So how do you feel about Margaret Thatcher's death

[Toilet]

I have no opinion because I wasn't alive when she was about but I heard that she was a battle axe who bought the the country back from the brink of 3 day weeks and regular power cuts but pissed off a lot of people in the process. Just how many people here are parroting what their parents think or what popular culture says?

 

[Zombie_Fish]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/ding-dong-bbc-refuses-to-play-margaret-thatcher-death-song-in-full-on-radio-1-chart-show-8569691.html

Thoughts on this new event?

Personally I think they should play it on the grounds that it made it into the charts. Just because it is being used to convey a message doesn't mean that the song itself is offensive. By that logic pretty much any song could be worthy of censorship; 'God Bless the USA' could be censored on the grounds that the Westboro Baptist Church use its melody as an anti-gay anthem.

Also, Ben Cooper's comparison of this to the editing of 'Killing in the Name' when that reached Number One in the charts is stupid. One is cutting out seventeen swear words and the other is cutting a song to one tenth of its original length regardless of the actual content of the song.

 

[JoJo]

And people wonder why i have such distaste for these forums.

They're probably also wondering why you're still here posting if you have such a distaste for the place.

I have no opinion because I wasn't alive when she was about but I heard that she was a battle axe who bought the the country back from the brink of 3 day weeks and regular power cuts but pissed off a lot of people in the process. Just how many people here are parroting what their parents think or what popular culture says?

I think the general feelings against Thatcher here is due to most of Escapists leaning to the left, opinions of her seem to be neatly divided along ideological lines on every site I've visited. Me, I'm fairly neutral to her, she did bring the UK back from decades of stagnation, win the Falklands war and break the overly powerful unions but I think she went too far with privatisation and I disagree with her stances on Europe and gay rights.

 

[Xanex]

Was she high handed? Yes.
Was she bigoted to gays. Yes.
Did she cause suffering among the UK working class. Yes.

Did her policies and changes to the UK economy work? Yes.

She did alot of unpopular things. But she did stop the UK from flushing down the economic toliet. Stopping or slowing the eventual fall of a nation is never easy nor painless. There will always be someone hurt by it. But the sooner you do it the less people will be hurt. She was able to turn the UK around before it got to the level of Greece and Italy. And what she did worked so well that even the PMs that came after her haven't undone what she did.

 

[Jegsimmons]

I feel about her death the same way I felt about Bin Laden's death: the departure of a human being who caused countless suffering, but a human being nevertheless. I can't find a reason to celebrate someone losing their life.

Comparing Thatcher to bin laden?

real fucking classy.

What the hell is wrong with people?

Seriously, a democratically elected woman who made history in one of the most powerful nations DIED, and you people are calling her a witch, celebrating, and comparing her to genocidal war criminals?

you people ought to be a shamed of your selves. that's low, that real fucking low. Im not even british and barely know anything about her, but damn people!

There are politicians i hate, but i'm not going to be glad when they die! just when they're out of office.

You people are worse than /b/.

And people wonder why i have such distaste for these forums.

I repeat my statement.

I CAN'T FIND A REASON TO CELEBRATE SOMEONE LOSING THEIR LIFE.

I stand by my statement that Margaret Thatcher screwed up her country to levels that remained, but I'm not going to use that as a reason to be glad that she's dead. As for the Bin Laden comparison, I used Bin Laden because people were celebrating his death as 'vengeance' over 9/11, and I don't agree with that sentiment either.

Learn to read a post properly before rebutting.

Still comparing her in anyway to the extremest jihadist, even in the form you did, is very distasteful.
Not to mention it was not just you i was referring to, im slamming everyone in this thread OPENLY who are so mean spirited to celebrate an accomplished woman's death and comparing her to mass murderers.

And maby its because i (unlike 90% of the escapist) am not left winged politically, but from me looking her up and doing some reading, i don't see how SHE (a woman elected multiple time by the way) is what is causing the UK current political and economic issues. a lot of that seems to be from the crazy an practically unchecked parliament and degrading social morality.

 

[Jegsimmons]

Was she high handed? Yes.
Was she bigoted to gays. Yes.
Did she cause suffering among the UK working class. Yes.

Did her policies and changes to the UK economy work? Yes.

She did alot of unpopular things. But she did stop the UK from flushing down the economic toliet. Stopping or slowing the eventual fall of a nation is never easy nor painless. There will always be someone hurt by it. But the sooner you do it the less people will be hurt. She was able to turn the UK around before it got to the level of Greece and Italy. And what she did worked so well that even the PMs that came after her haven't undone what she did.

Finally someone with some sense and decency in this thread. People need to understand that economic reform is always going to have some sore backs. It's life, it ain't easy. You can't expect things to be easy just because.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

For the Americans out there: she was essentially the female version of Ronald Reagan. A heartless old person who caused suffering to many people.

Hey! Ronald Reagan gave us Transformers and My Little Pony!

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

No reaction. I heard about it and didn't react one way or the other. *shrugs*

 

[Galletea]

Generally I am indifferent. I know that she did a lot of unpopular things while she was in power. But I wasn't there, and don't really know what the other options were at the time. I know my mother thought of her as 'an evil woman with no idea of how real people lived'.

I think it would be foolish to judge her, because although I have a rough knowledge of the economical climate of the time, I don't think it's possible to really understand the situation that she was dealing with.

 

[Galletea]

Still comparing her in anyway to the extremest jihadist, even in the form you did, is very distasteful.
Not to mention it was not just you i was referring to, im slamming everyone in this thread OPENLY who are so mean spirited to celebrate an accomplished woman's death and comparing her to mass murderers.

And maby its because i (unlike 90% of the escapist) am not left winged politically, but from me looking her up and doing some reading, i don't see how SHE (a woman elected multiple time by the way) is what is causing the UK current political and economic issues. a lot of that seems to be from the crazy an practically unchecked parliament and degrading social morality.

The comparison is about a reaction to a death. It comes after a similar thread relating to the extremist chap you feel so very strongly about. There is no comparison to the man, which is fairly obvious from the post. I think the comparison is valid, since it was the first thing I thought when I saw the thread.

What you have to remember here is that this woman did a lot of unpopular things in which the general public suffered, and a lot of the british people on here are children of people who had to live through that, and to add insult to injury, her funeral is going to be a massive affair. So a lot of the reaction comes from people's families.

I think your disdain is unfounded, you went looking for something to be angry at. You may have done some research, but reacting to an ill informed comment about the current climate with another inflammatory comment is not going to get you taken seriously.

 

[Timmey]

Was she high handed? Yes.
Was she bigoted to gays. Yes.
Did she cause suffering among the UK working class. Yes.

Did her policies and changes to the UK economy work? Yes.

She did alot of unpopular things. But she did stop the UK from flushing down the economic toliet. Stopping or slowing the eventual fall of a nation is never easy nor painless. There will always be someone hurt by it. But the sooner you do it the less people will be hurt. She was able to turn the UK around before it got to the level of Greece and Italy. And what she did worked so well that even the PMs that came after her haven't undone what she did.

Finally someone with some sense and decency in this thread. People need to understand that economic reform is always going to have some sore backs. It's life, it ain't easy. You can't expect things to be easy just because.

Yes but the point is the way she did it. Some of what she did was simply to prove a point, and people will, and should, refuse to have respect for someone who ruined their lives simply to show that she could!

Also the economic reforms weren't necessary, she could of kept England an industrial nation, there is a rather large, and extremely successful one in Europe with very strong unions .... Germany.

 

[Tomaius]

Politics and Feminism. Two topics that 95% of forum posters do not understand. These discussions are totally pointless, as whatever well reasoned points are made they are drowned out by a sea of poorly informed trash.

 

[flarty]

The best way to address the partisan politics is by realising if you subscribe to left or right or left wing politics you subscribe to a view of the world in only black and white, when in fact it is all shades of grey. One of the reasons i was a fan of Hugo Chavez political view was because he believed in a class system that taxed properly and redistributed the wealth fairly. Not the classic socialist commie the media would lead us to believe he was.

He did like a spot of traditional "classic Socialist commie" passtimes though! Locking up judges -http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/14/chavez-prisoner-maria-lourdes-afiuni and shutting down radio stations http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/02/venezuela-chavez-radio-station-licences

If the Guardian thinks a strident Socialist is worthy of anything but uncritical hero-worship, there is definitely something wrong.

The "redistribution" of wealth has destroyed the middle class in Venezuela. It also has an inflation rate of 22% - http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi which is actually historically low.

Oil production itself has fallen from 3.2mn barrels to 2.5mn because no one wants to buy oil from or work in country where the state will expropriate your property without compensation (Chavez did this to about 1000 businesses).

Crime is soaring, including a tripled murder rates and the country hasn't reported economic indicators to the IMF for nearly 8 years, meaning it's probably in a much worse state that thought.

Oh, and the vaunted "free" healthcare was so good he went to Cuba to be treated.

So basically, the usual Socialist economic illiteracy; the country is on the verge of collapse, when the oil runs out they are stuffed.

Yes he has made some major mistakes in the time he served in office. But he had some spectacular triumphs too. He eradicated poverty by nearly 2 thirds. The companies he nationalised were companies that were exploiting Venezuela as far as I'm aware (i cant be sure though, i haven't looked into every company).
Inflation is high but is is offset somewhat by there economic growth. Venezuela had the best performing stock market last year, the reason they don't report anything to the IMF is because the IMF is widely hated in south America for imposing Friedman economics on many of the country's after many American backed coups in Chile and Argentina being the most famous. These free market policies crippled the continent and left the door wide open for American business to come and exploit many resources such as Venezuelan oil reserves. Plus the fact that the Chinese are pumping billions into the country since they sit on the worlds largest untapped oil fields. The reason they are producing less oil then they previously were is because that field has peaked.

As for the health care, it was non existent when he came to power he had to trade a lot of oil for a lot of Cuban doctors to come over and give medical aid for the population. Their health service may not be any near the quality of ours in the developed western country. But they have only had a short time to develop it, and its an improvement over nothing.

Now there is a lot of issues with the country such as the crime rate. With gun crime approaching war zone levels, they do need to get a grip on it and hopefully his predecessors will, and i did not like his authoritarian stance at all but he did hold the fairest and most scrutinized elections on the planet as said by Jimmy Carter. He was repeatedly elected because he worked for the people despite of all his short comings and they loved him more than any other leader on the planet has ever been loved.

Now i don't admire the man. But i respect the great gains he made on the behalf the people who voted for him.

As for socialist economic illiteracy, take a look at Ecuador and the great economic and social gains they are making with their socialist policies.

 

[senobit]

basically indifferent, but I can understand a lot of the hate, a lot of the problems we have now come from her governments policies - stuff like selling off social housing for next to nothing, the privatization of essential utilities followed by skyrocketing prices and in the case of British Rail a massive dropped in safety, Poll Tax, NHS and education cuts, broke the power of the unions to the point where workers rights have been going to shit ever since.

Basically she ran a proper tory government which rewarded the rich and screwed the working classes. I've never understood how they stayed in power for so long.

 

[Xanex]

Yes he has made some major mistakes in the time he served in office. But he had some spectacular triumphs too. He eradicated poverty by nearly 2 thirds. The companies he nationalised were companies that were exploiting Venezuela as far as I'm aware (i cant be sure though, i haven't looked into every company).

Umm. He didn't eradicate poverty. He basicaly turned the country into a 2 class system. The rich(general those that support him) and the not rich. And using the term "nationalized" is a really nice way of saying he seized a sizable number of private companies for his own profit with no legal reason given.

But i respect the great gains he made on the behalf the people who voted for him.

You realize that any real political opposition to him either fled the country or ended up in jail, dead or just dissappeared. After that the idea that it was a legit democratic proccess is laughable.