Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher has died. What postive contributions did Ms. Thatcer make to Great Britain and how do YOU remember her?
I think that a lot of it is down to the differences between the two cultures - although the UK and US share many things, political terminologies and ideologies seem to differ slightly, hence the confusion.
Before Thatcher, old school conservatives were right of centre - the old school conservatives I knew were usually local businessmen, bank managers, or rotary club members who believed in helping others to help themselves and maintaining thriving local communities. Labour were left of centre, and believed in supporting the rights of workers and some wealth distribution. They also believed in supporting local communities. As far as the National Health Service and the welfare state go, few politicians of any party sought to remove those - even Thatcher realised that attacking the NHS would be political suicide.
By British standards, Thatcher drifted to the right (Labour to the left) and became uber-conservative, but she was probably not particularly conservative by US standards (as far as I can make out from various conversations with Americans). Thus, it can become difficult to have a discussion between Americans and Brits when we have such differing initial starting points.
The term 'liberal' is another case in point - it has a completely different meaning on this side of the pond
This is exactly what I mean - you are welcome to have an opinion about Thatcher, but trying to tell people who lived under her rule that they are wrong is disingenuous. Seeing as you live in Georgia, how do you know what she was like? Personally, I regard your opinion to be almost completely worthless.
I have noticed that many Americans become irate when non-Americans criticise US internal politics - with justification. Yet, many feel free to comment about British politics and ignore the views of people who actually lived there.
Using this logic, I can safely say that Obama is the greatest President who has ever lived. Indeed, he is the greatest human being who has ever lived. He should be allowed to remain as President for as long as he wants and should be allowed to rewrite the constitution. Maybe we could make him the next British king because he is so unbelievably awesome.
^This
I was brought up in a single parent family and it did become very difficult - the Tories gradually demonised us, as they did with many sections of society. They started off by calling single mothers scroungers who should go out and work. Many tried, but childcare was rare in those days and usually cost more than they actually earned. Many mothers with children old enough to be left alone worked, but were soon criticised for neglecting their kids. Damned if they did, damned if they didn't. Having no money was no fun, but what hurt most was the stigma and the whispers at school and in the street - they get to you, however much you try to shrug them off.
My hatred of Thatcher and all she stood for is personal and I will never forgive her. The reason that so many people are angry isn't just what she did - it's the fact that she has been portrayed as some super-heroine who could do no wrong. This was intensified by the sheer number of people who never lived under Thatcher telling me how I should think and feel - I earned the right to have a negative opinion of her and don't feel any particular need to apologise for that. She destroyed communities and divided society, so I believe that the state funeral (in all but name) was a mistake that reopened old wounds - a small, private service would not have created so much resentment and anger.
I fully intended to celebrate during the funeral and play some anti-Thatcher songs. In the end, I sat in quiet contemplation with old, bitter memories, and raised a glass for those who did not make it through the dark years.
Now, it is time to move on and channel the internal anger into something constructive
Similar to Big Brother Napolitano!
Good post, Misty. Anyone who takes pleasure at the death of another has more than one screw loose.
I didn't agree with all that MT did, either, but to trash her after death shows a lack of respect for humankind in general.
She did what she thought was right - she had some success - she had some failure.
Those who denigrate her now are to be pitied.
Yeah turns out violent crime to suppress free speech is not covered under free expression, how strange
- ahorsebackposted 11 years ago
0 Thatcher had her "velvet moments" according to Hendrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker this week:
"The Iron Lady had her velvet moments. She told her ideological American cousin Ronald Reagan that Mikhail Gorbachev was for real at a time when many of Reagan’s advisers thought that glasnost and perestroika were Commie tricks to weaken the West’s resolve. But the moral high point of her tenure was a passionate speech on global warming, delivered at the United Nations in 1989. “What we are now doing to the world,” she said,
"by degrading the land surfaces, by polluting the waters and by adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate—all this is new in the experience of the earth. It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways. . . . The environmental challenge which confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. . . . Those countries who are industrialized must contribute more to help those who are not."
However, "She didn’t do much about it, and in retirement she recanted, dismissing climate change as “a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism.” Even so: De mortuis nil nisi bonum. ♦"
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2 … _hertzberg
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