Breaking news: Margaret Thatcher has died

[derspiess]

I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.

  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

[CountDeMoney]

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.

[Habbaku]

I'm a little puzzled as to why Jake is putting so much energy into this.

  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

[Jacob]

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.

[Josquius]

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.

[Jacob]

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.

[derspiess]

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.

[Sheilbh]

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.

It's the amount of music, and a lot of it's good too. I thought this from the Guardian gave a good idea:

Musical 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

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?

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.

[katmai]

Don't worry DerSpicy, i always knew you were damaged in the area of politics.

[derspiess]

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.

[katmai]

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

[derspiess]

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??

[Sheilbh]

Seeing 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

[derspiess]

Yeah more likely to hear it from DerSpicy or Otto when Carter dies

That'd be Otto's thing.  Carter saddens me a lot more than he angers me.

[Jacob]

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.