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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Lady Thatcher and State Funerals
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Yes, she was doing the right thing. But it represented the (inevitable and necessary) end of the Socialist dream, and for that the Socialists hate her.
Not in my case. My dislike is more personal. It was Thatcher and her ministers who made education the bureaucratic mess it now is.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Boogie is that entirely fair? It's 21 years since she fell. It's rather fairer to lay the blame now on the Major and Blair-Brown administrations. A lot of the 'everything must be measurable', tick-box stuff is really attributable to the latter, which was also the one that may not have invented PFI but took it up with an unthinking gusto.
All done by smoking mirrors as long as it's off balance sheet.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
It was Thatcher who began the "tinkering with education to show we're doing something" mania. Enoch is right to say that her succesors have continued in this but she started the rot - as in so many other areas.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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otyetsfoma
Shipmate
# 12898
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Posted
She apparently thought that service and financial businesses were just as profitable as manufacturing. Manufacturing had made the UK rich, and its financial success was based on its wealth. She managed to weaken our manufacturing industry to the benefit of Germany and other EU "partners"( really "rivals"). Blair made the horrible mistake of following her policies.
Posts: 842 | From: Edgware UK | Registered: Aug 2007
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
All PMs who followed made the horrible mistake of following her policies.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif) ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I may be exposing my ignorance, but how did Thatcher help bring down the Iron Curtain?...(And why does Thatcher get more credit than, say, Lech Wałęsa or Václav Havel?)
Walesa and Havel were important symbols who went on to become important in other ways, but they didn't have the kind of clout that Thatcher and Reagan had. Together, they were able to lead the Western democracies in a policy that successfully pressured the Soviets in ways that a courageous labor leader or poet could not do.
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I may be exposing my ignorance, but how did Thatcher help bring down the Iron Curtain?...(And why does Thatcher get more credit than, say, Lech Wałęsa or Václav Havel?)
Walesa and Havel were important symbols who went on to become important in other ways, but they didn't have the kind of clout that Thatcher and Reagan had. Together, they were able to lead the Western democracies in a policy that successfully pressured the Soviets in ways that a courageous labor leader or poet could not do.
I believe the general historical view is that it was the utter inefficiency of the Soviet system that ultimately led to its collapse. Thatcher and Reagan had limited effect on the fall of Communism, despite what their supporters say.
But I would say that Thatcher and Reagan replaced the horror of Soviet Communism with the horror of neo-liberal capitalism. Just because its a different type of kool-aid doesn't negate the fact that it's still kool-aid.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I believe the general historical view is that it was the utter inefficiency of the Soviet system that ultimately led to its collapse. Thatcher and Reagan had limited effect on the fall of Communism, despite what their supporters say.
But I would say that Thatcher and Reagan replaced the horror of Soviet Communism with the horror of neo-liberal capitalism. ...
Yes, the Soviet system was utterly inefficient (socialism always is), although still able to brutalize its populace - but Reagan and Thatcher gave the push that the rotten system needed to topple.
I'm not sure what you mean by "neo-liberal capitalism." Russia was and is utterly corrupt, although there now seem to be signs that the rising generation has had enough of that.
Capitalism is essentially a benign system that rewards hard work and investment. Perhaps you're thinking of corporatism, which is just as bad as socialism, but in the other direction.
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
Capitalism is essentially a benign system that rewards hard work and investment. Perhaps you're thinking of corporatism, which is just as bad as socialism, but in the other direction.
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) So wrong in so many ways. Capitalism serves money. Nothing else.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
Capitalism is essentially a benign system that rewards hard work and investment.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
But the ones who get the reward aren't usually those who do the hard work.
[ 24. December 2011, 17:21: Message edited by: Angloid ]
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I believe the general historical view is that it was the utter inefficiency of the Soviet system that ultimately led to its collapse. Thatcher and Reagan had limited effect on the fall of Communism, despite what their supporters say.
But I would say that Thatcher and Reagan replaced the horror of Soviet Communism with the horror of neo-liberal capitalism. ...
Yes, the Soviet system was utterly inefficient (socialism always is), although still able to brutalize its populace - but Reagan and Thatcher gave the push that the rotten system needed to topple.
I'm not sure what you mean by "neo-liberal capitalism." Russia was and is utterly corrupt, although there now seem to be signs that the rising generation has had enough of that.
Capitalism is essentially a benign system that rewards hard work and investment. Perhaps you're thinking of corporatism, which is just as bad as socialism, but in the other direction.
The ideological belief that cutting taxes for the wealthy magically creates economic wealth and prosperity for all is about as scientifically defensible as the Soviet belief that every industry should be run by central planning.
Reagan and Thatcher were no more "rational" than their Soviet counterparts. In some ways, they were less so, because Gorbachev came to realize that Soviet socialism as practiced in Russia didn't work.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
I get riled beyond measure by the champagne socialists who mouth support for the cause but who would not give up an ounce of their lifestyle for the sake of the cause.
Many of them were in the last Govt and still hold power in todays Opposition.
I am not a Thatcherite. But I wonder at the socialism which meant that, under the last Labour Govt, the gap between rich and poor widened as never before.
[ 24. December 2011, 17:33: Message edited by: shamwari ]
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Ross, it's cute that you believe that. Naive, but cute.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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SeraphimSarov
Shipmate
# 4335
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Posted
Pope John Paul II was more responsible as an "outside figure with inside connections" in the toppling of Communism then Thatcher or Reagan (I just those Reagan revisionists) along with the system's inward contradictions and tyranny
Let's remember also that democratic socialists were usually the first victims of the Communists and among the first sent to the camps
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"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like"
Posts: 2247 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Apr 2003
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
I am not a Thatcherite. But I wonder at the socialism which meant that, under the last Labour Govt, the gap between rich and poor widened as never before.
I don't think that was even socialism. Blair made a better Thatcherite than some members of her own cabinets.
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin L:
Why not simply do what you normally do when a former PM passes away?
Which would be nothing at all, pretty much. Their friends and family organise a funeral, to which they sometimes (but not always) invite current politicians. A few weeks later there might be a memorial service in London.
At least seven Prime Ministers other than Churchill have died in my lifetime. As far as I know five of them had quiet funerals near their homes, and two were buried in London, but none had large-scale public funerals.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Also I'm reasonably convinced that the corrupt and useless Soviet empire would have collapsed sooner if Reagan and his friends had backed off a bit. It was killed by internal pressures, and required fear of a foreign enemy to totter on into the 1970s and 1980s. By presenting it with a credible threat, the newly militant US/NATO alliance gave it an excuse to continue to exist.
People like Havel - and millions of ordinary Eastern Europeans - are the reason it finally failed. If any politicians are responsible it was the governments of Hungary and Poland and some of the smaller Soviet Republics such as Estonia and Armenia. The USA and UK were helpless observers at the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And Thatcher actively opposed the reunification of Germany. She didn't bring the Berlin wall down, she was one of the many who failed to keep it up.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Also I'm reasonably convinced that the corrupt and useless Soviet empire would have collapsed sooner if Reagan and his friends had backed off a bit. It was killed by internal pressures, and required fear of a foreign enemy to totter on into the 1970s and 1980s. By presenting it with a credible threat, the newly militant US/NATO alliance gave it an excuse to continue to exist.
People like Havel - and millions of ordinary Eastern Europeans - are the reason it finally failed. If any politicians are responsible it was the governments of Hungary and Poland and some of the smaller Soviet Republics such as Estonia and Armenia. The USA and UK were helpless observers at the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And Thatcher actively opposed the reunification of Germany. She didn't bring the Berlin wall down, she was one of the many who failed to keep it up.
Feel free to correct me, but I read somewhere that before the Soviet regime collapsed, Reagan and Thatcher were perfectly fine with continuing the detente policy of previous American administrations in their relationship with the Soviet Union. The notion that Reagan and Thatcher were great Cold War warriors, passionate in their moral opposition to Soviet Communism is more myth than reality.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
quote:
Capitalism is essentially a benign system that rewards hard work and investment.
I was thinking about this as I fell asleep last night, and marvelling at the way the Ship opens my eyes to different points of view. From my perspective, Capitalism is the law of the jungle, where might makes right and the strong crush the weak. Socialism, again from my POV, is the attempt to act in a civilised way, and to treat everyone fairly, no matter how weak they may be.
But none of that prevents from wishing Ross (and all the many people who disagree with me) a very blessed Christmas. And, especially in Ross' case, prayers for continued healing in the new year. ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
I get riled beyond measure by the champagne socialists who mouth support for the cause but who would not give up an ounce of their lifestyle for the sake of the cause.
Many of them were in the last Govt and still hold power in todays Opposition.
I am not a Thatcherite. But I wonder at the socialism which meant that, under the last Labour Govt, the gap between rich and poor widened as never before.
Feel free to be riled, but your righteous indignation is at-least partially misplaced. I haven't got the reference to hand but your assertion of the role the last Labour government had in terms of widening inequality is wrong.
It's wrong because the widening of the gap didn't accelerate, it slowed. And specifically areas such as child-poverty that the government chose to target saw significant reductions in inequality.
You can argue that the government didn't do enough about inequality (and I would) but it is innacurate to say they prosided over a worsening situation willinging.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
I said the gap widened.
You say it simply slowed.
Which makes my assertion quite correct.
It was wider at the end than at the beginning. It could have been wider still had it not slowed.
In my language slow does not equal reverse.
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
Capitalism is essentially a benign system that rewards hard work and investment.
Capitalism rewards investment. That's why it's called capitalism. It doesn't reward hard work. It exploits hard work. That's why it's not called labourism.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
I said the gap widened.
You say it simply slowed.
Which makes my assertion quite correct.
It was wider at the end than at the beginning. It could have been wider still had it not slowed.
In my language slow does not equal reverse.
Ok.
As I said, you asserted that the previous Labour government were champagne socialist for a widening of the inquality gap 'as never before'
Whilst I feel the government did not do enough, they slowed this widening and in specific areas that they chose to target - such as children - they reversed it.
So, the idea that the government of the day did not care about this problem and are guilty of hipocrisy - because surely that's what 'champagne socialism' means - is misplaced. They were able to reverse this problem in the areas they chose to target.
You can argue they didn't do enough (as I do) but to argue that they couldn't be bothered is simply not true.
So your assertion that the previous government saw inequality widen as never before is falacious.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Capitalism rewards investment. That's why it's called capitalism. It doesn't reward hard work. It exploits hard work. That's why it's not called labourism.
Someone who starts a business, works hard, reinvests her capital in the business and rewards the employees and investors who have made it possible is a capitalist.
Someone who thinks that all benefits should flow to employees at the top of the heap while squeezing the people below is a corporatist.
Someone who thinks that the benefits should flow primarily to people who have not contributed in any way, at the expense of the people who made it all happen, is a socialist.
I prefer an enlightened capitalism, with a reasonable amount of regulation and what we might call a Christian sense of morality.
Corporatists are just as big a problem, in my view, as are socialists and other tax-and-spend leftists. They both squeeze the middle class in boa constrictor fashion. At least the socialists can claim they're doing it for the common good.
Anyway, a happy Christmas to you all, whatever your political views may be. (And thank you, Robert Armin!)
Ross
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
marvelling at the way the Ship opens my eyes to different points of view.
From my perspective, Capitalism is the law of the jungle, where might makes right and the strong crush the weak. Socialism, again from my POV, is the attempt to act in a civilised way, and to treat everyone fairly, no matter how weak they may be.
But none of that prevents from wishing Ross (and all the many people who disagree with me) a very blessed Christmas. And, especially in Ross' case, prayers for continued healing in the new year.
Amen.
And my extra special best to all of you commie pinko types!
God knows you need all the help you can get. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Even Palmerston is a bit of a question mark as his main achievements were not as PM.
Does getting away with raping a lady-in-waiting qualify as a "main achievement"?
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I believe Our Lord Jesus Christ will tell her "Yes, Maggie, there is such a thing as 'society'", when she enters into the next life.
If you believe that, you'll believe anything.
I thought I was fairly inured to the trivialization of the faith in the interests of parochial partisan politics, but that just about takes the cake.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by 205:
[QUOTE] Capitalism is the law of the jungle, where might makes right and the strong crush the weak.
It would be difficult to come up with a better definition of communism.
There are two striking feature about this thread.
The first is the naïve doctrinaire simplisticism of the definitions of capitalism, a system which like democracy, is just the least bad of all the systems on offer, exists everywhere in a state of extensive modification by government regulations and welfare measures, has probably never existed in a pure form, and certainly was never even remotely “unfettered” under Thatcher.
To say that capitalism is about nothing but greed and money is as silly as saying that socialism is about nothing but envy and omnipotent bureaucracy.
The second is the vicious and visceral hatred directed against the (almost late) Thatcher compared with the ho-hum cerebral analysis (or even mere registration) of the recent demise of the late Kim Jong-Il, responsible for the avoidable starvation of 1-2 million of his subject citizens, and for the oppression, imprisonment, enslavement, torture and execution of countless others.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
You are, of course, entitled to your opinions. However, in the pursuit of accuracy, I have to say that the quite you offer comes from me, and not 205. Please do not blame anyone else for my simplistic shortcomings.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I believe Our Lord Jesus Christ will tell her "Yes, Maggie, there is such a thing as 'society'", when she enters into the next life.
If you believe that, you'll believe anything.
Well, surely we expect to "know even as we are known"?
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Inger
Shipmate
# 15285
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The second is the vicious and visceral hatred directed against the (almost late) Thatcher compared with the ho-hum cerebral analysis (or even mere registration) of the recent demise of the late Kim Jong-Il, responsible for the avoidable starvation of 1-2 million of his subject citizens, and for the oppression, imprisonment, enslavement, torture and execution of countless others.
The point here (and I always find it odd that one should have to point it out in cases like this) is that Mrs Thatcher was our monster. Unlike Kim Jong-Il.
Posts: 332 | From: Newcastle, UK | Registered: Nov 2009
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Capitalism rewards investment. That's why it's called capitalism. It doesn't reward hard work. It exploits hard work. That's why it's not called labourism.
Someone who starts a business, works hard, reinvests her capital in the business and rewards the employees and investors who have made it possible is a capitalist.
Someone who thinks that all benefits should flow to employees at the top of the heap while squeezing the people below is a corporatist.
I don't think that corporatism is used in that way in standard discussions of economics. Nor is socialism.
What happens if someone starts a business is that they go to the banks asking the banks to invest capital in the business. The banks invest capital in the business and the banks get the reward for their investment.
The point of capitalism is that the economy is structured around capital. Ok - capitalism - capital. Some people have capital to invest: if they invest it they get a return on it. They don't necessarily start businesses themselves; the banks don't start businesses. In effect they hire other people to start businesses for them.
People who don't have any capital to invest do not get a return on any investment. They get employed by the people investing capital. (Or they are unemployed.) Rewarding employees beyond what is necessary to retain employees diminishes the return upon investment and is therefore not strictly speaking capitalist. It's a sign that the business is being run more like a co-operative. To the extent that the business is a co-operative it is socialist.
Socialism is a belief that everyone contributing to society either directly or indirectly should receive a share of the benefits.
A digression on labour economics. High demand increases prices; high supply lowers prices. If there are a lot of jobs and not many people looking for work then the price of labour goes up. If there are a lot of people looking for work and not much work for them to do then the price of labour goes down. So if there are a lot of unemployed people then every business can keep its salary cost down. This means that they make a greater return on their investment. If those unemployed people went away the businesses would have to pay more and would be less successful. Thus every unemployed person who is looking for work is contributing to the success of every business.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Inger:
The point here (and I always find it odd that one should have to point it out in cases like this) is that Mrs Thatcher was our monster. Unlike Kim Jong-Il.
We all agree that murdering hundreds of thousands of people is worse than kicking someone in the balls. But when someone kicks me in my balls I still feel entitled to resent it.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Higgs Bosun
Shipmate
# 16582
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
To say that capitalism is about nothing but greed and money is as silly as saying that socialism is about nothing but envy and omnipotent bureaucracy.
As someone said years ago: quote:
In capitalism man exploits man, whereas in socialism it is the other way round.
The core problem is people, particularly those in positions of power. I'm sorry if that sounds jaundiced at the season of goodwill.
Posts: 313 | From: Near the Tidal Thames | Registered: Aug 2011
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
Comparing Margaret Thatcher to Kim Jong Il is like the(too frequently made and astoundingly serious) comparisons of Joe McCarthy to Joe Stalin. Ask the True Believer "And how many people died under McCarthyism?" and you will be treated to an epic snit.
But the two (Thatcher vs Kim, McCarthy vs Stalin) really are not comparable, in either case. You can deplore their policies, and their effect on the people that they hurt, but let's keep a sense of proportion, please.
Dafyd, I wasn't speaking of economics as taught in school, and I would have thought you would notice that.
I was referring to the practical economics of our day, in which the hard-working, careful small business owner is allowed to fail due to the shenanigans of bloated giant corporations. The latter are allowed to misbehave and then bailed out by the taxpayers - while their CEOs and co-conspirators take home billions. Small businesses are the backbone of this country, at least; Citibank et al... not so much.
[edited to respond to Dafyd in the same post. Economical, yes?]
[ 26. December 2011, 14:48: Message edited by: Rossweisse ]
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
But the two (Thatcher vs Kim, McCarthy vs Stalin) really are not comparable, in either case. You can deplore their policies, and their effect on the people that they hurt, but let's keep a sense of proportion, please.
It's no use. Some people can't be rational about her. I hope the denizens of this thread will forgive me for saying so.
Zach
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
I was referring to the practical economics of our day, in which the hard-working, careful small business owner is allowed to fail due to the shenanigans of bloated giant corporations. The latter are allowed to misbehave and then bailed out by the taxpayers - while their CEOs and co-conspirators take home billions.
If that's what you're objecting to, you need to work out who your allies are. People who actually call themselves socialists (i.e. ken) are on your side. People who defend their proposed policies by warning you against socialism and praising capitalism are not on your side.
(And if capitalism just means whatever economic policies the speaker prefers it's a fairly meaningless word.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I think that the comparisons between unpopular home politicians and foreign dictators becomes a bit less reprehensible if you consider the foreign and the home bit. While McCarthy wasn't in Stalin's league in terms of harm done globally, it's at the very least arguable that he and his admirers did more harm to the US than admirers of Stalin.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Ross, I agree with you completely when you say: quote:
I was referring to the practical economics of our day, in which the hard-working, careful small business owner is allowed to fail due to the shenanigans of bloated giant corporations. The latter are allowed to misbehave and then bailed out by the taxpayers - while their CEOs and co-conspirators take home billions. Small businesses are the backbone of this country, at least; Citibank et al... not so much.
But I see this as capitalism supporting capitalists. To me, socialism is all about protecting the little people.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
But I see this as capitalism supporting capitalists. To me, socialism is all about protecting the little people.
To me they are both ultimately exercises in godlessness. Christianity may speak one way or another on a particular issue, but political ideologies are irrelevant.
Zach
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think that the comparisons between unpopular home politicians and foreign dictators becomes a bit less reprehensible if you consider the foreign and the home bit. While McCarthy wasn't in Stalin's league in terms of harm done globally, it's at the very least arguable that he and his admirers did more harm to the US than admirers of Stalin.
Well, it's arguable if you just want to have an argument, but not if you take a good hard look at history.
McCarthy was loathesome, but the worst harm he did was to ruin a few careers. That's certainly reprehensible, but it fades into insignificance when you think of what "admirers of Stalin" did: for starters, they made sure that we came into World War II as allies of the Soviets, rather than as co-belligerents.
That meant that we actively supported the Soviets with money and materiel, and then condemned half of Europe to their tender care, resulting in untold misery and death. We didn't protest the fact that thousands of German POWs spent the rest of their lives in Soviet prison camps, or even that some Allied soldiers did. And that's just one example.
Remind me again...how many thousands were starved, imprisoned, or killed in Margaret Thatcher's brutal, totalitarian Britain to put her into the league of a Kim Jong Il?
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
My Communist friends are typically unmoved by efforts to instigate a body count competition.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
Well, of course, LQ, they would be. However, it seems like a rather cheap cop-out when comparing a Thatcher to a Kim, or a McCarthy to a Stalin.
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Ross
He taught people outside the US that those inside the US can be dangerously neurotic.
You say that did not harm the US when it is a superpower and needs to be trusted?
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
I'm not sure that anyone here has compared Thatcher to Kim or Stalin; if they did, I've missed it. I think I've made it clear that I don't like the woman, but she wasn't in their league. However, I'm not convinced it's a ringing endorsement of her policies to say she didn't do as much harm as the worst dictators in recent history.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I've never been convinced that 'capitalism' is an 'ism' in its own right, rather than just a word to described the economics you have if you don't have any other sort of 'ism'.
If we go back to Ma T though, and try and be rational about her, it seems to me we have the following.
1. Very few non-royals have been given state funerals. Those that have, have been given them for really outstanding achievements, usually in war in which the homeland has been threatened, Nelson, Wellington, Haig, Churchill, have been given them for as war leaders. The odd one out is Lord Carson. That appears to have been specific to circumstances in Northern Ireland. It is some years ago now, but one suspects it was divisive.
2. On the + side,
a. She gave people the spine to fight back and win when the Argentinians invaded the Falklands.
b. She brought to an end the chaos, turmoil, decadence and indiscipline that was Britain in the 1970s. If one can remember those times, they were dreadful. No one in their right mind would like to go there again. That was bound to be unpleasant and involve some bruised heads. Whether somebody else could have done it better, or what would have happened if nobody had had the determination to take on the job we shall never know. But it had to be done.
People should be grateful for these two achievements.
3. On the - side,
a. She destroyed a lot of peoples' lives and a lot of communities. Some of her most enthusiastic supporters would say that was the only way of achieving 2(b), that it was the price that had to be paid, or even that such people by their behaviour merited being treated as unpeople anyway. Most of us though would prefer to hope that this is not the case, and that 2(b) could have been achived in a less destructive way.
b. As a by-product of 2(b), the method she chose was destructive of a lot of material industrial capital. The jury is still out on whether this was necessary or a colossal waste of accumulative national assets.
c. There is a widespread and probably justified impression that aspects of her ideology have had a profoundly negative effect on the concepts of public spiritedness and public duty that underlay both paid and voluntary public service prior to the 1980s.
d. A lot of the programmes associated with her name have not worked well. Selling shares in former nationalised industries has not produced a share owning democracy. Even the ones that have been on balance a good thing, such as bus deregulation, could have been handled better.
e. Whatever the eventual outcome of devolution, the way she handled the poll tax has very materially increased centripetal forces that work for the dissolution of the union.
3. There is and remains legitimate debate as to whether privatisation is a good thing or not, to what it should and shouldn't be applied, and indeed, what beyond the military, police and courts is best made the responsibility of the state. Whatever their opinions on individual portfolios, most of the public would place more things in the state sphere than dogmatic Thatcherites would. So in addition to the hatreds generated by 3(a), 21 years after her fall, she is still associated with highly disputed political argument.
4. Likening Lady Thatcher to Stalin, Kim Jung-il or their ilk is disproportionate. It demonstrates that a person has the good fortune never to have experienced despotism, yet alone tyranny and lacks the imagination to understand what they are like.
5. A state funeral should only be given in respect of someone that the public at large, rather than their family, friends and supporters, will genuinely wish to mourn. Irrespective of the Falklands, awarding one to someone who is associated with controversy, and whom a large people will not want to mourn, would be divisive. It would be a misuse of power. It is treating the public like North Koreans, an attempt by one faction to impose their emotions on everyone else.
6. It would be likely to provoke demonstrations, which would be disrespectful of the dead.
7. Whether one approves of her or detests her, objectively, Lady Thatcher was in the upper quartile of prime ministers, but against the long tide of history, is not ranked among the great.
What do people think of this summary? As I said in my OP, I'm not as rabidly anti her as a lot of people are. Nor though am I among those who adulate her. I hope I haven't abandoned my critical faculties in either direction.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
I'm not sure that anyone here has compared Thatcher to Kim or Stalin...
Well, Inger wrote:
quote:
...Mrs Thatcher was our monster. Unlike Kim Jong-Il.
I brought in the nudniks who compare McCarthy to Stalin, to which Dafyd replied:
quote:
...While McCarthy wasn't in Stalin's league in terms of harm done globally, it's at the very least arguable that he and his admirers did more harm to the US than admirers of Stalin.
Margaret Thatcher wasn't even in the same game as Kim, let alone his league. McCarthy was a Little Leaguer compared to Stalin. Perspective, people, perspective!
As Enoch wrote,
quote:
Likening Lady Thatcher to Stalin, Kim Jung-il or their ilk is disproportionate. It demonstrates that a person has the good fortune never to have experienced despotism, yet alone tyranny and lacks the imagination to understand what they are like.
I would endorse this from Enoch, too:
quote:
She brought to an end the chaos, turmoil, decadence and indiscipline that was Britain in the 1970s. If one can remember those times, they were dreadful. No one in their right mind would like to go there again. That was bound to be unpleasant and involve some bruised heads. Whether somebody else could have done it better, or what would have happened if nobody had had the determination to take on the job we shall never know. But it had to be done.
Get back to the original question: Should she have a state funeral? The answer is clearly "No," for all the reasons that Enoch has given in his excellent summary.
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
I'm not sure that anyone here has compared Thatcher to Kim or Stalin...
Well, Inger wrote:
quote:
...Mrs Thatcher was our monster. Unlike Kim Jong-Il.
I brought in the nudniks who compare McCarthy to Stalin, to which Dafyd replied:
quote:
...While McCarthy wasn't in Stalin's league in terms of harm done globally, it's at the very least arguable that he and his admirers did more harm to the US than admirers of Stalin.
Margaret Thatcher wasn't even in the same game as Kim, let alone his league. McCarthy was a Little Leaguer compared to Stalin. Perspective, people, perspective!
I assume Robert meant a substantive disagreement, as opposed to people broadly in agreement with you but differing over the correct choice of sport analogy (which I gladly defer to those more knowledgeable!) As Robert and Inger point out, it's hardly as if we generally wait for rulers to run as seriously afoul as Kim or Stalin before we speak out.
Plus, it would make sense in light of the respective systems that in a tyranny with a centralized economy, the deaths that result would be centrally decided or ordered. That under capitalism death is privately contracted, like everything else, and Joe McCarthy merely the apologist for the death-dealers, is not, I think, a particularly high compliment to Joe McCarthy. And even then I doubt Reagan would come off particularly well if the totals from his various foreign interventions were tallied. I'm not sure why it's inherently more virtuous to be cosy with right-wing dictators than left-wing ones.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LQ:
And even then I doubt Reagan would come off particularly well if the totals from his various foreign interventions were tallied. I'm not sure why it's inherently more virtuous to be cosy with right-wing dictators than left-wing ones.
Foreign interventions are not wrong in themselves unless you are a doctrinaire isolationist, and making temporary pragmatic alliances with dictators (such as the West’s with Stalin against Hitler, or later with “our sonsofbitches” against communists) is not wrong in itself unless you have a scruple against realpolitik per se.
The practicality and ethics of each intervention and alliance has to be decided on a case by case basis.
The overriding (but not only) issue is whether the system being defended is liberal and democratic.
It is moronic to draw the slightest equivalence between Thatcher and a tyrant such as Kim Jong-Il by referring to them both as “monsters”.
Kim Jong-Il was a monster.
Thatcher was just another politician who got in democratically with a vote about the same as that of Salvador Allende (whose legitimacy is not attacked on the basis of his minority percentage), carried out policies which some decent, reasonable people supported and others didn’t., and eventually departed in accordance with the same democratic system.
I am not sure how the admittedly unpleasant Joe McCarthy finished up in the discussion, but given that he was responsible for the death of one innocent (probably) victim in Ethel Rosenberg, plus a few disrupted showbiz careers, it is bizarre to try to equate him with the murderers of millions such as Stalin.
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