OH. No, no, let's not quote obscure songs almost nobody remembers. Let's just say flat out, "Thank CHRIST the fucking ROYAL WEDDING lunacy is over."
Despite cautionary reports from polls suggesting less than 25% of UK and USA citizens gave ANY kind of DAMN about these twits, ROYAL WEDDING II was a grand success. There were crowds in the streets. There were idiotic products being sold. And with no Kardashian exposing anything, the media kept making it a BIG IMPORTANT TOPIC.
There was also THE RACE CARD. Oooh, Prince Harry is marrying someone of "mixed race." It's about time!
About time? Isn't love supposed to be blind? Why wasn't it "about time" Prince Harry married a paraplegic? An Asian? An atheist? Is a useless celebrity marrying a D-list actress with an ugly mother and a low-life father a cause for joy ANYWHERE in the world?
TIME magazine dutifully devoted page after page in issue after issue to the spectacle of the ROYAL WEDDING...but...in some show of contrition, tossed a page to Mr. Graham Smith (no relation) who wrote an editorial called "WHO NEEDS THE ROYALS?"
Aside from dwelling on the appalling fact that in the 21st Century, people still believe somebody is superior than somebody else because of their BLOOD...Mr. Smith offered a cold fact:
"...according to our research, British taxpayers lose about $468 million a year just to have a head of state - a lot more than the official figure released by Buckingham Palace, which was $58 million last year. In fact, our monarch is one of the most expensive nonpolitical heads of state in Europe, at least 12 times as expensive as Ireland's elected equivalent."
OK, that's according to HIS research. Even if he's off by $200 million, it's still a HUGE waste of MONEY.
"Any claim about how the royals boost British tourism, trade and retail sales needs to be set against the high costs," Mr. Smith notes. And let's add that while it might be argued that Prince William and his wax figure bride presented a continuation of some kind of twisted, inborn "glamour" (at least from HER), there's not quite the same cache in woolly-headed Harry and his D-list actress. Seeing those two potentially ponce around Pakistan, or visit a Harlem classroom, and do whatever the other idiots have done, isn't quite as novel, is it?
As to tourism, WHO is coming to England to get a glimpse of ROYALS? That's like people coming to Washington to get a glimpse of Trump. It's not likely to happen, and it's a dopey idea. Did the wedding influence the sale of Royal Crown Cola? Doubtful. England meanwhile is losing its identity in the worlds of products (where IS Cadbury being made these days?). Visits know better than to book a trip to London and expect to see men in bowler hats, or Stanley Holloway and Elsa Lanchester-types selling fish and chips. The Mayor of London doesn't exactly resemble what a tourist would expect. (Compare this to the Mayor of New York, who is a big surly obnoxious jerk, fully compatible with any tourist's image of a New Yorker).
Mr. Smith ended by complaining that the continued groveling and weak-kneed nonsense (that includes knighting moronic entertainers) reflects "the damage it does to our democracy."
Oh, that's right. Great Britain actually IS a democracy. You VOTE for the leaders, and The Royals are just inane figureheads. Then again, how about President Trump and the damage HE does to AMERICAN democracy? As his followers gleefully note, he IS above the law, and he can't be removed from office unless proven insane, or unless he's impeached and a VAST MAJORITY of senators vote him out, and there are too many Republicans in the Senate for that to happen.
At least nobody in America is wildly following Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner around, cheering them, begging for souvenir spoons with their faces on them, or declaring "it's about time" some pampered Christian woman marry an Orthodox Jewish realtor.
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