CSotD: Black suit and tap shoes
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Marian Kamensky bids farewell to the Iron Lady.
The death of Margaret Thatcher on the same day as Annette Funicello suggests the aphorism with which Tolstoy began "Anna Karenina," in that all beloved people are the same, but each despised person is despised in different ways.
Neither death was particularly unexpected; both women were known to be in failing health, so the oh-my-god factor is off the table, leaving, really, only their legacies.
I loved Annette. We all loved Annette. But there's not much more to say than that. Even before her MS, she had begun to keep a pretty low profile, and her legacy, really, is that she was a bright, very attractive, talented actress who was likeable and who never, apparently, screwed up as some other former child stars have.
Sorry she's dead.
Mrs. Thatcher stirs up a much more mixed and troublesome discussion and I've heard (but not verified) that several major news sites had to shut down comments on the stories of her death because they were being inundated with vitriol.
The Telegraph ran a collection of comments that, among other things, compared her to Pitt, Disraeli, Gladstone and Lloyd-George, and reported public tsk-tsking over a BBC presenter who had the effrontery to anchor special coverage in a gray, rather than black, suit, and a blue, rather than black, tie, and which also included a great deal of negative response from prominent people.
They even ran a separate story about the flood of negative tweets that included a quite different comment on funerary dress: “Finally, I get to wear my black suit and tap shoes together."
There were also several references on-line and in the MSM to this Elvis Costello song, in which he prays to live long enough to "tramp down the dirt" on her grave.
Which seems pretty harsh from this side of the Atlantic, where Mrs. Thatcher's death touched off a flurry of soppy Pearly Gaters of her tender reunion with her beloved Ronald Reagan, as well as a few somewhat muted observations on the other side of the ledger, such as Jim Morin's take:
It's right to break free of the idea that nothing but good should be spoken of the dead.
That may be true of your Uncle Louie, but public figures make great fortunes during their lifetimes in the spotlight and should expect to have their legacies explored upon their deaths as part of the cost of fame.
And, by the by, I don't recall much uproar on this topic when Hugo Chavez died. Apparently there are some kitchens in which gander sauce can't possibly be poured over a goose.
Americans simply didn't know Margaret Thatcher very well, and, if her legacy here is a little vague beyond her friendship with Reagan, that may be because her main impact here was in helping him advance the new American agenda of enlightened self-interest, in which various safety nets were slowly withdrawn, not just under his administration but continuing under Bush, Clinton and Bush again, in a gradual sort of boiled-frog process that had far less immediate impact and caused far less consternation than her domestic policy of yanking out the supports.
"Milk-Snatcher Thatcher" was divisive and, while Reagan softened his pragmatism by playing the genial old duffer, she reveled in her "Iron Lady" identity and wasn't afraid to call Mandela a terrorist or express her disdain for unions or to watch young Irish prisoners die rather than bend to negotiate prison reforms.
It was a personna that only made the oft-cited fact that she was a grocer's daughter seem like more proof that there are no rearview mirrors in a Rolls Royce.
Paolo Lombardi's gentle send-off is also a mark of a socioeconomic difference between the US and the rest of the world generally, and this is long-standing. There is simply a class consciousness nearly everywhere else that has no resonance in this country. The idea of a march featuring students and workers in our streets is completely implausible, but it's common in other nations.
Americans seem to all be hoping to get that Rolls Royce themselves, the one with no rearview mirror, and, when it comes to working their own way up in the world, the emphasis is on "own" — They'd rather scratch lottery tickets than go on a general strike, or even honor someone else's stoppage.
"I've got mine" is not uniquely American, mind you. Kevin Kallaugher posted some of his collection of Thatcher cartoons through the years, and this one traces her career nicely:
As someone involved in Irish-American music, I was at some pains to understand what was going on in the Six Counties in the early 80s as Thatcher first came to power, and it should be noted that it was not her government that converted a non-violent civil rights movement into a bloody revolution.
But she certainly was tone deaf, and her "Iron Lady" words and policies prolonged the bloodshed and suffering not simply by infuriating the militants themselves, but by also angering and frightening the common people who then rallied 'round "our boys" rather than see more of them abducted, tortured and occasionally murdered.
And I say that as someone who approached the topic initially with a great deal of mistrust in the horror stories, until I met moderate people from Ulster, and even prominent peacemakers, as well as finding actual documentation.
What frustrated me personally was seeing how, when the same things that her government had been doing in Ireland were turned against miners and rioters in her own country, the public turned against her.
It's the old story: We're all quite sure that someone else's brat just needs a touch of the belt, but don't lay your hand on my kid.
Well, Mrs. Thatcher laid her hands on a lot of people's kids, and, if she's being remembered as a "strong leader" and as Ronald Reagan's buddy, she's also being remembered for the pain she left behind.
It's called "history" and sometimes it's what happens.
Anyway, if you don't like your legacy, there's a lesson in the words of her husband, Denis, who memorably explained how to get along with the press: "Never tell them to piss off. It makes them cross."
There are many more Thatcher obituary cartoons at Cartoon Movement, Africartoons and GoComics.
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