Thatcher

[tenni]

Margaret Thatcher died today after years of illness. At least one movie has been made on her life and role not only in Britain but global influence.

What do you think her legacy is?

[darkeyes]

Returning to our psyche corrruption, selfishnessness, greed, survival of the fittest, English moral superiority over all, the petting of the lesser nations of the UK, arrogance, the ruination of British manufacturing industry, xenophobia, suspicion, warmongering, the loathing of difference, resistance to the rights and freedoms and oppression of the lgbt and of ethnic minorities,, deregulation, bad business practice, the enablement of unfettered selfish capitalism, ever greater disparity between wealthy and the poor, the creation of the underclass and contempt for it, privatisation of anything owned by the people, the dragging of ever more power away from local to central government, fear, less neighbourliness, less compassion, greater vindictiveness and cruelty, and the ever greater stretch of the tentacles of the secret state... and much of what Thatcher did here, her nice friendly stooges did abroad.. including the beloved Reagan in the US... mourn her if u will.. I prefer just to sigh a relief that she has long since been out of power and long for a figure who had half as much determination to undo the evil she wrought upon both the British people and the world....and rejoice that the Thatcherite successors are much less than she... Cameron today said she would be considered our greatest peacetime prime minister... if u are a Tory maybe... not so the 60 per cent of the population who never voted for her ever, and who hated everything she stood for... to them she was the most divisive and destructive prime minister and it is arguable whether she can even be considered a peacetime prime minister...

[Gearbox]

^ All what Fran said.....and WTF is the utter evil little shite Cameron talking about? Thatcher took Brits into battle over the Falklands during her term. He forgot about that did he?
Well it severed HER purpose to get her another term due to utter manipulation of public views. 'The Iron Lady' was just that! A cold unwavering megalomaniac who seized any means to put her sickness into reality. More fool us for allowing it, and even more foolish of us to allow Cameron his sickness too.

I hope she finds her peace while we still struggle with the damage she did here.

[tenni]

from the Guardian Here is an interesting perspective of etiquette for the dead.


“"Respecting the grief" of Thatcher's family members is appropriate if one is friends with them or attends a wake they organize, but the protocols are fundamentally different when it comes to public discourse about the person's life and political acts. I made this argument at length last year when Christopher Hitchens died and a speak-no-ill rule about him was instantly imposed (a rule he, more than anyone, viciously violated), and I won't repeat that argument today; those interested can read my reasoning here (http://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/christohper_hitchens_and_the_protocol_for_public_f igure_deaths/).

But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren't silent at all. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama (http://www.wdsu.com/news/national/URGENT-Thatcher-Obama/-/9853500/19660324/-/gegtsiz/-/index.html#ixzz2PsmF7gNn): "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend." Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms. “

"Whatever else may be true of her, Thatcher engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/margaret-thatcher-and-iraq) but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq (http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1024265060635816880,00.html). She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as "terrorists", something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-we-were-wrong-to-call-mandela-a-terrorist-413684.html). She was a steadfast friend (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/304516.stm) to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/28/iraq.politics1) and Indonesian dictator General Suharto (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/28/indonesia.world) ("One of our very best and most valuable friends"). And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milne detailed last year (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/04/margaret-thatcher-state-funeral-protests), "across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted – and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown."

................Exactly the same is true of Thatcher. There's something distinctively creepy - in a Roman sort of way (http://books.google.com.br/books/about/Death_and_the_Emperor.html?id=ugGDQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y) - about this mandated ritual that our political leaders must be heralded and consecrated as saints upon death. This is accomplished by this baseless moral precept that it is gauche or worse to balance the gushing praise for them upon death with valid criticisms. There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn't change simply because they die. If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-etiquette

[Tabu61]

Was she bisexual?

[darkeyes]

Was she bisexual?
Very much doubt it.. no self respecting woman wud have 'er in ne case.. and few men with the slightest self respect... but what she did was to hold back as best she could the cause of gay, bisexual and transgendered rights for 15 years and more.. even long after she was gone from power.. and had legislation passed which prevented any public support of ne thing which remotely could be considered promotion of homosexuality (the infamous Section 28)... public finance could not be used to support lgbt organisation, nor could public buildings be used by lgbt organisations, sex education in schools could not include any mention of homo or bisexuality, and any private bodies or charities in receipt of public money could not support lgbt causes. She tried to hold back the advance of the lgbt and even in her term of office with all the odds stacked against them, the lgbt still progressed and continued to progress and Thatcher continued to try and stymie that progress right until the end... indeed, were it not for European legislation on Human Rights. I would dare to suggest that she would if she could, have returned homosexuality to the position it was in prior to decriminalisation in the 1960s... her treatment of the lgbt was nothing short of bigotry and it was a bigotry which failed..

For all that her treatment of the lgbt was bad, treatment of other vast swathes of British life and British people was worse , entire industries and communities were destroyed and more, her contempt for people and things not British was appalling unless they suited her purpose. My humanity prevents me cheering her passing but equally, I find it impossible to mourn it...

[Young pussy and dope]

Was she bisexual? She was lesbian. I do not agree with her politics but may she rest in peace.

[darkeyes]

She was lesbian. I do not agree with her politics but may she rest in peace.
Dunno werya dragged that up from... unless ur hinting that she wos so deeply anti gay and lessie so as 2 hide her own sexuality.. it is possible but unlikely... her Victorian values don't preclude her being gay, but as far as I know there is no evidence of it, and no sign in her body language... she hectored men, didn't like women much, either personally or as a group, and used her femininity to get her way when hectoring didn't work or she felt she needed to seduce (in non sexual terms) men, in particular foreign leaders to achieve her ends.. such manly attributes as she developed she developed to survive and succeed in a man's world... lesbian? I think not... but who knows what history will tell us??? God.. it's an awful thought:eek2:...

..as to her resting in peace, I may loathe everything the woman stood for but never hated her enough to wish her end.. it's just a pity the people of my country who are still alive are unable to rest in peace because of the vindictiveness, viciousness, selfishness and lack of compassion inherent in an ethos which was instilled into political and economic life in this country by that woman and the political philosophy she espoused.....

[tenni]

I was surprised to see images on the nightly news in Canada showing people in the streets of Scotland (I think) celebrating the death of Thatcher with what looked like champagne. The former Conservative PM of Canada Mulroney referred to her in some glowing terms as a key figure in the downfall of the Soviet Union. Other Conservatives refer to her as being the saviour of the British economy while individual British refer to her as destroying lives.

On the other side here is a quote from a web page about what she did about surpressing LGBT people in Britain.

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/09/the_woman_who_wrecked_great_britain/


She and her government passed the original “don’t say gay” bill, a proposal called Section 28 that forbid local government councils from doing anything that would “promote” homosexuality. This prompted actor Ian McKellen to come out as gay. As he said in 1988 (http://www.mckellen.com/writings/activism/8807section28.htm):
Many Tories were appalled by Section 28 right up to one whip who described it as red meat thrown to the wolves in the party. I’m prepared to believe the ex-member of her cabinet who tells me that Mrs. Thatcher has no objection to individual homosexuals and employs quite a few of them.
What she cannot stand is groups of homosexuals. By the same token she doesn’t mind trade -unionists, it’s just that she doesn’t like them joining trade-unions. You can’t have homosexuality on the rates anymore. She is privatising homosexuality. Well I for one intend to take out shares.

Here’s Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, with a more international take:
Working class communities were devastated in Britain because of her policies.
Her role in international affairs was equally belligerent whether in support of the Chilean dictator Pinochet, her opposition to sanctions against apartheid South Africa; and her support for the Khmer Rouge.

Thatcher wasn’t just a supporter of brutal Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet, she was the dictator’s personal friend. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/304516.stm)

[jamieknyc]

I was never an admirer of Margaret Thatcher. But people tend to forget today that Britain was nearly bankrupt when she took office.

[darkeyes]

[QUOTE=tenni;248578]I was surprised to see images on the nightly news in Canada showing people in the streets of Scotland (I think) celebrating the death of Thatcher with what looked like champagne. The former Conservative PM of Canada Mulroney referred to her in some glowing terms as a key figure in the downfall of the Soviet Union. Other Conservatives refer to her as being the saviour of the British economy while individual British refer to her as destroying lives.[QUOTE}

Glasgow tenni... Brixton in England and also a few places in the north.. lots of pubs throughout the country had Thatcher wakes and many drinkies wer downed in celebration... it may not sound nice and isn't but anyone who lives in the UK is not in the least surprised...... but it is understandable for they occurred in areas that Thatcher devastated during her term of office and many of them have never recovered... as to being a key figure in the downfall of the USSR maybe.. but I think her part in that is overplayed...decades of attrition were more responsible than any contribution by Thatcher... and as to saving the economy, well.. we are living with the Thatcher legacy now. The British economy is largely a Thatcher construct and the conditions which caused the crash down to her as much as the government in power at the time... and the general course is unchanged since her day even when Blair and Brown were in power.. saved? Hmmm... I think that is at least arguable..

..all we endure and have endured was implemented on no little than 30% support of the electorate... never did she gain much more than 40% of the votes cast... throughout her terms of office at least 60% of the electorate were opposed to her political and economic philosophies. Over 2/3 still are opposed to Cameron and his continuation of it.. we shoudnt be surprised she is so hated.. after the divisiveness and destruction she wrought on the nations that make up the UK, the surprise is not that she is so hated, but that she is not hated more, and not that there are street parties celebrating her passing, but that there are not more of them and larger... her funeral will be interesting ... but I won't be watching...

[darkeyes]

I was never an admirer of Margaret Thatcher. But people tend to forget today that Britain was nearly bankrupt when she took office.
Actually, that is a fallacy that Tories like to spread.. there was much industrial strife and many problems existed in the economy... but Britain was far from bankrupt...

[Gearbox]

I was never an admirer of Margaret Thatcher. But people tend to forget today that Britain was nearly bankrupt when she took office.
How did she get Britain out of that little hole then Jamie?
Here's a little clue:- http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead-could-reach-number-one-following-margaret-thatchers-death-8566042.html
There's lots of Tory propaganda flooding the net and media at the mo about how Thatcher got Britain out of a ditch, but if you really want some truth about how Thatcher got Brits into a ditch, as always, look to the common man/woman. In Thatchers eyes, that was irrelevant! Its even less relevant to the current Tory Government.

Mrs Thatcher was recovering from surgery at the Ritz before she passed away. She and her kind did not pay ANY price for her politics. That was left to the general populace to deal with. So as you can see, how she effected Britain and the British are two very different things.

[tenni]

" as to being a key figure in the downfall of the USSR maybe.. but I think her part in that is overplayed..."

I agree with you that her role and the role of Reagn ("Mr Gorbechef take this wall down) were both over glorified by the Conservatives in several western countries. Remember Mulroney is /was disliked to a great extent. He is a conservative praising a dead conservative. It is still awe impacting that she was so hated after so many years. Thatcherism must still be seriously impacting people's lives as you say. It isn't surprising that George Galloway spoke out about her policies. It is surprising that "the Witch is dead" is rising on the charts...lol

I think that when Mulroney dies in Canada, that the Conservatives will probably praise him a lot even though now Harper (conservative) avoided him like the plague when a financial corruption scandal about Mulroney surfaced a few years ago. I think that now though sufficient time has elapsed that Canadians will not react as strongly to his death as the Brits are!

[jamieknyc]

Fran, it was before your time, so don't preach. The preceding government had to go to the IMF for a bailout

[chook]

Returning to our psyche corrruption, selfishnessness, greed, survival of the fittest, English moral superiority over all, the petting of the lesser nations of the UK, arrogance, the ruination of British manufacturing industry, xenophobia, suspicion, warmongering, the loathing of difference, resistance to the rights and freedoms and oppression of the lgbt and of ethnic minorities,, deregulation, bad business practice, the enablement of unfettered selfish capitalism, ever greater disparity between wealthy and the poor, the creation of the underclass and contempt for it, privatisation of anything owned by the people, the dragging of ever more power away from local to central government, fear, less neighbourliness, less compassion, greater vindictiveness and cruelty, and the ever greater stretch of the tentacles of the secret state... and much of what Thatcher did here, her nice friendly stooges did abroad.. including the beloved Reagan in the US... mourn her if u will.. I prefer just to sigh a relief that she has long since been out of power and long for a figure who had half as much determination to undo the evil she wrought upon both the British people and the world....and rejoice that the Thatcherite successors are much less than she... Cameron today said she would be considered our greatest peacetime prime minister... if u are a Tory maybe... not so the 60 per cent of the population who never voted for her ever, and who hated everything she stood for... to them she was the most divisive and destructive prime minister and it is arguable whether she can even be considered a peacetime prime minister...

See thats what happens when a woman thinks she can do a mans job..........and as far as I'm concerned she should have carked it long ago.


Cheers Chook :yikes2:

[darkeyes]

Fran, it was before your time, so don't preach. The preceding government had to go to the IMF for a bailout
The IMF loan was agreed.. literally forced upon the UK... in 1976 because of a run on the pound by speculation after the Labour left defeated Wilson's white paper on public expenditure... it was a cynical but effective ploy to force the UK into a programme of deeper public expenditure cuts. Loathing and suspicion by those running the markets of the Labour government and fear of the Labour left was behind the near collapse of the pound. The basic UK economy of the time was however sound if not as healthy as it could have been. At the time of Thatcher's election in 1979 the economy was improving quickly due in large part to the fact that huge revenues were beginning to flow into the treasury thanks to the flow of oil from the North Sea. The UK never drew on the full amount of the loan for this reason, but also because the economy was not in as poor condition as many, especially on the Tory right made it out to be, and even today still make it out to have been. Many economists today are of the opinion that the IMF loan was not in fact necessary and was forced cynically upon the UK.

Yes Jamie, It was before my time,. I was born 4 months after Thatcher was elected and my formative years and early schooling took place during her terms of office.. but this is my country, and know something of its history.. her legacy remains and the UK of today was shaped by her in a way that only one prime minister of the 20th century can match for good or ill... the myth of the depth of Britain's economic woes of the 1970s served to help her do many of the things she did.. it is not a case of preaching, Jamie, but a case of telling how it is seen by myself and the majority of people in this country today, and was seen by most who lived throughout the Thatcher years.

[darkeyes]

See thats what happens when a woman thinks she can do a mans job..........and as far as I'm concerned she should have carked it long ago.


Cheers Chook :yikes2:I'm afraid I am not so heartless, Chookie.. wishing people "carked" is alien to me nature... and I will ignore the sexist sentiment for it based on nothing worth consideration... at present it is men who run the government of this country, and we have a male PM, and male hands at the tiller of the economy... and what a right pig's ear they are making of it too... so what is their excuse these men doing a man's job?

[chook]

I'm afraid I am not so heartless, Chookie.. wishing people "carked" is alien to me nature... and I will ignore the sexist sentiment for it based on nothing worth consideration... at present it is men who run the government of this country, and we have a male PM, and male hands at the tiller of the economy... and what a right pig's ear they are making of it too... so what is their excuse these men doing a man's job?

Well we have the bitch from hell running this country at the moment and everytime I look at her I see Thatcher and her attitude toward her own people. And tell me why people in your country are out in the streets partying at the announcement of the old bags death..........thats gotta tell you something of what she was like.....HUH?????



Cheers Chook :yikes2:

[darkeyes]

Well we have the bitch from hell running this country at the moment and everytime I look at her I see Thatcher and her attitude toward her own people. And tell me why people in your country are out in the streets partying at the announcement of the old bags death..........thats gotta tell you something of what she was like.....HUH?????


..
Cheers Chook :yikes2:

.I rather like Julia.. wudnt like get on wrong side of 'er:eek2:.. kno sevral Welsh women just like 'er 2 lemme say:yikes2: ... girl I knew in Swansea had a mum who even looked like 'er never mind acted like 'er.. she didn't suffer fools either.... she didn't think much of me at all u will b glad 2 hear.. thought I wos just brain dead lil bimbo who liked 2 shoot 'er mouth off... she called me a "frizzy haired scrawny gobshite" but she did say the word "tart" so beautifully... u may not like Julia, Chookie.. but o 2 have an economy and a country run haff as well and with 1/10th the compassion... smidge of mysogny in ur posts methinks...

Interesting lil story in Guardian bout Julia's foreign minister Bob Carr 'bout a lil chit chat 'e had wiv Thatcher...http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/margaret-thatcher-accused-racist-views. No reason 2 think he made it up eitha.. has ring of truth....

[tenni]

I can not write that I knew both of these British Prime Ministers but it is interesting in how decisions were made as to which leader should get a "state funeral". Who did more for the country?

14685

[darkeyes]

I can not write that I knew both of these British Prime Ministers but it is interesting in how decisions were made as to which leader should get a "state funeral". Who did more for the country?

14685
Atlee. The country was in a far worse state when he was in power than when Thatcher was.. what he did and his governments did was unify the nation not polarise it and legislation was for all people not simply the wealthy... he created a compassionate state for all not an individualistic and selfish one to benefit the few... there was no sink or swim under Atlee...

[chook]

.I rather like Julia.. wudnt like get on wrong side of 'er:eek2:.. kno sevral Welsh women just like 'er 2 lemme say:yikes2: ... girl I knew in Swansea had a mum who even looked like 'er never mind acted like 'er.. she didn't suffer fools either.... she didn't think much of me at all u will b glad 2 hear.. thought I wos just brain dead lil bimbo who liked 2 shoot 'er mouth off... she called me a "frizzy haired scrawny gobshite" but she did say the word "tart" so beautifully... u may not like Julia, Chookie.. but o 2 have an economy and a country run haff as well and with 1/10th the compassion... smidge of mysogny in ur posts methinks...

Interesting lil story in Guardian bout Julia's foreign minister Bob Carr 'bout a lil chit chat 'e had wiv Thatcher...http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/margaret-thatcher-accused-racist-views. No reason 2 think he made it up eitha.. has ring of truth....

In actual fact Fran good old Julia Gizzard inherited a good economy from the previous government that was in power who in turn made good with the current mining boom we are experiencing in this country but once that goes arse up we'll be fucked just like the rest of the world so you see Julia didnt wave a magic wand and made everything great. and if the truth is to be known the bitch from hell wasnt even voted in by the people she and her cohorts stabbed Kevin Rudd in the back and took over the leadership hence no one here wants the fat arsed man hating bitch in power at all and come September 14 you will see an Australian government thrown out of power with the likes of something you have never seen before............and I aint a mysoganist I just hate what this fucking cow has done to a normally prosporous country.......and as far as Bob Carr goes.....well just take a look at the monkey faced idiot he'd do better in a freak show then sitting on the UN handing out money left right and centre like a drunken sailor.


Cheers Chookie :yikes2:

[darkeyes]

tbh Chookie.. don't really keep an eye on Oz.. so don't really know whether she is much cop or not as a PM.. or how gud or bad her government is... but the crash will have had its effect like it has everywer else.. just dusn't seem to have affected Oz quite as badly as elsewer... wetha that's down 2 her.. or down 2 luck or down to wotever I have no idea.. and ur country peeps will decide that for themselves wen the time cums.. history will judge her in a decade or 2.. like it judges Thatcher now.. and she stands condemned by some and praised by others... but fat arsed man h8ing bitch? She dusn't take shit from men that's for sure... but she isn't a manh8er I don't think.... it is a nice mantle to put on a strong woman to put her down and ridicule her and is common in both our societies...Thatcher on the other hand, like her party and like her present day successors stands accused of misandry... both Thatcher and her present day successor as PM of the UK either did or have done nothing to promote the cause of equality for women and both can be held responsible for making the lives of women far less tolerable and far more unequal to men in their terms of office..

[tenni]

This commentator has something positive to say about Lady Thatcher. She made great contributions to British rock and roll! :love87:

"And as a kid of the 80s, I do have to credit Mrs. Thatcher with being the single greatest muse of U.K. protest rock. Mrs. Thatcher’s policies may have been bad for Great Britain, but my friends, this lady inspired more great rock songs than Pattie Boyd Harrison Clapton did.

Elvis Costello documented the ruinous effects of her policies in “Tramp the Dirt Down” and “Shipbuilding,” a song that memorialized an industry Mrs. Thatcher helped drive out of the U.K.
Roger Waters immortalized her on the last real Pink Floyd album, “The Final Cut,” asking “Maggie, what have we done?” in the song “The Post War Dream.”

Morrissey’s first solo album featured the song “Margaret on the Guillotine,” which one can safely guess was not a positive homage.

The English Beat gave us “Stand Down Margaret,” Billy Bragg pretty much has a whole career thanks to Mrs. Thatcher’s economic policies, and don’t forget Sinead O’Connor’s “Black Boys on Mopeds” from 1990.

There’s also the very real possibility that if it weren’t for Mrs. Thatcher’s inspiration, The Clash might have wound up just being the hardest rocking U.K. bubblegum pop band of the 80s.

So we thank Mrs. Thatcher for influencing so many great artists to write protest songs against Mrs. Thatcher."


<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">
http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/videos/john-fugelsang-onmargaret-thatchers-unexpected-rock-n-roll-legacy/