"Bells rang and the peasantry ululated their pleasure beneath battleship grey skies. Past imperious London buildings, the state coach clattered, followed by the Household Cavalry pompously bobbing. Kate practised waving, the one-word job description of monarchy."
Robert McNeil; Rousing Stuff; The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland); Apr 30, 2011.
Dixon
06-11-2011, 12:40 AM
On the subject of the royal wedding, here are a couple of "haiku" I wrote recently (as entries in a humor contest):
Working stiffs, gawk at
Your dependents, who look down
On you, poor suckers.
“Hot Honeymoon”
Let’s vote—Where should the
Royal couple honeymoon?
I recommend Hell.
Dixon
06-12-2011, 04:47 PM
Hi, Kathy!
Dixon, why such a violent suggestion? (the honeymoon-in-hell one)
I hope you don't think I'm silly enough to actually believe in Hell, or mean enough to actually consign anybody to it if it did exist! Note that I said these "haiku" were written for a humor contest--it's black humor.
Having said that, the reason I take joy in imagining royals in Hell is that the whole concept of royalty is sick and bigoted. The idea that someone deserves power, respect and lots of money from honest working people for nothing other than being born into a certain family, and that such leeches are actually a better class of people than the working folks who feed them--well, do I really need to point out how perverse and bigoted that is? Royals are vampires, sucking the wealth from the workers who create it (many of whom are in poverty, partly as a result of being vampirized by the "upper classes").
Also, consider what the various royal families of the world have historically done to take power in their society. Waging war, spying, lying, murder--that's how you get to be a royal family in the first place. Of course the upper class will program the common people from childhood on up to admire them and feel inferior, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see through that perverse, bigoted conditioning--only honest use of our brains.
Seeing all the media interest in a royal wedding, all the news reports etc., horrifies me because it shows how many people actually admire these vampires, and therefore apparently embrace the bigoted, exploitive system that creates royalty. As long as so many think that exploitive power is a virtue, we'll continue to have a nasty, exploitive, warring world with plenty of poverty and injustice. So you see, I'm sad and angry about this. To Hell with the royals!