This weekend there will be a wedding amongst a bunch of parasitic welfare cheats in England. Perhaps the English people should choose this moment to follow the great example of the French revolutionaries of two hundred plus years ago and divorce these parasites of their wealth, status, excessive leisure time, and perhaps their heads. Better late than never, eh?
I jest. A little. Honestly like everyone else who watched it and had a heart I cried during the funeral of Lady Diana years back, really I did. She seemed like a nice lady....she was devoted to charitable works and she didn't seem the type to be sending peasants to languish in the dungeon. But really, what do these royals actually do for a living? Who hired them? We certainly know who pays them; who pays for their palaces and their guards and their thrones and their crowns. We American taxpayers think we have a problem with entitlements? Hah!
Perhaps it made sense, once upon a time, to have powerful leaders who lead their nations against barbarian invaders and inspired their bands of brothers on the field of battle. Though perhaps not...perhaps that's where we went wrong in the first place. In any case, the English throne has outlasted its challengers since the 17th-century republicans were defeated. The waves of republicanism (the good kind, thank you) that swept Europe in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries may have hobbled the Windsor family — or the Saxe-Coburg Gothas if you with nostalgia for the real Germanic source of royal English blood prefer — with elections and parliaments and prime ministers, but it hasn't done what really should have been done long ago, which is sent them packing.
Star-struck Americans accustomed to celebrity worship might confuse the royals with important people like movie actors, singers or reality-television stars, but at least those people earn their keep. Of course I'm against capital punishment even for the royals so perhaps the English people needn't invest in new guillotine technology. But the citizens Windsor should be tossed out of their palaces and set to wander with the heirs to the Shah of Iran, the German Kaisers, the Austro-Hungarian royalty, the Tsars of Russia and Bulgaria, the Kings of France, the Emperors of China and Annam, and Africa's Jean Bedel Bokassa and Haile Selassie. I hear the French Riviera is lovely this time of year. I'm sure all the money being spent on the Royal Wedding could be put to better uses, perhaps subsidizing Marmite exports.
Ah the "magic" of a royal wedding - all the wars and troubles of the world just disappear ...
ReplyDelete"One lump or two, my dear?"
I am not a Royalist by any stretch of the imagination, but I agree, there was something very special about Diana. I miss her. Perhaps there is enough of her in her two boys to make some little change. You think?
I have a heart. I have wept over the deaths of strangers. I did not cry over the death of Princess Diana.
ReplyDeletei try to be a realist as much as possible, but this is a nice happy fairytale arrangement, and i think the escapism is exactly the reason for the appeal.
ReplyDeletebeautiful people getting married in a giant lavish ceremony that's ridiculous. it makes you forget your troubles. and since they only do one every 30 years or so lately, i can forgive it.
that being said, i DO agree with you ish, although one might argue that the 'peaceful' transition to the constitutional monarchy all those years ago might allow the royals to have a little scratch.
"There’s the soap-opera function. The cult of Princess Di (seen as a victim of the royal family, although herself depicted as somehow regal, “the people’s princess”) suggests that many people dissatisfied with their own lives want to fill their own emotional voids by following and fantasizing about the lives of their “betters.” It is the same type of alienation that produces other kinds of fandom. Meanwhile the antics of Prince Charles and Princess Camilla, Andrew and Fergie, Princess Margaret etc. produce huge profits for the tabloids."
ReplyDeleteThis from a really interesting article on monarchy at Kasama. http://kasamaproject.org/2011/04/28/this-pathetic-royal-wedding-connecting-celebrity-to-religion/