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[zero_suit]

God damn. I thought Venezuelans celebrating Chavez's death was something unique, but apparently not. Is this how people acted when Reagan died too?



At least you aren't America with Far Right and Right.

Oops, I misread that post. I thought he was referring to the U.S. needing another FDR. A lot of Britain's politicians seem to be to the left of our Democrats.

 

[rodvik]

The death "parties" are actually perfect. It brings it all back. As a lefty then and now I had forgotten how it was she could keep on winning elections despite bankrupt policies I opposed?

The answer is clear again, she was and is blessed with incompetent, backward looking and mean spirited enemies.

No matter how uncomfortable voters might have been with her radical reforms, her opposition was simply too dangerous to even consider voting for.

 

[Acorn]

I've learned something today.

You can't have a negative view of Thatcher if you weren't old enough.

Also If your view is positive then you can have a view if you weren't old enough.

 

[radioheadrule83]

What makes you lot any different from the people that celebrated when the Twin Towers fell?

Actually hilarious. The answer is everything. The thing being celebrated. Geography. Religion. Politics. Lived-experience. Context.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

After seeing more of this thread and some of these parties that people are having over Thatcher's death, I just think of one thing...

What makes you lot any different from the people that celebrated when the Twin Towers fell?

Please someone tell me as I think it would be interesting to see what some of your responses are and how self absorbed you are...

Also, why dont you give your age, as it would be intesting if the opinions come from those who remember the times in question, or if you are just a sheep following what your dear old Dad told you.

Did you just equate the twin towers to Thatcher?

 

[Stumpokapow]

We need a figure even half as big as FDR here to bring the left back into the fold.

Won't happen, we're stuck with Far Right, Right and right of centre.

FDR wasn't a part of America's left--in large part his actions were aimed at defusing actual insurgent leftists. FDR was very much a reform liberal in word, deed, and act, a progressive. Not a social democrat or a socialist. A similar process occurred in Canada and other countries--in order to prevent the socialists from fomenting dissent, they co-opted the resonant parts of the socialist demands into a liberal framework. Co-optation.

In fact, the key take-away from all of America's progressive era, or at least from Roosevelt to Roosevelt, was that pressure from the fringe can be extremely useful to get leaders to enact sensible compromise.

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

Just had a lengthy argument with my SO who tried the whole "She was the first female PM! Respect her!" argument. Eeeeeeeeeuggh.

 

[frankie_baby]

I know this all have been posted a million times but I do agree with this, certainly seen it happening on my timeline

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/...her-was-ecstatic-that-shes-dead-2013040865066

As I'm a bit ignorant and don't really do politics or grave dancing (the damage done is no better for her death) ill just say thank you for the Mr Whippy Mrs Thatcher

Sorry but that article is fucking ridiculous I am 32 I understand and saw the effects of her policies first hand

 

[Ding-Ding]

Whatever way it is, it does not amount to supporting apartheid.

It was an avenue, spot on.

President de Klerk was on TV earlier and said she was always fully aware of the complex problems that South Africa had while everyone knew how opposed she was to apartheid.

 

[Dominican Power]

http://sabotagetimes.com/reportage/...with-margaret-thatchers-legacy-is-to-kill-it/

I guess it's either you love or hate her, there's no in between.

 

[QuicheFontaine]

I've learned something today.

You can't have a negative view of Thatcher if you weren't old enough.

Also If your view is positive then you can have a view if you weren't old enough.

I saw a friend of mine post on facebook that anyone under 23 can't complain about Thatcher. I'm not even celebrating today but I had to point out that that's pure bullshit.

 

[besada]

Just had a lengthy argument with my SO who tried the whole "She was the first female PM! Respect her!" argument. Eeeeeeeeeuggh.

She wasn't even the first PM, just the first European PM.

 

[phisheep]

I've learned something today.

You can't have a negative view of Thatcher if you weren't old enough.

Also If your view is positive then you can have a view if you weren't old enough.

Of course you can. But like anything else on GAF I expect to be able to challenge it without being told to fuck off.

And I expect to be challenged back of course, though that is a bit tricky if you have been banned.

But if your impression of this thread is that we are overwhelmingly Thatcher supporters, then you probably haven't read enough of it.

 

[RSLAEV]

After seeing more of this thread and some of these parties that people are having over Thatcher's death, I just think of one thing...

What makes you lot any different from the people that celebrated when the Twin Towers fell?

Please someone tell me as I think it would be interesting to see what some of your responses are and how self absorbed you are...

Also, why dont you give your age, as it would be intesting if the opinions come from those who remember the times in question, or if you are just a sheep following what your dear old Dad told you.

1. Nothing. I am literally a member of Al-Quaida. I'm posting on NeoGAF from a cave in Pakistan Afghanistan

2. I am some where in between 18 and 300 years old.

 

[frankie_baby]

I saw a friend of mine post on facebook that anyone under 23 can't complain about Thatcher. I'm not even celebrating today but I had to point out that that's pure bullshit.

So I guess the kids of miners can't comment then? Pmsl

 

[Acorn]

Of course you can. But like anything else on GAF I expect to be able to challenge it without being told to fuck off.

And I expect to be challenged back of course, though that is a bit tricky if you have been banned.

But if your impression of this thread is that we are overwhelmingly Thatcher supporters, then you probably haven't read enough of it.

I was alluding to Ding ding and others crazy assertions regarding age.

EDIT: Off topic but I loved reading your Tim Langdell coverage before I joined.

 

[QuicheFontaine]

So I guess the kids of miners can't comment then? Pmsl

Well exactly. And I was gratified to see I wasn't the only one pointing that out.

 

[PJV3]

I think her apartheid policy was more about the cold war than anything else. Do I think she was a supporter of it, no. Do I think she REALLY cared about the black population, no.

She pissed the Queen off with her attitude, takes a lot to make me side with Brenda over something.

 

[Ding-Ding]

Did you just equate the twin towers to Thatcher?

I am talking about one person, who is celebrating the death of another person, whom they never meet.

I had a Grandfather, who sexually abused two of my female cousins when they were children. So he was about as detested by my family as any human being that we will ever know in my entire life.

While my family didn't mourn his death, we certainly didn't celebrate. As celebrating another person's death is a clear sign of a sick & warped mind

 

[Delusibeta]

Moar front pages.

Lolz at the Daily Mail. They aren't even trying to hide their bias.

 

[ksan]

The death "parties" are actually perfect. It brings it all back. As a lefty then and now I had forgotten how it was she could keep on winning elections despite bankrupt policies I opposed?

The answer is clear again, she was and is blessed with incompetent, backward looking and mean spirited enemies.

No matter how uncomfortable voters might have been with her radical reforms, her opposition was simply too dangerous to even consider voting for.

That's insightful. From a game theoretical perspective, long conflicts and too staunch opposition usually lead to a solution that heavily favors one side. Which could possibly partly explain the extreme measures taken, instead of both sides looking for a more pragmatic solution.

http://sabotagetimes.com/reportage/...with-margaret-thatchers-legacy-is-to-kill-it/

I guess it's either you love or hate her, there's no in between.

Probably only possible if you're an outsider

 

[eBay Huckster]

After seeing more of this thread and some of these parties that people are having over Thatcher's death, I just think of one thing...

What makes you lot any different from the people that celebrated when the Twin Towers fell?

Please someone tell me as I think it would be interesting to see what some of your responses are and how self absorbed you are...

Also, why dont you give your age, as it would be intesting if the opinions come from those who remember the times in question, or if you are just a sheep following what your dear old Dad told you.

you two seem to be very upset that people are expressing vitriol on the internet toward the most divisive British politician in at least the past 50 years

 

[phisheep]

I see where you're going with this Ding, but what with the twin towers and the grandfather its probably veering a bit far off topic, while there's still a topic to discuss.

 

[CyclopsRock]

So I guess the kids of miners can't comment then? Pmsl

But how useful is that? No one's denying their right to an opinion, but being personally affected whilst being withdrawn from the context of the time does not necessitate an informed opinion.

In the same way that some think you can't comment on the feasibility of living on a certain income unless you've personally experienced it...

You can be roundly informed, or you can be uninformed. Being a miners son might inform you on a slither of her premiership. Being a stockbroker's son might inform you on another. But neither demands an informed opinion.

 

[ptolemy]

Judging by these photos the majority of the people in them don't even look like they were even born when Thatcher was in power or if they were her policies hardly affected them in any meaningful way. I mean a 5/6 year old can't feel aggrieved and become embittered. Makes you think.

EDIT: I see this has been mentioned already, love to know people's opinions

 

[Acorn]

you two seem to be very upset that people are expressing vitriol on the internet toward the most divisive politician in modern British history

Gotta keep that history whitewashed, good start with the Iron Lady. Now she is dead the party will be go on full deity mode ala reagan.

 

[frankie_baby]

Moar front pages.

Lolz at the Daily Mail. They aren't even trying to hide their bias.

Wow so simon cowel is so not gay

 

[Kurdel]

Judging by these photos the majority of the people in them don't even look like they were even born when Thatcher was in power or if they were her policies hardly affected them in any meaningful way. I mean a 5/6 year old can't feel aggrieved and become embittered. Makes you think.

Are you implying people can't have valid political opinions about past events because "you weren't there man!".

 

[Acorn]

Are you implying people can't have valid political opinions about past events because "you weren't there man!".

Its something that is increasingly being spouted the last few pages.

 

[phisheep]

http://sabotagetimes.com/reportage/...with-margaret-thatchers-legacy-is-to-kill-it/

Wonderful article! I could not resist responding to this quote though:

Besides which, giving Thatcher such a send-off, paid for by tax-payers, raises the entirely reasonable question of why her but not, say, Tony Blair? Gordon Brown or any other politico?

... because they're not dead yet maybe?

 

[zero shift]

Mostly at the time we had no way of knowing what their people wanted, there not being elections (or at least sensible elections) and suchlike. That tended to make international relations very much a matter of support whoever is in power now because that's all you've got. Anything else and you're immediately faced with charges of colonialism. It wasn't easy.

This ignores the point that the leaders we installed were by and large hated by the general population. There was a reason why so many of America's puppet states soon had revolutions afterward. Not to mention many (if not most) of the South American countries we screwed with had "sensible" elections. The nations I listed in my previous post to you are some examples. I could list more.

I think you are.
I get you on a personal level, going to a funeral to celebrate is bad bad form.
But she wasn't a private person, and the way a dead politician is remembered can influence politics greatly, see: Reagan.

Good point.

This doesn't prove anything at all. Government spending in America is far higher than it was 40 years ago. Government spending /= Social Welfare.

FDR wasn't a part of America's left--in large part his actions were aimed at defusing actual insurgent leftists. FDR was very much a reform liberal in word, deed, and act, a progressive. Not a social democrat or a socialist. A similar process occurred in Canada and other countries--in order to prevent the socialists from fomenting dissent, they co-opted the resonant parts of the socialist demands into a liberal framework. Co-optation.

In fact, the key take-away from all of America's progressive era, or at least from Roosevelt to Roosevelt, was that pressure from the fringe can be extremely useful to get leaders to enact sensible compromise.

This is true. FDR was a center left reformist.

 

[CHEEZMO™]

Judging by these photos the majority of the people in them don't even look like they were even born when Thatcher was in power or if they were her policies hardly affected them in any meaningful way. I mean a 5/6 year old can't feel aggrieved and become embittered. Makes you think.

EDIT: I see this has been mentioned already, love to know people's opinions

You're right; it has been mentioned that it's a really fucking dumb criticism to make of people who don't like Thatcher.

 

[rodvik]

That's insightful. From a game theoretical perspective, long conflicts and too staunch opposition usually lead to a solution that heavily favors one side. Which could possibly partly explain the extreme measures taken, instead of both sides looking for a more pragmatic solution.

Cheers. It is worth remembering that Britain was already divided, for all the anger directed at her later, one of the key reasons she was elected was the bitter internal struggle of the left.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent

Although it seems strange to think of it now she was definitely regarded as the sane and safe choice at the time.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Not necessarily. Sure, sanctions were a good idea, but foreign affairs are a whole load more complicated than that. It isn't always the best idea to have universal condemnation and sanctions.

Yeah sanctions and the general divide between the carrot and stick is a tough one. In hindsight successful sanctions look like courageous actions while failed ones look like a specific kind of barbarism that punishes people that have already been punished enough (global sanctions on Iraq and American sanctions on Cuba look especially stupid in a recent context). Likewise, knowing the right time to reach out to begin dialogue is tough--while Carter is viewed as a wimp, Nixon is celebrated for reaching out to China at the right time. Even during the Apartheid debate there were controversial actions... Paul Simon recorded Graceland in part to elevate black South African culture (in defiance of the boycott--not sanctions, of course, but still) and got a very divisive reception in South Africa for it.

I do think that Thatcher erred too far on the side of realism in FP and was too conservative, and I mean this in the Burkean sense, not just to mean she existed on the political right, in the sense that she valued order over liberty in several authoritarian cases that history has since declared to be immoral.


More generally to the thread's discussion...

I think jabs at Thatcher's foreign policy, or really jabs at any FP realism, are permissible but need to be contextualized with the above. Part of being a leader is that you're put in very hard situations that are deeply felt, and unlike your criticism, the blame is on you if you call it wrong long-term. C'est la vie. In opposing sanctions against South Africa (or in Russia's opposition of sanctions against iffy regimes today for much the same balance of geopolitical, fp realism, and stability reasons), she left herself open to the historical judgment that she was wrong, and that wrong was gravely immoral.

Finally, I think that celebrating the death of someone you don't like is an understandable human response, but something we should try to get past because it's rooted in a primal sort of need for vengeance or cosmic rebalancing, which I don't think is either helpful or enlightened. I mean, I understand it. It is what it is. But I try not to do it myself. The vast majority of people, even people who seem to be intolerably cruel, are generally trying to do this best. I really believe that most politicians of all stripes and across all history generally have a tough job and try to make the right calls. Some are able to, some are not. Some do more wrong than right, and some do wrong in part because their personality and experience leads them in the wrong direction.

I don't think Thatcher was a cartoonish villain, but nor do I accept that the supposedly incompetent, complacent, and decadent British left she aimed to reform or eradicate were; I think mostly people were trying their best, and some were better fits for their times and circumstances than others.

And all politicians of significant impact should get a state funeral regardless of legacy. It reflects the tremendous psychic impact they have on the body politic of the country, and the perk is the best kind because it can't be abused or corrupted. I'd hazard a guess that every PM who wins an election, every LO who serves more than a few years, and the odd Foreign / Finance secretaries should make the cut in most parliamentary countries.

Disclaimer: I live in Canada, my English father left the UK during Wilson or Callaghan, I'm old enough to have vague memories of the impacts of Reagan/Mulroney/Thatcher's neoliberal reforms on society but young enough that those were childish memories and I get the vast majority of my information from research and deep reading.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Gotta keep that history whitewashed, good start with the Iron Lady. Now she is dead the party will be go on full deity mode ala reagan.

You really think Reagan's opinion only started when he died? His electoral map looked like this (and this was AFTER he'd already been President for 4 years). He didn't need any posthumous "white washing" to cement his status.

 

[cloud_sleep]

RIP.

Gone to meet her maker.

Spoiler

SKYNET

 

[frankie_baby]

But how useful is that? No one's denying their right to an opinion, but being personally affected whilst being withdrawn from the context of the time does not necessitate an informed opinion.

In the same way that some think you can't comment on the feasibility of living on a certain income unless you've personally experienced it...

You can be roundly informed, or you can be uninformed. Being a miners son might inform you on a slither of her premiership. Being a stockbroker's son might inform you on another. But neither demands an informed opinion.

While I was using an extreme example anyone of my age (and many even younger) are perfectly entitled to express an opinion about the vile thing as long as (in my case I did) we either took notice of what was happening at the time or we've researched it afterwards

 

[Kurdel]

I don't agree with the statement, but I still find it hilarious.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

 

[See You Next Wednesday]

Moar front pages.
[]http://i.imgur.com/b5OW49L.jpg[/]

Lolz at the Daily Mail. They aren't even trying to hide their bias.

Any papers with the headlines of "Ding dong the witch is dead!" yet?

 

[Acorn]

You really think Reagan's opinion only started when he died? His electoral map looked like this (and this was AFTER he'd already been President for 4 years). He didn't need any posthumous "white washing" to cement his status.

I was just saying that Thatcher will be held up as a right wing god like reagan is.

Also The contra thing is never mentioned. Ever wonder why?

 

[eBay Huckster]

You really think Reagan's opinion only started when he died? His electoral map looked like this (and this was AFTER he'd already been President for 4 years). He didn't need any posthumous "white washing" to cement his status.

Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge won by the single largest popular-vote margins in the history of US presidential elections and they're... not very well-regarded, to say nothing about the entire span from 1968-1992 being "Democrats in the wilderness". That's not really an argument I'd use in a discussion of popularity.

(I'd recommend checking his opinion polling instead, which would also tell you he didn't need whitewashing - at least not during/after his second term.)

 

[zero shift]

I don't agree with the statement, but I still find it hilarious.

This quote never made any sense.

 

[RedSwirl]

I knew almost nothing about her until tonight's CBS thing on her which basically cast her as the British Reagan. That got me to wondering: just what is the state of British politics and economics right now compared to America's situation?

 

[CHEEZMO™]

Kinda off-topic but I'm gonna take this opportunity to post this

In the same way that some think you can't comment on the feasibility of living on a certain income unless you've personally experienced it...

 

[Ding-Ding]

I see where you're going with this Ding, but what with the twin towers and the grandfather its probably veering a bit far off topic, while there's still a topic to discuss.

Yeah it is a bit but no more than those in here that are generally over the moon that someone had died. Especially as the majority of them were probably still sucking their mothers tit when Thatcher left power.

I am more than willing to discuss the topic of the legacy she will leave, good and bad but this is just getting out of hand

 

[QuicheFontaine]

But how useful is that? No one's denying their right to an opinion, but being personally affected whilst being withdrawn from the context of the time does not necessitate an informed opinion.

In the same way that some think you can't comment on the feasibility of living on a certain income unless you've personally experienced it...

You can be roundly informed, or you can be uninformed. Being a miners son might inform you on a slither of her premiership. Being a stockbroker's son might inform you on another. But neither demands an informed opinion.

Hold on, I think you're arguing against a claim that has never been made, i.e. that if you're the son of a miner, your view is informed. What is being argued against here is the rather extreme claim that unless you are of age, you can't have an informed opinion.

Incidentally, while I'm here, I think that this post was also spot on.

 

[PJV3]

I knew almost nothing about her until tonight's CBS thing on her which basically cast her as the British Reagan. That got me to wondering: just what is the state of British politics and economics right now compared to America's Far Right vs Center Right situation?

Virtually no choice, luckily the right hasn't gone fucking nuts to create clear blue water. But politics has swung to the right since her.

 

[Acorn]

I knew almost nothing about her until tonight's CBS thing on her which basically cast her as the British Reagan. That got me to wondering: just what is the state of British politics and economics right now compared to America's Far Right vs Center Right situation?

Center right with some extreme right tactics on benefits. General policy is continued neo liberalism.

Full on extreme right when they win the next election which they will sadly. Hopefully I'm not part of the union by then.

 

[frankie_baby]

Kinda off-topic but I'm gonna take this opportunity to post this

Doesn't surprise me, the richest are always the most clueless to how much things cost

 

[Delusibeta]

I was just saying that Thatcher will be held up as a right wing god like reagan is.

I don't think so. Far too many people who outright hate her for anyone outside of Conservative Party HQ (and maybe the Daily Mail offices) to idolise her. Certainly, you won't see public people proclaim her the best thing since sliced bread, unlike Reagan in the US. They'll be stoned if they venture outside of the south of England.