When a figure of injustice dies, those who loved the injustice rally quickly to start screaming for respect in death and begin building the mythology that the injustice was righteous.
We saw it here with the death of Paul Holmes and the need to hold the petty bigotry he so enabled as the benchmark of broadcasting respectability.
Let’s be clear – Thatcher deserves no tears in death, she deserves contempt.
Margaret Thatcher was a neoliberal enemy of the people – pretending she deserves respect at her passing is dangerous myth making.
Other than destroying the working class in Britain, Thatcher helped cause the first Gulf War, passionately supported the 2003 re-invasion, She denounced Nelson Mandela and the ANC as a “terrorist”, and supported dictators like Pinochet, Saddam Hussein & General Suharto.
If there’s a hell, she deserves to be there
Let’s hope all the Iron Lady stood for will now rust.
John Margaret Thatcher Key
My name is John Margaret Thatcher Key
I’m cleaning out my whole country
I’ve just sorted out GCSB
No job’s too big or small for me
I’ll castrate the unions, crush the reds
Leave the old shivering in their beds
Bleed the young and when they’re bled
I’ll be Hawaii bound instead
I don’t tell lies I obfuscate
My forgetfulness I celebrate
And I always look after my mates
With jobs and low taxation rates
I have no real concerns or cares
I’m one of my favourite millionaires
When I retire there’ll be few tears
With a blind trust full of Kiwi’s shares
I’ve got Peter Dunne, the king of cranks
And kupapa mowrees in my ranks
For my policies I get “NO THANKS !”
But to get them through I’ve got John Banks
I love bright lights, I love the fame
While nobody can guess my game
I’ll add a knighthood to my name
A Baroness, at least a Dame
I lift my lip and snarl and sneer
When knuckleheads question my career
Then I smile and wave and show no fear
By declaring war on North Korea
Seaweed
8th April 2013
Brilliant! Good to see talented work in response to the work of the talentless.
Onya Seaweed!
Agreed Bomber her policies along with Reagans in the US were the blueprint for other developed nations including ours and look the mess we are in now no tears from me
Wasn’t she widely loved by people being oppressed by left wing dictatorships in places like Eastern Europe?
She was certainly loved by the people who ruled the right wing ones in Chile, Indonesia and South Africa.
People fighting the left wing dictatorships in Eastern Europe like seemed to like her http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10378091
Would you rather have been a protester in Poland or a protester in Chile?
Are you saying the brutal left wing dictatorships of eastern europe were better than the brutal right wing ones of say Chile?
Maybe the people in places like Czechoslovakia after 1968 or Hungary in 1956 would disagree with you.
“Maybe the people in places like Czechoslovakia after 1968 or Hungary in 1956 would disagree with you.”
Well, we aren’t talking about Czechoslovakia after ’68 or Hungary after ’56. We are talking about dictatorships in Thatcher’s times, a topic you yourself introduced Why did you suddenly shift the goalposts of your own discussion, George?
As for your other question, see which of the two had more disappearances and murders – Pinochet’s Chile, or Poland in the same era.
So how many people disappeared in Chile between 1979 and 1990 versus Poland in the same period?
So how many people disappeared in Chile between 1979 and 1990 versus Poland in the same period?
Dunno Gosman, what’s the correct answer?
I have no idea but Cemetry Jones thought it was important for some reason.
Gosman says:
April 9, 2013 at 9:10 pm
“I have no idea but Cemetry Jones thought it was important for some reason.”
Well, George suddenly lost his curiousity about his own point, which kinda diminished the returns. But the point I was interested in is that it seems pretty redundant to hail Thatcher for offering rhetorical support to dissidents in the eastern bloc while being an apologist for Pinochet and friends. That may or may not count as ‘some reason’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_disappearance#Chile
You will find that often when you live under a left OR right wing dictatorship people rally to the cause of the EXACT opposite to what they have. Whether Poles or Hungarians loved Thatcher or not is 100% irrelevant – they didn’t live under her – they only knew they hated what THEY had at the time and Thatcher represented to them the opposite. It really is as simple as that. Politicians use this exact behavioural tendency to demonise the CURRENT Government, and the idiot voters can be relied on to support the other side simply because it just can’t be as bad as what they now have. It generally is a case of out of the pot and into the pan. Rinse and repeat.
Exactly correct.
r
No, George. That is highly a simplistic generaliation.
I can tell you that Thatcher and Reagan were both feared as right wing lunatics with their fingers On The Button. The people of Eastern Europe, in the 1980s lived in fear that Reagan and Thatcher were preparing for WW3.
Remember the deployment of the Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe? Remember Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ programme?
Please don’t tell me that those two characters were somehopw regarded as “heroes” in Eastern Europe. They were more feared than admired.
In Eastern Europe you’ll find people who praise those who played a role in destroying the “Evil Empire”; Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, etc. What seems like an almost fanatical devotion to the Church and the idea the US is some sort of heaven, are sentiments that can also be found.
Today, however, many are disillusioned with the successor to “communism”. Having family in Poland and contacting them recently, the problems many people face there are very much the same as here but only worst; high unemployment, poverty, homelessness and prices.
The cheapest loaf of bread cost about three times more than here, most jobs available are casual and pay poorly. Electricity, gas and petrol prices are high that many people are very conservative with their usage and you’ll hear things like households only using one light bulb. Unemployment benefits are difficult to get and only last a limited time. Things are currently made worst with the harsh winter, particularly with heating.
My Brother-in-law had a business for many years that was successful but recently went bust after they did major work for a company that went bust and didn’t pay. This is a rather common occurrence, so many of the entrepreneurial middle class are struggling.
Many who experienced “communism” and are currently struggling now reminisce about how life was easier. The system was far from perfect but at least it delivered where the current system is failing. There was virtually no unemployment; everyone had accommodation, even if it was many sharing common facilities, kitchen, bathroom, etc. And necessities were affordable even if it meant standing in a queue for some time.
I’m no “communist” or advocate for “communism” but clearly neoliberalism is failing in many important areas particularly where social wellbeing is concerned. As my sister said: “The only reason people are not protesting is because the snow is thick”. Perhaps when the snow thaws many will take their discontent to the streets? After all discontent drove people to the streets to depose the previous system.
Exactly. The “freedom” that the Eastern Europeans wanted has turned so rotten that many look back on the horrors they lived under with nostalgia. Says a lot for what a paradise capitalism has created, and is continuing to make worse.
Yes, that is why they are all turning to the successor Communist parties in droves. Oh wait, no they aren’t.
For most former Eastern Bloc countries communism is associated with Russian occupation and therefore unpopular. The issue of low voter turnout and a declining population speaks for itself. Confidence in those running for office isn’t strong in many cases, hardly surprising with some of the bizarre promises made by contending parties if victorious; enticing voters with a container full of salami, giving flats to the tenants, unrealistic increases in pensions, being some examples.
The successor Communist Party in Russia consistently polls second largest party (though declining since its peak in the 90’s). Won the most seats in the 1995 parliamentary election and probably would have won the 1996 presidential election if it wasn’t for the rigged voting in the second round in favour of Yeltsin. Then again, how democratic are elections in modern Russia? Berezovsky’s treasonous puppet is the new Tsar.
Well, capitalism in Poland is working alright… not well, but alright. Then again, what do you expect from a country where you can set your calendar by which groups are rioting?
Care to expand on this? As far as I am aware Poland is in better shape than countries in Southern Europe.
Well said. The rot goes deep as evident with her son, the crook involved in the attempted coup in oil rich Equatorial Guinea.
With many of these neoliberal revolutionaries getting old enough to kick the bucket soon, the generations of lives they ruined have to endure their diseased media praising their legacy. Insult to injury – a fitting motto of neoliberalism.
I’m not sure that there would be room in hell for Thatcher. Along with Reagan, she must rank as one of the worst criminals in modern history.
It was under Thatcher that the loot-and-pollute-and-squander-and financialise-everything economy of the UK went into hyper-drive…. and naturally enough, burnt out.
Britain is now suffering the dire consequences of having an energy squandering, climate-wrecking, war criminal (several in fact) as leader and is in a hole it will never get out of.
“Thatcher,Thatcher, milk snatcher!’
They say you should only speak good of the dead…..Thatcher’s dead. Good!
(Should have happened 35yrs ago….)
She’s already shut several of Hell’s ‘uneconomic’ furnaces and Satan is sick of her dictatorial style.
Let’s give Margaret Thatcher credit. For speaking the truth. Once.
About Northern Ireland.
The history of Northern Ireland is a history of Britain’s manoeuvres to hold on to an essential part of the Empire — Belfast, with its port and its banking and its ship-building, and the linen industry beyond.
Britain held on to its major Irish outpost by fuelling division in the north, by giving one section of those there preference when it came to jobs, housing and education, and by establishing a rotten and corrupt voting system that always secured a majority for the British Crown, even when its loyalist voters were outnumbered.
When a Civil Rights movement appeared in the 1960s, Britain batoned and beat its supporters off the streets, interned hundreds in concentration camps and finally shot 14 peaceful marchers dead on Bloody Sunday.
When prisoners went on hunger strike in the early 1980s over their treatment in the prisons of the north, support groups appeared all over the world calling for justice in Northern Ireland. The British government, led by Thatcher, said these prisoners were nothing but criminals and allowed 10 men to die.
And then she famously said this.
She said of the Irish hunger strikers and their supporters, people like Bernadette Devlin, Eamon McCann, Bobby Sands and the tens of thousands of second-class citizens marching in the streets: “These people know nothing of democracy.”
Never spoke a truer word.
Rubbish. If you think most English give two hoots about Northern Ireland you haven’t met many English. Even if you were right just after the rest of Irish independence by the 1980’s Northern Ireland’s strategic significance was virtually nil.
Following your logic, Gosman: Rubbish. Armadillos are not carnivorous.
A view from Ireland —
Margaret Thatcher ‘shameful’ and ‘a miserable failure’
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has condemned the late Margaret Thatcher as ‘belligerent’ and ‘shameful’, accusing her of doing ‘great hurt’ to both Ireland and Britain.
The ex-MP criticised her for backing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s and 1980s and also opposing sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa.
And he described her Irish policy as ‘a failure’, causing ‘great suffering’ by a hardline stance against the Irish republican cause.
Mr Adams said: ‘Margaret Thatcher did great hurt to the Irish and British people during her time as British prime minister. Working class communities were devastated in Britain because of her policies.
“Her role in international affairs was equally belligerent whether in support of the Chilean dictator Pinochet, her opposition to sanctions against apartheid South Africa, and her support for the Khmer Rouge.’
Her backing for ‘old draconian militaristic policies’ prolonged the Irish ‘Troubles’, he claimed – accusing her of embracing ‘censorship, collusion and the killing of citizens by covert operations’.
‘Her Irish policy failed miserably,’ he added.
Mrs Thatcher escaped unhurt from the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Tory party conference of 1984. Five people were killed in the blast.
Mr Adams was elected to the House of Commons in 1983, the first Sinn Fein MP in Parliament since the 1950s – though he refused to take his seat.
The Thatcher government imposed a ban on his voice being broadcast in Britain during the 1980s, meaning actors had to deliver his lines in news reports.
BBC: Thatcher has died from a strike
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8527739/BBC-Thatcher-has-died-from-a-strike
In a hurry to break the news of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s death, the BBC made an embarrassing gaffe in which they claimed she had died of a “strike”.
A news story on the BBC’s mobile site ironically claimed the Iron Lady had been killed by industrial action.
“Baroness Thatcher dies: Reaction as former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dies following a strike, her spokesman says,” read the story.
Re: Communism & the free market, JK Galbraith said it best: “Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s the opposite.”
My theory is that the financialised globalism orthodoxy of Thatcher & Reagan is melting down, but it’s going to leave a vacuum with no obvious replacement in sight. The WashPost’s David Smick has more on the issue.
She had the lips of Marilyn Monroe
and the eyes of Caligula!
Why do you need a body count, Gosman?
Tell me, which is more horrific; young Chileans “disappeared”, murdered, and buried in secret unmarked graves?
Or young Hungarians machine-gunned as they made a run for the Austrian border?
Or Cambodians killed with a hammer blow to the head?
Don’t even try to provide an answer. There is none. There is no difference.
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