Welcome to Flightinfo.com

  • Register now and join the discussion
  • Friendliest aviation Ccmmunity on the web
  • Modern site for PC's, Phones, Tablets - no 3rd party apps required
  • Ask questions, help others, promote aviation
  • Share the passion for aviation
  • Invite everyone to Flightinfo.com and let's have fun

State Funeral

  • Thread starter Thread starter TonyC
  • Start date Start date
  • Watchers Watchers 7

Welcome to Flightinfo.com

  • Register now and join the discussion
  • Modern secure site, no 3rd party apps required
  • Invite your friends
  • Share the passion of aviation
  • Friendliest aviation community on the web

TonyC

Frederick's Happy Face
Joined
Oct 21, 2002
Posts
3,050
As Americans, we should all pause and reflect on the life of a fellow American. Political leanings aside, we can all acknowledge the impact he had on the world we live in today.

I listened to the Eulogy offered by Lady Thatcher. I believe it would benefit every American to hear the same. I am eager to find the entire text of the speech, or even a video of the presentation. So far, this is all I have been able to find.



Thatcher: Reagan was great American

----------------------------------------------------------

Washington, DC, Jun. 11 (UPI) -- Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher celebrated former President Ronald Reagan's great patriotism and fight against Communism at his state funeral. "We have lost a great President, a great American and a great man," Thatcher said in a recorded eulogy played Friday at the U.S. National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

"His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nations," Thatcher said. "He won the cold war not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends."

Thatcher and Reagan shared similar conservative philosophies and worked closely during the last decade of the Cold War, which ended just after Reagan left office.

Thatcher's was the first of four eulogies to be delivered at Reagan's funeral. She preceded former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Former President George H.W. Bush and current President George W. Bush.
 
Tony,


I most certainly agree. The words of Margaret Thatcher were very moving - and this from a woman who is not even an American!

I was also touched by the tears and choked up speech that former President George Bush delivered.

For the past few days, I have asked that my son watch the procession to the Capitol and explained to him the significance of each part. I also had him watch the funeral today because he was witnessing history and the importance of people like President Reagan in our country's history.

God Bless President Reagan and his family. I am certain that he is having a conversation with God, interjecting his wonderful sense of humor! :)

Kathy
 
Lady Thatcher's eulogy

Here you go Tony.


Reagan Won the Cold War by Turning Enemies Into Friends
Margaret Thatcher
Friday, June 11, 2004
A text of Baroness Margaret Thatcher's eulogy at the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan:

We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man. And I have lost a dear friend.

In his lifetime Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk.

Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause - what Arnold Bennett once called "the great cause of cheering us all up." His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation - and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire.

Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure.

And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery, "Whatever time I've got left now belongs to the Big Fella Upstairs."

And surely it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan's life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed.

Others prophesied the decline of the West; he inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom.

Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity.

Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union; he won the Cold War - not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends.

I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on his words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit: "Let me tell you why it is we distrust you." Those words are candid and tough, and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust.

We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan began to reshape with those words. It is a very different world with different challenges and new dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the world he inherited on becoming president.

As Prime Minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly both before and after his presidency. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president.

Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles - and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively.

When the world threw problems at the White House, he was not baffled, or disorientated, or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do.

When his aides were preparing option papers for his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of proposals that they knew "the Old Man" would never wear.

When his allies came under Soviet or domestic pressure, they could look confidently to Washington for firm leadership.

And when his enemies tested American resolve, they soon discovered that his resolve was firm and unyielding.

Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth.

Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform.

Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow's "evil empire." But he realised that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors.

So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation.

Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity - and nothing was more American.

Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his achievements. Ronald Reagan carried the American people with him in his great endeavours because there was perfect sympathy between them. He and they loved America and what it stands for - freedom and opportunity for ordinary people.

As an actor in Hollywood's golden age, he helped to make the American dream live for millions all over the globe. His own life was a fulfilment of that dream. He never succumbed to the embarrassment some people feel about an honest expression of love of country.

He was able to say "God Bless America" with equal fervour in public and in private. And so he was able to call confidently upon his fellow countrymen to make sacrifices for America - and to make sacrifices for those who looked to America for hope and rescue.

With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today the world - in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself - the world mourns the passing of the Great Liberator and echoes his prayer "God Bless America."


Ronald Reagan's life was rich not only in public achievement, but also in private happiness. Indeed, his public achievements were rooted in his private happiness. The great turning point of his life was his meeting and marriage with Nancy.

On that we have the plain testimony of a loving and grateful husband: "Nancy came along and saved my soul." We share her grief today. But we also share her pride - and the grief and pride of Ronnie's children.

For the final years of his life, Ronnie's mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again - more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think - in the words of Bunyan - that "all the trumpets sounded on the other side."

We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children.



© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/11/123141.shtml

:)
 
Did anyone else see the shot of Bill Clinton during the service? He appeared to be sleeping!!!!
 
There must be some mistake. Are we talking about Ronald Reagan, the former American president who just had a funeral? Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who considered The Taliban "liberators" in the 1980s? Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who threw support and money towards Afghanistan Islamic fundamentalists who rolled out the red carpet for Al Qaeda and Osama, who . . . well, you know the rest of the story.

Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who is quoted as saying Nelson Mandela was a terrorist? (For those of you that don't know, Mandela is one of the main figures in the end of apartheid in South Africa, and has since received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work)

Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who fired thousands of PATCO Air Traffic Controllers and left the entire aviation industry in chaos all because they wanted better benefits and better equipment for a failing ATC system?

It's fine to pay respects, but let's not revise history so we can feel good about everyone that dies.
 
I don't record much TV anymore, meaning that I screwed up the funeral taping. Does anyone know if the entire State funeral will be replayed? I've looked at the onscreen Directv guide and can't find a replay. Please help if you discover a repeat.

Thanks in advance,
:)
 
datafox said:
There must be some mistake. Are we talking about Ronald Reagan, the former American president who just had a funeral? Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who considered The Taliban "liberators" in the 1980s? Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who threw support and money towards Afghanistan Islamic fundamentalists who rolled out the red carpet for Al Qaeda and Osama, who . . . well, you know the rest of the story.

Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who is quoted as saying Nelson Mandela was a terrorist? (For those of you that don't know, Mandela is one of the main figures in the end of apartheid in South Africa, and has since received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work)

Are we talking about the same Ronald Reagan who fired thousands of PATCO Air Traffic Controllers and left the entire aviation industry in chaos all because they wanted better benefits and better equipment for a failing ATC system?

It's fine to pay respects, but let's not revise history so we can feel good about everyone that dies.

jesus...our educational system is a shambles!!!
 
The Taliban and the Soviet Union...............


First off, it wasn't the Taliban that fought the Soviets. It was the people of Afghanistan that fought the Soviets. More specifically, the Mujahadeen. A buddy of mine fought with them. He's got some stories that would raise hairs on the back of your head. Who did we choose to support in this fight? The invaders or the invaded? It was a means to once again thwart Communism's attempt at gaining a foothold elsewhere. Is that a good thing or not? They fought one hell of a fight, and won, driving the Soviets back across the border. We supported that. Was that a bad thing to do?



Here's some more education for you:



"False myths of Afghanistan

  • The Taliban are the government of Afghanistan. False: all countries in the world but one (Pakistan) recognize the old government of Afghanistan, the one that was overthrown by the Taliban. The United Nations seat for Afghanistan is still held by a representative of that government. The Northern Alliance that is fighting the Taliban inside Afghanistan is related to the old government (it also includes other groups).
  • "Taliban" is a word that stands for "Afghan". False: a "talib" is a religious student, and "taliban" is simply the plural of "talib". The taliban are all religious students who study in madras (Islamic schools). This group came to be called "Taliban" because they originated from Pakistani madras and were the most orthodox among the religious fighters in Afghanistan.
  • The Afghans are Arabs. False: the Afghans are closer to Iran (most speak the language of Iran, farsi) and have a completely different history (they even used to be a sanctaury for Buddhism). The Arabs currently fighting with the Taliban were brought to Afghanistan by the USA, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to fight the Soviet Union.
  • The population of Afghanistan supports the Taliban. False: the Afghan population may have supported them at the beginning, when they promised to bring to an end the civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops, but many years of dictatorship, crazy laws, torture, killings, extermination have alienated even their own ethnic group. And Afghanistan has many minorities, from shiites to Tajiks, that have been persecuted by the Taliban and are actively fighting them (as part of the Northern Alliance). Literate women who are now reduced to the status of animals have formed a secret resistance.
  • Osama Bin Laden is a Talib. False: first of all Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia and he actually arrived way before the Taliban were even born. He was among the first Arab volunteers recruited by the US to fight against the Soviet Union. The Taliban arrived a decade later, when OSama Bin Laden and the other volunteers had already kicked the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden has certainly helped the Taliban and the Taliban are protecting him, but he has never been part of the Taliban army. Ditto for the Brigade 55, which is made of Arab volunteers more or less reporting to Osama Bin Laden.
  • Osama Bin Laden's organization Al Qaeda is based in Afghanistan. False: Osama Bin Laden may be in Afghanistan, but his organization is spread around the world, with strong financial centers in Europe and the US and operatives in as many as 60 countries.
  • Osama Bin Laden's men are Afghans. False: Osama Bin Laden has recruited Muslims from all over the world. His deputy is Egyptian. The attack in New York was carried out by Lebanese, Algerian, Saudi and Moroccan men. One of those men was even a French citizen.
  • The terrorists that attacked America on September 11, 2001 were Afghan. False: none of them was Afghan. They were from different Muslim countries.
  • Many of the most wanted terrorists in the world are Afghan. False: there isn't a single Afghan national in the list of America's most wanted terrorists. "

Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. I suppose it depends on how you look at it. He was inciting riots, not protests, but riots, in a country that had NO free speech rights for anyone, much less a black man. Is that wrong? Absolutely. But it may have been way more effective to do what Martin Luther King did. Work within the law to effect change. Did Mandela try that first? I don't know. Ask him.



Regarding the PATCO strike, here's a little something for you to read: It's by Stanley Kurtz........



"Reagan had cut his political teeth as president of the Screen Actors Guild. As a union man, he had genuine sympathy for strikers — and for the right to strike. And PATCO (the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) was one of the few unions that supported Reagan's presidential bid. No one denied that the controllers had an unusually stressful job, and one that was absolutely essential to the economy. So Reagan had every reason to work with PATCO when it asked for a raise.

Reagan offered an 11-percent wage increase — significant during a period of budget cuts — but PATCO would settle for nothing less than a 100-percent raise. The union knew Reagan's sympathies, knew it had endorsed his presidential bid, and knew that a strike would likely paralyze the economy. National security was also at stake, since the network of American bombers ready to head for the Soviet Union at the hint of a nuclear attack depended on the controllers.

THE WORLD WAS WATCHING

Of course, that's why critical federal employees like air-traffic controllers aren't allowed to strike. Every PATCO member had signed a sworn affidavit agreeing not to strike, and Reagan had made it clear to the controllers that under no circumstances would he accept an illegal strike. PATCO thought he was bluffing, so with the economy hanging in the balance, 70 percent of the controllers walked out.

Reagan scrambled to put together a working air-traffic-control system. Between the Federal Aviation Administration, the Defense Department, private controllers, and the non-striking PATCO employees, a system was created that kept military and civilian aircraft aloft. When Canadian controllers shut down Gander Airport in sympathy with PATCO, the president authorized Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis to tell them to open the airport, or the United States would never land there again. The Canadians folded. The French made threatening noises, but the British stuck by the United States. In the meantime, Reagan worked behind the scenes, with Ted Kennedy and AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland, to make sure the Democrats didn't turn the strike into a partisan issue. Both Kirkland and Kennedy thought that PATCO's demand for a 100 percent raise was out of line. They agreed not to go beyond a bit of public grumbling.

So the president bit the bullet and fired the striking controllers. That set the tone for labor negotiations with national, and even municipal, governments for years to come. More important, the whole world was watching Regan's conduct during the strike. This was obviously a man who would hang tough under pressure, and risk serious costs to back up a decision he believed to be necessary and right. The Soviet's took note."




You and your ilk are the ones trying to revise history, but that's okay. There are those of us who will set you straight.





AF :)

 
Btw

Datafox,

I tried to edit my above post, but I timed out.

An addendum...........It wasn't President Reagan that 'left the entire aviation industry in chaos' as you put it. It was the 11,000 or so controllers who walked out on their jobs illegally.

AF :)
 
One More Thing...........

Who cut the highest marginal tax rates from 70% to 28%, thereby increasing revenues to the Treasury?

Let me know when you figure this out! Here's a hint........it's called the Laffer Curve.


AF :cool:
 
>Who defeated the Soviet Union without firing a single shot?
>
>Let me know when you figure it out.

Two answers to your question:

#1. The Soviets defeated themselves. "Gorbbie" had to change, as the USSR downfall began in the 1960s with ridiculous defense spending and economic policies. Reagan or no Reagan, revolutions usually occur from within...and the Soviet capitalist revolution was no exception.

#2. During the Reagan administration we tended to give support to brutal murderous dictators rather than even think about Soviet influence. Whether it be Central America, Angola or Afghanistan we supported contras, the Mujahadeen (fundamentalists, who advocated an Islamic State)...it really didn't matter, as long as they weren't communists. Collectively, millions of people died, along with plenty of missionaries. Without firing a shot? Hardly. Go down to Central America one of these days get a "feel" for the opinion of Reagan...I guarantee you it won't be positive.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I'd take the USSR over fundamentalist Islam any day of the week.

Good actor, bad president.
 
Anyway...

As TonyC said, POLITICAL LEANINGS ASIDE... (can't anyone do that?) I thought the entire day was an impressive show of tradition, respect, dignity and honor appropriate to the stature of a US President. As I watched throughout the day, I couldn't help but find sadness in the way so many things have changed in our country and world in the last 15 years. Then I thought about how many things have changed for the better in the last 15 years. Then I thought about how many things could still be improved (and will be). Political leanings aside, one can't say Ronald Reagan wasn't an optimist. I think he'd still be one today.

And then I kept imagining Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day (shudder).
 

Latest resources

Back
Top