Friday, April 12, 2013

where decorum and dismay collide

In England, an online campaign to push "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead" to the top of the British song charts has left those who wish to honor former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a tizzy. Thatcher died of a stroke on Monday. She was 87.

In her lifetime, Thatcher's economic and political priorities are seen in some quarters as having had positive results. But positive results for some are invariably attended by negative results for others ... as "The Wizard of Oz" song campaign makes clear.

Those who would extol the first female prime minister consider the musical onslaught to be in decidedly bad taste and "insensitive." But backers of the song campaign have ample fodder for their assault as well.

Why is it that those who believe we should "not speak ill of the dead" are so tone-deaf to their own principles? If speaking ill of the dead is insensitive and corrosive, why is speaking well of them any less calloused and corrupt?

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