danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
And again with your sweeping misanthropy.
Thatcher - I'm too young to remember...
- Thread starter rikwakefield
- Start date
QueenOfGoths
Fuck you Dave!
I think it was, sadly, a rather larger section of society than "Sun reading cunts" who elected her.
She thrived on creating a selfish climate and it was that "I'm alright, don't care about anyone else" selfishness that kept getting her elected.
QueenOfGoths
Fuck you Dave!
^^^ And this
Indeed. And that attitude transcends class ...
weltweit
Well-Known Member
I am not sure I agree with that.
She actually believed in smaller government and people looking after themselves with their own money.
The MO of labour since then is more large government with the state taking your money and supposedly taking care of people who need it. Not something they have really done with any compassion or energy.
If that were the case though, then what was the actual problem? If it was in the best interests of the largest group of voters, well, it’s fair play isn’t it? It’s got be better than the opposing position which, by reverse logic, would promote the “selfish” needs of a smaller group.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
No, she talked about "rolling back the state" while doing the opposite, and believed in wealthy people buying advantage.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
rolling back the state = smaller government
wealthy buying advantage is always going to happen, under her it was no different. Labour has been in power years now yet they have not abolished private education.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
...while doing the opposite, being the point of the sentence.
Kaka Tim
Half Arsed and Slapdash till I Die
The tories were succesful at scaring enough of the electorote with the spectre of the country wrecking trade unions and winter of discontent (still fresh in many peoples minds). Britain had 'serious problems' and this needed 'strong medicine' ( essentailly in the shape of massively enlarged dole queues and baton wielding policmen) to put it right - but it was a 'price worth paying'.
She was fighting the enemy within (strikers, immigrants, rioters, lesbians, loony left councils) and without (the argies, the EU, Russia). Labour were weak and of course pretty much in league with these evildoers.
This narrative was simple to understand and relentlessly churned out by much of the media. It was enough for her to secure enough of the vote in the face of a divded oppostion - more than 55% of the electorolate consistantly voted against her but first past the post gave her big majorities.
The reality was that this state of 'crisis' was a front for her wrecking ball policies of transferreing huge amounts of wealth and power from the public to the private sphere.
She was Robert Mugabe with a perm.
She was fighting the enemy within (strikers, immigrants, rioters, lesbians, loony left councils) and without (the argies, the EU, Russia). Labour were weak and of course pretty much in league with these evildoers.
This narrative was simple to understand and relentlessly churned out by much of the media. It was enough for her to secure enough of the vote in the face of a divded oppostion - more than 55% of the electorolate consistantly voted against her but first past the post gave her big majorities.
The reality was that this state of 'crisis' was a front for her wrecking ball policies of transferreing huge amounts of wealth and power from the public to the private sphere.
She was Robert Mugabe with a perm.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Oh, sorry I missed that ..
Is that true though? you are saying she actually increased the reach of the state?
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
That "no" was the beginning of a post; I went on to expand on it.
QueenOfGoths
Fuck you Dave!
I am talking about the climate of those times in general - there was a sense that one should look out for your own interests and not those of society at large. There seemed little provision or sympathy for those less fortunate, less able etc.. And that is something which I personally don't agree with.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
What on earth are you on about?
I make a perfectly comprehensible post: Thatcher declared she would roll back the state, but didn't; she expanded it.
Yeah yeah. Well that's democracy for you. I’m sure there are some people who think the degree to which you, yourself, want to make provision for the poor is selfish compared to their even more supremely righteous agenda. As it happens the idea of the interests of “society at large” is so full of paradox and strangeness that it really becomes a matter of quasi-religious belief.
Well so what? No one minds. People deceive themselves. From her perspective, it could be rolled-back in terms of welfarism alongside a commensurate expansion with regard to the police. I mean, there’s got to be more to it than some trite doe-eyed position on her being an evil liar. It could as easily be framed as gangster chique.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Let's not forget Thatcher giving the nod to Section 28 either. And no significant anti discrimination legislation throughout her governments.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
The point I was making, accurately and reasonably in my view, was that it would be inaccurate to think that because she said she would roll back the state that she actually did so. I said this in order to correct what I thought was a misapprehension on weltweit's part. A perfectly understandable misapprehension, but one I felt he had the right to know was incorrect.
You forgot "And fuck them if they didn't have any / enough and for some genuine reason they were unable to change that situation."
That's because she was only interested in people who looked like "us" (I seem to remember her using the word regularly in her speeches).
Hmmm. I suppose. Thatcher rolled back the state in terms of the activities it undertook. And even though you’re right in so far as she was heavy handed with state apparatus and raised taxes, and so could be said to have failed to live up to her aspirations, the actual motivations and underlying sentiments are important to some sections of electorate. They get what they deserve really.
I just googled thatcher no such thing as society and it was some site about famous people and their quotes. She definitely said it though, I've read it numerous times.
Like I say, that’s democracy for you. It aggregates values. At some point we have to get over the fact that our own particular take on the degree to which we’re obliged towards the poor is unique and also reasonably factored into the political complexion of the government.
ericjarvis
give a feck for the feckless
She said consistently that she believed in those things. That doesn't mean she did. Simply that she claimed to. Actions speak louder than words, and her actions were largely authoritarian and under her government the state spent our money on forcing us to do what we were told much more than anything else.
Over the years I've learned to pay no attention to what politicians say until it's backed up by action. There are a small number who talk the talk and walk the walk, but Thatcher wasn't even remotely like that. She should be judged by her actions and not by her constant spouting of platitudes.
Yeah. It’s the same with “professional persuasion” in general. In my experience when a persuader says something, it’s normally a prelude to acting counter to their words. Otherwise, there’d be no need to say anything. Every time a director says how well the company is doing and how secure everyone’s job is, bankruptcy and redundancy are sure to follow. In fact the more vociferously it’s denied, the more likely it is to occur. Having said that, it's not as if Thatcher's sentiments, actions aside, encourage any faith that the electorate harbour some kind of latent Bennite collectivism, say.
Kaka Tim
Half Arsed and Slapdash till I Die
She set about ruthlessly and systematically destroying social collectivism - which played a significant part in of the make up of UK society up until then. That policy was never listed in any manifesto and was always called something else - 'individual freedom' 'defeating the enemy within'.
There was no popular concensus behind that policy - no one was demanding mass privatisation of council services, running social housing and public transport into the ground and the effective destruciton of the industrial working class - but that is what she did.
And many peope do miss that social collectivism , but people dont know how to rebuild it and a genereation has grown up to whom the concept is almost entirely alien. Thats Thatchers 'triumph' and why the left is moribund.
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