People filing by Reagan's coffin .. what's that all about?

[NMH]

Pointless argument numero uno - it is anyone and everyone's right to mourn the passing of someone. Shall we all wonder at when 'goldstone' loses someone in his family or someone he/she gives a shyt about, as to why would anyone care?

It's up to every individual how they react to the death of their icons or anyone they ever gave a **** for.
Railing against it is just the wailing of an immature soul wanting to create attention. The question is as easily levelled; "why ask or even focus on people who do care about it?" And why should we have leaders anyway?

As for the 'anti-American' question, I think people in glass houses are throwing stones eh? What's so brilliant about Britian, for example? Ex-empire that screwed-up the middle East, created Iraq, stupid game cricket, can't win Wimbledon, pay for a 'Royal Family' (ferchrissakes!) can't deal with foreigners can't employ loads of indigenous layabouts either, yobs smash anything asap, fighting strangers with everything in common except the name of their football team, drinking problem rife, class rifts and malcontents, contention toward government, (we didn't start the fire etc.)

Yep, why do Brits have a privileged family covered in jewels poncing about with billions of pounds for doing nothing? Does the Queen lay millions of eggs or what's it all about?

 

[Brovion]

Gareth, I am most definitely NOT anti-American. The USA is a fantastic country and has made a massive contribution to humanity, you've made a very simplistic mistake of thinking that people who don't like Republican presidents are 'anti-American'. Wrong. That's like saying that everybody who doesn't vote Labour or doesn't blindy support Tony Blair is anti-British.

The simple fact is that America DOES get things wrong, they throw their weight around when they shouldn't and they sit on their hands when they should be helping. However in the words of that great anti-American Winston Churchill: "One can usually rely on the Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

 

[Dandyman]

Easy 10 I went to the Queen mother funeral, at first I was not sure then I thought about my grandparents and the amount of respect they had for her and about their generation and what they went through, i realised if my grandparents were alive they would have certainly attended so I went on their behalf i suppose and as a sort of paying of respects to all those people who went through the second world war, a bit cheesy and probably stupid but there it is. I am very glad I went.

Fair enough from that perspective, SM.

From my viewpoint my Gran who died in 1997 was in the RFC/RAF in WW1, had a brother in a Jap POW camp in WW2 and a son who spend 30 years in the RAF from the 1960's to 1990's. She regarded the Queen Mum and the rest of the Royals as a bunch of bone idle parasites and viewed one of the fruits of victory in 1945 as being the establishment of the Welfare State rather than the preservation of the Battenberg dynasty.

 

[GUNTER]

Mrs Thatcher was virtually hugging the coffin.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Fair enough from that perspective, SM.

From my viewpoint my Gran who died in 1997 was in the RFC/RAF in WW1, had a brother in a Jap POW camp in WW2 and a son who spend 30 years in the RAF from the 1960's to 1990's. She regarded the Queen Mum and the rest of the Royals as a bunch of bone idle parasites and viewed one of the fruits of victory in 1945 as being the establishment of the Welfare State rather than the preservation of the Battenberg dynasty.

A bit like my grandparents, Dandyman. They lived throughout WW2 in a block of flats right in the heart of the London Docks. They survived several direct hits by bombs that were targeting the warehouses only a hundred yards away and never bought into the myth that the Queen Mother's visit to the "devastated East End" was something other than a publicity stunt.

I remember my grandad's comment at the time of Churchill's funeral. "Another Tory down".

 

[Bwian]

Mrs Thatcher was virtually hugging the coffin.

She was whispering something as well...hopefully it was along the lines of "Move over Ronnie-plenty of room in there for me".

 

[Man of Harveys]

She was whispering something as well...hopefully it was along the lines of "Move over Ronnie-plenty of room in there for me".

Can't be long now...

 

[fatbadger]

Can't be long now...

Yep, the senility has already settled in; next comes death. Street party, anyone?

 

[goldstone]

Pointless argument numero uno - it is anyone and everyone's right to mourn the passing of someone. Shall we all wonder at when 'goldstone' loses someone in his family or someone he/she gives a shyt about, as to why would anyone care?

Not sure that, grammatically speaking, that last sentence makes a lot of sense .... However, let me respond to what I think NMH is tring to say ....

Why indeed would anyone care when I lose someone close to me? Those who knew the person might indeed like to mourn, attend the funeral and the wake .... BUT, I would not expect people who had no more than a passing acquaintance to bother themselves.

 

[somerset]

What's all this bloody nonsense about thousands of people filing by a dead body that was Ronald Reagan to apparently "pay their respects"?

HE'S DEAD, OK. HE CAN'T SEE YOU.

A bunch of utter claptrap.

It's like all those effing morons who went to Diana's funeral. She was dead too and they didn't even know her for christ's sake.

And then there's all those bunches of flowers attached to trees and stuff along our roads to mark the spot where maniac drivers met their end. Why? If someone dies at home in bed do we attach bunches of flowers to the bedpost and leave them there for months?

The world is mad.

You complete and utter dick head.........if people want to, then let them..... using your very misplaced and unbalanced logic, are you saying that we should not have done anything for Robert Eaton then.... oh! he says, maybe i should think before uttering bollox in future..... but i doubt you will.

Now bog off with your bigoted views.

 

[fatbadger]

Re: Re: People filing by Reagan's coffin .. what's that all about?

Now bog off with your bigoted views.

Your argument re: Robert Eaton was a fair one - so why did you ruin it with this complete nonsense? Bigoted?

 

[goldstone]

Am I anti-American?

But beyond that are other constants in American society - and its people's psyche – which are there regardless of the party in power. Take a look:-

Their love of guns; the death penalty; their ridiculous, nauseating, sugary patriotism; their enslavement to the mighty dollar and corrupt big-business; their once admired but now corporate-enslaved, timid and supine media; their truly astonishing 85% literal belief in medieval concepts like 'God' and 'the Devil'; their appalling level of ignorance of other cultures - only 14% of Americans actually own a passport; their naive, uncomprehending self-absorption; their grotesque levels of material greed and concomitant obesity; their insular inability to understand how they are regarded by the rest of the world.

Now that is VERY well put, GT. (Except, what the hell does "concomitant" mean?)

I actually like the USA and most Americans, but that paragraph neatly summarises why it so easy not to!!

 

[somerset]

Re: Re: Re: People filing by Reagan's coffin .. what's that all about?

Your argument re: Robert Eaton was a fair one - so why did you ruin it with this complete nonsense? Bigoted?

Yep i guess. but the emotion of it all !!!!!!!

 

[SM BHAFC]

Hmm this is generating into a lovely thread can I add Tony Benn to the list of people who have served thier country to the people we hope will die soon. No actually on the other hand it's just a political view I would not wish him dead, however much I disagree with him.

 

[Titanic]

BUT, I would not expect people who had no more than a passing acquaintance to bother themselves.

Which is probably why an ex-President of the USA attracts such a crowd! In their personal and political careers, they have a lot of people who they either meet, or whose actions or words touch their lives in some way.

Personally, I am very happy to see people paying the respects, and if appropriate, grieving publicly.

I am always moved by the real sense of respect, pride and dignity - as well as deep and often physical grief shown in some African tribal / Aboriginal / Indian and Middle Eastern cultures.

 

[Dave the OAP]

There is certainly a very different view of things on here isn't there.

I happen to think that having the threat of the Soviets to Europe when I was a kid and in my teens, to have someone who engaged in "proper" negotiations with Gorbachev and the removing of that threat by Perestroika and Glasnost, then in my eyes, he was a very clever president.

It always amazes me how people slag off politicians who make decisions about people's lives ( mostly in hindsight). One of the most fearsome arguements raged in the 70's about "Bomber" Harris, suggesting that he should have stood for war crimes as he ordered the destruction of German Cities by carpet bombing in the last two years of the war. The people who actually lived through the war and faced Hitlers bombers on a day to day basis recognised that this was a necessity and agreed wholeheartedly with it. The wooly liberals like hain/tatchell etc did not live through it, but had views on it

 

[Sully's Moustache]

Tell me, goldstone, what if Peter Ward or Bobby Zamora had died and had a funeral procession through the streets of Brighton and Hove in a blue and white draped coffin...............would you not have been tempted to go and pay your respects, or would you have just thought, sod it I'll go and play golf at Waterhall as it will be pretty empty today?

 

[SM BHAFC]

Bomber Harris british hero no doubt, did what had to be done however unpleasent and saw the bigger picture. Did people really say he should be tried for war crimes I never heard that before? Amazing!!

 

[Dave the OAP]

I remember watching a debate on Question Time when Robin Day used to run it and I think it was Tony Benn and Peter tatchell on the panel....They were rubbishing harris and suggested that he should have stood trial as he was no different to Goering!

I always remember this as my father went off on a right one and we ended up switching the telly off before he put his foot through it!

 

[SM BHAFC]

Oh well you learn something new every day, all I know is he turned it around for us when it was all going tits up in the RAF during WW2 got the RAF back up and running, was a controversial move carpet bombing though even then and Churchill had doubts and it did not go on that long because of these doubts.

But war criminal he certainly was not and now dave the Gaffer has explained who was making these claims it was obviousley not somehting taken very seriously by anyone apart form the two goons making the claims!