When Is Celebration Of a Person's Death or Illness Appropriate?

[Satchmo Distel]

The 1984 Brighton Bombing would perhaps have been the moment, not because I advocate political assassination in the UK (it would have made her a martyr and led to a huge increase in totalitarian measures in Northern Ireland) and not because I think the 1987 election result would have been any different, but because it feels right that they die in office. OTOH if you want your villains to die a lingering death, you can take solace from the fact that she had a long physical and cognitive decline during which I imagine she suffered a fair bit.

[Eggchaser]

I was thinking about this.

It’s a real loss when these people don’t face a proper trial or, really, any consequences for their actions, which is usually the case, especially if they were a leader of a fairly stable wealthy country like the US.


To some extent, that may be ok. We really don’t want to set a precedent where the new president/PM prosecutes the previous one. It would quickly turn political and I don’t know how it could be made fair and impartial.

But we could really use a proper international justice system that could try people like Bin Laden as well as Kissinger. But the US, among others - well, maybe it’s mostly us - won’t allow that. That’s a tragedy. They’re cannot be peace without justice and their won’t be justice without law.

A lot of democrats were proud that “Obama killed Bin Laden.” I wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t really possible to capture him, but I don’t think we tried at all. Sending him to The Hague would have been way better.

Same with Hitler.

Obama killed Hitler?

[Gangster Octopus]

Antifa...

[EIM]

It came way too late to be great. Even ten years earlier would have been so much better. Still, my mum got to enjoy the moment, and have a couple of years afterwards, so yeah.

It was perfect timing. I was in Grantham.

[Gangster Octopus]

And we'd been in the Ritz that night. I'd love to claim something...

[EIM]

I'd just lost my job after a bit of an emotional episode shall we say. I heard the news, rang me Grandma, and legged it to lidl in Grantham to buy four cans. I labelled them Hillsborough, Orgreave, The Belgrano and Douglas, after my Grandad, who was fucked by Thatcher as much as any working class person from the North.

Lidl in Grantham is a short walk to Thatcher's birthplace. When i walked in there were TV crews everywhere but no flowers. When I left The TV crews had added flowers. Even in her home town no one gave a fuck.

I enjoyed every beer that afternoon, but I enjoyed the one i named after my Grandad the most. Fuck Thatcher, fuck her politics, fuck anyone who shares her values. She planned the death of our communities and families, we only took joy from her demise, yet we're the bad guys? Nah. Not having it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I don't think I could deal with the consequent karma of celebrating someone's death. I'm still dealing with my low key criticism of Helen Reddy last week, and that happened before she died.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I was with the best bunch of people I could have been with that night, Eric's. Glad I resisted their entreaties to carry on the party in Trafalgar Square, mind. The cops weren't celebrating.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

This particular celebration was so eagerly anticipated a song was written about it several years in advance:

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

I was always looking forwards to celebrating Thatcher's demise but when it happened it was somewhst anticlimactic.

Oh no it fucking wasn't.

[Hot Pepsi]

Obama killed Hitler?

Yes. And Stalin. And Mussolini. And George III

[Hot Pepsi]

Forgiveness isn't just for the forgiven. It's for the forgiver.

Being happy that Thatcher suffered doesn't do anything to change history, but it might make us more callous and angry. Blah blah blah that thing about grudges and drinking poison. That's been my experience. I'm trying to find a way to feel compassion for the Trumpers. I still want them to lose the election, of course, and I don't think they're "good people." I just think they're humans who have succumbed to fear and, in some cases, greed and the greedy ones are lying to the scared ones to support them. I have to recognize that there but for the grace of God go I (I'm really piling on the cliches, aren't I?) But that's just how it is. There's a Buddhist saying about how all sentient things were, in another life, our mother, and that gives rise to compassion. That's not always very helpful, I know.

Living well is the best revenge, of course, but I know that isn't much consolation to the people who couldn't live well because of her and I can see wanting to have a little celebration when she died as a we to honor her victims. Grief is never neat and tidy and it is important to give anger it's due.

And certainly, if we have to choose, we should choose to sit with the downtrodden and the oppressed, rather than spend a lot of time hanging out with the downtrodders and the oppressors hoping that we'll change them a little.

The problem is that, when somebody like Thatcher dies, the powerful people who gave her power use the conventional deference for anyone deceased as an opportunity to try to rewrite history. That is not ok, to say the least. So it is important, if nothing else, to not let the eulogizers have the last word.

I think that's a much bigger problem here than it is in the UK. Maybe it's just the people I know, but there was much more of a "let's celebrate Thatcher's death" thing going on than there was "let's celebrate Reagan's death." There's still this idea here that we have to "respect the office" and that democracy depends on this kind of false civility.

That's one of the reasons I'm coming around to thinking that maybe the monarchy isn't so bad. The Queen can be the object of false unity and deference, while the PM is just another powerful asshole in a normal house (well, I know it isn't really, but it kinda pretends to be in a useful way). It seems to work better in Canada and Australia where the Queen is far away and there aren't so many Dukes and Lords and all that shit. But we seem to have ascribed the symbolism of a monarch to our president. (which was what some of the more democratically inclined founding fathers were afraid of, but what a lot of them actually wanted.)

[Eggchaser]

Yes. And Stalin. And Mussolini. And George III

Dr Obama?

[Satchmo Distel]

So it is important, if nothing else, to not let the eulogizers have the last word.

That's a good point. See Ronald Reagan.

[Snake Plissken]

With this sort of situation, I find there are three broad camps.

The people like myself, who cheerfully admit that we harbour a vague hope that he dies but mainly are reduced to laughing darkly and cynically at the schadenfraude of it all because we're utterly powerless.

The people like McKenzie, who are knowingly being hypocritical cunts about it because money and hypocrisy is hard-wired into them.

And the people who are going "well, I don't really want someone to die because that's a terrible thing to wish on anybody and that's make us all Very Bad Human Beings and We Should All Be Better Than That". Not coincidentally, that group includes a large subset of people who quietly quite like having a Trump or a Johnson around, because the alternative is a Sanders or a Corbyn in charge of things and that Sort Of Thing Simply Cannot Be Allowed To Happen.

[Janik]

I was always looking forwards to celebrating Thatcher's demise but when it happened it was somewhst anticlimactic.

This. The same with Trump, if he carks it. The damage has already been done. It's too late.

[Hot Pepsi]

I just want whatever outcome leads to Biden winning the election and, hopefully, Republicans losing the Senate.

[ad hoc]

I was in Liverpool when Thatcher died. It wasn't anticlimactic

[Nefertiti2]

A lot of democrats were proud that “Obama killed Bin Laden.” I wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t really possible to capture him, but I don’t think we tried at all. Sending him to The Hague would have been way better.

Jeremy Corbyn was of the same opinion

https://twitter.com/tombellforever/status/651756137507909633?s=20

[Patrick Thistle]

Jeremy Corbyn was of the same opinion

https://twitter.com/tombellforever/status/651756137507909633?s=20

This is precisely the point I was trying to make about being decent and human and that being ammo for the opposition because they will stoop that low to use your humanity against you. (To be fair to Corbyn he wasn't to know he was going to become Labour leader one day. That must have felt incredibly unlikely.)

[G-Man]

I let ad hoc and Jah Womble speak for me here. And Mark Twain.

[DCI Harry Batt]

People should be angry, it's not a bad thing.

[anton pulisov]

Answer to the opening post: Never.

[S. aureus]

I'm just hoping for whatever chain of events get us out of a republican presidency with the least bloodshed.

[Mr Beast]

Don’t overthink it. This is definitely appropriate.