Maggie Thatcher Passes Away.

isaiah53 said:
Rjstoz said:
Am I the only one who thinks that it is massively disrespectful to celebrate anyone's death? If it were someone's family member, you wouldn't drag up things which happened years ago.. That he's death has not stopped anything else from occurring compared to her leaving politics years ago. I appreciate that I didn't live through her regime, and I don't yet take party sides as parties change their policies so much these days... But to be fair celebrating anyone's death is quite a nasty thing to do.
Disagree with anyone you like for good reason and voice said opinions if you see fit, but say that the world is a better place without their influence rather than without their life.
Regards
Rodders
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margaret thatcher had no respect for the communities and peoples lives she destroyed so im fine with being disrespectful. she knew what she was doing at the time and the effect it would have on lives but was a cold faced bitch about it. she was a horrible cow and the contempt for her in death is totally justified as far as im concerned, i can square my disrespect with god.
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I can appreciate that she was responsible for many damaging things, but these sort of celebrations would have been more appropriate when she left politics.

I feel sorry for her family who have to endure the bad press dragged up once again, hence why I'm saying that it is disrespectful to celebrate her death, but I believe that if those affected want to voice hatred, it should be reserved for Thatcher as a political leader, not as an 87 year old who passed away of a stroke after years of keeping herself out of the public eye. As for the public funeral, I'm pretty sure that it's coming out of a pot for 'state funerals' and I have more of a problem with the pot than with the funeral itself. She was our first female leader (not even America has yet had a woman holding the same political position) and I feel that commemorating that is appropriate and probably good for Britain's image.
Regards
Rodders
 
isaiah53 said:
just a point... under the instructions of thatcher, dead miners families were denied financial assistance to bury their dead. keep that in mind when millions are spent on hers.
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But without putting this statement into some form of context some may answer with, why should they have when at one point families couldn't bury their dead full stop, due to striking union members.
 
RB73 said:
The Mackem Shaver said:
Al H said:
To be fair to maggie the num started on her first. The union not the miners. As discussed earlier the unions had too much power to the detriment of their members, closed shop etc

Now you have the underground drivers on 30k+ trying to hold us to ransom, they would soon moan if we got driverless tubes
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But as you said Labour closed more mines than Thatcher (and so the argument goes around in a circle) so the decision to break the union was a political one and not in the interest of the industry. It is possible to criticise Thatcher and recognise the problems within unions.
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But do you not think it is slightly lopsided with regards to this matter ? Many people acknowledge a lot of industries were destroyed by her, and what's more, ...destroyed with the MANDATE OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

The seventies were blighted by the trade unions waiting for winter and then coming out on strike at it's heart. Holding the country to ransom for ANNUAL pay rises of up to 36% ABOVE inflation. This was the likes of Scargill and co, and they bled us dry. We were bankrupted by them. And then the Winter of Discontent happened. And they ALL came out. Miners, power workers, transport workers; even funeral directors, everything tied into the TGWU came out.

The entire country was a ruin, rubbish not collected for months, rats everywhere and the unions laughed and brought down Callaghan's Labour Government. So Thatcher stood up at the General Election and made ONE SIMPLE PROMISE. Elect me and THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. ELECT ME AND I WILL DESTROY THEM. She won a landslid on that promise.And she became the last elected Prime Minister to actually hold true to her election promise.

So the unions were actually more that a little bit of a problem if their legacy kept the person that broke them in office for so long. But there seems to be a disquieting silence bar a couple of posters with regards to this, and as we today can see the knock on affects of any such action when the tubes or buses are on strike for a couple of days, i can only imagine how bad it was back then, the actions of a few, fucking the county off enough to allow the above to happen.
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I have never said that the unions were right and major change wasn't needed. Thatcher never won a majority of the popular, more an issue with first past the post than anything. My dad was a Durham policeman, though mostly injured after during the strike. My mam was a shop steward in the union for the GPO for a while and has very little good to say about the union.

After Thatcher won the strike why did she destroy the industry? Many mines were still profitable and now we are worrying about having to import energy. Why did she let communities rot afterwards? I don't want to celebrate her death but I do understand why people have strong feelings against her and I think the state honouring her is wrong.
 
There's literally a metric fuckton of shit my taxes pay for which I'd rather they didn't.

A fitting funeral for the most important PM of the last (?) years doesn't even register a 0.3 on my give-a-fuck-ometer.

Gawd bless yer mi duck.
 
RB73 said:
isaiah53 said:
just a point... under the instructions of thatcher, dead miners families were denied financial assistance to bury their dead. keep that in mind when millions are spent on hers.
Click to expand...

But without putting this statement into some form of context some may answer with, why should they have when at one point families couldn't bury their dead full stop, due to striking union members.
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ok, context. this was during the miners strike, miners family were (under thatchers direct instructions) denied welfare assistance to bury their dead, and any welfare assistance at all. miners families were forced into abject poverty and some people where driven to suicide due to this. this happened on my doorstep, i didnt read it in the daily mirror, this was the reality. it may not have had any direct impact on the chattering classes in london (im not having a personal dig there) but it happened. the daily mail and the tories may paint a different picture, but that was the reality, she destroyed communities and lives.

[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKnLN1way-o[/video]
 
The State is honouring her because of the good work she did for the Establishment by breaking the only voice the working people of this country had.

Maggie was the culmination of years of mis-management and atrocious Government that left the workers stuggling to make sense of what was happening and to defend their jobs in any way they could. The Establishment and ''management'' and 'the workers and Unions had taken polarised positions against each other. Propoganda against the Unions and the "Loony Left" was pumped out on a daily basis by the Press and Lord Beaverbrooke. Things were so bad that any other country but ours would have had a revolution - and a bloody one, at that.

Maggie was elected in a landslide by a minority of the population. Labour could not offer a viable Opposition, they were in internal turmoil. Maggie had the mandate to do as she wished and she did the bidding of Capital - destroy the aspirations of the working classes. She did so ruthlessly - my guess is because she feared revolution.

It was a fucked up time. You can argue back and for forever and a day as to why it was fucked up, who was to blame, who was in the right or wrong. OUR country was fucked up and in that 'OUR' lies the arguement. The Unions and workers were getting way too strong for the Establishment to feel comfortable so the determined to take the country back from the people and re-establish the power base of the hereditary ruling class, industrialists and monied people generally.

Maggie stepped in as their Champion and did their dirty work very dirtily indeed - and very thouroughly. That is why she is being honoured with an Establishment State funeral and that is why we celebrate her death and hate and revile her.

In the French Revolutio, the workers won. In the nearest we ever came to revolution, the Establishment won. That still hurts and especially for those who were on the front line.

For those of you who weren't around in those days, think on about who wrote the books from which you gather your facts. The victors always write history.
 
Re: RE: Maggie Thatcher Passes Away.

joe mcclaine said:
There's literally a metric fuckton of shit my taxes pay for which I'd rather they didn't.

A fitting funeral for the most important PM of the last (?) years doesn't even register a 0.3 on my give-a-fuck-ometer.
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So, you're telling us you don't mind paying for things you're in favour of? I find I agree.

A fitting funeral would be just fine.
 
Bechet45 said:
For those of you who weren't around in those days, think on about who wrote the books from which you gather your facts. The vistors always write history.
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But, I'm guessing that statement falls flat on its arse when people question anything that you believe from what you've read?
 
This is the big problem with her and her legacy - for every working-class person screwed by the Poll Tax or the ripping-apart of large tracts of the country, there were probably 10 or 20 middle-class types in the Home Counties who did very well thank you and who therefore are now bewildered by the negative opinions being given. I'm not from one of the areas hardest-hit by the Union madness of the 1970s and the demolition of the working class she brought about in the 1980s, but I'm very much working-class and my dad spent most of his working life as a maintenance foreman in a factory, and my mother ran our household on his salary (which at times was derisory), so I have a reasonable idea of the effects of that era on us "plebs".

Of course, many unions were running the country into the ground in the 1970s - no sensible person could deny that - and it was mainly due to Communist sympathisers taking charge of things and elbowing-out the moderates. I'm not familiar with the statistics on mine closures, and I don't doubt that plenty were closed during the '60s and '70s. However, consider that not all mines were equally profitable, and that some would have nearly exhausted the coal seams which were economically viable to access. I have it on authority from those in those areas that viable, profitable mines with accessible coal to last several decades were not only closed but allowed to flood so they could never be used again. It's one thing closing something that isn't needed at present, but to sabotage it so it can't be resurrected in future is an act of vandalism, nothing more.

As was said above, the person to feel anger towards was the middle-aged woman who managed by dint of her own ability to leave her working-class roots behind but then decided to target those she'd left behind on the lower rungs of the ladder, not the frail old lady with dementia who has just died. I'm not in celebratory mood; she was most probably suffering, and her family would have been finding it hard as well (my grandmother is in a similar position, hence my comments), therefore it's therefore probably a relief and release for them, though obviously a sad time.

My argument is with those who either cannot separate their opinions of her from their own experiences of the era or who refuse to do so and thereby consider how she affected others. Of course, those who did well out of that period are going to think she was wonderful, but the arrogance of some of the opinions both here on TSR and in the outside world from those who wish to impose their hero-worshipping onto those who suffered under her is pretty galling.
 
Dr Rick said:
joe mcclaine said:
There's literally a metric fuckton of shit my taxes pay for which I'd rather they didn't.

A fitting funeral for the most important PM of the last (?) years doesn't even register a 0.3 on my give-a-fuck-ometer.
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So, you're telling us you don't mind paying for things you're in favour of? I find I agree.
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It means I'm quite happy to stump up the 7p (or whatever it is) for every forum member who begrudges paying it.

Perhaps we can do a deal where I pay for that and they pay my share for lazy students?
 
chrisbell said:
This is the big problem with her and her legacy - for every working-class person screwed by the Poll Tax or the ripping-apart of large tracts of the country, there were probably 10 or 20 middle-class types in the Home Counties who did very well thank you and who therefore are now bewildered by the negative opinions being given. I'm not from one of the areas hardest-hit by the Union madness of the 1970s and the demolition of the working class she brought about in the 1980s, but I'm very much working-class and my dad spent most of his working life as a maintenance foreman in a factory, and my mother ran our household on his salary (which at times was derisory), so I have a reasonable idea of the effects of that era on us "plebs".

Of course, many unions were running the country into the ground in the 1970s - no sensible person could deny that - and it was mainly due to Communist sympathisers taking charge of things and elbowing-out the moderates. I'm not familiar with the statistics on mine closures, and I don't doubt that plenty were closed during the '60s and '70s. However, consider that not all mines were equally profitable, and that some would have nearly exhausted the coal seams which were economically viable to access. I have it on authority from those in those areas that viable, profitable mines with accessible coal to last several decades were not only closed but allowed to flood so they could never be used again. It's one thing closing something that isn't needed at present, but to sabotage it so it can't be resurrected in future is an act of vandalism, nothing more.

As was said above, the person to feel anger towards was the middle-aged woman who managed by dint of her own ability to leave her working-class roots behind but then decided to target those she'd left behind on the lower rungs of the ladder, not the frail old lady with dementia who has just died. I'm not in celebratory mood; she was most probably suffering, and her family would have been finding it hard as well (my grandmother is in a similar position, hence my comments), therefore it's therefore probably a relief and release for them, though obviously a sad time.

My argument is with those who either cannot separate their opinions of her from their own experiences of the era or who refuse to do so and thereby consider how she affected others. Of course, those who did well out of that period are going to think she was wonderful, but the arrogance of some of the opinions both here on TSR and in the outside world from those who wish to impose their hero-worshipping onto those who suffered under her is pretty galling.
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Sorry Chris, but I haven't seen any out right hero worship here.

isaiah53 said:
RB73 said:
isaiah53 said:
just a point... under the instructions of thatcher, dead miners families were denied financial assistance to bury their dead. keep that in mind when millions are spent on hers.
Click to expand...

But without putting this statement into some form of context some may answer with, why should they have when at one point families couldn't bury their dead full stop, due to striking union members.
Click to expand...

ok, context. this was during the miners strike, miners family were (under thatchers direct instructions) denied welfare assistance to bury their dead, and any welfare assistance at all. miners families were forced into abject poverty and some people where driven to suicide due to this. this happened on my doorstep, i didnt read it in the daily mirror, this was the reality. it may not have had any direct impact on the chattering classes in london (im not having a personal dig there) but it happened. the daily mail and the tories may paint a different picture, but that was the reality, she destroyed communities and lives.

[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKnLN1way-o[/video]
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And wrong it was, and wrong to use the derogatory term of the London chattering class.
 
RB73 said:
chrisbell said:
This is the big problem with her and her legacy - for every working-class person screwed by the Poll Tax or the ripping-apart of large tracts of the country, there were probably 10 or 20 middle-class types in the Home Counties who did very well thank you and who therefore are now bewildered by the negative opinions being given. I'm not from one of the areas hardest-hit by the Union madness of the 1970s and the demolition of the working class she brought about in the 1980s, but I'm very much working-class and my dad spent most of his working life as a maintenance foreman in a factory, and my mother ran our household on his salary (which at times was derisory), so I have a reasonable idea of the effects of that era on us "plebs".

Of course, many unions were running the country into the ground in the 1970s - no sensible person could deny that - and it was mainly due to Communist sympathisers taking charge of things and elbowing-out the moderates. I'm not familiar with the statistics on mine closures, and I don't doubt that plenty were closed during the '60s and '70s. However, consider that not all mines were equally profitable, and that some would have nearly exhausted the coal seams which were economically viable to access. I have it on authority from those in those areas that viable, profitable mines with accessible coal to last several decades were not only closed but allowed to flood so they could never be used again. It's one thing closing something that isn't needed at present, but to sabotage it so it can't be resurrected in future is an act of vandalism, nothing more.

As was said above, the person to feel anger towards was the middle-aged woman who managed by dint of her own ability to leave her working-class roots behind but then decided to target those she'd left behind on the lower rungs of the ladder, not the frail old lady with dementia who has just died. I'm not in celebratory mood; she was most probably suffering, and her family would have been finding it hard as well (my grandmother is in a similar position, hence my comments), therefore it's therefore probably a relief and release for them, though obviously a sad time.

My argument is with those who either cannot separate their opinions of her from their own experiences of the era or who refuse to do so and thereby consider how she affected others. Of course, those who did well out of that period are going to think she was wonderful, but the arrogance of some of the opinions both here on TSR and in the outside world from those who wish to impose their hero-worshipping onto those who suffered under her is pretty galling.
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Sorry Chris, but I haven't seen any out right hero worship here.
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Fair point Richard - I should have made it clear that the hero-worshipping was from outside of the forum but that there was a lack of understanding at times here in terms of those who benefited from the Thatcher approach towards those who lost-out.
 
There's literally a metric fuckton of shit my taxes pay for which I'd rather they didn't.


Feel I owe Vinny (not Joe) a word of thankies for the way he has expanded my vocab with a whole new range of descriptions I've never heard or thought of previously. From Mr. Cockpunch through to "metric ftonnes" I can never tell when one of his expressions is going to crack me up & leave me cackling dementedly over the keyboard.
Lord love you lad, you bring a shedload of amusement to this auld guy !

JohnnyO. \:icon_razz:
 
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