Probably about as common as a man going from the Texas legislature to President of the United States in just four years. You're such a fucking dumbass.
i say dayton should be president. Dunno what his portfolio would be to set the us back on the road to greatness, but fuck it i'll vote for him
Back on Thatcher - the conventional narrative is that she represented economic progress. And while it's certainly true that there were problems in the 1970s, the data shows that economic performance in the UK was noticeably higher in the years before Thatcherism, and far more stable.
Worse are the unemployment statistics. And I'll note that her belligerent attitude toward the conflict in Northern Ireland was the greatest recruitment tool that the Provisional IRA ever had. Their ranks swelled because of her, and certainly kept the Troubles going for longer than they should have. Also on foreign policy, she said that Nelson Mandela remained a terrorist and opposed sanctions on Apartheid South Africa. She cosied up to Augusto Pinochet's murderous regime in Chile, General Suharto's murderous regime in Indonesia, and sent the SAS to train the Khmer Rouge...
It seems like in the UK one of the most popular twitter quotes going around right now is "Ding, dong, the witch is dead." She was a deeply divisive figure in the UK who's reputation with in the country hasn't stood up well.
If anything, there have been attempts to rehabilitate her reputation somewhat. The Tories previously spent years trying to get away from the image she had left behind her that they were "the nasty party". But people haven't bought into it.
Thatcher's poll tax idea was a singularly bad one but a case where she showed her true colors and it wasn't pretty. It was partisan and it was ugly.
First politician to truly take an axe to the state-first ideology, and the most historically distorted one of the modern era. From the "no such thing as society" (which, if you bother reading the original Womens Own article, is not an actual refutation of society) to lefty tinfoil hats over the Falklands (recently comprehensively disproved by released papers) to the fact she was, apparently, universally hated (hence being voted in three times by a wide demographic.) She tackled the unions, whose power had far exceeded their remit of worker protection and whose reputation for sexism and nepotism was fairly embedded, and who were no strangers to violence. She was also our last conviction politician, and the last one willing to stand up to the US (compare with Dubya practically requiring Blair to be surgically removed from his sphincter). Far from perfect, her abandoning of mining communities after the strike was both foolish and short sighted leaving scars today - although their appears to be a certain amount of forgetfulness over how Scargill battled to get his majority for a strike, including getting the heavies out to "convince" people to vote "correctly", and some of the violence against 'scabs' - real or imagined - handed out. Had she been more magnanimous in victory the UK and her legacy may be viewed through different lenses. It is something that an octogenarian with dementia still caused waves of anguish through the left, and the SWP gang will now have to find a new boogieman to demonise, and equally many on the right will need to find someone new to lionise. She wasn't "a destructive force" any more than she was the UK's saviour, she was a complex and committed politician who followed her beliefs and who changed the UK very much for the better. Are there dark sides to her legacy? Of course, only an imbecile thinks any system only comes with good consequences. She did lots of good. She did lots of bad. And many of those blaming Thatcher for today's problems should perhaps place the blame at those who came after, she may have laid the ground for the relaxed financial regulation but it was not her who undermined the NAO, the FSA or who provided direct access for larger banks to Numbers 10 and 11. But then, they probably voted for those particularly guilty parties which may explain their reticence to place the blame where it truly belongs.
Of course the left have never liked anyone dodgy, ever I mean, former poster children of socialism include Qadaffi and Mubarak who of course were just fucking angels.
You have lost one of the best leaders Brittain has ever seen. I am sorry for your loss. If she had gotten into real power sooner, I am sure Brittain would still have an auto industry.
I fully agree, I'm in no way sticking up for 'the left'. I think Labour and the Lib Dems are unvoteforably awful and the worst PM's since Thatch were Blair and Brown
Predictable sycophancy with the standard disclaimers. Why is the response to her support for mass murderers to highlight that "the left" (who? and why is it relevant?) have form in that regard too? This is about her, not anyone else.
Aye, she inherited a real fiscal wonderland, what with the recent three day week and general strike. Really, it's a wonder we didn't have 100% employment and a gold plated Rolls Royce for every household six months after she came to power. Then there was the small matter of technology changing *how* we made things and an an increasingly global manufacturing base altering. Out of interest, when the UK allowed the cotton industry to shift over to India - thus causing mass unemployment and the slow decay of the northern UK cotton mill heartlands - was this a bad thing?
Kudos for consistency. Politics is a deeply unpleasant business, which is pretty much why I turned down the opportunity to enter it.
Equally predictable response from the resident sourpuss. Which bit of "she did bad things" was unclear to you? Of course, some of us understand you pick lesser evils at times - hence why the Allies included Stalin during WW2 - which doesn't detract from you picking evil, but at least provides a rationale for it. Politics really isn't about 'good' and 'evil', it's about 'us' and 'them' - and sometimes you allow 'us' to include people who later you'll happily shift into the 'them' pile, and vice versa.
President Bush never served in the Texas legislature. He was governor of Texas for six years before becoming president.
Where the hell is Liet with his "moral imperitive", stuff? I mean, if Sokar deserves a grave-peeing for just being a naughty poster, c'mon, Thatcher has actual blood on her, let's hear the fuckin' A-material, man.
Yeah, Suharto and the Khmer Rouge were "lesser evils". Realpolitik-based apologism will only get you so far. East Asian peasants are not the Wehrmacht.
Are those figures inflation adjusted? Because if you look at economic growth figures in the U.S. for the Carter presidency you would think Carter was a freaking genius. If you do not adjust for inflation.
