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Maggie: What would be an apt tribute?

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[quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"]

What I could never understand about the Liverpool that I saw, is why they would want to burn down their own community? It wasn''t outsiders coming in to set fire to homes and shops, it was the people who lived there that inflicted damage on themselves.

It''s a pattern that repeats itself time and again. I don''t recall the good people of Norfolk going down to Tottenham in 2011 and destroying the community, it was the locals who did that to themselves. Why should we have sympathy for them when they make their own neighbours homeless and wipe out the local economy and thus causing unemployment?

And in between the Toxteth riots of the early 1980''s and the London riots thirty years later there have been numerous examples of local communities destroyed down in the name of class warfare. And they expect the rest of us to bail them out with our taxes for which the rest of us have to go to work to pay.

During Margaret Thatcher''s tenure those miners who wanted to work were harassed and bullied by the union boys. Had their windows smashed in and families threatened with violence if they wanted to do a days work. Not just miners. Flying pickets tried to stop workers at power plants from going to work, tried to stop truck drivers from making deliveries.

Fortunately we had a Prime Minister who was prepared to stand up to the anarchists. The result was a country that went from economic decline into economic boom. We are now living in a country with a much higher standard of living than we had during the 1970''s and we can thank Thatcher for that. 

[/quote]

 

Yep.. all of them! Unless of course you''re at it again...

 

Heaven forbid!

 

Have you ever been on strike Rocky?

 

 

[/quote]

Nutty, you''ll have to point out to me the sentence where I claim that all the people in the community took part in the riots because having re-read my piece I just don''t see it.

Have I ever been on strike? Yes indeed I have. In the late seventies it was. We won a huge pay rise but our suppliers suffered because they were not getting paid while we were out on strike, our customers suffered because they ended up having to pay more, and the few who refused to strike suffered as they were blackballed by their striking colleagues. Our justification for a wage increase? Because other workers were getting a wage increase, and so the wage/price inflation of the late 1970''s went on. As a youngster back then I though it cool to be on strike and great to get a big pay rise. It was on reflection that I realised it was a selfish act that benefitted only those who were part of the union. And even then the benefits were only short-term as inflation kicked in. But that''s the way unions operated, no altruism and no sense of community.

 

Now I reckon Son ova Gun deserves an answer, don''t you think? His post was a bit tortuous but I think he was saying that if we taxpayers pay for some nice new social housing to house those in need, and then they burn it down in a riot, they should be entitled to have it rebuilt at our expense? I don''t know about you buddy, but I think those upstanding citizens of Burnham Thorpe are missing a trick here...

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[quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"]

What I could never understand about the Liverpool that I saw, is why they would want to burn down their own community? It wasn''t outsiders coming in to set fire to homes and shops, it was the people who lived there that inflicted damage on themselves.

It''s a pattern that repeats itself time and again. I don''t recall the good people of Norfolk going down to Tottenham in 2011 and destroying the community, it was the locals who did that to themselves. Why should we have sympathy for them when they make their own neighbours homeless and wipe out the local economy and thus causing unemployment?

And in between the Toxteth riots of the early 1980''s and the London riots thirty years later there have been numerous examples of local communities destroyed down in the name of class warfare. And they expect the rest of us to bail them out with our taxes for which the rest of us have to go to work to pay.

During Margaret Thatcher''s tenure those miners who wanted to work were harassed and bullied by the union boys. Had their windows smashed in and families threatened with violence if they wanted to do a days work. Not just miners. Flying pickets tried to stop workers at power plants from going to work, tried to stop truck drivers from making deliveries.

Fortunately we had a Prime Minister who was prepared to stand up to the anarchists. The result was a country that went from economic decline into economic boom. We are now living in a country with a much higher standard of living than we had during the 1970''s and we can thank Thatcher for that. 

[/quote]

 

Yep.. all of them! Unless of course you''re at it again...

 

Heaven forbid!

 

Have you ever been on strike Rocky?

 

 

[/quote]

Nutty, you''ll have to point out to me the sentence where I claim that all the people in the community took part in the riots because having re-read my piece I just don''t see it.

Have I ever been on strike? Yes indeed I have. In the late seventies it was. We won a huge pay rise but our suppliers suffered because they were not getting paid while we were out on strike, our customers suffered because they ended up having to pay more, and the few who refused to strike suffered as they were blackballed by their striking colleagues. Our justification for a wage increase? Because other workers were getting a wage increase, and so the wage/price inflation of the late 1970''s went on. As a youngster back then I though it cool to be on strike and great to get a big pay rise. It was on reflection that I realised it was a selfish act that benefitted only those who were part of the union. And even then the benefits were only short-term as inflation kicked in. But that''s the way unions operated, no altruism and no sense of community.

 

Now I reckon Son ova Gun deserves an answer, don''t you think? His post was a bit tortuous but I think he was saying that if we taxpayers pay for some nice new social housing to house those in need, and then they burn it down in a riot, they should be entitled to have it rebuilt at our expense? I don''t know about you buddy, but I think those upstanding citizens of Burnham Thorpe are missing a trick here...

[/quote]

 

Were you on the picket line when you were onj strike Rocky? Were you reasonable and did you have a good relationship with those who crossed the line? You see we each have a choice how we behave. But by reading your post I see that you weren''t. I see that you even admit yourself that you were selfish with no sense of community. I see nothing has changed. Although you believe you have seen the light the truth is you have found a more comfortable place to be selfish. But that''s Thatcherism in a nutshell. According to her community didn''t exist.

 

 

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Wouldnt blame you Rock for not wanting to return to the thread as the debates are turning to insults but I just wanted to check that i understand you right. If 5% of a community (and thats being generous, probably more like 2%) riot and turn the streets into a war zone, then we should abandon the other 95% of law abiding and tax paying citizens? and that I am wrong to say we should use tax payers money to help rebuild instead leaving them to live in what has been left?

 

the reason way Nutty jumped on you is because effectively by saying we should not help rebuild you are punishing those people in the community who did not riot, treating everyone from that city or community the same (undeserving of help).

 

While not part of any strike action (school age at the time) my understanding of it is very similar to Rocks in that there was no middle ground for workers to occupy, either you were with the union or against. being nice to fellow workers you did not strike was not an option, those that did work were outcast, the enemy. In this sense the unions acted more like Thatcher than Thatcher herself, as long as we get what we want to hell with the consequences for everyone else, not our problem!

 

 

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One advantage to all this. If Thatcher merits a £10m (at least) ceremonial funeral with hundreds of military personnel and the monarch in attendance then we can''t have any arguments from the right when Blair - a war leader-politician much admired by US Republicans who won three elections and changed the UK - gets the same splendid send-off.

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[quote user="Son Ova Gunn"]

Wouldnt blame you Rock for not wanting to return to the thread as the debates are turning to insults but I just wanted to check that i understand you right. If 5% of a community (and thats being generous, probably more like 2%) riot and turn the streets into a war zone, then we should abandon the other 95% of law abiding and tax paying citizens? and that I am wrong to say we should use tax payers money to help rebuild instead leaving them to live in what has been left?

 

the reason way Nutty jumped on you is because effectively by saying we should not help rebuild you are punishing those people in the community who did not riot, treating everyone from that city or community the same (undeserving of help).

 

While not part of any strike action (school age at the time) my understanding of it is very similar to Rocks in that there was no middle ground for workers to occupy, either you were with the union or against. being nice to fellow workers you did not strike was not an option, those that did work were outcast, the enemy. In this sense the unions acted more like Thatcher than Thatcher herself, as long as we get what we want to hell with the consequences for everyone else, not our problem!

 

 

[/quote]

 

See this is what you get for tarring everyone with the same brush. You haven''t done it Sona but you''ve left the door open for the narrow minded types like Crafty who entered the thread with the attitude that if you criticised Thatcher you must rate Scargill. The truth is that a huge amount of people found both of them deplorable.

 

Community is something that doesn''t sit comfortably with either extreme.

 

 

 

 

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[quote user="Larson E Whipsnade"]" And your claiming that looting 3 pairs of nike trainers and a sony playstation is done to make a political statement are you, wow. ".

No.[/quote]

 

Brilliant, then do prey tell Larson of Whipsnade, the arson, looting, mugging, assult and murder of the 2011 riots was not a result of a political statement nor by criminal opportunism but by..........  Is this where you tell us they all personally knew Mark Duggan?

 

 

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[quote user="Son Ova Gunn"]

 

While not part of any strike action (school age at the time) my understanding of it is very similar to Rocks in that there was no middle ground for workers to occupy, either you were with the union or against. being nice to fellow workers you did not strike was not an option, those that did work were outcast, the enemy. In this sense the unions acted more like Thatcher than Thatcher herself, as long as we get what we want to hell with the consequences for everyone else, not our problem!

 

 

[/quote]

 

 

That is true to an extent, probably a large extent, but it could hardly be otherwise. Strike action could only be effective if it was rigorously policed by the union. And any sympathy you might have for strike-breakers ought to be tempered by the knowledge that they would happily accept any pay rises or improvements in conditions (the cause of a vast number of disputes rather than money) the union won despite them.And that leads on to a fallacious mantra about that era - that the unions were too powerful and had to be brought down. Some unions were. Quite true. But hardly all. Some were weak and that weakness was exploited by employers. But the Thatcher legislation hit all unions, strong and weak.

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[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Son Ova Gunn"]

 

While not part of any strike action (school age at the time) my understanding of it is very similar to Rocks in that there was no middle ground for workers to occupy, either you were with the union or against. being nice to fellow workers you did not strike was not an option, those that did work were outcast, the enemy. In this sense the unions acted more like Thatcher than Thatcher herself, as long as we get what we want to hell with the consequences for everyone else, not our problem!

 

 

[/quote]

 

 

That is true to an extent, probably a large extent, but it could hardly be otherwise. Strike action could only be effective if it was rigorously policed by the union. And any sympathy you might have for strike-breakers ought to be tempered by the knowledge that they would happily accept any pay rises or improvements in conditions (the cause of a vast number of disputes rather than money) the union won despite them.

And that leads on to a fallacious mantra about that era - that the unions were too powerful and had to be brought down. Some unions were. Quite true. But hardly all. Some were weak and that weakness was exploited by employers. But the Thatcher legislation hit all unions, strong and weak.

[/quote]

 

Because they were all tarred by the Scargill brush. Read this thread and from page one it''s obvious that the tarring still exists even now.

 

 

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[quote user="Son Ova Gunn"]

[quote user="Larson E Whipsnade"]" And your claiming that looting 3 pairs of nike trainers and a sony playstation is done to make a political statement are you, wow. ".

No.[/quote]

 

Brilliant, then do prey tell Larson of Whipsnade, the arson, looting, mugging, assult and murder of the 2011 riots was not a result of a political statement nor by criminal opportunism but by..........  Is this where you tell us they all personally knew Mark Duggan?

 

 

[/quote]Do some reading instead of loitering on here . Every single aspect of the riots was extensively researched  by the London School of Economics and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I am much surprised they did not just contact you instead and saved themselves a year of painstaking investigation .....after all you seem to know everything with out even leaving your armchair.http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/series/reading-the-riots

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[quote user="Larson E Whipsnade"][quote user="Son Ova Gunn"]

[quote user="Larson E Whipsnade"]" And your claiming that looting 3 pairs of nike trainers and a sony playstation is done to make a political statement are you, wow. ".

No.[/quote]

 

Brilliant, then do prey tell Larson of Whipsnade, the arson, looting, mugging, assult and murder of the 2011 riots was not a result of a political statement nor by criminal opportunism but by..........  Is this where you tell us they all personally knew Mark Duggan?

 

 

[/quote]Do some reading instead of loitering on here . Every single aspect of the riots was extensively researched  by the London School of Economics and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I am much surprised they did not just contact you instead and saved themselves a year of painstaking investigation .....after all you seem to know everything with out even leaving your armchair.http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/series/reading-the-riots

[/quote]

 

So you believe this extensively researched report when it says

 

Many rioters conceded that their involvement in looting was simply down to opportunism, saying that a perceived suspension of normal rules presented them with an opportunity to acquire goods and luxury items they could not ordinarily afford. They often described the riots as a chance to obtain "free stuff" or sought to justify the theft.

 

Yet when Rock the Boat says

The riots were an opportunist criminal act where homes and local businesses were destroyed simply because people thought they could get away with it

 

he needs to see a Doctor specialising in mental health.

Its almost as contridictory as, I dont know, maybe telling me I should leave my armchair and read more. In my opinion the people involved in the riots did not all have the same reason for doing so, some like Rock said just wanted to take advantage of the situation and travelled miles to do so, others were making a statement about government or policing, some had other reasons. Do i need to be an expert in the social sciences to hold such an opinion, nope. Am I going to publish my opinion? nope. Will I let one report fully dictate my opinion without question? nope (although is very broadly in line with my thoughts on the matter).

 

 

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LEW wrote - "Do some reading instead of loitering on here . Every single aspect of the riots was extensively researched by the London School of Economics and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I am much surprised they did not just contact you instead and saved themselves a year of painstaking investigation .....after all you seem to know everything with out even leaving your armchair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/series/reading-the-riots"

And the conclusion of most law-abiding citizens (even Guardian readers) is that they were nothing more than common criminals (73% had a criminal record) who blamed the Police for their criminal actions. Wonders will never cease.

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Son Ova Gunn wrote the following post at 16/04/2013 1:20 PM:

" So you believe this extensively researched report when it says

Many

rioters conceded that their involvement in looting was simply down to

opportunism, saying that a perceived suspension of normal rules

presented them with an opportunity to acquire goods and luxury items

they could not ordinarily afford. They often described the riots as a

chance to obtain "free stuff" or sought to justify the theft. "

It said a lot more than that , all carefully ignored by you:Widespread anger and frustration at the way police engage with communities

was a significant cause of the summer riots in every major city where

disorder took place, the biggest study into their cause has foundRioters identified a range of political grievances, but at the heart of

their complaints was a pervasive sense of injustice. For some this was

economic: the lack of money, jobs or opportunity. For others it was more

broadly social: how they felt they were treated compared with others.

Many mentioned the increase in student tuition fees and the scrapping of

the education maintenance allowance.Although rioters expressed a mix of opinions about the disorder, many of

those involved said they felt like they were participating in

explicitly anti-police riots. They cited "policing" as the most

significant cause of the riots, and anger over the police shooting of

Mark Duggan, which triggered initial disturbances in Tottenham, was

repeatedly mentioned – even outside London.The most common complaints related to people''s everyday experience of

policing, with many expressing deep frustration at the way people in

their communities were subjected to stop and search
.And more than enough John Norton sock puppets for one day.

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[quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"]

What I could never understand about the Liverpool that I saw, is why they would want to burn down their own community? It wasn''t outsiders coming in to set fire to homes and shops, it was the people who lived there that inflicted damage on themselves.

It''s a pattern that repeats itself time and again. I don''t recall the good people of Norfolk going down to Tottenham in 2011 and destroying the community, it was the locals who did that to themselves. Why should we have sympathy for them when they make their own neighbours homeless and wipe out the local economy and thus causing unemployment?

And in between the Toxteth riots of the early 1980''s and the London riots thirty years later there have been numerous examples of local communities destroyed down in the name of class warfare. And they expect the rest of us to bail them out with our taxes for which the rest of us have to go to work to pay.

During Margaret Thatcher''s tenure those miners who wanted to work were harassed and bullied by the union boys. Had their windows smashed in and families threatened with violence if they wanted to do a days work. Not just miners. Flying pickets tried to stop workers at power plants from going to work, tried to stop truck drivers from making deliveries.

Fortunately we had a Prime Minister who was prepared to stand up to the anarchists. The result was a country that went from economic decline into economic boom. We are now living in a country with a much higher standard of living than we had during the 1970''s and we can thank Thatcher for that. 

[/quote]

 

Yep.. all of them! Unless of course you''re at it again...

 

Heaven forbid!

 

Have you ever been on strike Rocky?

 

 

[/quote]

Nutty, you''ll have to point out to me the sentence where I claim that all the people in the community took part in the riots because having re-read my piece I just don''t see it.

Have I ever been on strike? Yes indeed I have. In the late seventies it was. We won a huge pay rise but our suppliers suffered because they were not getting paid while we were out on strike, our customers suffered because they ended up having to pay more, and the few who refused to strike suffered as they were blackballed by their striking colleagues. Our justification for a wage increase? Because other workers were getting a wage increase, and so the wage/price inflation of the late 1970''s went on. As a youngster back then I though it cool to be on strike and great to get a big pay rise. It was on reflection that I realised it was a selfish act that benefitted only those who were part of the union. And even then the benefits were only short-term as inflation kicked in. But that''s the way unions operated, no altruism and no sense of community.

 

Now I reckon Son ova Gun deserves an answer, don''t you think? His post was a bit tortuous but I think he was saying that if we taxpayers pay for some nice new social housing to house those in need, and then they burn it down in a riot, they should be entitled to have it rebuilt at our expense? I don''t know about you buddy, but I think those upstanding citizens of Burnham Thorpe are missing a trick here...

[/quote]

 

Were you on the picket line when you were onj strike Rocky? Were you reasonable and did you have a good relationship with those who crossed the line? You see we each have a choice how we behave. But by reading your post I see that you weren''t. I see that you even admit yourself that you were selfish with no sense of community. I see nothing has changed. Although you believe you have seen the light the truth is you have found a more comfortable place to be selfish. But that''s Thatcherism in a nutshell. According to her community didn''t exist.

 

[/quote]

I think Maggie said there was no such thing as society. Of course you left-wing guys always leave out the full statement so as to change the meaning of what she said. She mentioned this twice and I will provide you the quotes.

1. " And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It''s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour."

2. "There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

Now I interpret that as saying that we all have personal responsibilities and we have responsibilities to our neighbours and to the unfortunate. I don''t see how you can arrive at the conclusion that this is selfish. The core of Thatcherism is that we are personally responsible for our lives and not some over-bearing, big-brother State. Seems entirely reasonable to me.

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[quote user="Rock The Boat"]think Maggie said there was no such thing as society. Of course you left-wing guys always leave out the full statement so as to change the meaning of what she said. She mentioned this twice and I will provide you the quotes.

1. " And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It''s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour."

2. "There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

Now I interpret that as saying that we all have personal responsibilities and we have responsibilities to our neighbours and to the unfortunate. I don''t see how you can arrive at the conclusion that this is selfish. The core of Thatcherism is that we are personally responsible for our lives and not some over-bearing, big-brother State. Seems entirely reasonable to me.

[/quote]

 

Politicians come up with all sorts of things that need to be taken with a pinch of salt. She walked into Downing Street saying:Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope...but acted as the most divisive British prime minister of the century. However the full quote of hers about society is interesting, because it points up the flaw in her policies, which  freed up the rich to get richer but envisaged (for the sake of argument let''s assume she really did think) that wealth and help would then trickle down to the poor. That the stinking rich Good Samaritan she used as an example would give away money to the beggars.Of course it didn''t happen. The rich held on to their money and passed by on the other side. As a direct result of her policies by the early to mid-1990s Britain had become the most unequal society in western Europe. Indeed the gap  between the richest and poorest fifths was the same as in Nigeria and far worse than in Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia. Worse than in Ethiopia, eh. That is some achievement.Trotskyist propaganda? Only if you believe the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations Development Programme were all ultra-left hotbeds.But then this was a prime minister who admitted she "gloried in inequality" on the basis that it would produce growth and this mythical trickle-down. In fact the OECD said the opposite was true:"The future prosperity of OECD countries depends on reducing social and economic exclusion in the forms of high unemployment, non-participation in the labour market ... and, in some instances, growing inequalities in earnings and incomes."And so did the World Bank: "Reducing inequality not only benefits the poor immediately but will benefit all through higher growth."Whether Thatcher really did believe in trickle-down is a question. Just as simple an explanation is that she knew it was nonsense but was, along with Reagan, looking after her own and to hell with the little people.

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[quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"]

What I could never understand about the Liverpool that I saw, is why they would want to burn down their own community? It wasn''t outsiders coming in to set fire to homes and shops, it was the people who lived there that inflicted damage on themselves.

It''s a pattern that repeats itself time and again. I don''t recall the good people of Norfolk going down to Tottenham in 2011 and destroying the community, it was the locals who did that to themselves. Why should we have sympathy for them when they make their own neighbours homeless and wipe out the local economy and thus causing unemployment?

And in between the Toxteth riots of the early 1980''s and the London riots thirty years later there have been numerous examples of local communities destroyed down in the name of class warfare. And they expect the rest of us to bail them out with our taxes for which the rest of us have to go to work to pay.

During Margaret Thatcher''s tenure those miners who wanted to work were harassed and bullied by the union boys. Had their windows smashed in and families threatened with violence if they wanted to do a days work. Not just miners. Flying pickets tried to stop workers at power plants from going to work, tried to stop truck drivers from making deliveries.

Fortunately we had a Prime Minister who was prepared to stand up to the anarchists. The result was a country that went from economic decline into economic boom. We are now living in a country with a much higher standard of living than we had during the 1970''s and we can thank Thatcher for that. 

[/quote]

 

Yep.. all of them! Unless of course you''re at it again...

 

Heaven forbid!

 

Have you ever been on strike Rocky?

 

 

[/quote]

Nutty, you''ll have to point out to me the sentence where I claim that all the people in the community took part in the riots because having re-read my piece I just don''t see it.

Have I ever been on strike? Yes indeed I have. In the late seventies it was. We won a huge pay rise but our suppliers suffered because they were not getting paid while we were out on strike, our customers suffered because they ended up having to pay more, and the few who refused to strike suffered as they were blackballed by their striking colleagues. Our justification for a wage increase? Because other workers were getting a wage increase, and so the wage/price inflation of the late 1970''s went on. As a youngster back then I though it cool to be on strike and great to get a big pay rise. It was on reflection that I realised it was a selfish act that benefitted only those who were part of the union. And even then the benefits were only short-term as inflation kicked in. But that''s the way unions operated, no altruism and no sense of community.

 

Now I reckon Son ova Gun deserves an answer, don''t you think? His post was a bit tortuous but I think he was saying that if we taxpayers pay for some nice new social housing to house those in need, and then they burn it down in a riot, they should be entitled to have it rebuilt at our expense? I don''t know about you buddy, but I think those upstanding citizens of Burnham Thorpe are missing a trick here...

[/quote]

 

Were you on the picket line when you were onj strike Rocky? Were you reasonable and did you have a good relationship with those who crossed the line? You see we each have a choice how we behave. But by reading your post I see that you weren''t. I see that you even admit yourself that you were selfish with no sense of community. I see nothing has changed. Although you believe you have seen the light the truth is you have found a more comfortable place to be selfish. But that''s Thatcherism in a nutshell. According to her community didn''t exist.

 

[/quote]

I think Maggie said there was no such thing as society. Of course you left-wing guys always leave out the full statement so as to change the meaning of what she said. She mentioned this twice and I will provide you the quotes.

1. " And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It''s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour."

2. "There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

Now I interpret that as saying that we all have personal responsibilities and we have responsibilities to our neighbours and to the unfortunate. I don''t see how you can arrive at the conclusion that this is selfish. The core of Thatcherism is that we are personally responsible for our lives and not some over-bearing, big-brother State. Seems entirely reasonable to me.

[/quote]

 

And there you go again. You cannot helpyourself Rocky. Every post you pigeonhole someone into a group. That''s what Thatcher did. Regardless of their individuality if they travelled to support a football team they were hooligans. If they were a member of a trade union then they were Scargillites. If they demonstrated they were potential looters and robbers. And that''s how the likes of you and crafty still view things. Craftywith his Scargill references and you with your lefty nonsense.

 

"There''s no such thing as society." That statement is false. It doesn''t matter what old pony is brought out to justify it the statement is false.

 

"To our neighbours and the unfortunate" Who are the unfortunate Rocky? Do you decide who they are? How does someone get Rocky''s unfortunate label?

 

 

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Nutty - not that I particually disagree with the dangers of generalisation which you have rightly highlighted throughout this thread, but it is really difficult to have any sort of opinion without some degree labeling. If you are to pull someone up for the phase left-wing guys what do you want instead? all the names of the Labour party and their supporters? Im sure you have used generalisations in your posts too, have you never said for example Stoke are a ugly long ball team dispite the fact that the majority of passes are short balls?.. well you get the drift dispite the appaling anaolgy

 

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[quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"]

What I could never understand about the Liverpool that I saw, is why they would want to burn down their own community? It wasn''t outsiders coming in to set fire to homes and shops, it was the people who lived there that inflicted damage on themselves.

It''s a pattern that repeats itself time and again. I don''t recall the good people of Norfolk going down to Tottenham in 2011 and destroying the community, it was the locals who did that to themselves. Why should we have sympathy for them when they make their own neighbours homeless and wipe out the local economy and thus causing unemployment?

And in between the Toxteth riots of the early 1980''s and the London riots thirty years later there have been numerous examples of local communities destroyed down in the name of class warfare. And they expect the rest of us to bail them out with our taxes for which the rest of us have to go to work to pay.

During Margaret Thatcher''s tenure those miners who wanted to work were harassed and bullied by the union boys. Had their windows smashed in and families threatened with violence if they wanted to do a days work. Not just miners. Flying pickets tried to stop workers at power plants from going to work, tried to stop truck drivers from making deliveries.

Fortunately we had a Prime Minister who was prepared to stand up to the anarchists. The result was a country that went from economic decline into economic boom. We are now living in a country with a much higher standard of living than we had during the 1970''s and we can thank Thatcher for that. 

[/quote]

 

Yep.. all of them! Unless of course you''re at it again...

 

Heaven forbid!

 

Have you ever been on strike Rocky?

 

 

[/quote]

Nutty, you''ll have to point out to me the sentence where I claim that all the people in the community took part in the riots because having re-read my piece I just don''t see it.

Have I ever been on strike? Yes indeed I have. In the late seventies it was. We won a huge pay rise but our suppliers suffered because they were not getting paid while we were out on strike, our customers suffered because they ended up having to pay more, and the few who refused to strike suffered as they were blackballed by their striking colleagues. Our justification for a wage increase? Because other workers were getting a wage increase, and so the wage/price inflation of the late 1970''s went on. As a youngster back then I though it cool to be on strike and great to get a big pay rise. It was on reflection that I realised it was a selfish act that benefitted only those who were part of the union. And even then the benefits were only short-term as inflation kicked in. But that''s the way unions operated, no altruism and no sense of community.

 

Now I reckon Son ova Gun deserves an answer, don''t you think? His post was a bit tortuous but I think he was saying that if we taxpayers pay for some nice new social housing to house those in need, and then they burn it down in a riot, they should be entitled to have it rebuilt at our expense? I don''t know about you buddy, but I think those upstanding citizens of Burnham Thorpe are missing a trick here...

[/quote]

 

Were you on the picket line when you were onj strike Rocky? Were you reasonable and did you have a good relationship with those who crossed the line? You see we each have a choice how we behave. But by reading your post I see that you weren''t. I see that you even admit yourself that you were selfish with no sense of community. I see nothing has changed. Although you believe you have seen the light the truth is you have found a more comfortable place to be selfish. But that''s Thatcherism in a nutshell. According to her community didn''t exist.

 

[/quote]

I think Maggie said there was no such thing as society. Of course you left-wing guys always leave out the full statement so as to change the meaning of what she said. She mentioned this twice and I will provide you the quotes.

1. " And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It''s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour."

2. "There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

Now I interpret that as saying that we all have personal responsibilities and we have responsibilities to our neighbours and to the unfortunate. I don''t see how you can arrive at the conclusion that this is selfish. The core of Thatcherism is that we are personally responsible for our lives and not some over-bearing, big-brother State. Seems entirely reasonable to me.

[/quote]

 

And there you go again. You cannot helpyourself Rocky. Every post you pigeonhole someone into a group. That''s what Thatcher did. Regardless of their individuality if they travelled to support a football team they were hooligans. If they were a member of a trade union then they were Scargillites. If they demonstrated they were potential looters and robbers. And that''s how the likes of you and crafty still view things. Craftywith his Scargill references and you with your lefty nonsense.

 

"There''s no such thing as society." That statement is false. It doesn''t matter what old pony is brought out to justify it the statement is false.

 

"To our neighbours and the unfortunate" Who are the unfortunate Rocky? Do you decide who they are? How does someone get Rocky''s unfortunate label?

 

 

[/quote]

Well you did this before, Nutty, when I asked you where in my post did I say that ALL members were destroying their local communities. That was something I never said but you claimed it as such. Now you are suggesting that I have called all travelling football supporters as hooligans and that all trade unions are Scargilites. Nowhere in any of my posts in this thread have I mentioned either football supporters or Scargil, so why are you making up things that I haven''t mentioned.

I have talked about what Thatcher stood for, personal responsibility being at the core of her values, and have attempted to show that all the left can do is smear her as somehow being selfish for saying that we each must be responsible for ourselves, our families and for the less fortunate. Why does the left have such difficulties with such basic principles of individual responsibility?

Why are the left always such apologists for law breakers?

 

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[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Rock The Boat"]think Maggie said there was no such thing as society. Of course you left-wing guys always leave out the full statement so as to change the meaning of what she said. She mentioned this twice and I will provide you the quotes.

1. " And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It''s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour."

2. "There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

Now I interpret that as saying that we all have personal responsibilities and we have responsibilities to our neighbours and to the unfortunate. I don''t see how you can arrive at the conclusion that this is selfish. The core of Thatcherism is that we are personally responsible for our lives and not some over-bearing, big-brother State. Seems entirely reasonable to me.

[/quote]

 

Politicians come up with all sorts of things that need to be taken with a pinch of salt. She walked into Downing Street saying:Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope...but acted as the most divisive British prime minister of the century. However the full quote of hers about society is interesting, because it points up the flaw in her policies, which  freed up the rich to get richer but envisaged (for the sake of argument let''s assume she really did think) that wealth and help would then trickle down to the poor. That the stinking rich Good Samaritan she used as an example would give away money to the beggars.Of course it didn''t happen. The rich held on to their money and passed by on the other side. As a direct result of her policies by the early to mid-1990s Britain had become the most unequal society in western Europe. Indeed the gap  between the richest and poorest fifths was the same as in Nigeria and far worse than in Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia. Worse than in Ethiopia, eh. That is some achievement.Trotskyist propaganda? Only if you believe the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations Development Programme were all ultra-left hotbeds.But then this was a prime minister who admitted she "gloried in inequality" on the basis that it would produce growth and this mythical trickle-down. In fact the OECD said the opposite was true:"The future prosperity of OECD countries depends on reducing social and economic exclusion in the forms of high unemployment, non-participation in the labour market ... and, in some instances, growing inequalities in earnings and incomes."And so did the World Bank: "Reducing inequality not only benefits the poor immediately but will benefit all through higher growth."Whether Thatcher really did believe in trickle-down is a question. Just as simple an explanation is that she knew it was nonsense but was, along with Reagan, looking after her own and to hell with the little people.

[/quote]

Of course the gap between rich and poor opened during the 1990''s It is a measure of our success as a country going from economic decline into economic boom. Those people who are creating the new wealth are obviously going to become richer, while those not creating the new wealth are not going to become richer. It''s a no-brainer. If I started up a new, successful IT company I would expect the income gap to widen between me and my mate who preferred to stay in bed all day watching the racing on the telly.

Now, PC, you''re not going to tell me that we never had economic growth as a result of the Thatcher years, are you?

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[quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Rock The Boat"]think Maggie said there was no such thing as society. Of course you left-wing guys always leave out the full statement so as to change the meaning of what she said. She mentioned this twice and I will provide you the quotes.

1. " And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It''s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour."

2. "There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

Now I interpret that as saying that we all have personal responsibilities and we have responsibilities to our neighbours and to the unfortunate. I don''t see how you can arrive at the conclusion that this is selfish. The core of Thatcherism is that we are personally responsible for our lives and not some over-bearing, big-brother State. Seems entirely reasonable to me.

[/quote]

 

Politicians come up with all sorts of things that need to be taken with a pinch of salt. She walked into Downing Street saying:Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope...but acted as the most divisive British prime minister of the century. However the full quote of hers about society is interesting, because it points up the flaw in her policies, which  freed up the rich to get richer but envisaged (for the sake of argument let''s assume she really did think) that wealth and help would then trickle down to the poor. That the stinking rich Good Samaritan she used as an example would give away money to the beggars.Of course it didn''t happen. The rich held on to their money and passed by on the other side. As a direct result of her policies by the early to mid-1990s Britain had become the most unequal society in western Europe. Indeed the gap  between the richest and poorest fifths was the same as in Nigeria and far worse than in Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia. Worse than in Ethiopia, eh. That is some achievement.Trotskyist propaganda? Only if you believe the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations Development Programme were all ultra-left hotbeds.But then this was a prime minister who admitted she "gloried in inequality" on the basis that it would produce growth and this mythical trickle-down. In fact the OECD said the opposite was true:"The future prosperity of OECD countries depends on reducing social and economic exclusion in the forms of high unemployment, non-participation in the labour market ... and, in some instances, growing inequalities in earnings and incomes."And so did the World Bank: "Reducing inequality not only benefits the poor immediately but will benefit all through higher growth."Whether Thatcher really did believe in trickle-down is a question. Just as simple an explanation is that she knew it was nonsense but was, along with Reagan, looking after her own and to hell with the little people.

[/quote]

Of course the gap between rich and poor opened during the 1990''s It is a measure of our success as a country going from economic decline into economic boom. Those people who are creating the new wealth are obviously going to become richer, while those not creating the new wealth are not going to become richer. It''s a no-brainer. If I started up a new, successful IT company I would expect the income gap to widen between me and my mate who preferred to stay in bed all day watching the racing on the telly.

Now, PC, you''re not going to tell me that we never had economic growth as a result of the Thatcher years, are you?

[/quote]

 

I''ve never seen someone walk into a bear-trap, but this post above (in suitably embarrassed red) is the cyber equivalent. What I knew when I posted before but - on a sneaky whim -  didn''t mention was that inequality didn''t rise in the UK under Thatcher simply because the rich got richer. It rose because while the rich were getting richer the poor got poorer.  From 1979, when she took office, to 1990, when she resigned, the number of people below the poverty line rose from 13.4 per cent of the population to 22.2 per cent. That is not far short of a quarter.

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[quote user="PurpleCanary"]From 1979, when she took office, to 1990, when she resigned, the number of people below the poverty line rose from 13.4 per cent of the population to 22.2 per cent. That is not far short of a quarter.[/quote]That is relative poverty. A very difficult measure to take seriously.For example.... relative poverty in the UK had been on the rise between 2004 and 2008.  But with the crash and drop in median income that came, millions of people were taken out of relative poverty between 2008 and 2012.  The people taken out of ''poverty'' are not any richer, just the average earner is poorer.Hence the measure is quite useless at measuring real poverty, it is a better measure of social inequality.

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[quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Rock The Boat"]

What I could never understand about the Liverpool that I saw, is why they would want to burn down their own community? It wasn''t outsiders coming in to set fire to homes and shops, it was the people who lived there that inflicted damage on themselves.

It''s a pattern that repeats itself time and again. I don''t recall the good people of Norfolk going down to Tottenham in 2011 and destroying the community, it was the locals who did that to themselves. Why should we have sympathy for them when they make their own neighbours homeless and wipe out the local economy and thus causing unemployment?

And in between the Toxteth riots of the early 1980''s and the London riots thirty years later there have been numerous examples of local communities destroyed down in the name of class warfare. And they expect the rest of us to bail them out with our taxes for which the rest of us have to go to work to pay.

During Margaret Thatcher''s tenure those miners who wanted to work were harassed and bullied by the union boys. Had their windows smashed in and families threatened with violence if they wanted to do a days work. Not just miners. Flying pickets tried to stop workers at power plants from going to work, tried to stop truck drivers from making deliveries.

Fortunately we had a Prime Minister who was prepared to stand up to the anarchists. The result was a country that went from economic decline into economic boom. We are now living in a country with a much higher standard of living than we had during the 1970''s and we can thank Thatcher for that. 

[/quote]

 

Yep.. all of them! Unless of course you''re at it again...

 

Heaven forbid!

 

Have you ever been on strike Rocky?

 

 

[/quote]

Nutty, you''ll have to point out to me the sentence where I claim that all the people in the community took part in the riots because having re-read my piece I just don''t see it.

Have I ever been on strike? Yes indeed I have. In the late seventies it was. We won a huge pay rise but our suppliers suffered because they were not getting paid while we were out on strike, our customers suffered because they ended up having to pay more, and the few who refused to strike suffered as they were blackballed by their striking colleagues. Our justification for a wage increase? Because other workers were getting a wage increase, and so the wage/price inflation of the late 1970''s went on. As a youngster back then I though it cool to be on strike and great to get a big pay rise. It was on reflection that I realised it was a selfish act that benefitted only those who were part of the union. And even then the benefits were only short-term as inflation kicked in. But that''s the way unions operated, no altruism and no sense of community.

 

Now I reckon Son ova Gun deserves an answer, don''t you think? His post was a bit tortuous but I think he was saying that if we taxpayers pay for some nice new social housing to house those in need, and then they burn it down in a riot, they should be entitled to have it rebuilt at our expense? I don''t know about you buddy, but I think those upstanding citizens of Burnham Thorpe are missing a trick here...

[/quote]

 

Were you on the picket line when you were onj strike Rocky? Were you reasonable and did you have a good relationship with those who crossed the line? You see we each have a choice how we behave. But by reading your post I see that you weren''t. I see that you even admit yourself that you were selfish with no sense of community. I see nothing has changed. Although you believe you have seen the light the truth is you have found a more comfortable place to be selfish. But that''s Thatcherism in a nutshell. According to her community didn''t exist.

 

[/quote]

I think Maggie said there was no such thing as society. Of course you left-wing guys always leave out the full statement so as to change the meaning of what she said. She mentioned this twice and I will provide you the quotes.

1. " And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It''s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour."

2. "There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

Now I interpret that as saying that we all have personal responsibilities and we have responsibilities to our neighbours and to the unfortunate. I don''t see how you can arrive at the conclusion that this is selfish. The core of Thatcherism is that we are personally responsible for our lives and not some over-bearing, big-brother State. Seems entirely reasonable to me.

[/quote]

 

And there you go again. You cannot helpyourself Rocky. Every post you pigeonhole someone into a group. That''s what Thatcher did. Regardless of their individuality if they travelled to support a football team they were hooligans. If they were a member of a trade union then they were Scargillites. If they demonstrated they were potential looters and robbers. And that''s how the likes of you and crafty still view things. Craftywith his Scargill references and you with your lefty nonsense.

 

"There''s no such thing as society." That statement is false. It doesn''t matter what old pony is brought out to justify it the statement is false.

 

"To our neighbours and the unfortunate" Who are the unfortunate Rocky? Do you decide who they are? How does someone get Rocky''s unfortunate label?

 

 

[/quote]

Well you did this before, Nutty, when I asked you where in my post did I say that ALL members were destroying their local communities. That was something I never said but you claimed it as such. Now you are suggesting that I have called all travelling football supporters as hooligans and that all trade unions are Scargilites. Nowhere in any of my posts in this thread have I mentioned either football supporters or Scargil, so why are you making up things that I haven''t mentioned.

I have talked about what Thatcher stood for, personal responsibility being at the core of her values, and have attempted to show that all the left can do is smear her as somehow being selfish for saying that we each must be responsible for ourselves, our families and for the less fortunate. Why does the left have such difficulties with such basic principles of individual responsibility?

Why are the left always such apologists for law breakers?

 

[/quote]

 

It''s you doing the suggesting Rocky. Not me. I''ve even made it a pretty blue for you.

 

In society some people will always be more able to make a difference to your "unfortunates" than others. You can never stop people being selfish. Everyone has a free will and being selfish isn''t illegal. But I don''t like politicians who encourage people to be selfish whether they are righties or lefties.

 

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[quote user="Son Ova Gunn"]

Nutty - not that I particually disagree with the dangers of generalisation which you have rightly highlighted throughout this thread, but it is really difficult to have any sort of opinion without some degree labeling. If you are to pull someone up for the phase left-wing guys what do you want instead? all the names of the Labour party and their supporters? Im sure you have used generalisations in your posts too, have you never said for example Stoke are a ugly long ball team dispite the fact that the majority of passes are short balls?.. well you get the drift dispite the appaling anaolgy

 

[/quote]

 

Because the phrase used was "you left wing guys". Rather like Crafty and his assumption that if I criticised Fatcha I must support Arfa. I do not align myself with any extreme view anymore. My experiences in life have taught me to trust my conscience. My conscience isn''t left or right. If it was it wouldn''t be a conscience.

 

 

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[quote user="Citizen Journalist Foghorn"][quote user="PurpleCanary"]From 1979, when she took office, to 1990, when she resigned, the number of people below the poverty line rose from 13.4 per cent of the population to 22.2 per cent. That is not far short of a quarter.[/quote]That is relative poverty. A very difficult measure to take seriously.For example.... relative poverty in the UK had been on the rise between 2004 and 2008.  But with the crash and drop in median income that came, millions of people were taken out of relative poverty between 2008 and 2012.  The people taken out of ''poverty'' are not any richer, just the average earner is poorer.Hence the measure is quite useless at measuring real poverty, it is a better measure of social inequality.[/quote]

 

There is something in your argument, CJF. The particular measure is those below 60 per cent of the median income, and of course that is dependent on incomes overall. But in this case there are reasons why my figures are relevant to the Thatcher discussion. Firstly, that is a massive rise - 65.6 per cent. Secondly, it happened gradually during Thatcher''s reign, rather than because of one event. Thirdly this was a predictable result of her policies, rather than being due to events outside her control.Even the free-market pro-Thatcher Institute for Economic Affairs admitted after her death that her mishandling of the economy was at least in part responsible for the rise in povertyIn the early 1980s, the employment rate among low-skilled men dropped by about ten percentage points, and never fully recovered. There was a basic problem with the sequence of economic reforms, even if these reforms themselves were entirely reasonable. Under Thatcherism, attempts to subsidise economically unviable industries forever were abandoned, and so was the use of monetary policy as a tool for employment creation. From then on, job creation was to be achieved through freeing the labour market from trade union power and from state interference with the wage-setting process. Very well, but unfortunately, the former happened before the latter was completed. Thus, when the major industry shake-outs occurred, people were left to look for work in a still largely unreformed labour market, which was not fit for reintegrating them.

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Surely how I feel is not nothing?

by Morrissey, 15 april 2013

I have listened and I have seen a lack of truth that we had dared not believe existed in modern Britain. Margaret Thatcher has left the order of the world, and she is not to blame for the reports of her own death - reports so dangerously biased and full of intolerant menace that we now wonder how we can possibly believe anything that has ever been recorded in British history books. The coverage by the British media of Thatcher''s death has been exclusively absorbed in Thatcher''s canonization to such a censorial degree that we suddenly see the modern British establishment as an uncivilized entity of delusion, giving the cold shoulder to truth, and offering indescribable disgust to anyone unimpressed by Thatcher. Even to contest Thatcher''s worth is termed "anarchist", and this source of insanity - intolerant of debate, is spearheaded by the BBC reporting not on how things actually are on British streets, but on how they would prefer things to be. For those of us who survived despite Thatcherism, and who recall Thatcher as a living hell, The Daily Mail and The Guardian have a steadfast message for us: You are nothing. Our thoughts are further burdened by the taunting extravagance of Thatcher''s funeral; the ceremonial lavish, the military salute, stripping Thatcher''s victims of everything, and rubbing salt in wounds with teasing relish. It is all happening against us. In thought, we have killed Thatcher off a million times, but now that we have the reality of her death, the Metropolitan Police have set up new laws against us, and within paragraphs of law, we are not allowed to register our feelings so that anyone might overhear them. Echoes of Libya? Echoes of any Middle Eastern patch whose troubles are thought too uncivilized for a democratic England where chivalrous respect is afforded to "freedom", and where we are all servile to "democracy." It is, of course, The Big Lie. The fact that there will be such an enormous police presence at Thatcher''s funeral is evidence that her name is synonymous with trouble - a trouble she brought on herself. No one wished for it, or brought it to her, yet she created her subtle form of anarchy nonetheless. BBC News will scantily report on anti-Thatcher demonstrations as if those taking part aren''t real people. Lordly scorn is shown towards North Korea and Syria, and any distant country ruled by tyrannical means, yet the British government employs similar dictatorship tactics in order to protect their own arrogant interests. There will be no search for true wisdom this week, as the BBC gleefully report how Ding Dong the witch is dead "failed to reach number 1", and they repeat the word "failed" four times within the brief report, and a shivering sovereign darkness clouds England - such identifications known only in China. There will be no report as to how "the British people have succeeded in downloading Ding dong the witch is dead to number 2", and we are engulfed in Third Reich maneuvers as BBC Radio assume the role of sensible adult, finger-wagging at that naughty public who must not be allowed to hear the song that they have elected to number 2. By banning Ding dong the witch is dead (and only allowing four seconds of a song is, in fact, a ban) the BBC are effectively admitting that the witch in question can only possibly be Margaret Thatcher (and not Margaret Hamilton), even though Thatcher isn''t mentioned in the song, which is in fact a harmless, children''s song written over 70 years ago. Whilst the BBC tut-tut-tutted a polite disapproval at the Russian government for sending a "feminist punk" band to prison for recording an anti-government song, they engage in identical intolerance against Ding dong the witch is dead without a second''s hesitation. Thatcher''s funeral will be paid for by the public - who have not been asked if they object to paying, yet the public will be barred from attending. In their place, the cast are symbols of withering - as old as their prejudices, adroit at hiding Thatcher''s disasters. Ancestry and posterity, trimmed with pageantry, will block out anyone with a gripe. David Cameron will cling to Thatcher as she clung to the Malvinas, each in their last-ditch efforts to survive obscurity. Cameron achieves his own conclusions without any regard for the appalling social record of The Thatcher Destroyer - the protestors outside are simply not being British, or, even worse, are probably from Liverpool. When Cameron talks he is simply speaking his part, but he is adamant that the scorn Thatcher poured onto others should not be returned to her. Her mourning family must have considerations that were never shown to the families of the Hillsborough victims, and although Thatcher willingly played her part in the Hillsborough cover-up, let''s not go into all that now. Instead we''re asked to show respect for a Prime Minister whose own Cabinet were her rivals. Thatcher''s death gives added height to David Cameron (a Prime Minister who wasn''t actually voted in by the British people, yet there he is – reminding us all of our manners), and he does not understand how the best reason for doing something is because there''s nothing in it for you. The words of Cameron are assumed to have weight, yet his personal gain is the only reason why he speaks those words. Cameron tells us that the British people loved Thatcher, but we are all aware that Sunningdale and Chelsea are his Britain; he does not mean the people of Salford or Stockton-on-Tees, who are, in any case, somewhere north of Lord''s Cricket Ground. Can the BBC possibly interview someone with no careerist gain attached to their dribble? No. On the day that nine British citizens are arrested in Trafalgar Square for voicing their objections to the Baroness, the BBC News instead offer their opening platform to Carol Thatcher, a dumped non-star of I''m a celebrity get me out of here, and to Sir Mark Thatcher (Sir!), unseen since the disgrace of his involvement in selling arms to countries at odds with Britain (magically, he avoided a 15-year prison term and was financially bailed out by his mother - her moral conscience nowhere in sight as Sir Mark patriotically took his 64 million and fled to Gibraltar having been refused entry to Switzerland and Monaco. What kind of mother raised such a son?) Both Mark and Carol get the BBC spotlight because they mourn their mother''s death, whilst those honest civilians who mourn Thatcher''s life are shunted out of view. This is how we see Syrian TV operate, and this is most certainly NOT a week when David Cameron will advise: "hug a hoodie." Whilst the quite astonishing social phenomenon of Ding Dong the witch is dead is ignored by the television news, instead we are shown an eight-minute clip of Psy, a funny little South Korean singer who is making all British newsreaders laugh with his funny little new video. Today, news items from South Korea, Belgium and China get precedence over homeland news of anti-Thatcher protests in Trafalgar Square, and the meaningless banality of Modern Media Britain casts a shameful shadow. Repeated and repeated, words strengthen. The truth sleeps as the heartlessness of Thatcher is re-written as a strength, for it was not exclusively because Thatcher destroyed the miners or murdered the boys of The Belgrano that we feel rage, but it was the lip-smacking relish with which she did both, and with which she sent armies of police to batter anyone who opposed her view. Gaddafi did the same thing in the same way. Thatcher could never show sympathy, or empathy, or understanding to those from whom David Cameron is now demanding a show of civil respect for a woman who, like Myra Hindley, proved to all of us that the female could be just as cruel as the male. By 1990 Thatcher was the gift that not even her own Cabinet wanted, and she was tufted out of office. How could such a catastrophic end warrant a statue in Trafalgar Square? Revenge was the vital juice of every move made by Thatcher, and her results produced the most dis-United Kingdom ever seen in history. Although Thatcher was never flesh, her demeanor took on an incurably demented sadness, and her broadcasting tones registered madness … as Britain burned. From all of this we see, in this April week of 2013, that modern media reporting in Britain is a disturbing fog of taboos and prejudices, reviving the divisions that Thatcher hatched, whilst hiding her horrors. Even in death, Thatcher remains ''the enemy within.''
And the truth sleeps.

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