Comments on: Thatcher: I don’t feel like dancin’

By: Mannie De Saxe

Mannie De Saxe — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:41:52 +0000

With Thatcher’s hatred of gay people and her introduction of Clause 28 in 1988, many gay and lesbian groups around the globe held protest demonstrations.
One of these took place outside the British Consulate Building at Circular Quay in Sydney, Australia.
I was 61 at the time and coming out as a gay man and went to my first demonstration as a gay man.
At that demonstration, organised by a gay left group called Gay Solidarity, I was invited to go to one of their regular group meetings held in the homes of members – the group didn’t ever have enough money for their own premises, and at this first meeting I met a man of similar age to me and 5 years later we became partnered and have now been together for 20 years.
He is now 90 and I am 86 and it with a deep sense of irony that I remember Thatcher and her nasty anti-homosexual legislation which brought us together.
We do not mourn her death, but as many have said above, her legacy lives on, and will do until we manage to get rid of the system which allows such people to run our governments.
Mannie De Saxe

By: Bugsy

Bugsy — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:17:42 +0000

I agree with you, Owen, that, in reality, there’s nothing to celebrate (used in its widest sense). However, if our jubilation puts a damper on the efforts of all those desperately attempting to outdo each other with their mendacious piousness about an evil, ruthless, vindictive arsehole who they never liked anyway, then it’s served it’s purpose. Yes, it’s a bit childish and all that, but if it pisses off the right people, then it can only be positive.

MsG

By: Owen

Owen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:06:13 +0000

The point is, there is nothing to celebrate.

The exploitative system that she was no more of a bag carrier for, is more firmly entrenched in todays society by more mendacious actors of both right and so called centre left actors, than she could have dreamed

She was the epitome of masochistic middle Britain. I do not rejoice in her death, I pity her life.

By: Bugsy

Bugsy — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:57:36 +0000

Maggie Thatcher began to suffer at a comparatively early stage from the “disease” that befalls almost all leaders. It’s because they’re the top-cheeses that they, sooner or later, gain the impression that they’re always right – and I mean always.

We tend to slice up our recent history and often fail to make the necessary connections and linkups that are required to make a coherent narrative of the times we live in. For instance, when Thatcher “handbagged” that there Sergeant (or however it’s spelled) fella, simply because he said something she didn’t approve of, the right-wing press fell over themselves to praise her ostensible “resoluteness”. Just imagine what would happen if a normal person employed such tactics.

When steel-workers in Sheffield went out on strike because management refused to pay an already agreed wage increase, Thatcher was a little bemused and asked: “Why do they want more money? They’ll only spend it!”

That sort of sums up her general attitude to working class folks and also shows where her loyalties always lay. She never had the remotest arse-end of an idea about realistic economics, but she knew that complying with the instructions given to her by the corporate and bank bosses would lead to HER persona goal; which was to remove herself as far away from her roots as possible and finally to be recognised as part of the “elite”. I, for one, am glad the divisive, vindictive old bastard is brown-bread. I just wish she’d died screaming in unbearable pain.

MsG

By: Kevin Blowe

Kevin Blowe — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:05:24 +0000

Agree with above: po-faced and unhelpful

By: Andy White

Andy White — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 18:09:10 +0000

Well said Lewis. You can keep your worthy gloom Lynne. Billy Bragg is way off the mark on this as well. When an evil tyrant dies, isn’t it natural to feel happy?

Her programme was nothing less than economic and political vandalism, and she carried it through with total enthusiasm and committment. It WAS personal. She hated socialists, feminists, trade unionists, peace campaigners, Irish republicans, gay people – in fact anyone who dared to make the case for any kind of social alternative. Even people who went to music festivals.

When you were up against the full force of her hatred, it felt like an evil force all right. What more do you want – do you need her to have been a practising satanist or a secret Nazi before you feel that the world is a better place without her in it?

By: Lewis White

Lewis White — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:06:31 +0000

Sort of just reads like your determined to disagree with everyone, and have managed to find an argument, with a little bit of the sexist criticism and a little bit of the Thatcherism lives on criticism, that allows you to do put yourself against both lefties who’re celebrating, right winger who’re crying, and liberals who think “she did some things of worth”.

If i was being more helpful and less dismissive, I’d probably say that I basically struggle to understand what your overall point is here?

Is it simply that the world is still a shit place so why bother enjoying Thatcher’s death? In which case you sort of answer the question yourself in the last paragraph don’t you?

“She was the perfect role model for the ever deepening gulf between women, as the privileged few have been able to rise to the very heights of political or corporate power, even as the majority of women, affected at every turn by the rolling back of welfare and the politics of individual success she promoted, are ever more firmly left at the bottom of the heap.”

Given that it sounds like she set feminism back decades there, why wouldn’t one at the very least feel relief that her physical embodiment is gone. That’s step in the right direction surely?