cable Street etc.
(Walks off, whistling the Red Flag)
Hey, I’m American and think that monarchies are archaic, ridiculous, and wasteful, but I’m not going to lay that at Diana’s feet. Sure, she bought into it, but how much of the rest of Britain does also? I mean, are there polls indicating if the British people like having the Royals around, despise them like the posters in this thread, or what? Seems to me if the majority of people dislike having them around, they could get rid of the whole bloody institution, no? Esp. if it’s publicly funded. If not, well, it’s like having Paris Hilton here in the US-- I don’t like her and I wish she’d just go away, but somebody must be very interested in her or she’d disappear in a puff of common sense, right?
No one is blaming Diana for the monarchy. But she was a part of that system, willingly. Doing charity work doesn’t get her a pass from me for that.
Question-for those of you in the UK, how much greater or lesser was the Queen Mum’s funeral? I would think, or at least hope, it would be more of a loss. Unless, of course, that you consider she was over 100 years old, while Diana was far too young.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. :rolleyes: Yes, absolutely. and too bad of those landed gentry persons attempting to limit the power of the king. They should have stuck it to the Man, and given up their power and prestige voluntarily so that another group could then abuse the power and position it would grab. Social and political systems evolve, as I’m sure you’re aware. The Red Flag doesn’t seem to have done the Russian peasants (comrade!) or the North Koreans too much good in past decades.
Like it or not, Diana was a symbol to many people. Now, whom do we blame for the outpouring of grief and anguish? Diana or the psychological need on many people’s parts to have dreams come true? The script ended in a most abrupt and unexpected way–and most of Diana’s life was scripted. It’s the dreams of the masses who made Diana what she was–and their relentless obsession for pieces of her. She died because of her popularity and her poor judgement, not because she was of the nobility and a “brood mare” for the Royal family. The resulting hysteria upon her death had little to do with Diana as a person, but everything to do with the loss of her as a symbol. Symbol of what? I would say symbol that dreams/fairy tales can come true (Princess Grace also suffered from obsessive publicity, as did Princess Alexandra, IMS).
People tend to idealize and elevate certain other people; check out the news team in rural America–they are almost like royalty to their “constituents”. They may not have a great deal of journalistic talent, but those “talking heads” (I’ve heard them referred to as the Talent, ironically), have more referent power than the actual journalists. Is this fair? No, but it is true. At least Diana used this position for some greater good. IMO, the world would be better off with more Diana-like people pulling in $ for social causes than with more contentious, bigoted, pompous asses who want to stick it to the Man and end up working for the Man instead.
The reason for royalty or celebrity or whatever is so that people have iconic figures around which to organize so that they can have some common bond. Nobody knows Joe the local town hero in the next county. It is around these positions of authority these figures that civilization was built, like it or not. If you feel like society somehow let you down by organizing this way, that’s all well and good, I don’t understand why hating on Diana gives you some jollies.
It’s just fun to hate.