http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155)
QuoteEx-Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher dies
Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher has died at 87 following a stroke, her spokesman has said.
Lord Bell said: "It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning."
Baroness Thatcher was Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990.
She was the first woman to hold the post. Her family is expected to make a further statement later.
:o :weep: :weep: :weep:
I look forward to yelling at Tyr in this thread. :)
RIP
:(
:(
I know it doesn't go over well these days over in the UK, but she made Britain relevant again.
A terrific partner in the Cold War, and the most equitable US-UK relationship since Roosevelt-Churchill.
I'm sure her legacy will be appreciated by her countrymen more than it is now.
RIP Iron Lady.
I hated her at the time but have amore balanced view these days.
Like most great politicans, her legacy is mixed but there's no doubt she was among the most important British politicans in history and changed our society & politics for ever.
Quote
I look forward to yelling at Tyr in this thread. :)
Needless to say: :yeah:
RIP, as Gups said her legacy is great/large enough that reactions (outside of idiots simply shitting in the thread) will always be mixed - but she was the defining British leader of the late 20th century.
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 07:15:56 AM
Quote
I look forward to yelling at Tyr in this thread. :)
Needless to say: :yeah:
The Coal Mines are saved!!!111
She had a good run. :(
:cheers:
Quote from: Valmy on April 08, 2013, 07:21:43 AM
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 07:15:56 AM
Quote
I look forward to yelling at Tyr in this thread. :)
Needless to say: :yeah:
The Coal Mines are saved!!!111
Probally the opposite, there's going to be an upsurge in alcohol related deaths amongst elderly miners in the near future. :(
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 07:27:59 AM
Probally the opposite, there's going to be an upsurge in alcohol related deaths amongst elderly miners in the near future. :(
They may forget to stay plugged into their iron lungs with all that boozing.
RIP :(
Way to stay classy, Jos
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 07:43:01 AM
Way to stay classy, Jos
Jos has never been classy. He's northern trash, and that always shows through.
Wait, did you mean Jos or Jos?
Quote from: PDH on April 08, 2013, 07:48:12 AM
Wait, did you mean Jos or Jos?
One is obsessed with coal mining, the other is a Leafs fan.
Quote from: Neil on April 08, 2013, 07:49:41 AM
Quote from: PDH on April 08, 2013, 07:48:12 AM
Wait, did you mean Jos or Jos?
One is obsessed with coal mining, the other is a Leafs fan.
neither can be forgiven!
RIP. you did what your nation needed, even if a large portion reviled you for it.
How can there be justice in a world where Reagan and Thatcher are dead and Carter lives?
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 08:07:21 AM
How can there be justice in a world where Reagan and Thatcher are dead and Carter lives?
Reagan and Thatcher aren't suffering anymore. Carter, on the other hand not only suffers the indignities of old age, but also suffers from being a punchline.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 08:07:21 AM
How can there be justice in a world where Reagan and Thatcher are dead and Carter lives?
He's your nation's moral conscience. Go build a house for somebody.
I love at the end of Argo when they have an audio clip from an older Carter interview where he talks about how he got "Everyone home safe" during the Iran hostage crisis. It's hilarious to see someone try and morph one of the biggest Presidential failures and embarrassments into some sort of success that he had anything at all to do with.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 08:23:32 AM
I love at the end of Argo when they have an audio clip from an older Carter interview where he talks about how he got "Everyone home safe" during the Iran hostage crisis. It's hilarious to see someone try and morph one of the biggest Presidential failures and embarrassments into some sort of success that he had anything at all to do with.
1970's "mission accomplished"?
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 08:23:32 AM
I love at the end of Argo when they have an audio clip from an older Carter interview where he talks about how he got "Everyone home safe" during the Iran hostage crisis. It's hilarious to see someone try and morph one of the biggest Presidential failures and embarrassments into some sort of success that he had anything at all to do with.
They didn't come home safe?
That's not really the point. Taking hostage of diplomats is one of the clearest possible casus belli and drastically outside international norms. It should have been met with overwhelming force designed to immediately end the reign of the Ayatollahs. Iran will soon be a nuclear state because we feared the pain of ripping hairs out when yanking the band-aid and have opted for the pain of a shotgun blast to the stomach instead. That's really the truth about our handling of Iran, we avoided a messy war and replaced it with a far worse eventuality. The shame of America for our response to the hostage crisis has never fully been washed off.
RIP :(
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 08:50:39 AM
That's not really the point. Taking hostage of diplomats is one of the clearest possible casus belli and drastically outside international norms. It should have been met with overwhelming force designed to immediately end the reign of the Ayatollahs. Iran will soon be a nuclear state because we feared the pain of ripping hairs out when yanking the band-aid and have opted for the pain of a shotgun blast to the stomach instead. That's really the truth about our handling of Iran, we avoided a messy war and replaced it with a far worse eventuality. The shame of America for our response to the hostage crisis has never fully been washed off.
You're old enough to remember what the world was like in 1979, so don't be silly. A hostage situation is not the best reason for a superpower showdown in the Persian Gulf.
Now, a shitload of executed hostages, that's different. But you and I both know that the Soviet Union would not have tolerated military action against Iran, and things would've been ratcheted up quickly at a time when Brezhnev was pretty much mentally incapacitated.
RIP Augusto. :(
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 09:07:34 AM
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 08:50:39 AM
That's not really the point. Taking hostage of diplomats is one of the clearest possible casus belli and drastically outside international norms. It should have been met with overwhelming force designed to immediately end the reign of the Ayatollahs. Iran will soon be a nuclear state because we feared the pain of ripping hairs out when yanking the band-aid and have opted for the pain of a shotgun blast to the stomach instead. That's really the truth about our handling of Iran, we avoided a messy war and replaced it with a far worse eventuality. The shame of America for our response to the hostage crisis has never fully been washed off.
You're old enough to remember what the world was like in 1979, so don't be silly. A hostage situation is not the best reason for a superpower showdown in the Persian Gulf.
Now, a shitload of executed hostages, that's different. But you and I both know that the Soviet Union would not have tolerated military action against Iran, and things would've been ratcheted up quickly at a time when Brezhnev was pretty much mentally incapacitated.
Not to mention that 1979 was just a few years after Vietnam, so the political will to get into a major war just wasn't there. Not sure the military means were there either; that was before the age of blowing everyone to bits in a precise way with a joystick.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 08:07:21 AM
How can there be justice in a world where Reagan and Thatcher are dead and Carter lives?
Carter may have lucked out on a die roll.
http://www.metafilter.com/126491/It-was-a-very-exciting-time-when-the-Chalk-River-plant-melted-down (http://www.metafilter.com/126491/It-was-a-very-exciting-time-when-the-Chalk-River-plant-melted-down)
Regarding the thread, she left her mark and it was a good one. Can't ask for more than that.
Quote from: DGuller on April 08, 2013, 09:41:05 AM
Not to mention that 1979 was just a few years after Vietnam, so the political will to get into a major war just wasn't there. Not sure the military means were there either; that was before the age of blowing everyone to bits in a precise way with a joystick.
The military capability was certainly there. It just would've been messy.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.telegraph.co.uk%2Fmultimedia%2Farchive%2F01660%2Fspitting_image_1660448c.jpg&hash=6f89a470bd63f2b52df7efdc96e9a80f0e334281)
RIP :(
RIP :(
CNN Breaking News:
QuoteU.S. President Barack Obama pays tribute to Margaret Thatcher as one of the "great champions of freedom and liberty."
One of the last great Cold War leaders to croak. Leaves only Carter, Schmidt, Kohl, Gorbachev.
The Soviets would not have gone to war with us over Iran anymore than we would go to war with them over Afghanistan.
Quote from: Pishtaco on April 08, 2013, 09:45:54 AM
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.telegraph.co.uk%2Fmultimedia%2Farchive%2F01660%2Fspitting_image_1660448c.jpg&hash=6f89a470bd63f2b52df7efdc96e9a80f0e334281)
RIP :(
My favourite Spitting Image Thatcher moment is when she takes her minsiters out for dinner...
Waitress: Would you like to order, sir?
Thatcher: Yes. I will have the steak.
Waitress: How would you like it?
Thatcher: Oh, raw, please.
Waitress: And what about the Vegetables?
Thatcher: Oh, they'll have the steak too.
Quote from: Syt on April 08, 2013, 09:54:51 AM
CNN Breaking News:
QuoteU.S. President Barack Obama pays tribute to Margaret Thatcher as one of the "great champions of freedom and liberty."
One of the last great Cold War leaders to croak. Leaves only Carter, Schmidt, Kohl, Gorbachev.
You forgot Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. :(
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on April 08, 2013, 10:14:36 AM
Quote from: Syt on April 08, 2013, 09:54:51 AM
CNN Breaking News:
QuoteU.S. President Barack Obama pays tribute to Margaret Thatcher as one of the "great champions of freedom and liberty."
One of the last great Cold War leaders to croak. Leaves only Carter, Schmidt, Kohl, Gorbachev.
You forgot Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. :(
At least one or two of the Italians must be alive ? :P
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 10:17:24 AM
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on April 08, 2013, 10:14:36 AM
Quote from: Syt on April 08, 2013, 09:54:51 AM
CNN Breaking News:
QuoteU.S. President Barack Obama pays tribute to Margaret Thatcher as one of the "great champions of freedom and liberty."
One of the last great Cold War leaders to croak. Leaves only Carter, Schmidt, Kohl, Gorbachev.
You forgot Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. :(
At least one or two of the Italians must be alive ? :P
great?
Quote from: Viking on April 08, 2013, 10:18:13 AM
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 10:17:24 AM
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on April 08, 2013, 10:14:36 AM
Quote from: Syt on April 08, 2013, 09:54:51 AM
CNN Breaking News:
QuoteU.S. President Barack Obama pays tribute to Margaret Thatcher as one of the "great champions of freedom and liberty."
One of the last great Cold War leaders to croak. Leaves only Carter, Schmidt, Kohl, Gorbachev.
You forgot Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. :(
At least one or two of the Italians must be alive ? :P
great?
It's not you strong point is it, humour.
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 10:22:17 AM
Quote from: Viking on April 08, 2013, 10:18:13 AM
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 10:17:24 AM
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on April 08, 2013, 10:14:36 AM
Quote from: Syt on April 08, 2013, 09:54:51 AM
CNN Breaking News:
QuoteU.S. President Barack Obama pays tribute to Margaret Thatcher as one of the "great champions of freedom and liberty."
One of the last great Cold War leaders to croak. Leaves only Carter, Schmidt, Kohl, Gorbachev.
You forgot Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. :(
At least one or two of the Italians must be alive ? :P
great?
It's not you strong point is it, humour.
There are people who think VGE is one of the greats. Poe, remember.
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on April 08, 2013, 10:14:36 AM
Quote from: Syt on April 08, 2013, 09:54:51 AM
CNN Breaking News:
QuoteU.S. President Barack Obama pays tribute to Margaret Thatcher as one of the "great champions of freedom and liberty."
One of the last great Cold War leaders to croak. Leaves only Carter, Schmidt, Kohl, Gorbachev.
You forgot Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. :(
And Henry Kissinger. He and Helmuth Schmidt meet up once or twice a year in Hamburg.
RIP. :(
:( RIP.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 08, 2013, 11:51:19 AM
Quote from: Josephus on April 08, 2013, 07:26:04 AM
:cheers:
I expected better from you
I honestly don't understand that mindset. I couldn't fathom dancing on the graves of Carter, Clinton, or Obama when they pass.
I can imagine pissing on Carter's grave.
RIP. She was a great.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 11:59:35 AMI honestly don't understand that mindset. I couldn't fathom dancing on the graves of Carter, Clinton, or Obama when they pass.
Check out the link I posted in the legacy thread.
Anyhow... I'm not British, but I think it goes something like this:
1. First off, in the UK class identity occupies roughly the same sort of position as race does in the US. It underpins a whole bunch of issues; it has a long, complicated, and contentious history; and it is key component of how many people identify themselves and how they are viewed. It doesn't matter all the time and everywhere, but being"working class" or "middle class" in the UK is as fraught with hot-buttons and identity as being "African-American", "Asian-American", or "white".
2. Thatcher's policies absolutely devastated a huge number of working class communities. Towns and communities with hundreds of years of history went from being prosperous and content to basically being inner city Detroit after the collapse in the span of a few years.
3. These policies - however you justify them - explicitly hurt, and sometimes specifically targeted, the working class while benefitting specific sectors of the middle and upper classes, and especially the financial industry in London.
4. This was combined with explicitly vilifying working class leaders and the newly disenfranchised working class, and with the clear goal of destroying their political and economic power. They were treated as the enemy by Thatcher, and shown antipathy rather than sympathy as they were going through some tough times.
Now, leaving aside for the moment any argument about how inevitable and necessary Thatcher's policies were, I'd expect that if something similar had happened in the US but with discrete racial groups suffering or benefitting, and the suffering group being explicitly treated as "the enemy", members of that group would hate the equivalent of Thatcher in that scenario as viscerally as Tyr and other Northern working class Brits hate Thatcher.
I don't think Carter, Clinton, or Obama has hurt you - and the group to which you belong - and destroyed your economic wellbeing as directly, and as explicitly treated you and people like you as the enemy to the extent that Thatcher did that of the British working class, especially in the North. It's not comparable.
... at least, that's how it seems to me. Does that make more sense to you?
Jake, I think one problem with your comparison is that we've already historically had discrete racial groups suffering or benefiting from policies.
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 01:18:50 PM
Jake, I think one problem with your comparison is that we've already historically had discrete racial groups suffering or benefiting from policies.
... yet you've had no people who are personally reviled as a results of the policies they enacted in those contexts?
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 01:37:28 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 01:18:50 PM
Jake, I think one problem with your comparison is that we've already historically had discrete racial groups suffering or benefiting from policies.
... yet you've had no people who are personally reviled as a results of the policies they enacted in those contexts?
Sure but most people are not so low as to celebrate a death.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 08, 2013, 01:42:25 PM
Sure but most people are not so low as to celebrate a death.
I'm not celebrating :)
In any case the visceral reaction to her death is hardly surprising, I'd think.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 08, 2013, 11:51:19 AM
Quote from: Josephus on April 08, 2013, 07:26:04 AM
:cheers:
I expected better from you
Yes. But it was my passive aggressive reaction shown to the vitriol spewed on the Chavez thread...there was the same nonsense there.
Heh: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-dead-worried-cher-1818681
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 01:37:28 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 01:18:50 PM
Jake, I think one problem with your comparison is that we've already historically had discrete racial groups suffering or benefiting from policies.
... yet you've had no people who are personally reviled as a results of the policies they enacted in those contexts?
At the time, probably not. After all, the historical trend had been pro-discrimination against minorities.
That said - yes, I'll agree with your larger point that policies that address inequalities and change up the balance of power/privileges among social groups will often spark strong emotional actions, particularly among the group that feels it is "losing".
Quote from: Josephus on April 08, 2013, 01:50:35 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 08, 2013, 11:51:19 AM
Quote from: Josephus on April 08, 2013, 07:26:04 AM
:cheers:
I expected better from you
Yes. But it was my passive aggressive reaction shown to the vitriol spewed on the Chavez thread...there was the same nonsense there.
I guess that's fair though I think the difference might be a net positive legacy versus net negative.
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 01:12:04 PM
... at least, that's how it seems to me. Does that make more sense to you?
No. Thanks making the attempt to explain, though.
I'd add that Thatcher was very confrontational. Her political style wasn't to try and seek or build consensus (Malcolm Rifkind told a story today about once asking her if she believed in consensus, she replied 'yes, consensus behind my convictions' :lol:), she wanted to win and to vanquish her foes entirely.
I can't think of any other Western leader who described a large chunk of their country as 'the enemy within'. Also Presidents are allowed to rise above politics, especially once they've left office, whereas that's for the Queen; prime ministers are always muddy and partisan, tribal hatreds tend not to die at best they mellow.
In addition I think the Iain Martin point is valid. In large parts of the country she was seen as an almost alien force. Especially as she became increasingly grand and a little bit mad ('we are a grandmother').
It's also of course a mark of her success. No-one hates a mediocrity. There was little passion when Harold Wilson died because he hadn't achieved enough to truly inspire or offend.
It is striking, though, that her and Blair are probably the most divisive and reviled former PMs. They're also the only ones who never lost an election.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 02:28:43 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 01:12:04 PM
... at least, that's how it seems to me. Does that make more sense to you?
No. Thanks making the attempt to explain, though.
:lol:
No worries :cheers:
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 02:35:49 PM
I can't think of any other Western leader who described a large chunk of their country as 'the enemy within'.
Obama.
Who did he call 'the enemy within'?
I've not noticed many accusations of 5th columnism issuing from the White House.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 02:42:41 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 02:35:49 PM
I can't think of any other Western leader who described a large chunk of their country as 'the enemy within'.
Obama.
Link?
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 02:35:49 PM
It is striking, though, that her and Blair are probably the most divisive and reviled former PMs. They're also the only ones who never lost an election.
Seeing somebody lose an election can be satisfaction enough. Just imagine LOTR or Star Wars ending with Sauron or Darth Vader still walking around undefeated having humiliated the heros only to finally be replaced when the Uruk-Hair and Imperial Stormtroopers select a new leader by vote. It certainly wouldn't be emotionally satisfying. You either die a hero (or lose an election) or see yourself become a villain.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 02:45:31 PM
Who did he call 'the enemy within'?
I've not noticed many accusations of 5th columnism issuing from the White House.
It usually flows towards the White House these days. Secret muslim socialist and all that.
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 02:48:13 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 02:45:31 PM
Who did he call 'the enemy within'?
I've not noticed many accusations of 5th columnism issuing from the White House.
It usually flows towards the White House these days. Secret muslim socialist and all that.
Well Obama did attack both the working class and the wealthy but yes I would agree that it is more of a Republican sentiment against the POTUS.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 02:45:31 PM
Who did he call 'the enemy within'?
I've not noticed many accusations of 5th columnism issuing from the White House.
He didn't explicitly say "the enemy within" so if you're hung up on that specific term then never mind.
He did refer to his short time working in the private sector as being "behind enemy lines" and implored Latinos to punish their enemies by voting.
:lol: Nice try Derspeiss.
Oh, joy. My Argie FB friends have discovered my "RIP" post :angry: :lol:
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 02:42:41 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 02:35:49 PM
I can't think of any other Western leader who described a large chunk of their country as 'the enemy within'.
Obama.
I would have gone with the Clintons and their VRWC myself.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 03:00:13 PM
Oh, joy. My Argie FB friends have discovered my "RIP" post :angry: :lol:
Somebody is getting a strap on surprise tonight.
:lol:
Quote from: Valmy on April 08, 2013, 03:01:56 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 02:42:41 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 02:35:49 PM
I can't think of any other Western leader who described a large chunk of their country as 'the enemy within'.
Obama.
I would have gone with the Clintons and their VRWC myself.
Really? I'd have picked the Nixon White House. Figured that one was a lock.
With Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney a notable 2nd place.
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 08, 2013, 03:04:16 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 03:00:13 PM
Oh, joy. My Argie FB friends have discovered my "RIP" post :angry: :lol:
Somebody is getting a strap on surprise tonight.
The wife doesn't give a shit about the Falklands anymore. My sister in law, however, apparently "doesn't care if she rests in peace, the old witch". Or at least that's what the post said before I deleted it.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 03:00:13 PM
Oh, joy. My Argie FB friends have discovered my "RIP" post :angry: :lol:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcf.geekdo-images.com%2Fimages%2Fpic1629664.jpg&hash=a4142aec6e9526c26ca328dd86cb68431fdffd60)
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 03:08:43 PM
The wife doesn't give a shit about the Falklands anymore.
SON OF A
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 03:08:43 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 08, 2013, 03:04:16 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 03:00:13 PM
Oh, joy. My Argie FB friends have discovered my "RIP" post :angry: :lol:
Somebody is getting a strap on surprise tonight.
The wife doesn't give a shit about the Falklands anymore. My sister in law, however, apparently "doesn't care if she rests in peace, the old witch". Or at least that's what the post said before I deleted it.
Post a pic of the torpedoed General Belgrano on her FB page.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Feditdesk.files.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F08%2Fgotcha-headline.jpg&hash=63aba4c1fd2f019cbf210143505d62a1c8b59860)
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 03:08:43 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 08, 2013, 03:04:16 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 03:00:13 PM
Oh, joy. My Argie FB friends have discovered my "RIP" post :angry: :lol:
Somebody is getting a strap on surprise tonight.
The wife doesn't give a shit about the Falklands anymore. My sister in law, however, apparently "doesn't care if she rests in peace, the old witch". Or at least that's what the post said before I deleted it.
You know, I don't give a shit about the Falklands either..............but when some bastard invades your sovereign territory you are obliged to kick him off it.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 08, 2013, 03:18:18 PM
You know, I don't give a shit about the Falklands either..............but when some bastard invades your sovereign territory you are obliged to kick him off it.
Yeah, they aren't quite as able to let things go. It's weird, amusing, and pathetic at the same time.
My bus home was diverted because there's a street party in Brixton celebrating her death. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS
Quote from: Warspite on April 08, 2013, 03:39:00 PM
My bus home was diverted because there's a street party in Brixton celebrating her death. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS
It's the facebook generation, most of them will have no idea of her politics or legacy and how divisive she was, they'll only be there because its a cool think to do, cos others on social media are trending this happening event, etc.
Quote from: Warspite on April 08, 2013, 03:39:00 PM
My bus home was diverted because there's a street party in Brixton celebrating her death. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS
While not entirely surprising, that's still a disgrace.
And from my somewhat old-fashioned perspective, very un-British.
I wonder if "I'm-not-quite-so-red-as-I-was-Ken" is going to show up... :glare:
(Yes, I've been inspired by the relatively restrained reactions on the forums I frequent to actually dare to trawl through Yahoo for the news stories and some of the comments...and I've just read Ken's "everything wrong today is her fault" bit.)
Quote from: Warspite on April 08, 2013, 03:39:00 PM
My bus home was diverted because there's a street party in Brixton celebrating her death. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS
Yep. They got into the Ritzy:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BHXLppRCcAENKQ5.jpg:large)
There was a few hundred in Liverpool too. Apparently the Echo isn't mentioning Thatcher at all tomorrow.
Wow. Even the goofballs whose lives were defined by him didn't act that way when Nixon died. And only the goofiest Hansmeister fucks would do that with Jimmy Carter or Obama.
Stay classy, England.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 06:34:18 PM
Wow. Even the goofballs whose lives were defined by him didn't act that way when Nixon died. And only the goofiest Hansmeister fucks would do that with Jimmy Carter or Obama.
Stay classy, England.
Are you really surprised? It has been pretty well established over the years that a significative amount of people in Britain truly despised her, even decades after her governments. You can't honestly say that you didn't expect it.
Quote from: The Larch on April 08, 2013, 06:41:26 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 06:34:18 PM
Wow. Even the goofballs whose lives were defined by him didn't act that way when Nixon died. And only the goofiest Hansmeister fucks would do that with Jimmy Carter or Obama.
Stay classy, England.
Are you really surprised? It has been pretty well established over the years that a significative amount of people in Britain truly despised her, even decades after her governments. You can't honestly say that you didn't expect it.
Except as been raised earlier, a lot of the people that are going attend such events are people Tyr's age and younger - i.e. people who really know little about her.
Quote from: The Larch on April 08, 2013, 06:41:26 PM
Are you really surprised? It has been pretty well established over the years that a significative amount of people in Britain truly despised her, even decades after her governments. You can't honestly say that you didn't expect it.
Not surprised as much as disappointed. I knew she was a divisive politician, but I expect that sort of thing from hot-blooded, wildly gesturing Mediterranean continentals, not the polite and reserved English. Especially when it was 30 years ago.
You'd think she played soccer or something with reactions like that.
I think she's the only politician since Churchill who's gone into myth. I don't remember Thatcher but my family were always political and they hated her. Stories of Thatcher were passed on, I think probably by those who loved her and those who didn't. That sort of thing simply didn't happen with lesser figures like Wilson, or Heath.
Fucking with her private funeral and making fun of her family at a time like this would be unacceptable.
Since the establishment sees fit to make it a big public event in which they glorify her 'work' then the people have no choice really but to act counter to this.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 06:46:40 PM
Not surprised as much as disappointed. I knew she was a divisive politician, but I expect that sort of thing from hot-blooded, wildly gesturing Mediterranean continentals, not the polite and reserved English. Especially when it was 30 years ago.
If the reaction to Princess Di's death didn't undermine our reputation for being polite and reserved, then nothing will.
Yeah, it's not like lots of Brits aren't on record as saying they'll be breaking out the champagne or otherwise celebrating Maggie's death. Lots and lots of people think she fucked up their lives, or the lives of people they cared about.
CC commented recently about being surprised about Billy Elliot being so blatantly anti-Thatcher, IIRC. In my observation, it's pretty much the baseline of sentiment re: Thatcher amongst huge swathes of the British population. Ask in Glasgow or Liverpool or Sheffield or indeed Brixton what people think of her, and you'll find that Tyr's opinions here are fairly mild and measured in comparison. At least that's my impression.
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 06:48:20 PM
Fucking with her private funeral and making fun of her family at a time like this would be unacceptable.
Since the establishment sees fit to make it a big public event in which they glorify her 'work' then the people have no choice really but to act counter to this.
Yep, no choice. Must act like classless hooligans!
The difference is this, Thatcher's policies hurt a group of essentially adult babies. People whose lives simply were not sustainable and whom expected government to artificially keep the flowers blooming and the sun rising for them til the end of time. Their anger is childish and stupid.
Jimmy Carter took the greatest country on earth in terms of economic, political, and military might and made it dance to the tune of whatever shit hole country in the world felt like playing the pipes. He followed up his ignominious period as a failure of a President with a long career overseas fomenting anti-Americanism and support for Palestinian terrorists, Hugo Chavez etc. Carter is easily the worst President we've had since Tyler who actively joined the Confederacy or Pierce who secretly supported the traitors.
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 06:43:50 PM
Quote from: The Larch on April 08, 2013, 06:41:26 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 06:34:18 PM
Wow. Even the goofballs whose lives were defined by him didn't act that way when Nixon died. And only the goofiest Hansmeister fucks would do that with Jimmy Carter or Obama.
Stay classy, England.
Are you really surprised? It has been pretty well established over the years that a significative amount of people in Britain truly despised her, even decades after her governments. You can't honestly say that you didn't expect it.
Except as been raised earlier, a lot of the people that are going attend such events are people Tyr's age and younger - i.e. people who really know little about her.
That's called having a legacy. :P
I mean, there are even Spotify lists for such parties. http://open.spotify.com/user/antoniojl/playlist/2gTc87eWMlNB6IzQSECrA4 (http://open.spotify.com/user/antoniojl/playlist/2gTc87eWMlNB6IzQSECrA4)
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 06:46:40 PM
Quote from: The Larch on April 08, 2013, 06:41:26 PM
Are you really surprised? It has been pretty well established over the years that a significative amount of people in Britain truly despised her, even decades after her governments. You can't honestly say that you didn't expect it.
Not surprised as much as disappointed. I knew she was a divisive politician, but I expect that sort of thing from hot-blooded, wildly gesturing Mediterranean continentals, not the polite and reserved English. Especially when it was 30 years ago.
You'd think she played soccer or something with reactions like that.
Guess what, plenty of Brits are not polite and reserved.
I bet the North Koreans are damned pissed, what with this knocking them off the front pages, they'll have to resort to offing another Dear Leader or threatening Venus with nuclear conflagration.
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 06:43:50 PM
Quote from: The Larch on April 08, 2013, 06:41:26 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 06:34:18 PM
Wow. Even the goofballs whose lives were defined by him didn't act that way when Nixon died. And only the goofiest Hansmeister fucks would do that with Jimmy Carter or Obama.
Stay classy, England.
Are you really surprised? It has been pretty well established over the years that a significative amount of people in Britain truly despised her, even decades after her governments. You can't honestly say that you didn't expect it.
Except as been raised earlier, a lot of the people that are going attend such events are people Tyr's age and younger - i.e. people who really know little about her.
I was just a kid when she was actually in power, that much is true, but I was born during her reign and all throughout my childhood I lived in the shadow of her destruction. Major didn't come in and then suddenly everything was better again, even Blair didn't undo too much of her mess. Its stupid to say that because we weren't around at the time we can't hate what she did. So much of what is wrong in this country today can be traced squarely back to her.
QuoteYep, no choice. Must act like classless hooligans!
Having a party is acting like a hooligan?
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 06:49:41 PM
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 06:48:20 PM
Fucking with her private funeral and making fun of her family at a time like this would be unacceptable.
Since the establishment sees fit to make it a big public event in which they glorify her 'work' then the people have no choice really but to act counter to this.
Yep, no choice. Must act like classless working class hooligans!
Pretty much, yeah.
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 06:49:36 PM
Yeah, it's not like lots of Brits aren't on record as saying they'll be breaking out the champagne or otherwise celebrating Maggie's death. Lots and lots of people think she fucked up their lives, or the lives of people they cared about.
CC commented recently about being surprised about Billy Elliot being so blatantly anti-Thatcher, IIRC. In my observation, it's pretty much the baseline of sentiment re: Thatcher amongst huge swathes of the British population. Ask in Glasgow or Liverpool or Sheffield or indeed Brixton what people think of her, and you'll find that Tyr's opinions here are fairly mild and measured in comparison. At least that's my impression.
I guess CC hasn't watched any Ken Loach movies, then.
And lest anyone think it is just clownish Carter bashing, Carter at a time of great national crisis (after 9/11) was openly criticizing the Bush administration. Now, I'm fine with the facts lots of Americans or foreigners criticized Bush, that's not only fine but necessary--as he deserved it many times. But there was an age old understanding that Presidents once out of office were to be statesmen, it is not your job to criticize whoever holds the office after you. There will always be enough people in line to do any necessary criticism, doing it as an ex-President is far out of sync with how ex-Presidents traditionally behave, especially when you do it from overseas. When Bush gave his first set of post-Presidency interviews he said he had absolutely nothing but respect for every ex-President save one, and while he wouldn't say the name of the one he had a problem with he said, "I never had a problem with 42." Note that Bush hasn't said a damn negative word about Obama, in stark contrast to Cheney who as Vice President sort of straddles the line and who has repeatedly blasted Obama in public.
The drones are revolting. Nerve Staple them.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 06:46:40 PM
Not surprised as much as disappointed. I knew she was a divisive politician, but I expect that sort of thing from hot-blooded, wildly gesturing Mediterranean continentals, not the polite and reserved English. Especially when it was 30 years ago.
You'd think she played soccer or something with reactions like that.
I'm a little surprised. These celebrations are seriously fucked up.
The England I learned about growing up is dead. Not that this was the first sign :(
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 06:49:50 PM
The difference is this, Thatcher's policies hurt a group of essentially adult babies. People whose lives simply were not sustainable and whom expected government to artificially keep the flowers blooming and the sun rising for them til the end of time. Their anger is childish and stupid.
Jimmy Carter took the greatest country on earth in terms of economic, political, and military might and made it dance to the tune of whatever shit hole country in the world felt like playing the pipes. He followed up his ignominious period as a failure of a President with a long career overseas fomenting anti-Americanism and support for Palestinian terrorists, Hugo Chavez etc. Carter is easily the worst President we've had since Tyler who actively joined the Confederacy or Pierce who secretly supported the traitors.
Yet somehow following the 2008- economic crisis Britain is entering a lost decade whilst Germany is doing wonderfully.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 06:49:14 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 06:46:40 PM
Not surprised as much as disappointed. I knew she was a divisive politician, but I expect that sort of thing from hot-blooded, wildly gesturing Mediterranean continentals, not the polite and reserved English. Especially when it was 30 years ago.
If the reaction to Princess Di's death didn't undermine our reputation for being polite and reserved, then nothing will.
That useless courtesan cooze wasn't fit to hold Maggie's handbag.
Sorry, but rich people raised specifically to be married off to other rich people getting whacked is no big loss.
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 06:52:59 PM
I was just a kid when she was actually in power, that much is true, but I was born during her reign and all throughout my childhood I lived in the shadow of her destruction. Major didn't come in and then suddenly everything was better again, even Blair didn't undo too much of her mess. Its stupid to say that because we weren't around at the time we can't hate what she did. So much of what is wrong in this country today can be traced squarely back to her.
I think you guys give her too much credit for a lot of that. If Thatcher hadn't been Thatcher, somebody else would have been. She just happened to be the one at #10 at the time. It's like saying Reagan single-handedly took down the USSR.
From the reactions on this thread it seems that plenty of yanks had an extremely rose tinted vision of the UK.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 06:49:50 PM
Jimmy Carter took the greatest country on earth in terms of economic, political, and military might and made it dance to the tune of whatever shit hole country in the world felt like playing the pipes. He followed up his ignominious period as a failure of a President with a long career overseas fomenting anti-Americanism and support for Palestinian terrorists, Hugo Chavez etc. Carter is easily the worst President we've had since Tyler who actively joined the Confederacy or Pierce who secretly supported the traitors.
Oh, Otto...dear, dear Otto. You had been doing so well since discovering fatherhood. Don't start sliding back now.
Quote from: The Larch on April 08, 2013, 06:53:24 PM
I guess CC hasn't watched any Ken Loach movies, then.
God I love Ken Loach. He's just made a documentary on this sort of thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c86Gwsb5LY
:mmm:
QuoteThe England I grew up learning about is dead. Not that this was the first sign
I doubt it ever existed.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 06:55:04 PMI'm a little surprised. These celebrations are seriously fucked up.
The England I grew up learning about is dead. Not that this was the first sign :(
The England you grew up learning about probably never quite existed just like that. The working classes of England have long been known for their boisterous qualities.
I'm surprised your love of ska didn't make that clear to you, or were you never into second wave 80s 2-tone?
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 06:55:31 PMYet somehow following the 2008- economic crisis Britain is entering a lost decade whilst Germany is doing wonderfully.
By and large because of a culture of quality management in Germany and a government that enforces corporate discipline but without artificially propping up any industries. Like Japan, Germany falls into the category of one of the former Axis powers immediately after WWII that had a massive manufacturing boom largely powered by huge subsidies from the government. That's necessary when rebuilding a country. That's not been the case in a really long time, Germany's modern day economic success is tied to similar measures as those in Canada--fiscal discipline, good businesses etc. Further Germany, divorced from the DM which for years subjected it to cyclical adjustments is now in the Euro where the shittiness of the rest of the Eurozone economy allows it to take advantage of a currency that isn't strong at all relative to the German economy. If Germany was still on the DM it'd be an extremely expensive currency and Germany's import dominance would be trimmed because of it.
Germany is not successful because it went down a path that was the yin to Thatcher's yang. They went down a different path but it's not one in which government keeps a lot of trade unions only interested in unrealistic economic policies running the heavy industrial sector. German unions are certainly an integral part of the economic system there but it's far more of a system geared towards workers and management working collaboratively toward ultimate ends that allow both sides to benefit. Far too much of the UK was run by government hands before Thatcher as well and it's only good that such things came to an end.
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 07:01:02 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 06:55:04 PMI'm a little surprised. These celebrations are seriously fucked up.
The England I grew up learning about is dead. Not that this was the first sign :(
The England you grew up learning about probably never quite existed just like that. The working classes of England have long been known for their boisterous qualities.
I'm surprised your love of ska didn't make that clear to you, or were you never into second wave 80s 2-tone?
Ghost Town from The Specials comes to mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WhhSBgd3KI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WhhSBgd3KI)
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 08, 2013, 06:56:17 PM
I think you guys give her too much credit for a lot of that. If Thatcher hadn't been Thatcher, somebody else would have been. She just happened to be the one at #10 at the time. It's like saying Reagan single-handedly took down the USSR.
I just don't buy that, I mean this is like a liberal Marxist version of history. That we would naturally have developed into the economy we have because it was the work of scientific historical forces. It wasn't. Thatcher was a great man.
I think if you're a Thatcherite then chances are you'd say actually decline was another possibility. I've said before that I don't think any other PM would've gone to war over the Falklands. Britain's sort-of retreat from the world could have continued. We could have carried on with the same sort of stop-start reforms that characterised the late 60s and the 70s.
From a critical perspective you can also say there was nothing inevitable in Britain choosing to have an economy that was so based in London and on finance. There was no need to abandon vast swathes of this country to the welfare rolls, paid for by our gas windfall (and what a waste of money that was). A successful centre left reformer, with an up to date 'in place of strife' plan could have made Britain less centralised politically and economically and less dependant on financial magic tricks.
There were choices for Britain and Thatcher made hers and she prevailed. As I say I don't think she'd be hated if she wasn't a big figure.
Though it can be overstated. She viewed it all as a kind of rebuilding of Britain - 'economics is the method, the goal is moral' - and in the areas that she took an interest in she had considerable success. But there were areas of policy that she, frankly, wasn't interested in and public sector reform was one of them where she doesn't have a significant record. We had as big a welfare state after Thatcher as we did in the 60s and early 70s (as a percent of GDP); the welfare state wasn't really reformed either so there was no workfare or anything like that.
This picture always amused me, in how it subtly told a story that was likely true:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbagnewsnotes.typepad.com%2F.a%2F6a00d8341cc90353ef010536bcb2b9970c-pi&hash=59d4293afe17253eb098ed958afcfaf6b2dfd8c1)
Quote from: The Larch on April 08, 2013, 06:57:03 PM
From the reactions on this thread it seems that plenty of yanks had an extremely rose tinted vision of the UK.
I don't think so. I think it is more like what Seed's said not surprised, just disappointed. After all, we all know about London's ridiculous riots in 2011 - and about hooliganism for soccer matches.
Quote from: The Larch on April 08, 2013, 06:57:03 PM
From the reactions on this thread it seems that plenty of yanks had an extremely rose tinted vision of the UK.
Yeah it's somewhat bizarre, younger Yanks tell us who actually lived through those times what it was like. :hmm:
Incidentally my year left school exactly 12 months after she was elected, and joined the workforce right into the teeth of the first Thatcher recession.
You know the one which was going to bring her government electoral defeat, if the Falkland victory hadn't have happened.
Quote from: DGuller on April 08, 2013, 07:09:15 PM
This picture always amused me, in how it subtly told a story that was likely true:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbagnewsnotes.typepad.com%2F.a%2F6a00d8341cc90353ef010536bcb2b9970c-pi&hash=59d4293afe17253eb098ed958afcfaf6b2dfd8c1)
Everybody got hookers and booze except poor Jimmy.
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 06:55:31 PM
Yet somehow following the 2008- economic crisis Britain is entering a lost decade whilst Germany is doing wonderfully.
You can't seriously be suggesting that if only Britain had held on to its state-owned industries it would be flourishing as Germany is.
Britain's industries were bloated dinosaurs kept alive by government handouts. Nobody was buying your coal. The Jap's were building ships for half your price. Every penny ante developing country was setting up textile mills and steel furnaces. And your workers were striking half the year on the misguided notion that the only thing that determined their wages was the toughness of their negotiating.
Germany has made money by nurturing a tradition of quality engineering and production and German workers have had the insight that blue collar industries are a goose that will lay the occaisonal golden egg as long as it's not choked to death.
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 07:10:48 PM
Yeah it's somewhat bizarre, younger Yanks tell us who actually lived through those times what it was like. :hmm:
Can you highlight a post? I haven't seen that, I don't think. :unsure:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 08, 2013, 07:12:23 PM
Britain's industries were bloated dinosaurs kept alive by government handouts. Nobody was buying your coal. The Jap's were building ships for half your price. Every penny ante developing country was setting up textile mills and steel furnaces. And your workers were striking half the year on the misguided notion that the only thing that determined their wages was the toughness of their negotiating.
They also had 50 years of chronic under-investment, dreadful management and a system of technical education that remains pretty poor.
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 07:12:41 PM
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 07:10:48 PM
Yeah it's somewhat bizarre, younger Yanks tell us who actually lived through those times what it was like. :hmm:
Can you highlight a post? I haven't seen that, I don't think. :unsure:
See Shelf's excellent post further up, quite a few people in this thread are reading the history written by 'victors' and assuming that Thatcherism and it's reforms were inevitable.
Whereas there were other historical probabilities and if you look at UK domestic politics from early 1981 to early 1982 you'll see the desperate political position the conservative government found itself in, at that point they were staring electoral defeat in the face in 2 years time.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2013%2F04%2F08%2Farticle-2305760-192E812E000005DC-990_634x423.jpg&hash=dc13d4fbcf641d30296339c7d3f28f87f38fc710)
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2013%2F04%2F08%2Farticle-2305760-192E8136000005DC-868_634x422.jpg&hash=45587fb62fbab1b709960c2584608ea66e0b95ed)
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2013%2F04%2F08%2Farticle-2305760-192E8B94000005DC-797_634x416.jpg&hash=d396c07c7b6946c3690d951627a0cf0f6f8b33e0)
Were these hipster activists even born when Thatcher was in power? :hmm: I wouldn't be surprised if they're middle class and that their parents did well out of Thatcher's conservatism. :P
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 07:15:31 PM
They also had 50 years of chronic under-investment, dreadful management and a system of technical education that remains pretty poor.
They were, for the most part, overpriced, low-skilled labor, commodity businesses. Did you see saavy private firms swooping in to buy up Britain's textile mills and coal mines, to turn them into gold mines with their investments in sleek new machines and managements smarts? Of course not.
Now, I will say the best answer to Britain's problems was certainly not "lets become the financial capital of the world." I do not think it hurts that London is the financial capital of the world, but finance never adds as much real value as actually producing things and creating products. Companies like Google or Microsoft or Oracle show the products don't have to be rolled steel or whatever but I think it is dangerous to assume a large economy can survive on financial services alone. Britain needs vibrant and successful creators of value, including both light to heavy industry and technology firms.
If you look at Germany, a lot of issues that in the United States are covered under state worker's laws or Federal labor laws are actually handled by German unions and their agreements with employers in Germany. That's not a reflection of Germany having weak labor laws (it doesn't, they're stronger than in the United States) but that it leaves a lot of the hammering out of details up to the unions and management entities themselves. In Germany, and I'm now diverging into speculation, we do seem to have a culture a people or whatever that for whatever reason labor is able to understand that the company they work for has to be profitable. That doesn't mean they happily bend over and take whatever they'd told to take, but there is a recognition that on some level labor and management are in a partnership, and it simply is not possible for a going concern to operate at a loss forever. In Britain there was an expectation of just that, with the government making up the shortfall. That's unrealistic.
In the United States unions are much less of an issue than they were 40 years ago to the point of being irrelevant in many areas, but our unions tend to be closer to the British model, in that to them they do not view it as a partnership but an adversarial relationship with management in which they are entitled to money and benefits and increases in both regardless of the long term profitability of the company they work for. There are extremes and of course there are also what I'd call "good" unions in the United States that regularly make necessary concessions. If anything our worst unions are actually public sector unions (which FDR warned against and never should have been legally allowed to exist), which literally refuse any concessions even for governments so deep in the red they'd have to destroy the entire municipality/county with apocalyptic taxes to ever pay the union demands.
Sadly with the union climate in the UK and the US the only right answer is to kill as many of them as possible. In Germany, while there are issues (such as it being far too difficult to fire problem employees) they've taken a different, more mature path. That allows for them to much more easily have manufacturing and heavy industry domestically. There are serious fears of operating heavy industry in the United States if you can't do it in a right to work State where the company can easily quell unionization efforts.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 08, 2013, 07:27:08 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 07:15:31 PM
They also had 50 years of chronic under-investment, dreadful management and a system of technical education that remains pretty poor.
They were, for the most part, overpriced, low-skilled labor, commodity businesses. Did you see saavy private firms swooping in to buy up Britain's textile mills and coal mines, to turn them into gold mines with their investments in sleek new machines and managements smarts? Of course not.
Good point as well, the German manufacturing sector is largely made up of what I deem "good" heavy industry where high skilled workers and quality control mean a lot. This tends to be "high unit price" industries. These industries can and are still profitable even with first world wages. That's why we build a shit ton of heavy engines, farm equipment, cars, turbines, locomotives and etc in the United States.
The textile industry in the United States largely went to shit around the 1970s, that's not coincidental but a reflection of how that industry is always going to be very difficult to protect from low skilled labor countries if you have low trade barriers. In the United States extractive industries like coal can and do survive (but have suffered due to falling demand) because we have a lot of domestic need. We mine a lot of coal that gets onto trains and goes straight to power plants, used to have a lot going straight to steel mills. The traditional steel country was where it was because you had coal mined nearby rolling right up to where it was needed, rivers for shipping stuff and etc. But when the finished product--a lot of that went away because despite good geographical layout to have an efficient steel industry we just couldn't beat really low labor costs in the developing world.
In the modern world "dumb" industry only stays in high labor cost areas when the costs of offshoring are too high relative to whatever you're doing. This is why cans for soup will typically be made in the United States, not because they can't be made cheaper in China but because it will never make sense to ship empty cans across an ocean. It also doesn't make sense to just import the finished canned soup because most of the actual food going into it comes from the U.S. so you'd be shipping food out, having it canned overseas and then shipped back. That's an example of a low-skilled industry uniquely protected by economics, but textiles and steel mills and coal mines won't operate that way.
Those people in the pics:
Take away their benefits.
P.S. UKIP!
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 07:12:41 PM
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 07:10:48 PM
Yeah it's somewhat bizarre, younger Yanks tell us who actually lived through those times what it was like. :hmm:
Can you highlight a post? I haven't seen that, I don't think. :unsure:
See Shelf's excellent post further up, quite a few people in this thread are reading the history written by 'victors' and assuming that Thatcherism and it's reforms were inevitable.
Whereas there were other historical probabilities and if you look at UK domestic politics from early 1981 to early 1982 you'll see the desperate political position the conservative government found itself in, at that point they were staring electoral defeat in the face in 2 years time.
I'm not sure I see those as the same. I think the people so far who have argued historical inevitability said that politicians could have tried it sooner or later. I don't think they said that it would be well received at any point.
Quote from: The Larch on April 08, 2013, 07:03:09 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 07:01:02 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 06:55:04 PMI'm a little surprised. These celebrations are seriously fucked up.
The England I grew up learning about is dead. Not that this was the first sign :(
The England you grew up learning about probably never quite existed just like that. The working classes of England have long been known for their boisterous qualities.
I'm surprised your love of ska didn't make that clear to you, or were you never into second wave 80s 2-tone?
Ghost Town from The Specials comes to mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WhhSBgd3KI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WhhSBgd3KI)
Or maybe... Maggie's Farm :P
Jake: I started with 3rd wave & worked my way backwards. But yeah, I listened to a lot of Specials and other great 2nd wave groups. None of it, not even the political stuff, led me to expect crap like what we're seeing.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 06:59:36 PM
I doubt it ever existed.
Very deep statement, but I'm pretty sure it did.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 08, 2013, 07:28:03 PM
but our unions tend to be closer to the British model, in that to them they do not view it as a partnership but an adversarial relationship with management
It is an adversarial relationship, Otto.
QuoteSadly with the union climate in the UK and the US the only right answer is to kill as many of them as possible.
Says the NICE Council member.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 08, 2013, 07:27:08 PMThey were, for the most part, overpriced, low-skilled labor, commodity businesses. Did you see saavy private firms swooping in to buy up Britain's textile mills and coal mines, to turn them into gold mines with their investments in sleek new machines and managements smarts? Of course not.
Well I always agreed with Keynes that the best thing that could've happened in the war was if the Americans, it was too late to ask anything of the Germans, accidentally destroyed most of our factories with only the directors getting injured. You're right but firms like that changed in other countries and were able to specialise in new sectors - but also Britain did have, for example, a big auto industry years ago which could've survived.
Edit: In addition in the post-war era we had aerospace, heavy machinery, electrical engineering and so on. We weren't just coal mines and textile mills.
But really what I mean is that again there's a tendency to letting the victors write history. The failure of British industry is pinned on the workers and the trades unions - and they contributed. But there were other significant problems that lead to relative decline.
I think the biggest one was class. It fostered the hostility in industrial relations, so the unions never became a partner for change as they did in Germany. At the same time it allowed for amateurish management of companies because people went to the right college or whatever. Similarly engineering or any sort of 'technical education' of the sort Germany excels at were disdained really, which again led to amateurism - there's that great stat in a Peter Hennessy book that in 1945, when the UK was nationalising many industries, there was one trained economist working in the Treasury. Another consequence of that was that unlike most continental European countries we never really developed an Economy Ministry that would try and devise economic policy. I still think the best thing to get an idea of post-war Britain is to watch 'I'm All Right Jack' and it's a great comedy with a young-ish Peter Sellers as the union shop steward 'ahhh, Russia. All them corn fields and ballet in the evening.'
You add things like trying to maintain the Sterling industry, the decline of imperial markets and capital flight over that period (not helped by the occasional currency crisis) to all of the above and to increasingly militant unions and you have a bit of why Britain's industry declined.
One of the successes of Thatcherism was, in the City, to destroy that class hold. The City before Thatcher was unmeritocratic and inefficient. After her, if nothing else, it was fiercely interested in talent regardless of the background and far more effective as a financial centre.
Edit: And I think Thatcher herself was fiercely meritocratic. She was a lower middle class girl who studied chemistry and law and took over the Tory party when there were still truly grand grandees running it. One old Tory derided her cabinet (stuffed with new money like Michael Heseltine) as being made up of 'the sort of people who have to buy their own furniture'. Similarly I've always thought there's a slight class-based sneer in MacMillan's remark about her privatisations that she was 'selling the family silver'.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 07:51:37 PM
Well I always agreed with Keynes that the best thing that could've happened in the war was if the Americans, it was too late to ask anything of the Germans, accidentally destroyed most of our factories with only the directors getting injured. You're right but firms like that changed in other countries and were able to specialise in new sectors - but also Britain did have, for example, a big auto industry years ago which could've survived.
Edit: In addition in the post-war era we had aerospace, heavy machinery, electrical engineering and so on. We weren't just coal mines and textile mills.
But really what I mean is that again there's a tendency to letting the victors write history. The failure of British industry is pinned on the workers and the trades unions - and they contributed. But there were other significant problems that lead to relative decline.
I think the inevitability is not that thatcherism had to be done the way it was, but that those industries were not sustainable in their current form, and any effective means of either killing them off or reforming them into an effective shape would have been highly unpopular. There is no way that they could have been able to remain in their current form forever. That is indisputable.
In an attempt to find a local connection, one of the local news channels interviewed the guy the runs the area's British food shop. Which made me want some Jaffa cakes.
I sense a consipriacy.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 07:51:37 PM
One of the successes of Thatcherism was, in the City, to destroy that class hold. The City before Thatcher was unmeritocratic and inefficient. After her, if nothing else, it was fiercely interested in talent regardless of the background and far more effective as a financial centre.
I dunno...turning it into an identical twin of Wall Street brought its own set of issues.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 08, 2013, 07:57:18 PMI think the inevitability is not that thatcherism had to be done the way it was, but that those industries were not sustainable in their current form, and any effective means of either killing them off or reforming them into an effective shape would have been highly unpopular. There is no way that they could have been able to remain in their current form forever. That is indisputable.
Yeah, but everyone knew that. The fact of relative decline was why we tried to and eventually joined the EEC; in the late 60s Labour had their attempt at reform with 'in place of strife'; in the early 70s Heath tried some reforms. I don't think anyone at the time or since would deny that a change was coming to Britain's economy, we'd already had several false dawns and stalled shifts in direction.
I don't buy the argument that Thatcherism was the inevitable result of all that. That Thatcher just, as Valmy put it, presided over inevitable economic shift. She was just the one that got things passed and won.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 08:07:54 PM
I don't buy the argument that Thatcherism was the inevitable result of all that. That Thatcher just, as Valmy put it, presided over inevitable economic shift. She was just the one that got things passed and won.
Yeah I don't think Thatcherism was itself inevitable. Just some very unpopular change. It could have taken a very different form.
QuoteI think if you're a Thatcherite then chances are you'd say actually decline was another possibility. I've said before that I don't think any other PM would've gone to war over the Falklands. Britain's sort-of retreat from the world could have continued. We could have carried on with the same sort of stop-start reforms that characterised the late 60s and the 70s.
What is often forgotten by those who wish to credit her for the Falklands is that any other PM wouldn't have caused the Falklands war in the first place. It was only due to her typical short sightedness in slashing the military budget and single minded determination to crush the unions rather than govern the country and keep an eye on foreign relations too that the Argentinians invaded.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 08, 2013, 07:12:23 PM
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 06:55:31 PM
Yet somehow following the 2008- economic crisis Britain is entering a lost decade whilst Germany is doing wonderfully.
You can't seriously be suggesting that if only Britain had held on to its state-owned industries it would be flourishing as Germany is.
Britain's industries were bloated dinosaurs kept alive by government handouts. Nobody was buying your coal. The Jap's were building ships for half your price. Every penny ante developing country was setting up textile mills and steel furnaces. And your workers were striking half the year on the misguided notion that the only thing that determined their wages was the toughness of their negotiating.
Germany has made money by nurturing a tradition of quality engineering and production and German workers have had the insight that blue collar industries are a goose that will lay the occaisonal golden egg as long as it's not choked to death.
A reply to otto's post here too-
the problem with so many Thatcher fans is they see it as a binary choice between her hack and slash uber liberalism and continuing exactly as things were.
With no Thatcher its inevitable that Britain would not have stayed as it was and would have evolved in another direction.
Indeed prior to Thatcher coming in Britain was in the process of changing, people always forget the major changes implimented under Wilson in the 60s with the mass opening of universities across the country and the opening up of education to those from a non-privileged background. This merely came to maturity in the 80s due to the seeds planted earlier, not due to Thatcher. Britain was already squarely on a path towards being a more educated, more egalitarian country.
It was inevitable that most of the mines were going to close, its inevitable that a lot of the other industry was going to go too. Things were evolving this way. It didn't need Thatcher to come barging in and knock the evolution off the tracks and take things in a totally different, proven wrong, direction.
The government should have worked with rather than against the unions, it should have looked at the bigger picture rather than short term gains, it should have invested the north sea gas money in the work force rather than using it to keep the country afloat whilst it was gutted and buying votes by destroying our housing stock.
Another piece I thought was good, on Thatcher from a Scottish perspective. I think this goes for a lot of the north of England too:
QuoteMargaret Thatcher and Scotland: A Story of Mutual Incomprehension
Alex Massie 8 April 2013 19:48
There is a poignant passage in Margaret Thatcher's memoirs during which she contemplates her failure in Scotland. She seemed puzzled by this, noting that, in her view, many of her ideas and principles had at least some Caledonian ancestry. And yet, despite her admiration for David Hume and, especially, Adam Smith, there was no Tartan Thatcherite revolution. Sure, there were some true believers – Teddy Taylor, Michael Forsyth – but Scotland never warmed to the Iron Lady. And she never quite knew or understood why.
Two issues, above all, led to her downfall. Europe and the Poll Tax. The former was a Westminster affair and a matter of internal internecine conflict within the cabinet; the latter lost her the country.
It was a policy conceived in Scotland. Not just delivered but actually conceived and first implemented north of the Tweed. The introduction of the Community Charge – that is, the Poll Tax – would likely have proved disastrous however it was done but it was implemented in ways that could scarcely have been better designed to destroy the Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland. The Scottish Tories cut their own throats without even realising what they were doing.
The Prime Minister had thought it best to introduce the Community Charge in one go. The Scottish Tories persuaded her otherwise. A rates revaluation was looming in Scotland. This was bound to be unpopular and likely to provoke a backlash against the party in power. So please, please, please, Margaret, can you no speed these boats and introduce the Community Charge in Scotland a year before it is levied elsewhere? As well-intentioned blunders go, this takes some beating.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Can Pay, Won't Pay campaign for civil disobedience (enthusiastically backed by a number of Labour MPs) took a hold upon the public's imagination. The idea that the Duke of Buccleuch should pay the same local taxes as his dustman proved a tough proposition to defend.
Worse than this, however, was the suspicion – mistaken but widespread – that Thatcher was using Scotland as an experimental policy guinea pig. The effrontery of it insulted us. Who did she think we were? Who did she think she was? How dare she.
The truth was more complicated but the legend proved irresistible. And that was that. More than any other single event, the Poll Tax galvanised support for Home Rule in Scotland. Civic Scotland – whatever that is, as the Lady might have put it – united in morally-superior opposition to Thatcherism and all its works. Though John Major won a reprieve for Toryism north of the border it was but a minor flickering of a once great party. The Poll Tax plus the party's principled but doomed opposition to devolution destroyed Toryism in Scotland.
The biggest beneficiary proved, in time, to be the SNP. Alex Salmond first entered parliament in 1987 but he lives, like every other leading politician in Britain today, in Thatcher's shadow. As he said today, Thatcherism helped conceive the Scottish parliament. More than that, the gathering sense that Conservatives were somehow profoundly, inescapably, "anti-Scottish" helped foster conditions in which the SNP could thrive.
The rise of the nationalists was not immediate but it is telling that the SNP's first permanent breakthroughs were in Aberdeenshire, Angus and Perthshire. None of these were or are hotbeds of socialism. They were, and remain, small-c conservative places. As Toryism was tarnished, so there was an opportunity for the Conservatives to be supplanted by a different "patriotic party".
Salmond understands this. He is, though he would not welcome the label, in some respects a very Thatcherite politician. Not only because he divides opinion almost as sharply as the Iron Lady did in her pomp but because he accepts large parts of her legacy. It was Salmond, after all, who suggested that Scots had relatively few quarrels with Thatcher's economic policies but that they "didn't like the social side at all". Moreover, Salmond remains an economic liberal just like the Iron Lady.
The "social side" of course was, in some respects, a reaction against some of the consequences of Thatcherite economics. There is no point in denying the hardship these caused in some parts of the country. Change is always painful even when it is necessary. But Thatcher never managed to find a way to replace the heavy industry jobs that disappeared on her watch. More dreadfully still, the impression that she didn't much care about replacing them became damagingly widespread. This was a political mistake but, worse, also a moral blunder.
The old ways could not continue forever and Thatcher's ministries were sometimes more attuned to Scottish sensibilities than is commonly remembered. As David Torrance reminds us, she twice spared the Ravenscraig steelworks from closure, mindful that the plant had assumed a kind of totemic significance in Scottish political culture. It was a reminder of what we once were but would no longer be.
Ravenscraig's closure marked the end of an era and, more than that, the end of an idea about a certain kind of Scotland. It was the passing of another generation of the last of the Old Scots Folk.
That being the case, I don't blame some of those most closely affected by the 1980s' winds of change for either their bitterness or their celebrations today. Even the greatest or most consequential leaders leave a divided legacy and not every boat was lifted by the great Thatcherite tide.
But many were. Scotland rejected Thatcherism and Conservatism despite the fact that much of Scotland prospered on her watch. Transformation does not happen overnight; policy choices often take years to bear fruit. The fact remains that Scotland, relative to the rest of the United Kingdom, saw its lot improve as a result of the Thatcher years.
Alex Salmond and the SNP argue, not necessarily incorrectly, that Scotland contributes more in tax receipts now than it receives in public spending. This would have seemed utterly improbable as recently as 1979. (Recently being "within my lifetime".) Resisted as it may have been, Thatcher's economic revolution helped more Scots than it hurt (even if those hurt were wounded terribly).
It is, if you will, an oblique tribute to Thatcher that most sensible observers agree that Scotland, sensibly managed, could thrive as an independent country. Certainly many more Scots are persuaded of this than was the case when she first entered Downing Street. She might have disputed that she had anything to do with this economic revitalisation (a renaissance that is both absolute and relative, in UK terms), insisting that all she helped do was help get the state out of the way. Nevertheless and taken as a whole Scotland has prospered these past thirty years and at least some of that success might sensibly be attributed to the consequences of some of the decisions made by Margaret Thatcher. After London and the south-east of England, Scotland is the wealthiest part of the United Kingdom.
That this is true will not be enough to persuade everyone. So be it. Nevertheless, the fact that an independent Scotland is perfectly feasible is – for reasons good and bad – part of Margaret Thatcher's legacy.
Her success, of course, also contributed to the ossification of the Scottish Labour party. Resistant to change and all too often in thrall to ancient shibboleths, Labour insisted that the Scottish Parliament become a bulwark against reform no matter whether those reforms were suggested by Conservatives or, even, a Labour government in London. The slow learners in the Scottish Labour party are still coming to terms with the consequences of their own intellectual decay.
But, hey, at least Scottish Labour could take their cue from the complacency made manifest by John Smith's suggestion that, aye, the Scots are a more moral people than the English. There's always been a market for Caledonian smugness.
Of course, Thatcher saw herself as a very moral politician too. She thought her values were also Scottish values. The people, in the end, disagreed. But she had a point. Her problem was that her values were more in tune with the Scotland of the 1950s than the Scotland of the 1980s. She believed in hard work and thrift, considering these the keys to self-improvement and, just as importantly, self-belief. A lass of pairts herself, she was a product of a small town, god-fearing, provincial England that was not so very different from small town, god-fearing, provincial Scotland. Though a Methodist, she had more in common with comparable children raised in the bosom of the Kirk than she did with Londoners or other metropolitan swells.
But her Englishness proved a problem. In the end, she lacked empathy for the other parts of the United Kingdom and this contributed to her problems and her party's eventual eclipse. I fancy that, in her heart, she fancied England and Britain synonyms.
Then there was her voice. And her tone. These too grated on many Scottish ears. There was something hectoring about her; something nagging that brought the worst out of some of her opponents. Even if she had an appealing message, the tone and accent in which it was delivered hampered her ability to connect with Scots.
Her sex did not help her either. There was then – and, frankly, still is – a thick streak of often unacknowledged misogynism in Scottish politics. We won't be lectured and we especially won't be lectured by a bloody woman. (I think Wendy Alexander discovered this too.) Again, who did she think she was?
Well, she was the Prime Minister and, to borrow from Trollope, She Knew She Was Right. That too did not enamour her to Scots. Her policies were controversial enough but I fancy they might have enjoyed a better hearing had they been suggested by a male rather than a female Prime Minister. In this at least, Scotland was perhaps less "progressive" than it likes to think itself.
I don't wish to make too much of this. Gender and nationality were not the only reasons Margaret Thatcher failed in Scotland. She did not understand the place as well as she thought she did.
Even so, her failure should nto be exaggerated. In the October 1974 election the Tories won 25% of the vote in Scotland. That rose to 31% in 1979 before falling to 28% in 1983 and 24% in 1987. A decline, certainly, but not a calamitous one if measured in terms of the share of the vote rather than seats. (In 1992 the Tory vote "surged" to 25%.) In other words, Scots voted for Margaret Thatcher in rather greater numbers than is sometimes assumed. It was her legacy and the folk memory of her ministry that proved fatal.
So her legacy north of the Tweed and Solway is complicated. The Thatcherite revolution may have had relatively few Scottish conscripts but it made its impact – in ways both good and bad – on Scotland nonetheless. One of the reasons Alex Salmond has been so successful is that the SNP, in ways that might surprise some people, has reacted to Thatcher's failures and her successes rather more nimbly than has the Scottish Labour party. He too is in her debt. It is an irony that I am not sure the Iron Lady would have appreciated far less relished. Nevertheless, there it is.
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 08:29:01 PM
A reply to otto's post here too-
the problem with so many Thatcher fans is they see it as a binary choice between her hack and slash uber liberalism and continuing exactly as things were.
With no Thatcher its inevitable that Britain would not have stayed as it was and would have evolved in another direction.
Indeed prior to Thatcher coming in Britain was in the process of changing, people always forget the major changes implimented under Wilson in the 60s with the mass opening of universities across the country and the opening up of education to those from a non-privileged background. This merely came to maturity in the 80s due to the seeds planted earlier, not due to Thatcher. Britain was already squarely on a path towards being a more educated, more egalitarian country.
It was inevitable that most of the mines were going to close, its inevitable that a lot of the other industry was going to go too. Things were evolving this way. It didn't need Thatcher to come barging in and knock the evolution off the tracks and take things in a totally different, proven wrong, direction.
The government should have worked with rather than against the unions, it should have looked at the bigger picture rather than short term gains, it should have invested the north sea gas money in the work force rather than using it to keep the country afloat whilst it was gutted and buying votes by destroying our housing stock.
So...all the changes were inevitable. Glad you can see that. LOL at the empty platitudes. Um somebody could have moved the industry out and closed the mines while working with the Unions?
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 06:48:20 PM
Fucking with her private funeral and making fun of her family at a time like this would be unacceptable.
Since the establishment sees fit to make it a big public event in which they glorify her 'work' then the people have no choice really but to act counter to this.
The people? THE PEOPLE? Whatever. In this case, the people=the rabble.
Whatever illusions of pity I had for the working class victims of Thatcher's policies were lost forever when I spent 3 days in Bodrum, Turkey.
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
See Shelf's excellent post further up, quite a few people in this thread are reading the history written by 'victors' and assuming that Thatcherism and it's reforms were inevitable.
Whereas there were other historical probabilities and if you look at UK domestic politics from early 1981 to early 1982 you'll see the desperate political position the conservative government found itself in, at that point they were staring electoral defeat in the face in 2 years time.
Are we Americans the victors of industry moving out of the first world? Bullshit. But at least we are not so delusional as to blame the simple facts of the modern world on some singular politician.
Quote from: Scipio on April 08, 2013, 09:34:35 PMThe people? THE PEOPLE? Whatever. In this case, the people=the rabble.
Thatcher agreed with that sentiment, and enacted policy accordingly. Yet you affect surprise that said people rejoice at her death?
I suspect a few more of you mooks are rejoicing and not owning up to it, what with the way you're bending over backwards to justify it.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 07:44:13 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 06:59:36 PM
I doubt it ever existed.
Very deep statement, but I'm pretty sure it did.
If the England you say existed did not contain a working class that vigorously fought social and economic change that it thought detrimental, then you have to go pretty far back I'm afraid. Ned Ludd was English, after all; and Levellers and Diggers precede the existence of an industrial working class altogether.
And I don't think wishing death and eternal torment on those they perceive as their oppressors is a recent development either.
As for riots and mass disorder, they have a fairly long history in Britain as well. I believe Londoners - especially organized tradesmen - have been involved rather physically on a number of occasions.
... or did you mean something else when you speak of the Britain that used to exist?
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 09:49:14 PM
I suspect a few more of you mooks are rejoicing and not owning up to it, what with the way you're bending over backwards to justify it.
Wasn't a fan of hers, which is why until this post I haven't even commented in this thread. :)
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 09:53:53 PM
As for riots and mass disorder, they have a fairly long history in Britain as well. I believe Londoners - especially organized tradesmen - have been involved rather physically on a number of occasions.
... or did you mean something else when you speak of the Britain that used to exist?
:lol: Until the French took over the English were known as the unruly lot who killed a King. I think public disorder and xenophobia are the two features that lots of Medieval and Tudor Europeans write about after visiting England. It's that old theory that historically England's an unstable, often violent, raucous island that had a 100 year imperial period of politeness, morals and decorum.
Of course it's probably nonsense, but it's better than the worthy Victorian nonsense.
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 06:52:59 PM
Having a party is acting like a hooligan?
When you have a party to celebrate the death of someone who wasn't even evil, yes. :mellow:
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 10:01:17 PM
:lol: Until the French took over the English were known as the unruly lot who killed a King. I think public disorder and xenophobia are the two features that lots of Medieval and Tudor Europeans write about after visiting England. It's that old theory that historically England's an unstable, often violent, raucous island that had a 100 year imperial period of politeness, morals and decorum.
Of course it's probably nonsense, but it's better than the worthy Victorian nonsense.
Yeah I recall people complaining about the English in the Third Crusade always being drunk and unruly. There were wild parties in the streets of London when an unpopular King died...in someways these crew is participating in an ancient tradition :P
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 07:41:57 PMJake: I started with 3rd wave & worked my way backwards. But yeah, I listened to a lot of Specials and other great 2nd wave groups. None of it, not even the political stuff, led me to expect crap like what we're seeing.
I guess you didn't consume a whole bunch of other 80s British produced media to put it in context, or hang out with very many working class Brits who lived through the era? Because to me, and it's not like I'm some sort of expert on the subject, it was nonetheless blindingly obvious that it was going to happen like this. Like... utterly unsurprising.
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 10:07:10 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 07:41:57 PMJake: I started with 3rd wave & worked my way backwards. But yeah, I listened to a lot of Specials and other great 2nd wave groups. None of it, not even the political stuff, led me to expect crap like what we're seeing.
I guess you didn't consume a whole bunch of other 80s British produced media to put it in context, or hang out with very many working class Brits who lived through the era? Because to me, and it's not like I'm some sort of expert on the subject, it was nonetheless blindingly obvious that it was going to happen like this. Like... utterly unsurprising.
Yeah I am not surprised at all. They essentially blame her for the destruction of a way of life, which I find ridiculous.
I have to admit though...it was not like she did not glorify in said destruction regardless of how little she actually did to cause it IMO.
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 10:07:10 PM
I guess you didn't consume a whole bunch of other 80s British produced media to put it in context, or hang out with very many working class Brits who lived through the era? Because to me, and it's not like I'm some sort of expert on the subject, it was nonetheless blindingly obvious that it was going to happen like this. Like... utterly unsurprising.
I don't know. I mean there is something to be said for the course of time. Didn't have to be the case that people my age would be crowing over the death of someone who held power whilst we were being born and toilet training. Certainly 80s music can't be said to predict that.
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 10:07:10 PM
I guess you didn't consume a whole bunch of other 80s British produced media to put it in context,
I did but I guess I didn't take it seriously enough.
Quoteor hang out with very many working class Brits who lived through the era?
Well you got me there. The only anti-Thatcher Brit I personally knew was a bit of a weird guy in other respects as well.
QuoteBecause to me, and it's not like I'm some sort of expert on the subject, it was nonetheless blindingly obvious that it was going to happen like this. Like... utterly unsurprising.
Good for you. I did hear a lot of anti-Thatcher vitriol on the internet, but I guess I just chalked it up to hyperbole and didn't think people would be classless enough to literally pop the champagne upon hearing of her death.
People here talked a lot of shit about Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama. But with time a lot of that hatred faded (and will fade for Obama once he's out of office for a few years). And I guess that gets to why I in all my naivite was surprised-- that people still carried that big of a grudge against Thatcher after all this time.
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 10:12:14 PMI don't know. I mean there is something to be said for the course of time. Didn't have to be the case that people my age would be crowing over the death of someone who held power whilst we were being born and toilet training. Certainly 80s music can't be said to predict that.
Yet both Valmy and I claim it helps us do so. Perhaps we paid more attention to the UK than you did?
The 80s ska reference was directed specifically at DS because of his taste in music. As I said to CC about Billy Elliot, a large majority of the British working and creative classes absolutely loathe(d) Thatcher, something which is pretty damn obvious and has found continual and unrelenting expression since her years in power. If you missed that, you simply weren't paying attention. Not that you were obliged to, of course, if you didn't care about it. But it was ther to see for anyone who even remotely cared to look.
You're right in that I didn't/don't care very much. Still seems odd to me to look to the 80s to guage the feelings of kids not even born then.
By-the-by, while I think much of the American left loathed Bush 2, I don't think we'll have many night clubs having nights to celebrate his death. Maybe Americans are just more likely to move on.
I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:42:52 PM
I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.
:huh: Maybe he's just enjoying a topic. When you question motives like this, you sound worse than Raz.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:22:04 PMGood for you. I did hear a lot of anti-Thatcher vitriol on the internet, but I guess I just chalked it up to hyperbole and didn't think people would be classless enough to literally pop the champagne upon hearing of her death.
People here talked a lot of shit about Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama. But with time a lot of that hatred faded (and will fade for Obama once he's out of office for a few years). And I guess that gets to why I in all my naivite was surprised-- that people still carried that big of a grudge against Thatcher after all this time.
I think Thatcher's impact was orders of magnitude greater. I mean, you're pretty unfond of Obama; I expect that you know some people who are fairly vitriolic towards him. But really, all the rhetoric of the American political stage aside, how much has your way of life - or that of his major detractors you may know personally - changed due to his policies? Still, there's a fair bit of vitriol aimed at the man.
Now, if we imagine that Obama's policies put you and pretty much everyone you know out of work not just now but for the next five years or more, and rather than try to put together some sort of retraining package for hardworking Americans or whatever he openly scorned you and left you to rot; I imagine the dislike you have for him would be significantly stronger and longer lasting.
I mean sure you don't like Obama, but what has he really done to you? Thatcher completely and utterly won, and she was neither merciful nor conciliatory towards those she labelled he enemies. Can you really remain surprised that those she labelled thus - and as Valmy said, gloried in their destruction - rejoice at the only victory they ever scored - outliving her?
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 10:24:07 PM
Yet both Valmy and I claim it helps us do so. Perhaps we paid more attention to the UK than you did?
The 80s ska reference was directed specifically at DS because of his taste in music. As I said to CC about Billy Elliot, a large majority of the British working and creative classes absolutely loathe(d) Thatcher, something which is pretty damn obvious and has found continual and unrelenting expression since her years in power. If you missed that, you simply weren't paying attention. Not that you were obliged to, of course, if you didn't care about it. But it was ther to see for anyone who even remotely cared to look.
I distinctly remember the protests, rallies and marches in the UK against Thatcher in the early 80s. It was hard to miss over here if you were paying attention to
60 Minutes.
And I certainly remember how vehemently Thatcher's support for US Pershing and cruise missile deployment was protested, but I think that was the icing on the anti-Thatcher cake by the time all that rolled around. And yeah, it made its way into popular culture. But I wasn't listening to ska at the time; it was all Hall and Oates, baby.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:42:52 PM
I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.
I can stop if you like. Is it making you uncomfortable?
Quote from: Habbaku on April 08, 2013, 10:44:25 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:42:52 PM
I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.
:huh: Maybe he's just enjoying a topic. When you question motives like this, you sound worse than Raz.
I don't think he has a sinister motive. I just don't get why it interests him so much. Now you sound worse than Raz for questioning *my* motives :P
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 10:47:43 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:42:52 PM
I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.
I can stop if you like. Is it making you uncomfortable?
It's just a matter of course that time tends to filter the playback.
Contrary to popular reminiscing these days, the early 80s was most definitely not a peaches and cream time when it came to critics of the early conservative Reagan-Thatcher era.
People tend to forget that, s'all.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:48:04 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on April 08, 2013, 10:44:25 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:42:52 PM
I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.
:huh: Maybe he's just enjoying a topic. When you question motives like this, you sound worse than Raz.
I don't think he has a sinister motive. I just don't get why it interests him so much. Now you sound worse than Raz for questioning *my* motives :P
:rolleyes:
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 10:32:42 PM
You're right in that I didn't/don't care very much. Still seems odd to me to look to the 80s to guage the feelings of kids not even born then.
I'm not talking about kids in particular. What gave you that idea?
But even so, if all the adults around you reviled someone it's hardly surprising if you grow up reviling that same person as well; especially if some of your own troubles can be allegedly traced to her.
Quote from: Valmy on April 08, 2013, 09:32:12 PM
So...all the changes were inevitable. Glad you can see that. LOL at the empty platitudes. Um somebody could have moved the industry out and closed the mines while working with the Unions?
No, not at all. Change was inevitable. Her changes were anything but.
Yep. Its possible. Taking a slower, more selective and bigger picture approach to closing industries/mines. Seeing the miners as victims of a changing global market, not enemies to be brutally crushed.
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 10:38:00 PM
By-the-by, while I think much of the American left loathed Bush 2, I don't think we'll have many night clubs having nights to celebrate his death. Maybe Americans are just more likely to move on.
I expect there'll be a bit of gloating when Cheney dies. Not nearly on the same scale, mind you.
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 10:47:43 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:42:52 PM
I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.
I can stop if you like. Is it making you uncomfortable?
Uh, no. I'm fine :)
I do appreciate your efforts to explain the pain Thatcher apparently inflicted upon Britain's working class, but it's just not resonating with me. We're just too far apart politically to see things the same way.
Maybe I just shouldn't have thought as highly of the UK as I used too, dunno.
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 10:12:14 PMI don't know. I mean there is something to be said for the course of time. Didn't have to be the case that people my age would be crowing over the death of someone who held power whilst we were being born and toilet training. Certainly 80s music can't be said to predict that.
It's the amount of music, and a lot of it's good too. I thought this from the Guardian gave a good idea:
QuoteMusical responses to Thatcher came in three varieties. There were songs that took a hard look at the country, especially during the early 1980s recession and the Falklands war: the aimless dispossessed of Ghost Town, the conflicted dockworker of Shipbuilding, the struggling poor of A Town Called Malice, the despair-poisoned citizens of the The's Heartland. There were the character assassinations: Crass's incandescent Falklands response How Does It Feel to Be the Mother of 1,000 Dead (quoted to the lady herself at Prime Minister's Question Time), the Blow Monkeys' somewhat premature (Celebrate) The Day After You, Morrissey's Margaret on the Guillotine and Elvis Costello's venomous Tramp the Dirt Down.
I could name dozens more but there are hundreds in the third category: whole careers, like that of the Smiths, implicitly underpinned by opposition to Thatcherite values. Look at the long list of people who played benefit gigs for such causes as the miners' strike or Red Wedge and you'll find such seemingly unlikely names as Wham! and Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp.
...
Thatcher remains a potent bogeyman for some. Hefner released The Day That Thatcher Dies, which is surely on heavy rotation today. Frank Turner, despite sharing the Iron Lady's admiration for Hayekian economics, wrote Thatcher Fucked the Kids in 2006. Just the other month Primal Scream's single 2013 condemned "Thatcher's children".
For me it's all about Shipbuilding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6T9qp9XbRY
QuoteI mean sure you don't like Obama, but what has he really done to you? Thatcher completely and utterly won, and she was neither merciful nor conciliatory towards those she labelled he enemies. Can you really remain surprised that those she labelled thus - and as Valmy said, gloried in their destruction - rejoice at the only victory they ever scored - outliving her?
Yep. I think for lots of people the 80s was like a cold civil war and she won. There was a total lack of any compassion for the areas that were being decimated, remember Norman Tebbit, 'I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it.' It wasn't just a political fight.
As I say I think that's why it's moved beyond that. If you're in a political household then you're told about Thatcher - especially in areas where people were on strike.
Don't worry DerSpicy, i always knew you were damaged in the area of politics.
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 10:54:40 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 10:38:00 PM
By-the-by, while I think much of the American left loathed Bush 2, I don't think we'll have many night clubs having nights to celebrate his death. Maybe Americans are just more likely to move on.
I expect there'll be a bit of gloating when Cheney dies. Not nearly on the same scale, mind you.
Nowhere close. And if he's still kicking for a few more years it could be practically nil when he dies.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 11:05:11 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 10:54:40 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 08, 2013, 10:38:00 PM
By-the-by, while I think much of the American left loathed Bush 2, I don't think we'll have many night clubs having nights to celebrate his death. Maybe Americans are just more likely to move on.
I expect there'll be a bit of gloating when Cheney dies. Not nearly on the same scale, mind you.
Nowhere close. And if he's still kicking for a few more years it could be practically nil when he dies.
Yeah more likely to hear it from DerSpicy or Otto when Carter dies :P
Quote from: katmai on April 08, 2013, 11:03:43 PM
Don't worry DerSpicy, i always knew you were damaged in the area of politics.
Shouldn't you be out on moose patrol right now??
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 10:53:04 PMSeeing the miners as victims of a changing global market, not enemies to be brutally crushed.
Yep.
Even Osborne seemed to admit this when he did his 'generous' speech on welfare saying various governments of different stripes deserved some blame. Millions lost their jobs and there wasn't any attempt at regeneration, no strong local government to let a thousand flowers bloom, no re-education or anything. They just went onto the dole and then lots of them ended up getting disability benefit. A lot of that was paid for by the gas windfall which just went straight into the general budget.
Edit: Also I can't help but feel that Greenwald should've waited a while before publishing that article :lol:
Quote from: katmai on April 08, 2013, 11:05:52 PM
Yeah more likely to hear it from DerSpicy or Otto when Carter dies :P
That'd be Otto's thing. Carter saddens me a lot more than he angers me.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2013, 10:50:51 PM
It's just a matter of course that time tends to filter the playback.
Contrary to popular reminiscing these days, the early 80s was most definitely not a peaches and cream time when it came to critics of the early conservative Reagan-Thatcher era.
People tend to forget that, s'all.
To be honest, I'm more surprised by the general veneration Reagan is getting in the US (though I guess not on languish, at least not anymore) than the celebrations of Thatcher's death. I guess I'm ultimately a product of the 80s in Europe, much more influenced by the British sphere of politics than the American.
I know you all like to mock Tyr - and he is hardly persuasive or articulate - but the shit he comes out with makes way more immediate sense than most of what most Americans post here. I mean, after all these years I get it, but I still have to make sure that I activate the "American POV" filter, whereas with Tyr (and mongers too) I don't need to do anything similar.
I may be Xiacob these days, but I'm still a filthy Euro at heart.
@derSpiess: that's probably why I'm putting so much energy into it. Normally I don't think about these things and languish that much, but this has brought it up. I'm surprised by your surprise, basically, and that has reminded me that in spite of being immersed in an American (and Canadian) political POV for so long there are still some differences.
Quote from: Habbaku on April 08, 2013, 10:52:18 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:48:04 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on April 08, 2013, 10:44:25 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:42:52 PM
I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.
:huh: Maybe he's just enjoying a topic. When you question motives like this, you sound worse than Raz.
I don't think he has a sinister motive. I just don't get why it interests him so much. Now you sound worse than Raz for questioning *my* motives :P
:rolleyes:
What is worse then Raz?
Nothing :menace:
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 11:10:35 PM
To be honest, I'm more surprised by the general veneration Reagan is getting in the US (though I guess not on languish, at least not anymore) than the celebrations of Thatcher's death.
I think Reagan was most hated by marginal groups: African-Americans and gays especially. But he had the whole Reagan Democrat/white working class thing.
Maggie was hated by gays, lots of ethnic minorities and another 30-35% of the country too, including Scotland, the North, Wales and most of the Midlands (even today there was a poll - 50% think she was overall positive, 35% negative). That's a larger group. It's big enough that it won't get drowned out entirely and there's no need shift tone not to offend the majority.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 08, 2013, 11:12:09 PM
What is worse then Raz?
Cardinals relief pitching today :yucky:
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 11:02:17 PMUh, no. I'm fine :)
I do appreciate your efforts to explain the pain Thatcher apparently inflicted upon Britain's working class,
No worries :)
Quotebut it's just not resonating with me.
Clearly :hug:
But should you ever need to troll some of your compatriots on the subject of Thatcher, hopefully I've given you something to work with.
QuoteWe're just too far apart politically to see things the same way.
Maybe I just shouldn't have thought as highly of the UK as I used too, dunno.
Yeah probably (to both). Might be some cultural differences as well as political ones in there too.
Quote from: Valmy on April 08, 2013, 09:42:30 PM
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
See Shelf's excellent post further up, quite a few people in this thread are reading the history written by 'victors' and assuming that Thatcherism and it's reforms were inevitable.
Whereas there were other historical probabilities and if you look at UK domestic politics from early 1981 to early 1982 you'll see the desperate political position the conservative government found itself in, at that point they were staring electoral defeat in the face in 2 years time.
Are we Americans the victors of industry moving out of the first world? Bullshit. But at least we are not so delusional as to blame the simple facts of the modern world on some singular politician.
What is your problem ?
Have you considered trying politeness for a change ?
Were exactly am I blaming the "simple facts of the modern world on a single politician" ?
I was actually alluding to the political situation of the time, and trying to counter-balance some of the political myth-making that has sprung up in the subsequent 30 years.
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 10:53:04 PM
Yep. Its possible. Taking a slower, more selective and bigger picture approach to closing industries/mines. Seeing the miners as victims of a changing global market, not enemies to be brutally crushed.
Hmmm...that kind of makes sense actually. Especially given what Shielbh says later. I wonder if this is a result of the centralized parliamentarian system...I mean it was inevitable that those parts of the country dependent on outdated industries were headed for hard times but perhaps there were insufficient movements afterwards to revitalize them. However this did not necessarily have to occur in the 80s no?
This also makes me think of Gupta noting that local concerns do not really impact local politics much in terms of MP constituencies, that people tend to vote for the national party rather than what the candidate promises to do for that constuency...which is sorta weird. Why have local representatives if they are not going to represent your local interests?
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 11:17:34 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 11:10:35 PM
To be honest, I'm more surprised by the general veneration Reagan is getting in the US (though I guess not on languish, at least not anymore) than the celebrations of Thatcher's death.
I think Reagan was most hated by marginal groups: African-Americans and gays especially. But he had the whole Reagan Democrat/white working class thing.
Maggie was hated by gays, lots of ethnic minorities and another 30-35% of the country too, including Scotland, the North, Wales and most of the Midlands (even today there was a poll - 50% think she was overall positive, 35% negative). That's a larger group. It's big enough that it won't get drowned out entirely and there's no need shift tone not to offend the majority.
Still doesn't explain the worship that Reagan gets. I mean, when you have Republican debate in the Reagan museum where they talk about being in the "House of Reagan". It's kind of creepy.
Quote from: mongers on April 08, 2013, 11:24:32 PM
What is your problem ?
Sleep deprivation mostly.
QuoteHave you considered trying politeness for a change ?
Were exactly am I blaming the "simple facts of the modern world on a single politician" ?
I am speaking of my thoughts on the situation generally than specifically about you.
QuoteI was actually alluding to the political situation of the time, and trying to counter-balance some of the political myth-making that has sprung up in the subsequent 30 years.
Well I would counter with the observation that a very similar thing happened all over the first world. The reason it was so traumatic in Britain I believe had more to do with its particular structures and the fact that those heavy industries had been around far longer and had become far more central to a culture than even in the former American industrial heartland. I have a hard time not seeing a ferocious reaction and a vicious battle in the UK over de-industrialization no matter who was running it.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 08, 2013, 11:35:50 PM
Still doesn't explain the worship that Reagan gets. I mean, when you have Republican debate in the Reagan museum where they talk about being in the "House of Reagan". It's kind of creepy.
Yeah I do not get the Reagan worship at all. I mean it does not even seem to be about any policies he actually had.
For the record here's Mrs Thatchers own handwritten notes she use to give a speech to the Tory 1922 committee, a theme of which was the notion of the enemy within.
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105563 (http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105563)
Quote
&/&/
Since Office
Enemy without — beaten him
& strong in defence
Enemy within —[fo 6] p8
Miners' leaders
Liverpool & some local authorities
— just as dangerous in a way more difficult to fight
But just as dangerous to liberty
Scar across the face of our country
ill motivated
ill intentioned
politically inspired[fo 7]
Not too hard to guess who the enemy without was.
Is not this demonisation of some of her domestic opponents, in some way echoed in the venomous of celebration of few idiots and the more measured muted response by a great deal more people to the news ?
The plans for the coal mining industry were less drastic than the closure program that ensued after the strike. Arthur Scargill wanted that strike, he wanted it so much that he broke NUM rules and called for a national strike without having a pithead ballot of the members. This crippled the strike action right from the start as only 70% of the "union" members obeyed the call. He also ignored the fact that massive stocks of coal had been stockpiled at power stations as provision for the (deemed very likely) action that he took. I can't speak for the other old-fashioned industries but with Scargill at the helm there was no real possibility of a consensual reduction in the coal industry.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 08, 2013, 09:37:21 PM
Whatever illusions of pity I had for the working class victims of Thatcher's policies were lost forever when I spent 3 days in Bodrum, Turkey.
We've been getting that since the 70s all over the Med. :lol: Horrible British tourists, not necessarily working class ones. Fuck, every year the people of Salou get an invasion of British university students on their version of spring break. Stories about it are not nice to hear.
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:22:04 PM
QuoteBecause to me, and it's not like I'm some sort of expert on the subject, it was nonetheless blindingly obvious that it was going to happen like this. Like... utterly unsurprising.
Good for you. I did hear a lot of anti-Thatcher vitriol on the internet, but I guess I just chalked it up to hyperbole and didn't think people would be classless enough to literally pop the champagne upon hearing of her death.
People here talked a lot of shit about Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama. But with time a lot of that hatred faded (and will fade for Obama once he's out of office for a few years). And I guess that gets to why I in all my naivite was surprised-- that people still carried that big of a grudge against Thatcher after all this time.
That is because, and this is my personal impression, deep down and excepting an extremely vocal fringe, you Yanks are largely speaking extremely reverential of your authority figures, and the president is the top dog amongst them. You may not like him, and despise government and bureaucracy, but damn, he's the motherfucking president.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 09, 2013, 02:24:35 AM
The plans for the coal mining industry were less drastic than the closure program that ensued after the strike. Arthur Scargill wanted that strike, he wanted it so much that he broke NUM rules and called for a national strike without having a pithead ballot of the members. This crippled the strike action right from the start as only 70% of the "union" members obeyed the call. He also ignored the fact that massive stocks of coal had been stockpiled at power stations as provision for the (deemed very likely) action that he took. I can't speak for the other old-fashioned industries but with Scargill at the helm there was no real possibility of a consensual reduction in the coal industry.
Neil Kinnock said as much on Newsnight last night: he blames Scargill entirely because it was his antics that prevent any compromise with a leader who, at that stage, was still very pragmatic.
Following the post-Thatcher shift to centre-right, I can't imagine Britain ever fielding a sufficiently divisive government to politicise today's youth. Can you imagine One Direction and Cheryl Cole heading a Red Wedge gig? Or Vernon Kay addressing a Poll Tax protest? And Paris Brown calling (or Tweeting) for calm?*
* Warning, this post contains middle-aged Brit-centric references.
Jake: most of your defense of the wankishness on display over Thatcher's death has been related to directly affected communities like coal towns, but as someone else pointed out (I think Speesh) those don't seem to be the same people guzzling champagne in city squares. They look more like hipster doofuses striking a pose.
Quote from: Warspite on April 09, 2013, 05:27:59 AM
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 09, 2013, 02:24:35 AM
The plans for the coal mining industry were less drastic than the closure program that ensued after the strike. Arthur Scargill wanted that strike, he wanted it so much that he broke NUM rules and called for a national strike without having a pithead ballot of the members. This crippled the strike action right from the start as only 70% of the "union" members obeyed the call. He also ignored the fact that massive stocks of coal had been stockpiled at power stations as provision for the (deemed very likely) action that he took. I can't speak for the other old-fashioned industries but with Scargill at the helm there was no real possibility of a consensual reduction in the coal industry.
Neil Kinnock said as much on Newsnight last night: he blames Scargill entirely because it was his antics that prevent any compromise with a leader who, at that stage, was still very pragmatic.
Scargill was not only a revolting man, but also deeply incompetent. He played a pretty good hand as badly as it was possible to. Called thestrike at the wrong time, didn't hold a ballot and employed rhetoric that made it impossible for any deal to be done.
Thatcher was poiling for a fight as well and he just played right into her hands.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:12:55 AM
Jake: most of your defense of the wankishness on display over Thatcher's death has been related to directly affected communities like coal towns, but as someone else pointed out (I think Speesh) those don't seem to be the same people guzzling champagne in city squares. They look more like hipster doofuses striking a pose.
Most of the people (and their kids) affected from the coal mining towns aren't in mining towns anymore.
Quote from: frunk on April 09, 2013, 07:23:26 AM
Most of the people (and their kids) affected from the coal mining towns aren't in mining towns anymore.
Possibly. Are you suggesting that those people celebrating are the descendents of miners?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:29:02 AM
Quote from: frunk on April 09, 2013, 07:23:26 AM
Most of the people (and their kids) affected from the coal mining towns aren't in mining towns anymore.
Possibly. Are you suggesting that those people celebrating are the descendents of miners?
Not only miners were affected by her policies.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:29:02 AM
Are you suggesting that those people celebrating are the descendents of miners?
You mean...
...wait for it...
miner minors?
Quote from: Jacob on April 08, 2013, 10:46:19 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 10:22:04 PMGood for you. I did hear a lot of anti-Thatcher vitriol on the internet, but I guess I just chalked it up to hyperbole and didn't think people would be classless enough to literally pop the champagne upon hearing of her death.
People here talked a lot of shit about Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama. But with time a lot of that hatred faded (and will fade for Obama once he's out of office for a few years). And I guess that gets to why I in all my naivite was surprised-- that people still carried that big of a grudge against Thatcher after all this time.
I think Thatcher's impact was orders of magnitude greater. I mean, you're pretty unfond of Obama; I expect that you know some people who are fairly vitriolic towards him. But really, all the rhetoric of the American political stage aside, how much has your way of life - or that of his major detractors you may know personally - changed due to his policies? Still, there's a fair bit of vitriol aimed at the man.
Now, if we imagine that Obama's policies put you and pretty much everyone you know out of work not just now but for the next five years or more, and rather than try to put together some sort of retraining package for hardworking Americans or whatever he openly scorned you and left you to rot; I imagine the dislike you have for him would be significantly stronger and longer lasting.
I mean sure you don't like Obama, but what has he really done to you? Thatcher completely and utterly won, and she was neither merciful nor conciliatory towards those she labelled he enemies. Can you really remain surprised that those she labelled thus - and as Valmy said, gloried in their destruction - rejoice at the only victory they ever scored - outliving her?
For a Canadian example, look at Trudeau and his war on the West. Some people are still pretty raw about that, even though his policies have been reversed and the biggest one left to haunt us is the Charter.
Quote from: Tyr on April 08, 2013, 10:53:04 PM
Quote from: Valmy on April 08, 2013, 09:32:12 PM
So...all the changes were inevitable. Glad you can see that. LOL at the empty platitudes. Um somebody could have moved the industry out and closed the mines while working with the Unions?
No, not at all. Change was inevitable. Her changes were anything but.
Yep. Its possible. Taking a slower, more selective and bigger picture approach to closing industries/mines. Seeing the miners as victims of a changing global market, not enemies to be brutally crushed.
You're under the impression that the unions were rational actors, rather than groups that had ruled the country for the last two decades and who would react very badly indeed to anyone trying to weaken them. And that's exactly what they did.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:29:02 AM
Quote from: frunk on April 09, 2013, 07:23:26 AM
Most of the people (and their kids) affected from the coal mining towns aren't in mining towns anymore.
Possibly. Are you suggesting that those people celebrating are the descendents of miners?
I wouldn't. Just the typical band of left-wing doofuses.
Here's a nice list of anti-Thatcher songs including The English Beat, Pink Floyd, Morissey and Sinead.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/angelameiquan/21-incredibly-angry-songs-about-margaret-thatcher
LOL, Morissey. All sad, all the time.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:12:55 AM
but as someone else pointed out (I think Speesh) those don't seem to be the same people guzzling champagne in city squares. They look more like hipster doofuses striking a pose.
Garbo gets the credit for that.
Quote from: Neil on April 09, 2013, 07:52:59 AM
You're under the impression that the unions were rational actors, rather than groups that had ruled the country for the last two decades and who would react very badly indeed to anyone trying to weaken them. And that's exactly what they did.
The unions != Scargill
Apparently, there is a Facebook campaign in the UK to vote "Ding dong the witch is dead" into the national top 40 this week. :lol:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 09, 2013, 08:54:53 AM
LOL, Morissey. All sad, all the time.
My wife likes that fucker.
Quote from: derspiess on April 09, 2013, 09:10:58 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 09, 2013, 08:54:53 AM
LOL, Morissey. All sad, all the time.
My wife likes that fucker.
All naturalized citizens need to learn how sad sad can truly be in English.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:12:55 AM
Jake: most of your defense of the wankishness on display over Thatcher's death has been related to directly affected communities like coal towns, but as someone else pointed out (I think Speesh) those don't seem to be the same people guzzling champagne in city squares. They look more like hipster doofuses striking a pose.
If it's the UK, it may be real champagne. :hmm:
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 07:32:32 AM
Not only miners were affected by her policies.
Definitely. Are you suggesting that all those people celebrating are descendents of people affected by her policies?
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on April 09, 2013, 09:33:58 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:12:55 AM
Jake: most of your defense of the wankishness on display over Thatcher's death has been related to directly affected communities like coal towns, but as someone else pointed out (I think Speesh) those don't seem to be the same people guzzling champagne in city squares. They look more like hipster doofuses striking a pose.
If it's the UK, it may be real champagne. :hmm:
I can't help but wonder if it hadn't been for Thatcher they would never have been able to afford real Champagne.
A total ramble, I'm afraid, without any real coherent argument or endpoint...
I sometimes think that the fact that I was certain that Bush Junior would find some way to go after Iraq even before 9:11 (because it was "unfinished business" of his father) was because I grew up in the Eighties in Britain.
It was a very "personal" decade, if you take my meaning. One wasn't a bystander, even as a child.
My family was, and is, relatively pro-Thatcher. My mother was an accountant, my uncle-by-marriage a man who'd left the insanities that seemed to govern British industry for teaching. My grandfather a man who'd risen through his company to become a factory manager who'd seen every effort he made to modernise his factory and product range scuppered either by higher management or the local unions (although that part I didn't learn until only a couple of years before he died.)
They were definitely supporters of a meritocratic society, as Thatcher clearly advocated at base despite the class-based rhetoric of British politics; they were also people who'd lived through the Seventies.
One of them, today, when I mentioned that most of the celebrators at the street parties didn't even look as if they'd been born when Thatcher was PM commented that that also meant they "hadn't experienced the alternative to her that was the Seventies".
There was, definitely, a post-War consensus in Britain on many issues (unwise as I think it was in many respects.) People seem to think that it was broken down by Thatcher. I personally think that it broke down in the Seventies, certainly by the middle of the decade. The poison in British politics that still bubbles up today was born in the Seventies, a decade when the Miners, for example, did successfully hold governments to ransom.
It was the poison built up in the Seventies that burst in the Eighties...and the Eighties pretty much exhausted all sides leading to twenty years of what may in the future be termed the Major-Blair consensus.
I think that people like Shielbh don't really understand how draining the Seventies were on the British psyche simply because they were born after it was over; I can barely get a sense of it myself due to my earliest memories and the hold it has on the previous generation of all my relatives, not just my immediate family. It was a decade when if it could go wrong it did go wrong, where Britain flailed about aimlessly, where the Unions sometimes seemed to run the country...where a generation that had grown up on tales of the War and the semi-dignified retreat from Empire faced the shame of their government needing to ask for the help of the IMF.
I've never hidden my pro-Thatcher tendencies. I have a great deal of trouble even comprehending how people like Tyr can think the way they do in general despite, in the specific, being able to agree with some of the points they make. Britain in the early Eighties was sick both economically and politically and something needed doing about it. Letting the country lurch on as it had been doing was simply not an option. The real question is if there was an alternative to Thatcher - could Geoffrey Howe, acknowledged as a very capable chancellor and certainly an individual who appears in history to be a more caring person than Thatcher, have done it? Was there a comparable figure on the Left with a compelling vision? Unfortunately, I don't think so.
Anyway, one last ramble...someone earlier in the thread pointed out that the Sixties and the Seventies had opened up education to the masses and that helped break the stranglehold of "the right people" on various fields and industries. Something that nearly made me choke on my drink given the exact converse is true. The rush to Comprehensives (for which Thatcher herself must take a chunk of the blame from her days as a minister), for example, promoted education to the lowest common denominator. Which is a major reason why we have lower social mobility now than we did fifty years ago during the age of the Grammar Schools. And why Public Schools have actually reinforced their hold on Oxbridge etc. places to the extent that heavy handed (and pointless) intervention is now deemed necessary.
Anyway, enough rambling for now...
-
---
-----
Incidentally, I don't think Thatcher would have wanted the kind of public funeral she's going to receive. I think she'd have been happier with a private service. Does anyone else agree?
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 05:27:20 AM
That is because, and this is my personal impression, deep down and excepting an extremely vocal fringe, you Yanks are largely speaking extremely reverential of your authority figures, and the president is the top dog amongst them. You may not like him, and despise government and bureaucracy, but damn, he's the motherfucking president.
I think you're confusing extreme reverence with a simple respect for the office.
Quote from: Agelastus on April 09, 2013, 09:55:39 AM
Incidentally, I don't think Thatcher would have wanted the kind of public funeral she's going to receive. I think she'd have been happier with a private service. Does anyone else agree?
I think she thought this through some time ago before she started going senile. I think that if it were only for her own sake she wouldn't have wanted the public funeral. The thing is all PMs get some form of public funeral and not having one would have been just as much a public statement as having one. The size and pomp of the funeral is a manifestation of her (and her policies and stewardship) importance to the UK and the reverence in which her legacy is held.
I think in her mind the size of her funeral should be smaller than Churchill's but bigger than Atlees, Wilsons, Callaghans and Heaths.
Quote from: derspiess on April 09, 2013, 10:17:31 AM
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 05:27:20 AM
That is because, and this is my personal impression, deep down and excepting an extremely vocal fringe, you Yanks are largely speaking extremely reverential of your authority figures, and the president is the top dog amongst them. You may not like him, and despise government and bureaucracy, but damn, he's the motherfucking president.
I think you're confusing extreme reverence with a simple respect for the office.
The thing with Prime Ministers is that there is no reverence for the office. The PM does NOT represent the nation or the people he/she/it merely is the temporary leader of the most powerful faction within politics. You should not respect the office, at all. The US equivalent is Eric Cantor, not President Obama.
Quote from: Valmy on April 08, 2013, 03:01:56 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 08, 2013, 02:42:41 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2013, 02:35:49 PM
I can't think of any other Western leader who described a large chunk of their country as 'the enemy within'.
Obama.
I would have gone with the Clintons and their VRWC myself.
No, the VRWC was entirely different. It was a reference to the other party's leadership and their media allies, not to "a large chink of the country."
Quote from: derspiess on April 09, 2013, 09:00:06 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:12:55 AM
but as someone else pointed out (I think Speesh) those don't seem to be the same people guzzling champagne in city squares. They look more like hipster doofuses striking a pose.
Garbo gets the credit for that.
Oddly enough, I think mongers was the first one who said it. :D
Quote from: Agelastus on April 09, 2013, 09:55:39 AM
A total ramble, I'm afraid, without any real coherent argument or endpoint......
I thought it interesting :)
Quote from: derspiess on April 09, 2013, 10:17:31 AM
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 05:27:20 AM
That is because, and this is my personal impression, deep down and excepting an extremely vocal fringe, you Yanks are largely speaking extremely reverential of your authority figures, and the president is the top dog amongst them. You may not like him, and despise government and bureaucracy, but damn, he's the motherfucking president.
I think you're confusing extreme reverence with a simple respect for the office.
Indeed. We talk a lot of shit about our presidents. :D
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 09:00:26 AM
Quote from: Neil on April 09, 2013, 07:52:59 AM
You're under the impression that the unions were rational actors, rather than groups that had ruled the country for the last two decades and who would react very badly indeed to anyone trying to weaken them. And that's exactly what they did.
The unions != Scargill
The NUM had been the muscle of the British labour movement for years. In a very real sense, Scargill was the most powerful man in the world of British labour. You tend to think that history began in 1979.
Quote from: Viking on April 09, 2013, 10:24:34 AM
The thing with Prime Ministers is that there is no reverence for the office. The PM does NOT represent the nation or the people he/she/it merely is the temporary leader of the most powerful faction within politics. You should not respect the office, at all. The US equivalent is Eric Cantor, not President Obama.
The issue as I see it is more one of democratic legitimacy rather than reverance for an office. Part of being the citizen of a democracy IMO is accepting the will of the voting public when it goes against your own. The people who are now saying fuck Maggie Thatcher are in effect saying fuck the people who voted her into office and kept her there for that long.
Agelastus, you are absolutely correct to point out that Thatcher was the result of a deeply divided Britain, not the cause. Maybe she made the divisions worse; but she did not create them.
In a democracy the people cannot expect to escape being judged by its actions.
David Owen (founder of the SDP) obit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9979625/Margaret-Thatcher-they-underrated-her-and-always-paid-the-price.html
Quote from: grumbler on April 09, 2013, 10:33:49 AM
No, the VRWC was entirely different. It was a reference to the other party's leadership and their media allies, not to "a large chink of the country."
No reason to insult poor overweight Bubba-Ray Wong.
Quote from: Syt on April 09, 2013, 11:26:17 AM
Quote from: grumbler on April 09, 2013, 10:33:49 AM
No, the VRWC was entirely different. It was a reference to the other party's leadership and their media allies, not to "a large chink of the country."
No reason to insult poor overweight Bubba-Ray Wong.
:lol:
FWIW my wife showed appropriate sympathy when the subject of Thatcher came up last night. She couldn't even remember at first why Argies hate her so much.
Today's Internet has been won by the authors of this article on yesterday's Dead Thatcher Party in Brixton:
http://m.vice.com/en_uk/read/making-friends-at-thatchers-hate-wake
QuoteIn 2013, class war looks like a mobile phone advert. How can anyone find this vulgar?
Quote from: Warspite on April 09, 2013, 11:33:29 AM
Today's Internet has been won by the authors of this article on yesterday's Dead Thatcher Party in Brixton:
http://m.vice.com/en_uk/read/making-friends-at-thatchers-hate-wake
QuoteIn 2013, class war looks like a mobile phone advert. How can anyone find this vulgar?
Excellent. Vice rules.
Trots and hipsters, as I suspected.
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Is it like rain on your wedding day?
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Those who carry out actions which would normally be found to be contrary to the norms of civilized society have the burden to justifying their actions. It is quite acceptable to speak kindly of the dead. It is quite uncommon to do otherwise.
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Perhaps, but on the other hand drinking beer to celebrate someone dying crosses more taboos than venerating monetarism.
Quote from: Warspite on April 09, 2013, 12:02:15 PM
Perhaps, but on the other hand drinking beer to celebrate someone dying crosses more taboos than venerating monetarism.
I liked the kids who basically said "we're just here because mom let us out on a school night.
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
How many 20 year olds are venerating her?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 12:22:57 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
How many 20 year olds are venerating her?
Have you been to a Young Tories meeting recently? ;)
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 10:57:45 AM
David Owen (founder of the SDP) obit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9979625/Margaret-Thatcher-they-underrated-her-and-always-paid-the-price.html
Quote from: David Owen
Nevertheless she was, after Clement Attlee, easily the best of our post-war prime ministers.
That's...surprising.
"Guns of Brixton" just came up randomly on my Zune when I did a "play all" :cool:
Quote from: Warspite on April 09, 2013, 12:02:15 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Perhaps, but on the other hand drinking beer to celebrate someone dying crosses more taboos than venerating monetarism.
Depends on the crowd, I'd say. :P
Like you need an excuse to drink beer.
Quote from: Warspite on April 09, 2013, 12:32:39 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 12:22:57 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
How many 20 year olds are venerating her?
Have you been to a Young Tories meeting recently? ;)
It's easy to venerate the dead and senile if the crazy lefties hate them :contract:
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Good point.
Not only that, but it's been pretty much argued here from the beginning here that Thatcher's legacy remains in modern day Britain and elsewhere today. In other words, the kids today are still feeling the results of her policies, and (rightly or wrongly) feel that they are negatively effected by them.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 09:36:19 AM
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 07:32:32 AM
Not only miners were affected by her policies.
Definitely. Are you suggesting that all those people celebrating are descendents of people affected by her policies?
I'm not sugesting anything, I don't know those people, I was just disputing your implied need to be a card-carrying unionized miner or a descendant of one as prerequisite for those attitudes.
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 01:33:18 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Good point.
Nope it's already been said why that's not a good point.
and I'm saying it is.
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 10:38:52 AM
Quote from: derspiess on April 09, 2013, 10:17:31 AM
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 05:27:20 AM
That is because, and this is my personal impression, deep down and excepting an extremely vocal fringe, you Yanks are largely speaking extremely reverential of your authority figures, and the president is the top dog amongst them. You may not like him, and despise government and bureaucracy, but damn, he's the motherfucking president.
I think you're confusing extreme reverence with a simple respect for the office.
Indeed. We talk a lot of shit about our presidents. :D
I covered that in the bolded part. You might talk shit about them, of course, that always happens in any democracy, but at the end of the day the president is, broadly speaking, extremely respected.
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 01:34:44 PM
I'm not sugesting anything, I don't know those people, I was just disputing your implied need to be a card-carrying unionized miner or a descendant of one as prerequisite for those attitudes.
I was pointing out that Jake was defending the anger against her on the basis of the harm done to those communities.
If you want to make the case that middle class 20 year old London wankers have a basis for celebrating her death, feel free to make it.
Quote from: Warspite on April 09, 2013, 12:32:39 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 12:22:57 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
How many 20 year olds are venerating her?
Have you been to a Young Tories meeting recently? ;)
Or to Pdox OT. :lol:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 01:38:51 PM
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 01:34:44 PM
I'm not sugesting anything, I don't know those people, I was just disputing your implied need to be a card-carrying unionized miner or a descendant of one as prerequisite for those attitudes.
I was pointing out that Jake was defending the anger against her on the basis of the harm done to those communities.
If you want to make the case that middle class 20 year old London wankers have a basis for celebrating her death, feel free to make it.
Mining communities might have been her main target, and thats what has permeated the most in public conscience, but by no means were them the only ones. And Im not making the case for any celebration, dont put words in my mouth.
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 01:43:10 PM
And Im not making the case for any celebration, dont put words in my mouth.
I said "if." Don't be such a hot-blooded Latin.
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 01:38:05 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 10:38:52 AM
Quote from: derspiess on April 09, 2013, 10:17:31 AM
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 05:27:20 AM
That is because, and this is my personal impression, deep down and excepting an extremely vocal fringe, you Yanks are largely speaking extremely reverential of your authority figures, and the president is the top dog amongst them. You may not like him, and despise government and bureaucracy, but damn, he's the motherfucking president.
I think you're confusing extreme reverence with a simple respect for the office.
Indeed. We talk a lot of shit about our presidents. :D
I covered that in the bolded part. You might talk shit about them, of course, that always happens in any democracy, but at the end of the day the president is, broadly speaking, extremely respected.
If you're talking a lot of shit about someone - where's the respect? :huh:
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 01:37:51 PM
and I'm saying it is.
Well I hope you and Marti are very happy together.
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 01:37:51 PM
and I'm saying it is.
You were the one celebrating her death ;)
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 01:33:18 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Good point.
Not only that, but it's been pretty much argued here from the beginning here that Thatcher's legacy remains in modern day Britain and elsewhere today. In other words, the kids today are still feeling the results of her policies, and (rightly or wrongly) feel that they are negatively effected by them.
The problem with that is that every PM since has maintained them. Thatcher is a convenient target that makes the complainers feel good and brave rather than actually doing something about it, which would mean going after Cameron, Brown, Blair and Major.
This is more about the frustration of impotence rather than actually resolving any issues.
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 01:38:05 PM
I covered that in the bolded part. You might talk shit about them, of course, that always happens in any democracy, but at the end of the day the president is, broadly speaking, extremely respected.
What part of the US are you from? :lol:
Quote from: grumbler on April 09, 2013, 02:20:33 PM
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 01:38:05 PM
I covered that in the bolded part. You might talk shit about them, of course, that always happens in any democracy, but at the end of the day the president is, broadly speaking, extremely respected.
What part of the US are you from? :lol:
I'm guessing a part where they haven't had any street parties to celebrate the death of a former president?
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 02:26:02 PM
Quote from: grumbler on April 09, 2013, 02:20:33 PM
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 01:38:05 PM
I covered that in the bolded part. You might talk shit about them, of course, that always happens in any democracy, but at the end of the day the president is, broadly speaking, extremely respected.
What part of the US are you from? :lol:
I'm guessing a part where they haven't had any street parties to celebrate the death of a former president?
So that's the division on whether or not you respect someone? How about wanting to name a water treatment sewage plant after a former president? Is that respectful?
http://wonkette.com/401221/george-w-bush-sewage-treatment-plant-one-step-closer-to-american-reality
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:36:06 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 02:26:02 PM
Quote from: grumbler on April 09, 2013, 02:20:33 PM
Quote from: The Larch on April 09, 2013, 01:38:05 PM
I covered that in the bolded part. You might talk shit about them, of course, that always happens in any democracy, but at the end of the day the president is, broadly speaking, extremely respected.
What part of the US are you from? :lol:
I'm guessing a part where they haven't had any street parties to celebrate the death of a former president?
So that's the division on whether or not you respect someone? How about wanting to name a water treatment sewage plant after a former president? Is that respectful?
http://wonkette.com/401221/george-w-bush-sewage-treatment-plant-one-step-closer-to-american-reality
One of the fundamental building blocks of civilization? Clean water is a pre-requisite for life itself. Having a sewage treatment plant named after oneself is a tribute.
Quote from: Viking on April 09, 2013, 02:45:47 PM
Having a sewage treatment plant named after oneself is a tribute.
:rolleyes:
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:01:02 PM
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 01:37:51 PM
and I'm saying it is.
Well I hope you and Marti are very happy together.
That sounds so kinky.... :huh:
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 01:33:18 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Good point.
Not only that, but it's been pretty much argued here from the beginning here that Thatcher's legacy remains in modern day Britain and elsewhere today. In other words, the kids today are still feeling the results of her policies, and (rightly or wrongly) feel that they are negatively effected by them.
It doesn't just need to be that. I can see how a lot of people may be disgusted by her questionable record on human rights (support for Pinochet or apartheid, anti-gay policies) without being affected by it.
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:49:07 PM
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 01:33:18 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Good point.
Not only that, but it's been pretty much argued here from the beginning here that Thatcher's legacy remains in modern day Britain and elsewhere today. In other words, the kids today are still feeling the results of her policies, and (rightly or wrongly) feel that they are negatively effected by them.
It doesn't just need to be that. I can see how a lot of people may be disgusted by her questionable record on human rights (support for Pinochet or apartheid, anti-gay policies) without being affected by it.
To the extent that you go and party after her death? Seems like you'd just be a person looking for an excuse to party given the number of people that have questionable records on that.
Quote from: Viking on April 09, 2013, 02:05:26 PM
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 01:33:18 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Good point.
Not only that, but it's been pretty much argued here from the beginning here that Thatcher's legacy remains in modern day Britain and elsewhere today. In other words, the kids today are still feeling the results of her policies, and (rightly or wrongly) feel that they are negatively effected by them.
The problem with that is that every PM since has maintained them. Thatcher is a convenient target that makes the complainers feel good and brave rather than actually doing something about it, which would mean going after Cameron, Brown, Blair and Major.
This is more about the frustration of impotence rather than actually resolving any issues.
But I can argue that they might feel that that is the problem. Thatcher started something that moved England so far right, that even the labour party is now a centrist, or centre-right party.
That's part of her legacy. I realize that to most of you thats a good thing. But there are some elements for whom it isn't.
And let's face it, I'l admit as well, a lot of those out there partying are just partying for the hell of it. When I was in my 20s and the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series twice, I went out and partied. I have yet to actually see a baseball game.
But don't dismiss them just because they're young and weren't around in the 80s.
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 02:52:12 PM
But don't dismiss them just because they're young and weren't around in the 80s.
As CC said, I think the onus of justification falls to those that decide to have a party to celebrate the death of a fellow human.
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:50:08 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:49:07 PM
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 01:33:18 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 AM
I just wonder why "half of them weren't even alive when she was the prime minister" is used against those who celebrate her death, whereas the same can be said about those who venerate her. :huh:
Good point.
Not only that, but it's been pretty much argued here from the beginning here that Thatcher's legacy remains in modern day Britain and elsewhere today. In other words, the kids today are still feeling the results of her policies, and (rightly or wrongly) feel that they are negatively effected by them.
It doesn't just need to be that. I can see how a lot of people may be disgusted by her questionable record on human rights (support for Pinochet or apartheid, anti-gay policies) without being affected by it.
To the extent that you go and party after her death? Seems like you'd just be a person looking for an excuse to party given the number of people that have questionable records on that.
Perhaps, but then I suspect the reaction to her death would have been much more tame had she been vilified universally - that's the nature of modern politics - the more divisive it is, the stronger emotions it breeds.
The partying is an emotional fuck you to people who depict her as a living saint (we had the same stuff going on after Kaczynski's death). If the general consensus was that "well yeah she was pretty shitty", there would be no more to it.
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:49:07 PM
It doesn't just need to be that. I can see how a lot of people may be disgusted by her questionable record on human rights (support for Pinochet or apartheid, anti-gay policies) without being affected by it.
The Pinochet thing happened because he helped the UK out in the Falklands right? Anyway her "support" (to the extent that it was) had no significant impact in any of those situations and certainly not one that extends today.
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:56:08 PM
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 02:52:12 PM
But don't dismiss them just because they're young and weren't around in the 80s.
As CC said, I think the onus of justification falls to those that decide to have a party to celebrate the death of a fellow human.
I disagree - the onus of justification falls to those who are making an extraordinary claim - in equal measures to those who consider her the greatest British PM to ever live, as those who are celebrating the death of a She-Devil. The problem with deaths is that while both sides lie and embellish truths convenient to them, the hagiographers manage to convince the public they are just being respectful - whereas they are just as bad.
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:56:17 PM
Perhaps, but then I suspect the reaction to her death would have been much more tame had she been vilified universally - that's the nature of modern politics - the more divisive it is, the stronger emotions it breeds.
The partying is an emotional fuck you to people who depict her as a living saint (we had the same stuff going on after Kaczynski's death). If the general consensus was that "well yeah she was pretty shitty", there would be no more to it.
Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.
Quote from: Valmy on April 09, 2013, 02:56:58 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:49:07 PM
It doesn't just need to be that. I can see how a lot of people may be disgusted by her questionable record on human rights (support for Pinochet or apartheid, anti-gay policies) without being affected by it.
The Pinochet thing happened because he helped the UK out in the Falklands right? Anyway her "support" (to the extent that it was) had no significant impact in any of those situations and certainly not one that extends today.
All you said is irrelevant if one expects ethical behavior from politicians (yes, I know, a pipe dream).
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:56:17 PM
Perhaps, but then I suspect the reaction to her death would have been much more tame had she been vilified universally - that's the nature of modern politics - the more divisive it is, the stronger emotions it breeds.
Well and it was a divisive time and, of course, she cultivated the hatred of people as well.
QuoteThe partying is an emotional fuck you to people who depict her as a living saint (we had the same stuff going on after Kaczynski's death). If the general consensus was that "well yeah she was pretty shitty", there would be no more to it.
I think they consider her a devil and ascribe to her all sorts of powers that shaped the world that she did not really have. I think there would be celebrating regardless given what they hold her responsible for.
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:49:18 PMWhat's a few feet between friends?
60.96 cm if you mean two feet, 91.44 cm if you meant three feet...
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:58:35 PM
I disagree - the onus of justification falls to those who are making an extraordinary claim - in equal measures to those who consider her the greatest British PM to ever live, as those who are celebrating the death of a She-Devil. The problem with deaths is that while both sides lie and embellish truths convenient to them, the hagiographers manage to convince the public they are just being respectful - whereas they are just as bad.
I think most of the people who said that she was great have explained why. Also, I think it is pretty common to say positive things about someone after they are dead. It's fine I think to throw in some criticisms but again that's really neither here nor there when you've devolved to "The Bitch is Dead" as your main rhetoric.
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:59:03 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:56:17 PM
Perhaps, but then I suspect the reaction to her death would have been much more tame had she been vilified universally - that's the nature of modern politics - the more divisive it is, the stronger emotions it breeds.
The partying is an emotional fuck you to people who depict her as a living saint (we had the same stuff going on after Kaczynski's death). If the general consensus was that "well yeah she was pretty shitty", there would be no more to it.
Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.
Modern tribal politics is not about convincing anyone, just about making sure you feel like you won.
Besides, as a gay guy, you should be the last to poo-poo a protest mixed with an entertainment. ;)
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 03:01:42 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:59:03 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:56:17 PM
Perhaps, but then I suspect the reaction to her death would have been much more tame had she been vilified universally - that's the nature of modern politics - the more divisive it is, the stronger emotions it breeds.
The partying is an emotional fuck you to people who depict her as a living saint (we had the same stuff going on after Kaczynski's death). If the general consensus was that "well yeah she was pretty shitty", there would be no more to it.
Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.
Modern tribal politics is not about convincing anyone, just about making sure you feel like you won.
Besides, as a gay guy, you should be the last to poo-poo a protest mixed with an entertainment. ;)
Not modern, that's just what Hamas and Hisbullah crowed about after Israel bombed all their base.
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 03:01:04 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:58:35 PM
I disagree - the onus of justification falls to those who are making an extraordinary claim - in equal measures to those who consider her the greatest British PM to ever live, as those who are celebrating the death of a She-Devil. The problem with deaths is that while both sides lie and embellish truths convenient to them, the hagiographers manage to convince the public they are just being respectful - whereas they are just as bad.
I think most of the people who said that she was great have explained why. Also, I think it is pretty common to say positive things about someone after they are dead. It's fine I think to throw in some criticisms but again that's really neither here nor there when you've devolved to "The Bitch is Dead" as your main rhetoric.
I don't agree with the "only good things about the dead" attitude, beyond private circumstances and the funeral service. When a public figure dies, it does not make them immune to criticism.
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 03:01:42 PM
Modern tribal politics is not about convincing anyone, just about making sure you feel like you won.
:huh: Well they didn't really win did they? Her policies still happened and influenced Britain's subsequent history. How does her death (at 87) in any way count as a win? This sounds like the thoughts of people who are a bit soft in the head.
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 03:01:42 PM
Besides, as a gay guy, you should be the last to poo-poo a protest mixed with an entertainment. ;)
I've never been at a protest that was a party.
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 02:26:02 PM
I'm guessing a part where they haven't had any street parties to celebrate the death of a former president?
Our attention spans are not really that long. I mean sure people hated Nixon but in 1993 the emotions from 20 years ago had cooled. The British clearly stay mad much longer.
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 02:52:12 PM
Thatcher started something that moved England so far right, that even the labour party is now a centrist, or centre-right party.
That's part of her legacy.
Wow, is there anything that Maggie could not do! Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was Maggie's creature.
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 03:03:12 PM
I don't agree with the "only good things about the dead" attitude, beyond private circumstances and the funeral service. When a public figure dies, it does not make them immune to criticism.
I think I said that you could put in criticism - but I think you need to look at actual criticism...and relevant criticism. I don't think "The bitch is dead, she destroyed Britian" passes muster.
Quote from: Valmy on April 09, 2013, 03:06:23 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 02:26:02 PM
I'm guessing a part where they haven't had any street parties to celebrate the death of a former president?
Our attention spans are not really that long. I mean sure people hated Nixon but in 1993 the emotions from 20 years ago had cooled. The British clearly stay mad much longer.
Yeah I came to the same conclusion in one of these threads. :D
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:59:03 PM
Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.
Do 20 somethings really care if they look mature? It's a shitty thing to do and I don't support it at all, but that doesn't mean I can't understand why they do it.
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 03:03:12 PM
I don't agree with the "only good things about the dead" attitude, beyond private circumstances and the funeral service. When a public figure dies, it does not make them immune to criticism.
I don't think anybody is suggesting that. It is more a case of suspending the vitriol while the family and friends are grieving rather than ramping it up and celebrating. This is especially true in cases where the death has no impact itself. Not like Hitler, Gaddhaffi, Saddam or Stalin dying, which had real political effects, in which case cheering is ok. Thatcher was a senile old retired grandmother.
Quote from: frunk on April 09, 2013, 03:08:05 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:59:03 PM
Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.
Do 20 somethings really care if they look mature? It's a shitty thing to do and I don't support it at all, but that doesn't mean I can't understand why they do it.
I understand why immature kids out for a good time do it. What I dont understand is the attempt to justify it on some other basis.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2013, 03:06:29 PMWow, is there anything that Maggie could not do! Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was Maggie's creature.
That's actually a pretty common sentiment as I understand it, to the point of being fairly uncontroversial. I think the term is "heir to Thatcher" rather than "creature", but otherwise I've seen it getting some play.
Quote from: frunk on April 09, 2013, 03:08:05 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:59:03 PM
Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.
Do 20 somethings really care if they look mature? It's a shitty thing to do and I don't support it at all, but that doesn't mean I can't understand why they do it.
Jos said we shouldn't dismiss them out of hand - I'm saying that we should. ;)
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 03:09:12 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2013, 03:06:29 PMWow, is there anything that Maggie could not do! Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was Maggie's creature.
That's actually a pretty common sentiment as I understand it, to the point of being fairly uncontroversial. I think the term is "heir to Thatcher" rather than "creature", but otherwise I've seen it getting some play.
Really, that is about as convincing as the other stuff you said about how she destroyed otherwise prosperous communities.
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 02:59:03 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:56:17 PM
Perhaps, but then I suspect the reaction to her death would have been much more tame had she been vilified universally - that's the nature of modern politics - the more divisive it is, the stronger emotions it breeds.
The partying is an emotional fuck you to people who depict her as a living saint (we had the same stuff going on after Kaczynski's death). If the general consensus was that "well yeah she was pretty shitty", there would be no more to it.
Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.
One of the most interesting reactions to this issue, was what someone, who presumably genuinely hates Thatcher, said about a possible party in Belfast:
Quote
"resist celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher".
He added: "She was not a peacemaker but it is a mistake to allow her death to poison our minds."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-22078303
That someone is Martin McGuinness. Whether you hate him or admire him, that certainly politically astute advice, something the clowns in London and Bristol wouldn't have a hope of understanding.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2013, 03:06:29 PM
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 02:52:12 PM
Thatcher started something that moved England so far right, that even the labour party is now a centrist, or centre-right party.
That's part of her legacy.
Wow, is there anything that Maggie could not do! Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was Maggie's creature.
Somebody already did Mandelson: we are all Thatcherites now (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/jun/10/labour.uk1) back in 2002
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2013, 03:06:29 PM
Quote from: Josephus on April 09, 2013, 02:52:12 PM
Thatcher started something that moved England so far right, that even the labour party is now a centrist, or centre-right party.
That's part of her legacy.
Wow, is there anything that Maggie could not do! Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was Maggie's creature.
That's not the first time I've seen that assertion. My sadly-Paulite brother sent me a link from the libertarian punditry class accusing her of the same thing. That she created New Labour. And apparently liked to eat puppies.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2013, 03:10:42 PMReally, that is about as convincing as the other stuff you said about how she destroyed otherwise prosperous communities.
Alright, maybe not uncontroversial but certainly not an uncommon argument to make.
Really, sometimes you seem so sheltered.
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 03:09:21 PM
Jos said we shouldn't dismiss them out of hand - I'm saying that we should. ;)
Dismiss them out of hand meaning we ignore them? We've failed that in this thread. Assume they have no relevency? I think they do, if only as a marker of the beliefs of a segment of the population. Even if those beliefs don't go much beyond "we didn't like this person".
I really don't get the logic of complaining that Thatcher moved the center of British politics to the right. If you don't like the way the British electorate thinks and votes, yell at them.
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 03:09:12 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2013, 03:06:29 PMWow, is there anything that Maggie could not do! Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was Maggie's creature.
That's actually a pretty common sentiment as I understand it, to the point of being fairly uncontroversial. I think the term is "heir to Thatcher" rather than "creature", but otherwise I've seen it getting some play.
There's even a certain truth to it given how few of the Thatcher era's reforms were reversed by Labour; consider by contrast earlier periods where "Steel was nationalised, privatised and renationalised" by succeeding governments of opposing parties.
He was a "water-downer" or "steady-as-you-goer" rather than a "reverser" or "innovator" and has inspired a generation of politicians to be just like him due to his managing three electoral successes without causing a section of the Electorate to permanently vilify him as happened with Thatcher...which is in it's own way a problem.
Also, unfortunately, he let Brown run the Treasury as he saw fit, and Brown couldn't have organised a piss-up in a brewery let alone be a good chancellor.
What would be in opposition to Thatcher's legacy? Creating nationalized industries? I mean if an anti-Thatcher party was elected what sorts of things would they be doing?
Anyhow, the argument that Blair is an heir to Thatcher apparently includes MiM's libertarian associates and noted Third Way proponent Mandelson as mentioned.
It seems like someone at Forbes magazine agrees: http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2013/04/08/without-margaret-thatcher-theres-no-cool-britannia-for-tony-blair/
QuoteAs his former press secretary Alastair Campbell wrote in The Blair Years, "TB said it was important I understood why parts of Thatcherism were right." And then when pressed by his advisers, including Campbell, to "be more progressive and radical," Blair responded that "What gives me real edge is that I'm not as Labour as you lot." Implicit from Blair was that Thatcher's success had moved the discussion to the right, so for Labor to succeed it would have to be far more Tory, more Thatcher, less Attlee.
On the far left, the charming Trots seem to agree as well: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/united-kingdom/2371-margaret-thatchers-true-legacy-was-the-war-criminal-tony-blair
QuoteThatcher was no longer in office but her influence lingered, and not simply within her own Conservative party. Her true legacy was Tony Blair, who matched his zeal for neoliberal policies and privatisation with a propensity for war mongering which Thatcher can only have envied. Blair built on her record. He followed her in deep devotion to US presidents and complete accord with US foreign policy.
Quote from: frunk on April 09, 2013, 03:21:13 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 03:09:21 PM
Jos said we shouldn't dismiss them out of hand - I'm saying that we should. ;)
Dismiss them out of hand meaning we ignore them? We've failed that in this thread. Assume they have no relevency? I think they do, if only as a marker of the beliefs of a segment of the population. Even if those beliefs don't go much beyond "we didn't like this person".
What could stem from that?
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 03:32:00 PM
What could stem from that?
Just about anything. Just look at the Thatcher thread on pdoxOT. :P
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 09, 2013, 03:36:53 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 03:32:00 PM
What could stem from that?
Just about anything. Just look at the Thatcher thread on pdoxOT. :P
Exec Summ? :P
I guess that commie thing goes to my point. They act like Thatcher invented privatisation and "neoliberalism" and act like like everybody who does it is following in her footsteps. Which creates the absurd situation that unless you are nationalizing things you are a Thatcherite.
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 03:16:06 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2013, 03:10:42 PMReally, that is about as convincing as the other stuff you said about how she destroyed otherwise prosperous communities.
Alright, maybe not uncontroversial but certainly not an uncommon argument to make.
Really, sometimes you seem so sheltered.
You mean sometimes I reject arguments that make no sense.
I was surprised by the vitriol in the musical Billy Elliot performed by an American touring company for a Vancouver audience not because I dont know the history but because I do. As I said I am not surprised by 20 somethings who need no excuse to have a street party to act poorly. I am surprised by those who defend it. Not because I dont know the history but because I do.
I am equally surprised that you readily buy into any argument posted on the internet that supports that postion. Sometimes I think you lack the ability to think critically about these things. ;)
Thatcher made many changes but to really suggest that she is the single cause for the whole of teh world to shift to the right is a bit much. We are all Thatcherites in the sense that we all rejected the silliness of government intervention as demonstrated by the disasterous policies of the 60s and 70s. In that sense we are all Reaganits as well.
Really Jake, think about these claims for just half a second before you pass them on as your opinion.
Quote from: Valmy on April 09, 2013, 03:40:17 PM
I guess that commie thing goes to my point. They act like Thatcher invented privatisation and "neoliberalism" and act like like everybody who does it is following in her footsteps. Which creates the absurd situation that unless you are nationalizing things you are a Thatcherite.
Yeah, exactly.
Quote from: Valmy on April 09, 2013, 03:40:17 PM
I guess that commie thing goes to my point. They act like Thatcher invented privatisation and "neoliberalism" and act like like everybody who does it is following in her footsteps. Which creates the absurd situation that unless you are nationalizing things you are a Thatcherite.
I think people do tend to take the things they don't like and attribute them to polarizing figures of the past this way pretty often. Neoliberalism is really nothing more than a pejorative now. Calling her that is absurd if the word has a definition, considering the actual policies. It's no different than calling FDR a communist, which people on the fringe do all the time.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2013, 03:41:02 PMReally Jake, think about these claims for just half a second before you pass them on as your opinion.
I haven't passed on anything as my opinion in this thread :mellow:
I've conveyed my understanding of how many of the people who hate Thatcher came by their opinions and try to put it into context to people who expressed puzzlement at something that I did not find puzzling at all. I've described a phenomenon as I observed it, not endorsed it.
For what it's worth, my understanding - nonsensical as you may think it - is not primarily based on internet readings. I lived through the Reagan-Thatcher years too.
I'm curious about the virulent anti-Thatcherism in the Billy Elliot production you saw, if you don't mind expanding on it. How does it compare to the film? As I recall it the backdrop was indeed virulently anti-Thatcher, but that's what I'd expect given the time and place; these are Tyr's people after all. And the prevailing anti-Thatcher mood - rage really - provide some pretty key context for Billy's father and his actions - at least in the film as I remember it.
Quote from: Valmy on April 09, 2013, 03:40:17 PM
I guess that commie thing goes to my point. They act like Thatcher invented privatisation and "neoliberalism" and act like like everybody who does it is following in her footsteps. Which creates the absurd situation that unless you are nationalizing things you are a Thatcherite.
Fair enough, but I suggest you take it up with the Trots :)
There's the Mandelson thing and the Forbes thing too, and I expect they have a slightly more nuanced view.
I mean, it's no skin off my back if you disagree with the argument that Blair is an heir to Thatcher's legacy because ultimately it's just an empty bit of rhetoric. My only real point is that it's a piece of rhetoric that's been used both by proponents of Blair's Third Way, as well as it's opponents on both the right and left.
I don't disagree with the arguement. I just think she, in Britain anyway, gets credit with basically creating the modern world to an absurd degree by both modern world's beneficiaries and malcontents. That somehow without her everything would have stayed the same. Blair is her heir simply because one could not help but be her heir if that is what she represents. In the 90s it would have been absurd to the extreme to start nationalizing things.
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 02:26:02 PM
I'm guessing a part where they haven't had any street parties to celebrate the death of a former president?
That's your bar for "extremely respected?" I thought you had a better command of the language than that.
His first language is commie Chinese.
Quote from: Agelastus on April 09, 2013, 09:55:39 AMI think that people like Shielbh don't really understand how draining the Seventies were on the British psyche simply because they were born after it was over; I can barely get a sense of it myself due to my earliest memories and the hold it has on the previous generation of all my relatives, not just my immediate family. It was a decade when if it could go wrong it did go wrong, where Britain flailed about aimlessly, where the Unions sometimes seemed to run the country...where a generation that had grown up on tales of the War and the semi-dignified retreat from Empire faced the shame of their government needing to ask for the help of the IMF.
Maybe. But this argument is one I've been hearing and having for as long as I can remember. My first political memories are of my parents arguing with the my granddad and uncle, who were both fierce Thatcherites, over Tony Blair. Did we really want to go back to the dead left unburied (and this was Liverpool, remember, where that did happen)? They also thought that Blair was actually like Derek Hatton, on that they were wrong. But the context even then, was Thatcher.
Similarly I remember arguments between my parents and godparents (very hard-left) over Blair selling out to Thatcherism. Though they were, by then, willing to concede that Kinnock had been right to face Militant. It wasn't really until Iraq that I think the arguments stopped being mainly about Thatcher in some way or other. Had she destroyed Liverpool? Did she know about Hillsborough? Was Blair just a kinder, gentler Thatcherite? They'd always been on the centre-left, and were positively counter-revolutionary in Liverpool in the 80s, but it lead them to becoming very Blairite. They almost always disagreed with him and wanted far more left-wing policies. But they were willing to trust him because they thought he could smash the Tories for 18 years, which by then was all they wanted.
In fairness more or less my entire family are Irish, so there's no nostalgia about Britain's place in the world :lol:
QuoteThe issue as I see it is more one of democratic legitimacy rather than reverance for an office. Part of being the citizen of a democracy IMO is accepting the will of the voting public when it goes against your own.
This sounds like Raz. I've said before but I think for the NUM leadership the miners' strike was an attempt to destroy Thatcher and her government. To stop her from being able to govern and to bring them down. The experience of Heath gave them an overinflated sense of their own power and with Scargill's leadership lead to disaster. That was an assault on democratic legitimacy.
Opposition however angry and emotional isn't, that's part of democracy.
QuoteThe NUM had been the muscle of the British labour movement for years. In a very real sense, Scargill was the most powerful man in the world of British labour. You tend to think that history began in 1979.
You're wrong. The NUM was part of the labour movement but it wasn't a militant part and it wasn't very vocal. I think the 1972 strike was the first strike by the miners in the post-war era. By then they were some of the lowest-paid workers in the country. That combined with the health effects of their job gave them a lot of public sympathy even after it forced a three day week. They only really become radical and Militant - like the rest of the left - in the late 70s-on. Scargill (elected to head them in 1982) represents their turn to radicalism, not their past.
QuoteHave you been to a Young Tories meeting recently?
:lol: I once knew a gay young Tory at uni. He had a poster of Thatcher and one of Boris in his room. I was a little freaked out.
QuoteThat's...surprising.
I'd agree, it's a pretty common view. She moved the centre ground of British politics - like Attlee. All the other's have been in their shadows.
QuoteWell they didn't really win did they? Her policies still happened and influenced Britain's subsequent history. How does her death (at 87) in any way count as a win? This sounds like the thoughts of people who are a bit soft in the head.
I think Viking's right, that's part of why her and Blair attract such hatred. They can always claim that the British people never rejected them, they were betrayed by their parties.
QuoteThat's actually a pretty common sentiment as I understand it, to the point of being fairly uncontroversial. I think the term is "heir to Thatcher" rather than "creature", but otherwise I've seen it getting some play.
Yeah. It's absolutely the norm, I think every news report and obit I've read basically says New Labour was about accepting the Thatcherite settlement. It's so common that lefties have to write articles like this (I agree with them):
http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2013/04/09/labour-ended-thatcherism/
QuoteI really don't get the logic of complaining that Thatcher moved the center of British politics to the right. If you don't like the way the British electorate thinks and votes, yell at them.
I don't think there's any complaining about it.
QuoteThey act like Thatcher invented privatisation and "neoliberalism" and act like like everybody who does it is following in her footsteps. Which creates the absurd situation that unless you are nationalizing things you are a Thatcherite.
Okay. But she kind of did, or at least she was a pioneer. She was elected in 1979. Within a decade you had Thatcherism, Reaganomics, Rogernomics and privatisations in South America - often explicitly modelled on British examples - and a decade later you had the same in Eastern Europe.
It's a bit like Clinton. He started the 'Third Way' which within a decade would be joined by similar figures like Blair and Schroeder.
The other point is that like Attlee she built a settlement that lasted. The Tories opposed the NHS and large chunks of the welfare state in the late 1940s. Attlee passed them and the Tories accepted them; they realised they couldn't win if they didn't accept that bedrock of the welfare state. The next thirty years did so companies bouncing back and forth from being nationalised and privatised. Thatcher's broad policies were low inflation, if necessary at the expense of full employment; unions that are reined in; property ownership; and generally minimal government interference in most markets (for me that's a decent definition of 'neo-liberalism'). Only when Labour showed that they accepted the broad Thatcherite settlement did they win again. We've not had any increase of the relevance of unions, generally low inflation, no great new labour legislation, no significant government intervention and certainly no nationalisations (with the brief exception of emergency measures in 2008).
I think it's that the post-war Labour government settled social issues in a way that endures. There was broad consensus over that and the need for a generally planned economy for the next 30 years, with differences within that. But Labour never won because they failed to deal with inflation and with the unions. Thatcherism did and that's broadly settled economic debates and there's been a broad consensus over that ever since.
Quote from: grumbler on April 09, 2013, 06:23:24 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 02:26:02 PM
I'm guessing a part where they haven't had any street parties to celebrate the death of a former president?
That's your bar for "extremely respected?" I thought you had a better command of the language than that.
:lol:
Point conceded.
Here's the comments I mentioned. From the Independent's letters (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/letters-iron-lady-who-ushered-in-a-new-age-in-britain-8564862.html?origin=internalSearch).
Quote
Much will be said over the next few weeks about the "achievements" of Margaret Thatcher. These will probably divide between Daily Mailish eulogies and Guardianesque whines. My view is that she was a bad thing for Britain.
She started the transformation of this country into a politically correct police state. Her government behaved with an almost gloating disregard for constitutional norms.
She brought in money-laundering laws that have now been extended to a general supervision over our financial dealings. She relaxed the conditions for searches and seizure by the police.
She increased the numbers and powers of the police. She weakened trial by jury. She gave executive agencies the power to fine and punish without due process. She began the first steps towards total criminalisation of gun possession.
She did not cut government spending. Instead, she allowed the conversion of local government and the lower administration into a system of sinecures for the Enemy Class. She gave central government powers of supervision and control useful to a future politically correct government. Her encouragement of enterprise never amounted to more than a liking for big business corporatism. Genuine enterprise was progressively heaped with taxes and regulations that made it hard to do business.
Big business, on the other hand, was showered with praise and legal indulgences.
Indeed, her privatisation policies were less about introducing competition and choice into public services than in turning public monopolies into corporate monsters pampered by the state with subsidies and favourable regulations, corporate monsters that were expected in return to lavish financial rewards on the political class.
She hardly cut taxes. She ruthlessly pushed the speed of European integration. Her militaristic foreign policy and slavish obedience to Washington mostly worked against the interests of this country.
The one war she fought that might have some justification was only necessary because her own colleagues had effectively told the Argentine government to invade the Falkland Islands.
Before her, trade unions were run by working-class people who used the strike and violence to achieve their ends. She ensured that the unions were taken over by the usual Enemy Class graduates.
Forget Margaret Thatcher as some hero of our Movement. She was, at best, the midwife of the New Labour Revolution. She did not just make the world safe for New Labour – she created New Labour.
Without her precedents and her general transformation of our laws and institutions, Tony Blair presiding as Prime Minister would have been impossible.
Dr Sean Gabb, Director, Libertarian Alliance, London W1
Now THAT'S a neoliberal. :lol:
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:49:07 PMIt doesn't just need to be that. I can see how a lot of people may be disgusted by her questionable record on human rights (support for Pinochet or apartheid, anti-gay policies) without being affected by it.
Just to say I think her policies were generally anti-gay and Section 28 was disgraceful, but her government's response to HIV/AIDS was probably the most robust and effective in the Western world. It stands in contrast both to Reagan and to Mitterrand in that respect, despite her own social conservatism.
QuoteOne of them, today, when I mentioned that most of the celebrators at the street parties didn't even look as if they'd been born when Thatcher was PM commented that that also meant they "hadn't experienced the alternative to her that was the Seventies".
There was, definitely, a post-War consensus in Britain on many issues (unwise as I think it was in many respects.) People seem to think that it was broken down by Thatcher. I personally think that it broke down in the Seventies, certainly by the middle of the decade. The poison in British politics that still bubbles up today was born in the Seventies, a decade when the Miners, for example, did successfully hold governments to ransom.
It was the poison built up in the Seventies that burst in the Eighties...and the Eighties pretty much exhausted all sides leading to twenty years of what may in the future be termed the Major-Blair consensus.
I think that people like Shielbh don't really understand how draining the Seventies were on the British psyche simply because they were born after it was over; I can barely get a sense of it myself due to my earliest memories and the hold it has on the previous generation of all my relatives, not just my immediate family. It was a decade when if it could go wrong it did go wrong, where Britain flailed about aimlessly, where the Unions sometimes seemed to run the country...where a generation that had grown up on tales of the War and the semi-dignified retreat from Empire faced the shame of their government needing to ask for the help of the IMF.
History is written by the victors and as such 70s Britain is regarded as being much worse than it was. People I know who were around in the 70s speak quite positively of it.
A lot of stuff was fucked up certainly, the Yom Kippur war was a massive blow to the UK, the entire world economy was in a dodgy place, Heath (iirc) had amongst other things ballsed up the handling of the north sea oil and gas which meant we wouldn't be seeing any payments from it until the 80s.
To mention Heath actually its strange that the 70s get painted as the labour alternative to Thatcher when it was the tories who had defined them. A much fairer comparison than the 70s is the 60s, which by all accounts was a rather progressive time. And as I said earlier things wouldn't have stayed the same forever, she wasn't the only one capable of change.
Lots of people speaking positively of bygone eras.
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 06:56:42 PM
Quote from: grumbler on April 09, 2013, 06:23:24 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 02:26:02 PM
I'm guessing a part where they haven't had any street parties to celebrate the death of a former president?
That's your bar for "extremely respected?" I thought you had a better command of the language than that.
:lol:
Point conceded.
Hey I said the same thing, provided a counterexample and wasn't even snarky to you!
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 07:08:06 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 09, 2013, 02:49:07 PMIt doesn't just need to be that. I can see how a lot of people may be disgusted by her questionable record on human rights (support for Pinochet or apartheid, anti-gay policies) without being affected by it.
Just to say I think her policies were generally anti-gay and Section 28 was disgraceful, but her government's response to HIV/AIDS was probably the most robust and effective in the Western world. It stands in contrast both to Reagan and to Mitterrand in that respect, despite her own social conservatism.
I read in a different obit that she voted for decriminalisation of sodomy when she was an MP. While Section 28 is stupidly worded, has no real effect on anything and seems to be a pathetic case of harmless pandering to the base it sent a clear anti-gay message that legitimized discrimination. It was banning something that wasn't happening and certainly won't. Banning the promotion of a homosexual lifestyle? WTF? That just takes the cake for stupidity in legislation.
She certainly objected to the concept of a gay group identity (she objected to all group identities outside of citizenship).
Quote from: Viking on April 09, 2013, 07:18:47 PMI read in a different obit that she voted for decriminalisation of sodomy when she was an MP.
She did, one of the few Tories who did.
QuoteWhile Section 28 is stupidly worded, has no real effect on anything and seems to be a pathetic case of harmless pandering to the base it sent a clear anti-gay message that legitimized discrimination. It was banning something that wasn't happening and certainly won't. Banning the promotion of a homosexual lifestyle? WTF? That just takes the cake for stupidity in legislation.
I think that's the wrong way round actually. It was quite carefully worded and had more effect than it should have. For example lots of bits of education (governors, head teachers and teaching staff) were exempt but schools tended to take a very cautious approach. So there were numerous examples of teachers feeling they couldn't really say anything if a kid told them they were gay, or suffering homophobic bullying in case they were caught 'promoting homosexuality'.
Also lots of charities get some funding from local authorities for specific programs, this meant that local authorities couldn't fund, say, the Lesbian and Gay Switchboard or a charity my uncle founded that worked with male sex workers because they would be classed as 'promoting homosexuality'. The trouble is the people who needed those charities needed them because they would certainly be judged and probably face homophobia if they just went to the police or someone in the NHS.
Those are just a couple of examples but there were many more. By the time New Labour abolished section 28 it didn't matter because other bits of Labour legislation had made it far less relevant, but at the time and through the 90s it was very significant for the gay community.
QuoteShe certainly objected to the concept of a gay group identity (she objected to all group identities outside of citizenship).
Except 'our people' which she tended to use in quite an exclusive way, rather than, say, MacMillan's expansive 'most of our people have never had it so good'.
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 07:12:16 PM
History is written by the victors and as such 70s Britain is regarded as being much worse than it was. People I know who were around in the 70s speak quite positively of it.
For a mine worker it must have been a Golden Age. Masters of the Universe. Say jump and the government says how high.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:31:11 PMFor a mine worker it must have been a Golden Age. Masters of the Universe. Say jump and the government says how high.
Again this isn't true. They were among the worst paid workers in Britain, they moved up a few notches after the 72 miners' strike. But even then they weren't one of the militant unions and their pay deals I don't think ever exceeded government wages policy. But they were the union governments feared because of the example of 72 (till then, their only post-war strike).
They became far more militant later on.
Among the worst paid of *all* British workers?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:31:11 PM
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 07:12:16 PM
History is written by the victors and as such 70s Britain is regarded as being much worse than it was. People I know who were around in the 70s speak quite positively of it.
For a mine worker it must have been a Golden Age. Masters of the Universe. Say jump and the government says how high.
:huh: Who said anything about miners?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:49:18 PM
Among the worst paid of *all* British workers?
Yes, well the men at least. What you getting at though? :mellow:
Edit: Incidentally I'm not a 70s revisionist, there's a trend at the minute with Dominic Sandbrook and others. Though he's a great writer.
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 07:51:39 PM
:huh: Who said anything about miners?
I just figured the people you knew who had been through the 70s were from your home town.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 07:53:57 PM
Yes, well the men at least. What you getting at though? :mellow:
I'm wondering if the comparison is only with unionized industrial workers or if it includes people like shop clerks and trash collectors and such.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:55:45 PM
I'm wondering if the comparison is only with unionized industrial workers or if it includes people like shop clerks and trash collectors and such.
Probably not shop clerks because they were often women. Miners were one of the lowest paid of manual workers in Britain - and that was the lowest paid sector.
Edit: Also how does mining class as industrial? :mellow:
In the UK binmen were unionised. Their strike was one of the more visible in the winter of discontent:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic1.businessinsider.com%2Fimage%2F5162d810ecad04da3600000c-2998-1995%2Fap79010113492.jpg&hash=fa84949218af3172faa07be9173e5ab951586ea3)
That's interesting. What's your source?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 08:02:39 PM
That's interesting. What's your source?
Documentary on the miners' strike.
It compared the 1972 miners' strike, which despite causing far more disruption had widespread public support, and the 1984 miners' strike. The miners in 72 were seen as underpaid (and comparatively they weren't paid a great deal) and in a dangerous job. They hadn't really striked since the war and the Bevin boys (men conscripted to work in mines during the war) were still known about. They were a very popular group. Heath's government bungled it and Heath wasn't popular.
It reminds me of the 'work-ins' in the shipyards during the Heath government.
Unions suck.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 07:54:28 PM
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 07:51:39 PM
:huh: Who said anything about miners?
I just figured the people you knew who had been through the 70s were from your home town.
The end of mining in my town long predates Thatcher, my grandfathers were miners but not too many of my dad's generation were. My hometown was more of a central town for the outlying mining villages. Most older people I know are in construction or shop workers.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 08:08:30 PM
Documentary on the miners' strike.
It compared the 1972 miners' strike, which despite causing far more disruption had widespread public support, and the 1984 miners' strike. The miners in 72 were seen as underpaid (and comparatively they weren't paid a great deal) and in a dangerous job. They hadn't really striked since the war and the Bevin boys (men conscripted to work in mines during the war) were still known about. They were a very popular group. Heath's government bungled it and Heath wasn't popular.
It reminds me of the 'work-ins' in the shipyards during the Heath government.
Did your documentary get in to specifics about pay?
Quote from: garbon on April 09, 2013, 07:17:37 PMHey I said the same thing, provided a counterexample and wasn't even snarky to you!
Point conceded to you too :hug:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 09, 2013, 08:12:53 PM
Did your documentary get in to specifics about pay?
What sort of specifics? :mellow:
I can't wait until Peter Hennessy reaches the 70s and I just have to look there :lol:
Edit: And worth mentioning the miners ended 72 (and the smaller strike in 74) as some of the best paid manual workers, which is probably another key point in them going from having public support then to losing a lot of it a decade later.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 06:44:20 PM
QuoteThe NUM had been the muscle of the British labour movement for years. In a very real sense, Scargill was the most powerful man in the world of British labour. You tend to think that history began in 1979.
You're wrong. The NUM was part of the labour movement but it wasn't a militant part and it wasn't very vocal. I think the 1972 strike was the first strike by the miners in the post-war era. By then they were some of the lowest-paid workers in the country. That combined with the health effects of their job gave them a lot of public sympathy even after it forced a three day week. They only really become radical and Militant - like the rest of the left - in the late 70s-on. Scargill (elected to head them in 1982) represents their turn to radicalism, not their past.
No, I'm right. Scargill was a pretty big fish even in the early 70s - MI5 was investigating him as being possibly in the pay of Moscow as far back as the Heath years, and it's not like he was the only one. Mick McGahey shot his mouth off quite a bit and was calling for the army to come out in support of the miners. There was a battle between old-school trade unionists of the Joe Gormley mold and Communist agitators like McGahey whose goal was to overthrow the government, and Scargill's election wasn't the turning point. Indeed, Gormley had been hanging on by his fingernails for years, especially after ramming through the production-based wages in the late 70s. Nevertheless, the local unions were acting as vanguards in the 70s, using the flying pickets, and that's not taking into account the strikes in 1972, 74, 84 and the scare in 82.
Quote from: Viking on April 09, 2013, 07:18:47 PM
She certainly objected to the concept of a gay group identity (she objected to all group identities outside of citizenship).
As most people would. Let's face it, people who identify as gay are usually pretty bad.
Scargill's election wasn't the turning point but it was the culmination of a period of radicalisation. The experience of success in 72 and 74, combined with deteriorating industrial relations and polarisation strengthened the hand of the militants. But for the majority of the 70s the battle was won by the old school unionists who were interested in winning advantages for the workers rather than a broader political battle - and Gormley's success on production pay undermined the NUM in 1984. The local onions were often as divided as the national leadership so some were dominated by militants while others weren't and, as in the 60s, you had local breakdowns which would cause miners to down tools. But generally the history is of a far more radicalised leadership than membership.
You're right the fight was going on for a while - I mean Gormley was a Special Branch informant precisely because he was worried about growing militancy, and Scargill - but I still think it's fair to say that the success of the radicals was in the late 70s. It ended with Scargill in charge (and he was a democratic centralist if ever there's one), but that is a shift. The miners past was that they hadn't been on strike since 1926 (I thought they had in the 30s) and were addressing real problems with their pay and conditions in the early 70s. By the 80s they were militant and political and, certainly, vanguardist.
(Haven't really read the thread. But:) Everything else aside, I don't really get celebrating the death of a political figure you loathe(d), especially a natural death at old age. I might use it as a time to reflect on the evils that person did, to speak out about them and convince people how wrong they were and how similar things should be opposed in the present. But "celebrating" seems kind of nonsensical. Wouldn't you "celebrate" that person getting voted out of office or facing justice for their crimes, rather than their death?
I guess I could see celebrating someone being assassinated while in power (obviously in a radically different context) if that were a political goal or if they were a bitter political enemy.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 09:30:22 PMWouldn't you "celebrate" that person getting voted out of office or facing justice for their crimes, rather than their death?
I think Viking's right. Thatcher and Blair never got voted out of office. They got ousted by their own party. There was no moment of catharsis for the many who hated them.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 09:16:45 PM
Scargill's election wasn't the turning point but it was the culmination of a period of radicalisation. The experience of success in 72 and 74, combined with deteriorating industrial relations and polarisation strengthened the hand of the militants. But for the majority of the 70s the battle was won by the old school unionists who were interested in winning advantages for the workers rather than a broader political battle - and Gormley's success on production pay undermined the NUM in 1984. The local onions were often as divided as the national leadership so some were dominated by militants while others weren't and, as in the 60s, you had local breakdowns which would cause miners to down tools. But generally the history is of a far more radicalised leadership than membership.
You're right the fight was going on for a while - I mean Gormley was a Special Branch informant precisely because he was worried about growing militancy, and Scargill - but I still think it's fair to say that the success of the radicals was in the late 70s. It ended with Scargill in charge (and he was a democratic centralist if ever there's one), but that is a shift. The miners past was that they hadn't been on strike since 1926 (I thought they had in the 30s) and were addressing real problems with their pay and conditions in the early 70s. By the 80s they were militant and political and, certainly, vanguardist.
Excellent work by Shelf, UK domestic politics in the period is a lot more complex that the bumper sticker sourced, seamless progress of market reforms, some here appear to have read.
Quote from: mongers on April 09, 2013, 09:48:35 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 09:16:45 PM
Scargill's election wasn't the turning point but it was the culmination of a period of radicalisation. The experience of success in 72 and 74, combined with deteriorating industrial relations and polarisation strengthened the hand of the militants. But for the majority of the 70s the battle was won by the old school unionists who were interested in winning advantages for the workers rather than a broader political battle - and Gormley's success on production pay undermined the NUM in 1984. The local onions were often as divided as the national leadership so some were dominated by militants while others weren't and, as in the 60s, you had local breakdowns which would cause miners to down tools. But generally the history is of a far more radicalised leadership than membership.
You're right the fight was going on for a while - I mean Gormley was a Special Branch informant precisely because he was worried about growing militancy, and Scargill - but I still think it's fair to say that the success of the radicals was in the late 70s. It ended with Scargill in charge (and he was a democratic centralist if ever there's one), but that is a shift. The miners past was that they hadn't been on strike since 1926 (I thought they had in the 30s) and were addressing real problems with their pay and conditions in the early 70s. By the 80s they were militant and political and, certainly, vanguardist.
Excellent work by Shelf, UK domestic politics in the period is a lot more complex that the bumper sticker sourced, seamless progress of market reforms, some here appear to have read.
That might be a fair statement if anyone had advocated that position. I don't think there's been anyone that says reforms (of any type) progress along seamlessly. :huh:
I've just noticed the local onions were divided :lol: :blush:
I also do not see how that very interesting post about the miner's union had anything to do with whether or not reform was seamless :hmm:
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 09:34:35 PM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 09:30:22 PMWouldn't you "celebrate" that person getting voted out of office or facing justice for their crimes, rather than their death?
I think Viking's right. Thatcher and Blair never got voted out of office. They got ousted by their own party. There was no moment of catharsis for the many who hated them.
Yeah, hadn't read that far in the read, but it makes sense. On the other hand, though (and not to be US-centric), GWB never got voted out or suffered any public repudiation. But the 2008 election did essentially serve that function. It was submerged a bit at the time, but I think a lot of the jubilation was releasing all the pent-up vengeance against Bush from at least '04 if not '00, rather than the naive excitement about "hope and change!" that gets attributed to it. I gather that the UK 1990 was rather not like the US 2008.
As a feature of this global news event, I'm looking at "Boys from the Blackstuff"; any good, Britons?
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 09:54:58 PM
I've just noticed the local onions were divided :lol: :blush:
That would explain the many bitter tears.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:31:48 PMI gather that the UK 1990 was rather not like the US 2008.
I think that's a fair and accurate statement.
Quote from: Jacob on April 09, 2013, 10:36:17 PM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:31:48 PMI gather that the UK 1990 was rather not like the US 2008.
I think that's a fair and accurate statement.
If only in the quality of house music. :sleep: :P
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:32:45 PM
As a feature of this global news event, I'm looking at "Boys from the Blackstuff"; any good, Britons?
Yes. Amazing TV.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 10:43:30 PM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:32:45 PM
As a feature of this global news event, I'm looking at "Boys from the Blackstuff"; any good, Britons?
Yes. Amazing TV.
Any recommendation on a Ken Loach to start with? I love Mike Leigh, but if I hadn't stumbled upon "Naked," I doubt I'd ever have gotten into it.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 09:16:45 PM
Scargill's election wasn't the turning point but it was the culmination of a period of radicalisation. The experience of success in 72 and 74, combined with deteriorating industrial relations and polarisation strengthened the hand of the militants. But for the majority of the 70s the battle was won by the old school unionists who were interested in winning advantages for the workers rather than a broader political battle - and Gormley's success on production pay undermined the NUM in 1984. The local onions were often as divided as the national leadership so some were dominated by militants while others weren't and, as in the 60s, you had local breakdowns which would cause miners to down tools. But generally the history is of a far more radicalised leadership than membership.
You're right the fight was going on for a while - I mean Gormley was a Special Branch informant precisely because he was worried about growing militancy, and Scargill - but I still think it's fair to say that the success of the radicals was in the late 70s. It ended with Scargill in charge (and he was a democratic centralist if ever there's one), but that is a shift. The miners past was that they hadn't been on strike since 1926 (I thought they had in the 30s) and were addressing real problems with their pay and conditions in the early 70s. By the 80s they were militant and political and, certainly, vanguardist.
It's certainly a convincing narrative, but having Mick McGahey (a lifelong loudmouth devotee of the Communist Party) as Vice-President of the NUM during the strike years seems to suggest that the old-school didn't have their hands as firmly on the wheel as one might hope. There was certainly people in power in the NUM for whom 74 was all about getting rid of the Tories. Political radicalization was alreaday happening. Hell, the only thing keeping the Communist Party in the UK alive after Hungary was the radicalization of the trade unions, and as you well know the more militant wings of the Labour Party were no joke either. Wilson's platform in 74 was pretty radical, after all.
What I find interesting is that the 74 strikes was more politically militant, but less violent than the 72 edition. Rare to see that.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:47:56 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 10:43:30 PM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:32:45 PM
As a feature of this global news event, I'm looking at "Boys from the Blackstuff"; any good, Britons?
Yes. Amazing TV.
Any recommendation on a Ken Loach to start with? I love Mike Leigh, but if I hadn't stumbled upon "Naked," I doubt I'd ever have gotten into it.
I enjoyed Carla's Song, though it's one of only two Loach films I've seen.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 09:54:58 PM
I've just noticed the local onions were divided :lol: :blush:
Tory or Labour, everybody needs a little crunch in their cassarole.
It seems to me to be pretty natural to say that Blair is the heir to Thatcher. Sure, he put his own spin on some of her policies, but ultimately the core of her platform stayed pretty much the same. Ultimately, she won. He was also the first significant PM to follow her, as Major was something of a caretaker while the country was getting used to the idea of a Labour Party that wasn't dominated by Benn/Foot nonsense.
Blair was only the heir to Thatcher in that he didn't radically change the broken system she had largely created. For someone to truly be the heir to someone imo they have to actively continue their work and do more.
Blair and Thatcher are apples and oranges.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:47:56 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 10:43:30 PM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:32:45 PM
As a feature of this global news event, I'm looking at "Boys from the Blackstuff"; any good, Britons?
Yes. Amazing TV.
Any recommendation on a Ken Loach to start with? I love Mike Leigh, but if I hadn't stumbled upon "Naked," I doubt I'd ever have gotten into it.
Kes is the awesome one which everyone of the last generation has seen.
Land and Freedom is pretty nifty too, though a bit of a departure from his usual Britain based fayre.
Pretty sure you can get most of his films, 100% officially and legally, on youtube too.
It must have hurt when Blair didn't reopen the coal pits.
Quote from: Neil on April 09, 2013, 11:18:45 PM
It must have hurt when Blair didn't reopen the coal pits.
:blink:
No, that would be stupid.
He should have renationalised the railways though (now Major doing that was heir of Thatcher stuff).
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 11:12:34 PM
Blair was only the heir to Thatcher in that he didn't radically change the broken system she had largely created.
In what sense is it broken and how should it be fixed?
Quote from: Valmy on April 09, 2013, 11:29:07 PM
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 11:12:34 PM
Blair was only the heir to Thatcher in that he didn't radically change the broken system she had largely created.
In what sense is it broken and how should it be fixed?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Ftatler%2Ffiles%2F2012%2F03%2Fgiorgio.jpg&hash=c62ee897ebbe6f393586611df7fac19b1019c0e7)
COAL
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 11:12:34 PM
Kes is the awesome one which everyone of the last generation has seen.
Thanks, Tyr. And funnily enough, in the Wikipedia article about the film, there's a link to a source claiming that in the early 70s the British miners were among the lowest paid (http://books.google.com/books?id=dcL6w-VmjWwC&pg=PA63&dq=British+miners+lowest+paid+workers&hl=en&ei=ZOCyTfHCEMGa8QO2-oSWDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=British%20miners%20lowest%20paid%20workers&f=false) in the industrialized West, fighting to get 35 pounds a week.
Quote from: Valmy on April 09, 2013, 11:29:07 PM
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 11:12:34 PM
Blair was only the heir to Thatcher in that he didn't radically change the broken system she had largely created.
In what sense is it broken and how should it be fixed?
The non-working class, a broken society, shitty regulation of financial markets, complete disregard for industry and skilled professions, gutted council housing stock, a sharply broadened north-south divide, crappy zombie union system, increased poverty, increased inequality, etc...
Sadly its a lot easier to break something than put it back together again.
Wait, wasn't the depleted council housing stock a good thing?
Other than that, most of what you're saying is propaganda and buzzwords.
Quote from: Neil on April 09, 2013, 11:58:29 PM
Wait, wasn't the depleted council housing stock a good thing?
I expect it wasn't a good thing for the people who couldn't afford to buy it as it was sold off; and that might include many of the people hit by the peak unemployment at the time.
Just a guess, though.
Quote from: Neil on April 09, 2013, 11:58:29 PM
Wait, wasn't the depleted council housing stock a good thing?
Is this your kill the poor schtick? As I really can't see how that could be a good thing.
Maybe if demand drops off a lot leaving the government stuck paying for maintainance?
Otherwise...quite logically a bad thing.
Quote
Other than that, most of what you're saying is propaganda and buzzwords.
Not really, much of it is well observed phenomena. A class of people who for generation after generation largely live on benefits has emerged, the south has gotten drastically richer and whilst the north has recovered somewhat from the 80s it still lags much further behind than it did pre-Thatcher,statistics show poverty and inequality are higher, the crappy regulation of the financial markets was pretty much proven a few years ago, etc...
My Scottish colleague just mentioned that there are/will be pre-emptive arrests of possible troublemakers who may disturb the funeral? Any truth to that? :unsure:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/margaret-thatcher-funeral-security?CMP=twt_gu&CMP=SOCNETTXT6966
QuoteMargaret Thatcher funeral in security clampdown
Alert over Irish republican dissidents and far left groups as St Paul's ceremony looms
Police are to mount a major security operation at the funeral of Lady Thatcher at St Paul's Cathedral next Wednesday amid growing fears about the threat posed by dissident Irish republican terrorists and far left groups.
As Buckingham Palace said the Queen would break with recent precedent to attend the funeral, along with Prince Philip, Scotland Yard confirmed initial planning for the policing operation. Commander David Martin, head of the Met's public order unit, who has a counter-terrorism background, will be in charge.
The late prime minister, who was targeted by the IRA in the 1984 Brighton bombing in retaliation for the hardline stance she took in the 1981 hunger strikes, lost two close political allies in republican terrorist attacks.
A number of world leaders are expected to attend the "ceremonial funeral", which will fall short of a full state funeral on the wishes of Thatcher. It is understood she felt uncomfortable about lying in state before such a funeral and feared that a parliamentary vote, which would have to be held to approve public funds, could be divisive.
However most of the costs of the funeral will be met by the government, with the Thatcher Foundation contributing.
Invitations are yet to be formally issued, and because it is not a state funeral, countries are not automatically expected to send heads of state or representatives. But FW de Klerk, the last president of apartheid South Africa, who was embraced by Thatcher as a reformer, became the first former head of state to confirm his attendance. De Klerk, who ordered the release of Nelson Mandela from jail and then agreed to the negotiations that ended apartheid, will attend with his wife, Elita.
David Cameron will lead the tributes to Thatcher on Wednesday when parliament is recalled from its Easter recess for MPs from all parties to pay their respects to her. The House of Lords is also being recalled.
Ed Miliband, who has instructed his MPs to follow his lead in showing respect for Thatcher, suffered a blow when one of Labour's longest serving MPs said they should be free to criticise the "brutal contempt" with which she treated millions of working people. David Winnick, first elected to parliament in 1966, said it would be "absolutely hypocritical" if parliament did not hear all sides of the her legacy.
Years of planning for the funeral were put into action on Tuesday when Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, whose late father Angus served in Thatcher's first cabinet, chaired a meeting of the True Blue operation. Maude briefed Cameron about the preparations at the daily 8.30am Downing Street meeting.
A friend of the Thatcher family attended the meeting about the funeral, which is being carefully organised to respect her wishes. It is understood the government will advise the family about the guest list. Her children, Sir Mark Thatcher and Carol, will have the final say.
It will be the first time the Queen has attended the funeral service of a former PM since Sir Winston Churchill's state ceremony in 1965. Palace officials described it as a "unique" occasion.
The body of Britain's first female prime minister was moved by private ambulance in the early hours of Tuesday from the Ritz hotel suite where, according to friends, she died at 11.28am on Monday after suffering a stroke while sitting in bed reading a book.
The police will mount a large operation as they take account of a series of challenges ranging from dissident Irish republican terrorists to activists on the far left who may use the funeral to show their contempt for Thatcher.
Police were called to a number of incidents in London and Glasgow on Monday night after a series of "parties" were held to "celebrate" the death of Thatcher. Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP for Streatham, made clear his anger on Twitter after a "party" was held in the Windrush Square area of Brixton in his constituency.
Umunna tweeted: "Holding a party to celebrate the death of any person is totally wrong and in extreme bad taste." He also tweeted: "The organisers of that event in Windrush Sq last night do not speak for or represent the people of Brixton."
The former Labour prime minister Tony Blair criticised the "parties", telling the BBC: "I think that's pretty poor taste. You've got to, even if you disagree with someone very strongly, particularly at the moment of their passing, show some respect."
The Metropolitan police said those wishing to protest at the funeral should contact them so "their right to protest can be upheld". It is a tactic and language they in their operation to police the Olympics, which senior officers regard as being a success.
Police will also be looking with care at the threat posed by dissident republicans. Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark and a security expert who served in Northern Ireland as platoon commander while Thatcher was PM, told the Guardian: "Baroness Thatcher's funeral is bound to excite dissident Republican ambitions. It is something I know the security services are taking very seriously.
"I remember distinctly her visit to us after the Warrenpoint and Lord Louis Mountbatten killings [in August 1979] and, of course, she was identified as a major hate figure by republicans during the hunger strikes of 1981."
It is understood that security assessments have suggested dissident republicans would like to use the funeral to make a show of force. But the assessments have suggested any threat is likely to be in Northern Ireland because they lack the resources to mount a mainland operation.
The guest list may provide something of a diplomatic headache for the government and the Thatcher family. Silvio Berlusconi's Freedom party said it had not yet been decided whether or not the former prime minister, who praised Thatcher lavishly in a statement on Monday, would attend.
Giorgio Napolitano, Italy's 87-year-old president and a former communist, "will definitely not" be attending the funeral, said a spokeswoman for the presidency. She said it was a question of protocol as Thatcher was not a head of state.
A spokesman for the office of Mario Monti, Italy's caretaker technocratic prime minister, said a final decision had not yet been taken but that it was thought likely he would not be there.
The Egyptian presidency says it will send a representative from the embassy but has not yet decided who.
Thatcher's controversial standing in the world was highlighted when Bob Carr, the Australian foreign minister, described her as "unabashedly racist". In an interview with the Lateline programme on ABC TV, Carr related a conversation with Thatcher after her retirement in which she warned of the challenge to Australia of Asian immigration.
Carr, whose wife is of Malaysian origin, said: "She said something that was unabashedly racist, where she warned Australia, talking to me with Elena [his wife] standing not far away against Asian immigration, saying if we allowed too much of it we'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants. I couldn't believe it."
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My partner won't use sex toys to pleasure me anally 08 Apr 2013
Anti-Thatcher sentiment primed to sweep through singles charts 09 Apr 2013
Margaret Thatcher's death on newspaper front pages – in pictures 09 Apr 2013
Margaret Thatcher's death greeted with street parties in Brixton and Glasgow 08 Apr 2013
Why Margaret Thatcher is hard to mourn 09 Apr 2013
Margaret Thatcher: no fond farewells from Africa 09 Apr 2013
One of these does not match the others. :lol:
Yeah, it seemed a bit weird why this would pop up in the list. :lol:
EDIT: Seems it's been removed from the "More from the Guardian" list on the article. :(
Quote from: Syt on April 10, 2013, 03:20:49 AM
Yeah, it seemed a bit weird why this would pop up in the list. :lol:
EDIT: Seems it's been removed from the "More from the Guardian" list on the article. :(
Could be a joke from an anti-Thatcherite? :P
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 11:25:36 PM
He should have renationalised the railways though (now Major doing that was heir of Thatcher stuff).
And here's one of the places where I don't entirely disagree with Tyr; Major privatised the railways in very messed up fashion, one that Labour, despite being given the opportunity on more than one occasion, failed to fix (there's too many companies for the size of the network, and because they're so small track maintenance got hived off into another company. Four of five franchises that also had the role of maintaining the tracks would have worked much better, especially if given 20-25 year franchises. Should have cost a lot less in subsidy as well, both direct and indirect.)
Where I would disagree with Tyr no doubt would be that after renationalisation I would have re-privatised but in a more sensible fashion as described above.
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 12:09:45 AM
Quote from: Neil on April 09, 2013, 11:58:29 PM
Wait, wasn't the depleted council housing stock a good thing?
I expect it wasn't a good thing for the people who couldn't afford to buy it as it was sold off; and that might include many of the people hit by the peak unemployment at the time.
Just a guess, though.
Nope, only the occupier had the right to buy.
The sale of council housing led to good and bad things as most major policies of this sort do. It improved neighbourhoods by giving people more of a stake and inclusiveness by allowing working class people a step on the property ladder and mobility. On the other hand is severely diminished the affordable housing stock, particularly given that local authorities were prohibited from using the receipts to construct or buy new housing. Worse they were forced to provide mortgages to the purchasers if they couldn't get one from a bank.
The idea was, IMO, good on balance. However it was implemented poorly and the diicsount given against market price at 40%-60% was (and remains) a disgrace.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 11:37:50 PM
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 11:12:34 PM
Kes is the awesome one which everyone of the last generation has seen.
Thanks, Tyr. And funnily enough, in the Wikipedia article about the film, there's a link to a source claiming that in the early 70s the British miners were among the lowest paid (http://books.google.com/books?id=dcL6w-VmjWwC&pg=PA63&dq=British+miners+lowest+paid+workers&hl=en&ei=ZOCyTfHCEMGa8QO2-oSWDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=British%20miners%20lowest%20paid%20workers&f=false) in the industrialized West, fighting to get 35 pounds a week.
While I don't usually like to ad-hom against anything.. but, seriously, Jonathan Pilger? WTF?
You got a second source for that?
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 08:39:47 PM
What sort of specifics? :mellow:
Numbers. Ratios. Comparitors.
The miners were getting about £25 per week on average prior to the 1972 strike against an average wage of about £44 (for everyone from janitors to CEOs).
Quote from: Gups on April 10, 2013, 07:38:34 AM
The miners were getting about £25 per week on average prior to the 1972 strike against an average wage of about £44 (for everyone from janitors to CEOs).
And that's why the 72 strike is so sympathetic. Inflation was something of an issue at that point, so their wages had to go up. Even 74 is easy to see from the point of view of the miners, given the high inflation of the time was whittling away their buying power. Sure, large and loud segments of the leadership were talking about 74 as a political action, but it's not like the miners were in it for the politics. They were in it to protect what they had gained in 72.
I remember when I read up about this when I was much younger, I was always wondering why the government was setting the wage, and why they didn't just ask their bosses for a raise. It wasn't until I was older that I got into the whole mechanism of industrial wage relations in the UK with their boards and whatnot.
Quote from: Viking on April 10, 2013, 05:33:25 AM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 11:37:50 PM
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 11:12:34 PM
Kes is the awesome one which everyone of the last generation has seen.
Thanks, Tyr. And funnily enough, in the Wikipedia article about the film, there's a link to a source claiming that in the early 70s the British miners were among the lowest paid (http://books.google.com/books?id=dcL6w-VmjWwC&pg=PA63&dq=British+miners+lowest+paid+workers&hl=en&ei=ZOCyTfHCEMGa8QO2-oSWDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=British%20miners%20lowest%20paid%20workers&f=false) in the industrialized West, fighting to get 35 pounds a week.
While I don't usually like to ad-hom against anything.. but, seriously, Jonathan Pilger? WTF?
You got a second source for that?
Dunno, just bumped into that source while looking up the Ken Loach film. :mellow:
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 10, 2013, 09:08:31 AM
Quote from: Viking on April 10, 2013, 05:33:25 AM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 11:37:50 PM
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 11:12:34 PM
Kes is the awesome one which everyone of the last generation has seen.
Thanks, Tyr. And funnily enough, in the Wikipedia article about the film, there's a link to a source claiming that in the early 70s the British miners were among the lowest paid (http://books.google.com/books?id=dcL6w-VmjWwC&pg=PA63&dq=British+miners+lowest+paid+workers&hl=en&ei=ZOCyTfHCEMGa8QO2-oSWDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=British%20miners%20lowest%20paid%20workers&f=false) in the industrialized West, fighting to get 35 pounds a week.
While I don't usually like to ad-hom against anything.. but, seriously, Jonathan Pilger? WTF?
You got a second source for that?
Dunno, just bumped into that source while looking up the Ken Loach film. :mellow:
While I don't usually like to ad-hom against anything.. but, seriously, Ken Loach? WTF?
My attitude towards Ken Loach is the same for my attitude towards RATM, excellent art, pathetic politics.
Quote from: Gups on April 10, 2013, 04:42:09 AM
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 12:09:45 AM
Quote from: Neil on April 09, 2013, 11:58:29 PM
Wait, wasn't the depleted council housing stock a good thing?
I expect it wasn't a good thing for the people who couldn't afford to buy it as it was sold off; and that might include many of the people hit by the peak unemployment at the time.
Just a guess, though.
Nope, only the occupier had the right to buy.
The sale of council housing led to good and bad things as most major policies of this sort do. It improved neighbourhoods by giving people more of a stake and inclusiveness by allowing working class people a step on the property ladder and mobility. On the other hand is severely diminished the affordable housing stock, particularly given that local authorities were prohibited from using the receipts to construct or buy new housing. Worse they were forced to provide mortgages to the purchasers if they couldn't get one from a bank.
The idea was, IMO, good on balance. However it was implemented poorly and the diicsount given against market price at 40%-60% was (and remains) a disgrace.
I am not sure how it could have been done differently without displacing all those people which would have been the real disgrace.
@ Jacob, what is your view of the cold hearted "Bitch" now?
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 11:21:39 AM@ Jacob, what is your view of the cold hearted "Bitch" now?
I don't have a strong opinion of her, and to be honest I never did; she's too remote for me.
I think she was a very strong person and leader; that she made the decisions she thought were right including significant reforms she (and many others) thought were necessary. She presided over - and set the direction for - significant economic and social change in her nation in which many prospered, but many were left in a much shittier situation than when she started. She had little pity or help to offer those who were not winners in the Britain she created.
In broad strokes, I think she had to deal with the unions and national industries and the economy, and the general direction she took was necessary; the break from moribund socialism had to come. Economically she was basically right, socially she was not, and her policies created too many victims. Maybe it was unavoidable collateral damage, maybe not; but the impact was significant and rather rough if you had to bear it.
I have no personal animus towards her whatsoever. I would never call her a cold hearted bitch; but I certainly understand the reason why many do. I also understand why many think highly of her.
The only issue I can think of where I instinctually support her is the Falklands.
Question for you, CC - how did the anti-Thatcher vitriol manifest itself in the Billy Elliot production you saw? Was it significantly different from the movie (if you saw that)?
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 11:52:34 AM
Question for you, CC - how did the anti-Thatcher vitriol manifest itself in the Billy Elliot production you saw? Was it significantly different from the movie (if you saw that)?
I didnt see the movie so I can't comment on the differences but what struck me in the stage production was there was one stage set which had a giant blow up head and hands of Thatcher which her portrayed her not unlike the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. I have read that some on social media had advocated the purchase of the song from the Wizard of Oz "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to make it the best seller on the day of her death so I feel a bit reinforced in my initial view.
The second thing was in the program for the show there was an "historical" explanation for the context of the play which pointed out there were only two working coal mines in all of Britain and that Britain imported 98% of all its coal today all thanks to Thatcher closing down the mines. As I understand it that is factually incorrect but of course plays to the misconception of those who wish to vilify her. Something I thought odd for an American touring company to do but I suppose they simply replicated whatever the original material produced in Britian might have said and so the historical inaccuracy was simply passed on without thought.
I could understand the labour strife and the strike being an important backdrop to the play. And the songs where filled with references to that conflict. That was not suprising and I thought rather well done. The other stuff was, I thought, over the top and designed to vilify rather than provide context.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 12:20:03 PMI didnt see the movie so I can't comment on the differences but what struck me in the stage production was there was one stage set which had a giant blow up head and hands of Thatcher which her portrayed her not unlike the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. I have read that some on social media had advocated the purchase of the song from the Wizard of Oz "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to make it the best seller on the day of her death so I feel a bit reinforced in my initial view.
The second thing was in the program for the show there was an "historical" explanation for the context of the play which pointed out there were only two working coal mines in all of Britain and that Britain imported 98% of all its coal today all thanks to Thatcher closing down the mines. As I understand it that is factually incorrect but of course plays to the misconception of those who wish to vilify her. Something I thought odd for an American touring company to do but I suppose they simply replicated whatever the original material produced in Britian might have said and so the historical inaccuracy was simply passed on without thought.
I could understand the labour strife and the strike being an important backdrop to the play. And the songs where filled with references to that conflict. That was not suprising and I thought rather well done. The other stuff was, I thought, over the top and designed to vilify rather than provide context.
Heh... yeah, that does seem to be reflecting a received agenda as you suggest. As I recall the film, it didn't have anything like that. I mean, it could easily be seen as anti-Thatcher in that it primarily took place in an environment where everyone would loathe her, and you could readily see why. But it wasn't about Thatcher in particular as I recall it; she just loomed large in background because, well, she loomed large at the time.
Another explanation of the anti-Thatcher stuff you mention could be than rather than uncritically passing along stuff from the original production, they felt the need to explain the anti-Thatcher undercurrent (of the characters etc) to an audience they assume would be unaware of the situation in the UK at the time. And in doing so, they went for a simplistic villain portrayal for whatever reason (because they adopted the miner's views/ because they had a negative opinion of Thatcher themselves/ because they thought it more satisfying to have a palpable villain in the piece)... that's idle speculation on my part, and doesn't really change the end result.
But yeah, I can see why you'd be surprised that the "objective" narrator voice seemed to be so strongly anti-Thatcher, especially in an American production. I don't recall the film having that.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:47:56 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2013, 10:43:30 PM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 09, 2013, 10:32:45 PM
As a feature of this global news event, I'm looking at "Boys from the Blackstuff"; any good, Britons?
Yes. Amazing TV.
Any recommendation on a Ken Loach to start with? I love Mike Leigh, but if I hadn't stumbled upon "Naked," I doubt I'd ever have gotten into it.
Leigh is brilliant.
Quote from: Neil on April 09, 2013, 10:49:28 PMHell, the only thing keeping the Communist Party in the UK alive after Hungary was the radicalization of the trade unions, and as you well know the more militant wings of the Labour Party were no joke either. Wilson's platform in 74 was pretty radical, after all.
I'd put it the other way round. The far-left as a big movement were ended in this country by Hungary. I think after that they realise the only way they'll have power is through entryism - which happens to some unions and to the Labour Party.
Wilson in 74 was still nothing on Foot :lol:
QuoteAny recommendation on a Ken Loach to start with? I love Mike Leigh, but if I hadn't stumbled upon "Naked," I doubt I'd ever have gotten into it.
I'd say 'Kes' too. I also really love 'The Navigators', which is about rail privatisation. 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley' is outstanding as well, but in a different vein to lots of Loach's films.
I'd be interested in an American perspective on 'Bread and Roses', I enjoyed it a lot but I'm a little suspicious when so English a film-maker as Loach does a film somewhere else.
QuoteI didnt see the movie so I can't comment on the differences but what struck me in the stage production was there was one stage set which had a giant blow up head and hands of Thatcher which her portrayed her not unlike the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. I have read that some on social media had advocated the purchase of the song from the Wizard of Oz "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to make it the best seller on the day of her death so I feel a bit reinforced in my initial view.
A lot of theatre directors and set designers tend to be quite literal. I can see that being about how she loomed at the time over the conflict and representing how she was perceived within the community - other-worldly, distant, omnipotent.
QuoteLeigh is brilliant.
Yes he is :wub:
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 11:49:36 AM
She had little pity or help to offer those who were not winners in the Britain she created.
This is one of the myths that i have always found most peculiar. Yes, there were inevitable job losses associated with the closing down of the government teat for unprofitable businesses, but there were training programs (I remember a youth training scheme that was considered widely successful). The biggest losers in the "Britain she created" were the Northern Irish, much worse hit than Northern England or Wales or Scotland. Yet Northern Ireland rebounded. I don't see it as Thatcher having "little pity or help to offer those who were not winners," so much as it was that many groups felt themselves unable and/or unwilling to change, and so were left behind in the "Britain she created."
Now, there was definitely an air of "let them eat cake" in the Thatcher government, as i recall (and I did live in the UK during her premiership), but I think "little pity or help to offer" is an overstatement and a simplification that obscures more than it illuminates.
You may be right grumbler, but it doesn't seem to be a view that has wide currency. I mean, I don't think Tyr's views make him an outlier for his or his parents' demographic.
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 09:25:20 PM
You may be right grumbler, but it doesn't seem to be a view that has wide currency. I mean, I don't think Tyr's views make him an outlier for his or his parents' demographic.
Tyr's also enraged by the north Americans use of the word candy, so he may not be the best gauge.
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 09:25:20 PM
You may be right grumbler, but it doesn't seem to be a view that has wide currency. I mean, I don't think Tyr's views make him an outlier for his or his parents' demographic.
Eh and thinking Obama is hitler is not an outlier for alot of demographics I see around here. Whether that view is justified is something different than alot of people feeling a certain way.
Okay I had to go read up a little on the '84 strike & I'm left with the question-- what realistic alternative did Thatcher have to the course she chose?
Quote from: Valmy on April 10, 2013, 09:53:34 PMEh and thinking Obama is hitler is not an outlier for alot of demographics I see around here. Whether that view is justified is something different than alot of people feeling a certain way.
I'm not sure what your point is?
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 09:47:33 PMTyr's also enraged by the north Americans use of the word candy, so he may not be the best gauge.
That's not particular outlandish compared to the idiosyncracies of various languishites :mellow:
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 10:27:38 PM
Quote from: Valmy on April 10, 2013, 09:53:34 PMEh and thinking Obama is hitler is not an outlier for alot of demographics I see around here. Whether that view is justified is something different than alot of people feeling a certain way.
I'm not sure what your point is?
My point is I do not get what your point is. So what alot of people have a certain view?
QuoteI didnt see the movie so I can't comment on the differences but what struck me in the stage production was there was one stage set which had a giant blow up head and hands of Thatcher which her portrayed her not unlike the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. I have read that some on social media had advocated the purchase of the song from the Wizard of Oz "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to make it the best seller on the day of her death so I feel a bit reinforced in my initial view.
t.
Sounds strange.
The film didn't have any gigantic inflatable Thatchers no. It was able to show the bad stuff in a much more realistic manner however, IIRC there were scenes of police brutality, news reports from the time, etc...
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 09:47:33 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 09:25:20 PM
You may be right grumbler, but it doesn't seem to be a view that has wide currency. I mean, I don't think Tyr's views make him an outlier for his or his parents' demographic.
Tyr's also enraged by the north Americans use of the word candy, so he may not be the best gauge.
:blink:
I am?
Quote from: Valmy on April 10, 2013, 10:34:15 PMMy point is I do not get what your point is. So what alot of people have a certain view?
Given how ready you are to mock Tyr for his misunderstandings of American culture and politics, I find it somewhat absurd how ready you are to tell him that you have a better understanding of events that played out in his community; especially when the things he says aren't particularly outside of the mainstream in the UK.
I mean it's not like Sheilbh or Gups are saying that Northerners, the poor, and the industrial working class did well during Thatcher's government either.
To generalize, it seems to me that the argument of many of the North American Thatcher fans on languish goes something like this:
1) Thatcher's actions were justified and necessary given the realities she faced.
2) Because her actions were justified and necessary, the negative impacts are irrelevant and can be dismissed; because, you know, they were unavoidable.
3) ... or taking it one step further, there weren't really any significant negative impact at all. This results in some puzzlement at people who claim there were.
So to address each of them from my POV:
I think 1) is a perfectly defensible position, and it's not one I'm interested in contesting. I mean, I'm sure there are all sorts of disagreements that can be had about specific details and individual decisions that could have altered the tenor of her tenure, and about economic choices that could have made things turn out more or less bad, but I don't have enough command of the details to do so myself. I'd be interested in following an exchange between people who do; I don't know if anyone at languish is up for that task, however.
As for 2), I think it's an opinion you can only reasonably hold if you're completely removed from the events and consequences in question; furthermore, it's unreasonable to expect people whose lives were in fact affected by them to blithely dismiss them as you do.
And 3) is just plain silly.
Basically, I think Thatcher more or less did what she had to, but that it hurt a lot of people and that sucks.
Seems like plenty of people are hoping to turn it into me arguing that she shouldn't have done what she did, but I'm not. So then it becomes about whether it sucked that people got hurt, and I think it does; I'm not quite clear to what degree people disagree with that. Finally, it seems that there's a strain of argument that goes that people did not get hurt which I find, frankly, preposterous.
As for people claiming Obama is Hitler, I don't really care and don't think it's relevant to any of these discussions.
Good dodge, 8.0.
Wasn't a troll, as I wasn't expecting a response from you. Bad call. You made a Ad populum fallacy and Valmy called you on it.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 10, 2013, 11:39:49 PM
Wasn't a troll, as I wasn't expecting a response from you.
:)
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 11:26:21 PM
Given how ready you are to mock Tyr for his misunderstandings of American culture and politics, I find it somewhat absurd how ready you are to tell him that you have a better understanding of events that played out in his community; especially when the things he says aren't particularly outside of the mainstream in the UK.
Bullshit I am not ready to do any such thing. If I felt I had a good understanding of that I would not be in this thread reading what people's views were. It is precisely that I do not get it that I enjoy discussing Thatcher and that era in Britain.
QuoteAs for people claiming Obama is Hitler, I don't really care and don't think it's relevant to any of these discussions.
You seemed to be shooting down Grumbler based on nothing else than the fact that it does not match with certain mainstream views. I only used the Obama thing to show that mainstream views do not always mean accuracy and meaningfulness. I am not saying mainstream views may not be very valid indeed, but they do not necessarily so. So the appeal to the crowd I found odd.
Quote from: Valmy on April 10, 2013, 11:54:42 PMBullshit I am not ready to do any such thing. If I felt I had a good understanding of that I would not be in this thread reading what people's views were. It is precisely that I do not get it that I enjoy discussing Thatcher and that era in Britain.
My apologies then, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying Tyr's views were unjustified since they were as reasonable as people who thought Obama was Hitler.
QuoteYou seemed to be shooting down Grumbler based on nothing else than the fact that it does not match with certain mainstream views. I only used the Obama thing to show that mainstream views do not always mean accuracy and meaningfulness. I am not saying mainstream views may not be very valid indeed, but they do not necessarily so. So the appeal to the crowd I found odd.
It was not an appeal to the crowd, it was an appeal to the people who've directly experienced the effects of the policies in question, something which I thought relevant when discussing the effects of the policies in question.
Since you ignored the bulk of my post, let me ask you a question instead: what's your opinion of Thatcher, and of the people who loathe her? You said earlier you weren't surprised by the outpouring of spite; what do you think the sources are?
Commentary:
Quote
One Sunday recently while staying in London, I took a stroll in the gardens of Temple, the insular clod of quads and offices between the Strand and the Embankment. It's kind of a luxury rent-controlled ghetto for lawyers and barristers, and there is a beautiful tailors, a fine chapel, established by the Knights Templar (from which the compound takes its name), a twee cottage designed by Sir Christopher Wren and a rose garden; which I never promised you.
My mate John and I were wandering there together, he expertly proselytising on the architecture and the history of the place, me pretending to be Rumpole of the Bailey (quietly in my mind), when we spied in the distant garden a hunched and frail figure, in a raincoat, scarf about her head, watering the roses under the breezy supervision of a masticating copper. "What's going on there, mate?" John asked a nearby chippy loading his white van. "Maggie Thatcher," he said. "Comes here every week to water them flowers." The three of us watched as the gentle horticultural ritual was feebly enacted, then regarded the Iron Lady being helped into the back of a car and trundling off. In this moment she inspired only curiosity, a pale phantom, dumbly filling her day. None present eyed her meanly or spoke with vitriol and it wasn't until an hour later that I dreamt up an Ealing comedy-style caper in which two inept crooks kidnap Thatcher from the garden but are unable to cope with the demands of dealing with her, and finally give her back. This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. In her diminished presence I stared like an amateur astronomer unable to describe my awe at this distant phenomenon.
When I was a kid, Thatcher was the headmistress of our country. Her voice, a bellicose yawn, somehow both boring and boring – I could ignore the content but the intent drilled its way in. She became leader of the Conservatives the year I was born and prime minister when I was four. She remained in power till I was 15. I am, it's safe to say, one of Thatcher's children. How then do I feel on the day of this matriarchal mourning?
I grew up in Essex with a single mum and a go-getter Dagenham dad. I don't know if they ever voted for her, I don't know if they liked her. My dad, I suspect, did. He had enough Del Boy about him to admire her coiffured virility – but in a way Thatcher was so omnipotent; so omnipresent, so omni-everything that all opinion was redundant.
As I scan the statements of my memory bank for early deposits (it'd be a kid's memory bank account at a neurological NatWest where you're encouraged to become a greedy little capitalist with an escalating family of porcelain pigs), I see her in her hairy helmet, condescending on Nationwide, eviscerating eunuch MPs and baffled BBC fuddy duddies with her General Zodd stare and coldly condemning the IRA. And the miners. And the single mums. The dockers. The poll-tax rioters. The Brixton rioters, the Argentinians, teachers; everyone actually.
Margaret Thatcher visits Falkland Islands Margaret Thatcher visiting British troops on the Falkland Islands in 1983: the war was a turning point in her premiership. Photograph: taken from picture library
Thinking about it now, when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman.
Perhaps my early apathy and indifference are a result of what Thatcher deliberately engendered, the idea that "there is no such thing as society", that we are alone on our journey through life, solitary atoms of consciousness. Or perhaps it was just because I was a little kid and more interested in them Weetabix skinheads, Roland Rat and Knight Rider. Either way, I'm an adult now and none of those things are on telly any more so there's no excuse for apathy.
When John Lennon was told of Elvis Presley's death, he famously responded: "Elvis died when he joined the army," meaning of course, that his combat clothing and clipped hair signalled the demise of the thrusting, Dionysian revolution of which he was the immaculate emblem.
When I awoke today on LA time my phone was full of impertinent digital eulogies. It'd be disingenuous to omit that there were a fair number of ding-dong-style celebratory messages amidst the pensive reflections on the end of an era. Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. "I thought I'd be overjoyed, but really it's just ... another one bites the dust ..." This demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.
Perhaps, though, Thatcher "the monster" didn't die yesterday from a stroke, perhaps that Thatcher died as she sobbed self-pitying tears as she was driven, defeated, from Downing Street, ousted by her own party. By then, 1990, I was 15, adolescent and instinctively anti-establishment enough to regard her disdainfully. I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. I was on my own. We are all on our own. Norman Tebbit, one of Thatcher's acolytes and fellow "Munsters evacuee", said when the National Union of Mineworkers eventually succumbed to the military onslaught and starvation over which she presided: "We didn't just break the strike, we broke the spell." The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. The spell of community.
Those strikes were confusing to me as a child. All of the Tory edicts that bludgeoned our nation, as my generation squirmed through ghoulish puberty, were confusing. When all the public amenities were flogged, the adverts made it seem to my childish eyes fun and positive, jaunty slogans and affable British stereotypes jostling about in villages, selling people companies that they'd already paid for through tax. I just now watched the British Gas one again. It's like a whimsical live-action episode of Postman Pat where his cat is craftily carved up and sold back to him.
The Orgreave miners The Orgreave miners' strike in 1984. Photograph: Alamy
"The News" was the pompous conduit through which we suckled at the barren baroness through newscaster wet-nurses, naturally; not direct from the steel teat. Jan Leeming, Sue Lawley, Moira Stuart – delivering doctrine with sterile sexiness, like a butterscotch-scented beige vapour. To use a less bizarre analogy: if Thatcher was the headmistress, they were junior teachers, authoritative but warm enough that you could call them "mum" by accident. You could never call Margaret Mother by mistake. For a national matriarch she is oddly unmaternal. I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. "Thatcher as mother" seemed, to my tiddly mind, anathema. How could anyone who was so resolutely Margaret Thatcher be anything else? In the Meryl Streep film, The Iron Lady, it's the scenes of domesticity that appear most absurd. Knocking up a flan for Denis or helping Carol with her algebra or Mark with his gun-running, are jarring distractions from the main narrative; woman as warrior queen.
It always struck me as peculiar, too, when the Spice Girls briefly championed Thatcher as an early example of girl power. I don't see that. She is an anomaly; a product of the freak-onomy of her time. Barack Obama, interestingly, said in his statement that she had "broken the glass ceiling for other women". Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. She is an icon of individualism, not of feminism.
I have few recollections of Thatcher after the slowly chauffeured, weepy Downing Street cortege. I'd become a delinquent, living on heroin and benefit fraud.
There were sporadic resurrections. She would appear in public to drape a hankie over a model BA plane tailfin because she disliked the unpatriotic logo with which they'd replaced the union flag (maybe don't privatise BA then), or to shuffle about some country pile arm in arm with a doddery Pinochet and tell us all what a fine fellow he was. It always irks when rightwing folk demonstrate in a familial or exclusive setting the values that they deny in a broader social context. They're happy to share big windfall bonuses with their cronies, they'll stick up for deposed dictator chums when they're down on their luck, they'll find opportunities in business for people they care about. I hope I'm not being reductive but it seems Thatcher's time in power was solely spent diminishing the resources of those who had least for the advancement of those who had most. I know from my own indulgence in selfish behaviour that it's much easier to get what you want if you remove from consideration the effect your actions will have on others.
Is that what made her so formidable, her ability to ignore the suffering of others? Given the nature of her legacy "survival of the fittest" – a phrase that Darwin himself only used twice in On the Origin of Species, compared to hundreds of references to altruism, love and cooperation, it isn't surprising that there are parties tonight in Liverpool, Glasgow and Brixton – from where are they to have learned compassion and forgiveness?
The blunt, pathetic reality today is that a little old lady has died, who in the winter of her life had to water roses alone under police supervision. If you behave like there's no such thing as society, in the end there isn't. Her death must be sad for the handful of people she was nice to and the rich people who got richer under her stewardship. It isn't sad for anyone else. There are pangs of nostalgia, yes, because for me she's all tied up with Hi-De-Hi and Speak and Spell and Blockbusters and "follow the bear". What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. All of us that grew up under Thatcher were taught that it is good to be selfish, that other people's pain is not your problem, that pain is in fact a weakness and suffering is deserved and shameful. Perhaps there is resentment because the clemency and respect that are being mawkishly displayed now by some and haughtily demanded of the rest of us at the impending, solemn ceremonial funeral, are values that her government and policies sought to annihilate.
I can't articulate with the skill of either of "the Marks" – Steel or Thomas – why Thatcher and Thatcherism were so bad for Britain but I do recall that even to a child her demeanour and every discernible action seemed to be to the detriment of our national spirit and identity. Her refusal to stand against apartheid, her civil war against the unions, her aggression towards our neighbours in Ireland and a taxation system that was devised in the dark ages, the bombing of a retreating ship – it's just not British.
I do not yet know what effect Margaret Thatcher has had on me as an individual or on the character of our country as we continue to evolve. As a child she unnerved me but we are not children now and we are free to choose our own ethical codes and leaders that reflect them.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher
Why must the British be such a mean spirited bunch?
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2013, 01:01:56 AM
Why must the British be such a mean spirited bunch?
It's in their nature. Much like the Germans.
I didn't care for Reagan, but I didn't have a party when he died.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2013, 01:06:54 AM
I didn't care for Reagan, but I didn't have a party when he died.
Because we have class. Unlike the Limey's. They have bad teeth too.
QuoteI didn't care for Reagan, but I didn't have a party when he died.
I'm no expert on American politics so I could be wrong but I don't think he fucked up America anywhere near as badly as Thatcher did Britain. Not in the short term anyway.
Quote from: 11B4V on April 11, 2013, 01:10:45 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2013, 01:06:54 AM
I didn't care for Reagan, but I didn't have a party when he died.
Because we have class. Unlike the Limey's. They have bad teeth too.
Irony?
As those are two areas in which Americans are famously bad.
According to google search, some Americans actually did celebrate Reagan's death.
But I didn't.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2013, 01:52:58 AM
But I didn't.
But neither anyone here partied because Thatcher died, so in any case we are talking about
other people.
This topic has become very boring
Quote from: Tyr on April 11, 2013, 12:18:12 AMI can't articulate with the skill of either of "the Marks" – Steel or Thomas – why Thatcher and Thatcherism were so bad for Britain but I do recall that even to a child her demeanour and every discernible action seemed to be to the detriment of our national spirit and identity.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher
Well, I can't say I'm surprised by the fact that I'll never see eye-to-eye on the issues of "national spirit and identity" with Russell Brand since my impression at the time was the exact opposite.
Still, since we're on opposite sides of the political spectrum that's hardly ground-breaking news. I think he's a twat; if he ever met or got to know about me I'm sure I'd be a "Fascist" or something more unpleasant.
Admittedly, as a successor to George Cole's "Flash Harry", he wasn't bad at all... :hmm:
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 09:25:20 PM
You may be right grumbler, but it doesn't seem to be a view that has wide currency. I mean, I don't think Tyr's views make him an outlier for his or his parents' demographic.
I can't talk for Tyr. All I can tell you is my experience from having lived in Britain at the time. Perhaps your second-hand anecdotes about how Thatcher really felt are more reliable than my memory of what she did.
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 11:26:21 PM
Seems like plenty of people are hoping to turn it into me arguing that she shouldn't have done what she did, but I'm not. So then it becomes about whether it sucked that people got hurt, and I think it does; I'm not quite clear to what degree people disagree with that. Finally, it seems that there's a strain of argument that goes that people did not get hurt which I find, frankly, preposterous.
I don't think the issue is whether or not people were hurt, nor is anyone contesting that it sucks to lose your job. For me, at least, the issue is that people continue to hold that grudge to the extent that almost a quarter-century after she left office, people celebrate her death and argue that, in fact, what she did was unnecessary. That kind of myopia (as I see it) is fairly uncommon given the overwhelming consensus that her policies were successful enough to be continued by her political opposition years later.
Personally, I don't think it has to do with Thatcher at all; it has to do with the parochialism of the North of England, and especially resentment over the exodus of the educated Northern youth to the South.
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 01:44:38 AM
According to google search, some Americans actually did celebrate Reagan's death.
Well, we all know that "according to google search" is as reliable as a source can get! :lmfao:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/11/bbc-ding-dong-thatcher-facebook?CMP=SOCNETTXT6966
QuoteBBC to play Ding Dong in chart show despite anti-Thatcher Facebook push
Radio 1 says it may ask Newsbeat reporter to explain context of song, as top five entry poses test for corporation's new chief
BBC Radio 1 is planning to play Ding Dong the Witch is Dead, the Wizard of Oz track being bought by anti-Thatcher protesters in the wake of the former prime minister's death, on its chart show on Sunday.
However, in what is thought to be a first for the BBC chart show, the corporation is considering having a Newsbeat reporter explain why a song from the 30s is charting to Radio 1's target audience of 16- to 24-year-olds – none of whom will remember Margaret Thatcher's controversial premiership.
In what could be seen as the first major test for the new director general, Tony Hall, BBC insiders said the track is likely to be played if it makes it into the top of the charts in defiance of criticism from Tory supporters.
The Official Charts Company said on Thursday morning that Ding Dong the Witch is Dead was on course to reach number four, up from 10 the previous day.
The Daily Mail has been leading the charge against Facebook and Twitter campaigners trying to push the song, which has become the anthem of anti-Thatcher protesters.
In Thursday's Daily Mail, the paper branded Romany Blythe, the woman who set up the Facebook page "The Witch is Dead" as a "teacher of hatred", quoting critics who condemned plans for Thatcher "death parties" as "revolting" and "offensive".
Radio 1 insiders said if the song does make it to the top five, there would be no reason not to play the track.
However, it is understood The Official Chart Show presenter Jameela Jamil might have to invite a reporter from Radio 1's Newsbeat to explain to listeners why a track they are unlikely to be familiar with has charted.
"Among the 16- to 24-year-olds, a lot of people are saying they are not 100% sure who Thatcher is. Even though this seems extraordinary, they may not understand who that song would chart," said a BBC source.
The BBC does not always play every song in the top 10 – a track that had been ranked for weeks or months may not be aired under normal circumstances, but it is unlikely to shy away from playing a track that has just charted, even if it is effectively a novelty song.
A decision about what will be played on Sunday's Radio 1 chart show will not be made until Sunday morning when the final sales data comes in.
A BBC spokesman said it would not make a decision on the grounds of taste or politics and pointed out that the song was not on the Radio 1 playlist, which is compiled by staff according to the tastes of the youth audience.
"The Official Chart Show on Sunday is a historical and factual account of what the British public has been buying and we will make a decision about playing it when the final chart positions are clear," the spokesman added.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbYtqAWDF2U ?
(possibly NSFW in the square part of the world)
Quote from: grumbler on April 11, 2013, 06:14:41 AMI don't think the issue is whether or not people were hurt, nor is anyone contesting that it sucks to lose your job. For me, at least, the issue is that people continue to hold that grudge to the extent that almost a quarter-century after she left office, people celebrate her death and argue that, in fact, what she did was unnecessary. That kind of myopia (as I see it) is fairly uncommon given the overwhelming consensus that her policies were successful enough to be continued by her political opposition years later.
Personally, I don't think it has to do with Thatcher at all; it has to do with the parochialism of the North of England, and especially resentment over the exodus of the educated Northern youth to the South.
Fair enough.
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/psf_statistics.htm
I was looking at the public debt figures, trying to square my mother's remembrance of Thatcher "paying off a lot of debt that had been hanging round for decades as a millstone" with the apparently more common feeling that "nothing special happened" (given our current debt crisis, it's interesting that no-one would be mentioning it if my mother's recollection was correct.)
While the issue is that I can't immediately lay my hands on the debt profile of what was paid off (long term debt as my mother's recollection as an accountant would indicate or short term debt) it actually is quite startling from the raw figures how quickly the percentage fell - PSND fell from 45.1% in 1984-5 to 26% in 1990-91. I'd rate that as an achievement she should be remembered for, albeit one unfortunately marred by the fact that it was facilitated partly by an unsustainable boom.
---------------
As for her being pro-Apartheid?
What a crock; using evidence that she opposed sanctions when recent British history had shown how ineffective they were in the case of Rhodesia and that she considered the ANC a terrorist organisation at a time when it's leadership refused to condemn "guerrilla attacks and mob killings of black policemen, local officials and their families" (quoted from Wikipedia for convenience) while the PIRA was conducting a terror campaign with similar targeting criteria across Northern Ireland and mainland Britain is not particularly convincing.
Martinus, do you dispute the facts of the Wikipedia article regarding her attitude to Apartheid? Calling it "unacceptable" in a face-to-face meeting with the South African President hardly seems to me to be the words of a supporter of an institution.
------------
And now back to one of my favourite "hobby horses"...
It's also interesting how clearly the figures show when Brown, as chancellor, went "off the rails"...the percentages rise due to the early 1990s recession, then the percentage drops again during the late Major years and during Blair's first ministry when a lot of the spending plans of the Major government were adhered to for a while. Then from 2001 the PSND percentage starts to rise 7 years before the recession/depression of 2008 onwards.
Now I was aware of this before today, I'd just relied on secondary sources for the info rather than the Treasury's own data. I can recall Richard Hakluyt pointing out the same thing a couple of years ago, and on more than one occasion - Brown raised the debt at a time when it should have been stable or falling and that's part of why we're in such a mess now as we feel that we are unable to raise government spending to compensate for the reduction in consumer demand (at its' most basic, anyway.)
Quote from: Agelastus on April 10, 2013, 04:13:38 AM
And here's one of the places where I don't entirely disagree with Tyr; Major privatised the railways in very messed up fashion, one that Labour, despite being given the opportunity on more than one occasion, failed to fix (there's too many companies for the size of the network, and because they're so small track maintenance got hived off into another company. Four of five franchises that also had the role of maintaining the tracks would have worked much better, especially if given 20-25 year franchises. Should have cost a lot less in subsidy as well, both direct and indirect.)
Where I would disagree with Tyr no doubt would be that after renationalisation I would have re-privatised but in a more sensible fashion as described above.
I wouldn't totally disagree with that sort of system.
I would question though; how would a private company whose sole goal is profits provide better service than a public service? Railways aren't really an area where competition works so well once the market is mature, for true competition you would need multiple lines serving the same places which is largely impractical.
The way Japan privatised its railways has a lot of good sides - permanent regional companies made of the former nationalised network, allowing totally private sector companies to build their own lines, etc...
In the more rural parts of the country the companies are largely just private in name only, remaining super subsidised government controlled entities, in southern honshu though they're becoming very succesful with the high speed lines subsidising the local lines.
The down side comes though in their pursuit of profits at the expense of service. There are a lot of government controls to stop them just closing down rural lines but they do like to try and make service on them as bad as possible in the hope less people will use them and they'll be allowed to close them down the line (no pun intended).
Railways compete with buses, cars, and planes. Sometimes with ships.
Quote from: Agelastus on April 11, 2013, 06:26:46 PM
While the issue is that I can't immediately lay my hands on the debt profile of what was paid off (long term debt as my mother's recollection as an accountant would indicate or short term debt) it actually is quite startling from the raw figures how quickly the percentage fell - PSND fell from 45.1% in 1984-5 to 26% in 1990-91. I'd rate that as an achievement she should be remembered for, albeit one unfortunately marred by the fact that it was facilitated partly by an unsustainable boom.
Interestingly she did this while running a deficit for 8 years and a surplus for 2-3. I'd be interested to read more, for example what was the effect of privatisation which would have moved public company debt off the books.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 11, 2013, 07:22:38 PM
Quote from: Agelastus on April 11, 2013, 06:26:46 PM
While the issue is that I can't immediately lay my hands on the debt profile of what was paid off (long term debt as my mother's recollection as an accountant would indicate or short term debt) it actually is quite startling from the raw figures how quickly the percentage fell - PSND fell from 45.1% in 1984-5 to 26% in 1990-91. I'd rate that as an achievement she should be remembered for, albeit one unfortunately marred by the fact that it was facilitated partly by an unsustainable boom.
Interestingly she did this while running a deficit for 8 years and a surplus for 2-3. I'd be interested to read more, for example what was the effect of privatisation which would have moved public company debt off the books.
Inflation and economic growth tend to pay the debt off for you, perhaps one reason why governments are often quite blase about borrowing. For instance, in 1990 (a bad year) we had growth of only 0.5% but inflation 0f 9.5%, so any debt that we had at the start of that year was effectively 10% smaller. Inflation was high towards the end of Thatcher's tenure (perhaps something the arch-monetarist should be criticised for, but generally isn't) and was probably the major factor in reducing the debt, which was hardly addressed at all in nominal terms.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 12, 2013, 12:28:02 AM
Inflation and economic growth tend to pay the debt off for you, perhaps one reason why governments are often quite blase about borrowing. For instance, in 1990 (a bad year) we had growth of only 0.5% but inflation 0f 9.5%, so any debt that we had at the start of that year was effectively 10% smaller. Inflation was high towards the end of Thatcher's tenure (perhaps something the arch-monetarist should be criticised for, but generally isn't) and was probably the major factor in reducing the debt, which was hardly addressed at all in nominal terms.
It is noticeable that the £ Sterling value of the debt doesn't show a similar trajectory; I hadn't realised the inflation-to-growth ratio was so bad though, especially since the government ran surpluses in the last couple of years of the period suggesting a very positive trend between growth and taxation compared to the earlier years.
And I don't think people blame her for the inflation for three reasons - firstly because although it had gone back up it was still well below what it had been at its height in the previous decade or 80/81. Secondly because the inflation rate was perceived in certain circles as being a consequence of the worldwide reaction of governments to Black Monday - certainly in the papers of the time there were fears that this was a precursor to a depression that the Wall Street Crash had been; it wasn't just Lawson who let the brakes loose (although he'd done it before the Crash in 1986*, probably why we "crunched" so badly later.) And thirdly because other issues dominate the story for those years (The Community Charge and the riots, the consecutive leadership challenges, the resignation of the "Old Guard", the beginning of the Tories feuding over Europe, Thatcher's resignation etc.)
*According to Wikipedia,anyway - but a quick glance at the BBC's brief budget notes shows that the final reduction of the lower rate of income tax to 25% (the long term goal set in 1979) and the reduction of the top rate from 60% to 40% (the first reduction since 1979) both occurred in the 1988 budget and look like obvious attempts to stimulate consumer spending. The 1987 budget's a traditional pre-election "give-away", and the 1986 budget isn't there in enough detail (although what is there looks like tinkering more than anything.)
Two "give away" budgets in a row (1987 and 1988) is, of course, a problem. As we found a couple of years later.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/budget97/background/bud1979_92.shtml
Quote from: Jacob on April 11, 2013, 12:14:51 AM
My apologies then, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying Tyr's views were unjustified since they were as reasonable as people who thought Obama was Hitler.
Yeah that was totally not what I was saying.
QuoteIt was not an appeal to the crowd, it was an appeal to the people who've directly experienced the effects of the policies in question, something which I thought relevant when discussing the effects of the policies in question.
Well I do not think they actually were the effects of the policies. I think people significantly overstate the ability of governments, particularly a middling one like Britain, to control international economic trends. The fact of the matter is most first world industry was going to be offshored for awhile. Thatcher could not wave a magic wand and make Asia and South America and so forth disappear or substantially check their impact on Britain and the rest of the third world. It was time for an economic equalization and it was going to be difficult for all of us...and it has been. It is my view that Britains who do not like this process blame it all on ideology and policy as if some sort of policy could have kept Asia, and China in particular, down forever. Eventually, and it happened sooner rather than later thanks to Deng, their massive labor resources were going to be felt in the world economy.
However I totally get where Tyr and company are coming from. We are engaged in a painful race to the bottom wagewise with the wealthy profiting from globalization while the working and middle classes suffer from having their labor be worth less. Even high skilled labor can be done cheaply overseas thanks to the internet and so forth. I think eventually the race to the bottom will be finished, it has occured far faster than I would have thought so far, and things will even out. My hope was that government welfare programs could carry us through these painful transitions, and for the most part they have, but right now the sovereign debt issue is making even that a dicey proposition. But Thatcher actively enjoyed this process it seems to me, as far as personal animosity is concerned, by glorifying in it so much and acting as if she set out to destroy the working classes and that somehow they deserved it. Perhaps this will end up basically being a good thing, better to focus popular anger on a dead politician than on foreigners taking our jobs or whatever.
QuoteSince you ignored the bulk of my post, let me ask you a question instead: what's your opinion of Thatcher, and of the people who loathe her? You said earlier you weren't surprised by the outpouring of spite; what do you think the sources are?
I think I addressed this a bit already but there is one thing I left out because I do not really understand it. The idea that a lack of regulations brought on the current economic crisis and that she and her ilk are ultimately responsible for that. That maybe true but exactly what sort of regulations are necessary is too arcane of a topic for me to get my head around. Supposedly Canada did it right but they might have just gotten lucky. The frustrating part to me is we see these economic bubbles forming all the time and everybody knows they are bubbles and everybody knows they will pop, and not only is my government completely surprised everytime but they tend to turn out even worse than we had expected...consistently. This phenomenon is also attributed to Thatcherism and perhaps that is fair and perhaps not.
My overall impression of Thatcher is she mostly did what had to be done, or rather what Britain was forced to do due to forces of history. Due, mostly to her own doing, she personally has taken on most of the credit and blame for this.
Heh only a few hundred showed up of the promised thousands to celebrate Thatchee's death.
What were you doing there?
Quote from: garbon on April 13, 2013, 08:36:02 PM
Heh only a few hundred showed up of the promised thousands to celebrate Thatchee's death.
Probably just the SWP and their hangers-on. Which is good news in my book, I didn't like the idea of mainstream socialists behaving in such a crass way.
Just read the Economist articles on Maggie.
Inflation was running at 24% in the UK when she hit the monetary brakes.
Yep. At the time of her election it was under 10% but a constant problem, peaked in 80 but due to later policies when she left inflation was around 12% again.
At least in the days of higher inflation salaries kept up. Now we have inflation of 2.8% and a retail price index of 3.3% and employers have taken the opportunity to stop pay rises altogether because of the "harsh economic climate" (I've been in this job for three years without an additional penny). This is despite the cost of everything, especially food, energy and fuel, rising unremittingly at far above inflation throughout. To date benefits have been index-linked, although the recent budget capped increases other than for pensions to 1%, but that's still 1% more than the employed are getting.