I pay as much attention to politics as I do to cleaning out under my frig.
But, has any president in recent history ( 40 years) gone through a presidency without some major controversy?
Guess which right wing commentator said this?
Guess which right wing commentator said this?
Granted, speaking ill of the dead when they are unable to defend themselves may be bad form, but it’s not as if Nixon (or whoever) was going to answer EVERY critic who lambasted him while he was alive.
“Mr. Nixon, Wang-Ka thinks you’re a dick.”
“(sigh) Pencil him in for 4 o’clock.”
You can probably find someone to defend anyone, but there isn’t really much serious doubt.
I think that non-critical eulogies for state figures arise out of the concept of “my country, good or bad.”
For example, when a non-state figure dies, the press coverage is less circumspect with regard to the negative aspects of the person. It is usually only with state figures that the press starts to spin heavily away from the person’s problem past.
With Nixon, I think the lack of criticism when covering his funeral was more a result of the press wanting to preserve the dignity of the office of state rather than to promote the individual. At his funeral the coverage of his professional life tended to downplay his McCarthyism, racism and Watergate, for to focus on it would further drag down the reputation of the Office of the President into disrepute.
Meh, I don’t mind a little whitewashing during a funeral. Funerals are for the living, not the dead, and it’s just basic politeness to let Nixon’s surviving relatives to have that one day when they don’t have to hear what a corrupt, venal fuck they were related to. It’s not like all the future Nixon biographies are going to be citing the funeral as evidence that he was actually an okay guy.
Hell, I criticized Nixon and Reagan when they were alive (or didn’t have Alzheimer’s) I’ll criticize them after they’re dead. My opinion of them doesn’t change when they start pushing up daisies.
I was so sick at all those eulogies of Nixon, though. Anything less than spitting on the man was taking common courtesy too far.
A sentiment that speaks oh-so-well of your maturity and reminds me yet again how uncommon common courtesy actually is.
Why don’t we speak ill of the dead? It isn’t for their sake, because they’re beyond help, but for our sake. The wounds those persons have caused in us have to heal sometime. If we keep allowing those wounds to fester, or keep picking at them, we will never be better off. We’ll never advance beyond the level they held us down to. I think that’s true for remote public officials we never meet as well as for an abusive relative that nobody else knows - you have to move on.
Not speaking ill of the dead does not require us to speak well of them, either. You don’t have to speak at all, or even mean it if you do - how many of those kind statements you heard at Nixon’s funeral were sincere? You do, btw, have to give credit to anyone for not being entirely evil or entirely good.
Interesting comments about Franco’s death, which sound similar to other remarks about Stalin’s death. Perhaps the emotion being expressed really was loss - both men had ruled their countries for a long time, and change can evoke the same responses as loss. The survivors had known stability in their lives - in fear and oppression, yes, but they knew how to get along in the system they had. Those familiar surroundings in which they had had a relatively good life (? Yes) had just been destroyed. That’s something to grieve over.
Sermon over. The deacons will now pass the collection plates.
Well, rejoicing for someone’s dead is not only spitefull but also very stupid, after all the object of your hatred is past caring your impertinence.
Yesterday morning ex General Leopoldo F. Galtieri, former dictator of my country passed away, a group of people, obviously not having anything better to do, decided to go to the Militar Hospital in Buenos Aires to celebrate Galtieri’s death, the reason they went there is the fact that another dictator ex Admiral Massera is in there (he’s dying too). They chanted: “Galtieri the son of the bitch is dead, Massera soon will be too” (it rhymes in spanish).
Galtieri was not one of my favourite humam beings, neither is Massera. The thing that make me wish all the protestor die a very horrible dead is the fact that the Militar Hospital has over a thousand beads. Not a single one of those poor excuses of persons did stop for a minute to think that they shouldn’t make a protest near a hospital, people (including Massera) are suffering in there. Shocking.
“To the living we owe our respect. To the dead we owe only the truth.” – Voltaire
In any country, there’s always a risk of forgetting history and transforming our past into mythology. Keeping an honest version of history alive is always a challenge. I think the fear is that Nixon will be mythologized into a great leader, as his flaws get forgotten.
Will the Nixon taught to schoolchildren a generation from now be the homophobic, racist, mccarthyist responsible for Watergate? Or will be the Nixon who went to China, and ended the Vienam War? If we forget the uglier half of history, we risk repeating it.
The United States has already mythologized its pioneer days (which required the destruction of the Native societies living there) and its founding fathers (mostly slave-owners), and the once-clear memory of the viciousness of Vietnam seems to be fading. Up her in Canada, we’ve mostly forgotten the killing of Louis Riel, the Chinese Head Tax, the Japanese concentration camps, and the Duplessis years in Quebec.
So I agree with the OP. At least when it comes to political figures, we shouldn’t be shy about speaking ill of the dead.