This State Funeral business is surreal to me. Anyone else?

[Eloriel]

I've had MSNBC on this afternoon, paying only a little attention here and there while I'm doing other things. And I saw a little coverage at the Reagan library yesterday.

What's surreal to me, and I'm trying to figure out what I'm sensing/feeling a little better, is here's all this official hoopla, including quite a few military people (even bands!), happening quite independent of the current administration (and PRESIDENT). It seems like a parallel track of some sort. It's just weird to me.

I understand it's all official, that the plans have been in place for years (updated annually, we've been told numerous times), that it's done at taxpayer expense and all that. It just seems....so....strange. :shrug:

Bet the Narcissist in Chief is every bit as annoyed with all this coverage that excludes him as the rest of us are sick to death of the non-stop coverage. Heck, Chris Matthews couldn't wait to drop the evacuation of the Capitol to get back to the Reagan coverage. It was (almost) funny.

[spooky3]

1. Home & Garden TV is getting all my viewing time this week.

[evil_orange_cat]

2. it's like this has become BIZARRO America.

this cult of personality nonsense that is polluting the airwaves is sickening to me... I've turned off my TV until this is over.

[RoundRockD]

3. I'm catching up on Lifetime Movie Network this week. n/t

[evil_orange_cat]

4. I've been listening to Air America while surfing :)

I'm almost not even missing all those cable TV news shows.

[tom_paine]

5. Not surreal...SOVIET.

Which might seem unreal if you missed the part where the Old American Republic was crushe in Dec 2000.

Reagan's State Funeral and National Holiday is unlike what Free Nations do.

But Imperial Amerika is no longer technically a Free Nation (though our lives, for the moment, are still sorta free-seeming), and you should look at the State Funeral of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Imperial Rome if you are looking for parallels.

Your confusion is very understandable. It's a Brave New World we are living in.

[ochazuke]

13. You Got It.

How would our founding fathers feel to see this? It's suitable for Kings and Tyrants they might say, but not the head of a free state. Over-The-Top re-writing of history by Brokaw et. al. doesn't help either. ("He came to Washington to restore the American Spirit" or something like that I heard Brokaw say.)

[Lisa]

17. you have to look at it as performance art ...

Highly stylized and symbolic, like the heavy-handed Soviet art lampooned by Komar and Melamid.

http://www.culturekiosque.com/art/exhibiti/sovietart.html

[kentuck]

6. It's surreal because they want everyone to believe their propaganda BS..

No. Everybody did not love Ronald Reagan. Some people actually disliked him immensely and intensely. Maybe more than half the counry disliked him. But it's easy to see how so many of the Reagan woshippers would think otherwise. They lived and breathed that bullshit for 20 years...no one ever tried to dissuade them...they were just permitted to continue to spiel that crap about "winning the Cold War' and the "best economy in history", etc....

[MrBenchley]

7. Eisenhower was a much better president

and there wasn't this obscene sort of spectacle.

Truman was a much better president and his funeral was also low key.

Of course both of them had real accomplishments that served as their real memorial.

[Jose Diablo]

8. I feel like either

the world has gone nuts or I have. Glad to know about DU or I would have to conclude it was me.

[ochazuke]

16. Hang in there, Jelly Baby!

And tell everyone you know what a rotten president he was. We can't let this lie get set in stone.

And when they say "let's put him on Mount Rushmore" or "Let's put him on the ten-dollar bill" or "let's name the Pentagon after him", you shout NO! We will not defile even a public toilet with the name of that demagogue!

[hlthe2b]

9. I could see all this after a Presidential assasination...

Maybe even if one died in office-- sort of gives the Nation some closure. But, I think it is incredibly excessive for one who died quite expectedly at the ripe old age of 93. A single televised memorium, fine. But, the lying in state and all that jazz ought to be reserved for very unusual circumstances IMO...

[ochazuke]

15. Exactly!

A ceremony of this scale would be entirely appropriate if he had died in office like FDR or JFK. But this old man had been wasting away out of public sight for more than ten years!

[dicknbush]

10. They want to put Reagans face on Money.....

I suggest they put his mug on Food Stamps.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

11. it's hollywood

ronnie's hamming it up till the end.

this time, the pork comes to washington.

[Cleita]

12. It's surreal all right. I keep expecting a deification ceremony to begin.

I had to switch to the Sci-Fi channel. It seems more realistic to me today. The X-files are on.

[htuttle]

14. Seems a bit anti-climatic to just dump him in the ground

With all the hoopla, I'd have to think cremating him in a massive funeral pyre on the Library Mall, or preserving him under glass in the Capitol rotunda would be more in character...or maybe a pyramid, and they could seal all the faithful neocons in there with him to keep him company in the next world...maybe slaughter some goats for good measure, too.

:eyes:

[graham67]

18. WTF?

I just turned on the TV for the first time since Reagan died. I see Nancy Reagan waving to the crowd from the car and a freaking BAND is playing??? It's like a celebration, not mourning a death.