She will be for ever unforgiven by those who now see worse being done in her name

[malaise]

to another generation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/09/thatcher-acolytes-cameron-dont-know-when-to-stop
<snip>
All can agree that Margaret Thatcher changed the heart of British politics more than any politician since Clement Attlee. She all but erased his political legacy to stamp her own image on the nation, so Britain before and after Thatcher were two different countries. Where once we stood within a recognisable postwar social democratic European tradition, after Thatcher the country had rowed halfway across the Atlantic, psychologically imbued with US neoliberal individualism. Too timid, too in thrall, the 13-year Labour government rarely dared challenge the attitudes she planted in the national psyche.

In a twitter of panic, Labour shadow ministers sent out pleas yesterday: "Hoping all Labour supporters will respond with dignity and respect to news of Baroness Thatcher's death." Dignity and decorum ruled the day - except in the poisoned anonymity of the internet. She certainly was divisive, bisecting the country politically and geographically: hard-hit regions in the north of England, Wales and Scotland may be notably less civil in their farewells. But every prime minister since has bowed to her legacy, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown eager to be snapped with her on their doorstep. The pomp and circumstance that will crown her funeral was proffered by Brown, to some shudders from his own side.

The Cameron generation wrongly see in the 1980s a revolution to emulate, starting with an economic crisis just like hers, as a chance to reshape everything. But look at this typical difference between her and her imitators: where Cameron has charged into Europe, taking his party out of the influential European People's party of natural allies, making enemies and building no useful coalitions, it was she who signed the Single European Act, understanding its importance for British trade, careful to make allies as well as swinging her handbag. Not until well out of office, angry and lacking her old judgment, did she lead the rabidly Eurosceptic renegades.

While some remember her as a national saviour, others only see her ruthless demolition of flailing state-owned industries. As coal, steel and shipbuilding fell under her wrecking ball, whole communities were destroyed. Was it cruelty? Tim Bale, author of The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron, says it was conviction. She fervently believed the market would soon repair their loss. Creative destruction was capitalism's necessary agent, so equilibrium was bound to be restored. It never was. Large parts of society never recovered, while Germany and other countries managed the transition without such brutality. North sea oil was squandered when it should have seeded new industries. Instead, her Big Bang blew the roof off City profits and property booms filled the gap where productive industry should have sprouted. Her heirs have not learned that lesson, with no sign of their promised "rebalancing". No sign they learned from her that markets don't move in to fill the gaps when the state is rolled back – not then, not now.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Says it all, really.

[malaise]

2. Yes indeed

[BlueJazz]

3. Conservatives never accept this simple fact: "Most of my ideas do not work"

[idwiyo]

4. Rust In Pieces. Would be nice if her ideology followed her into the grave too.

[malaise]

5. Duzy

Very good and so fitting for an iron lady

[idwiyo]

6. Forgot to say K&R for posting this article. Thank you.

[malaise]

9. You're welcome - check out this link

http://m.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-party-brixton-glasgow

To cheers of "Maggie Maggie Maggie, dead dead dead," posters of Thatcher were held aloft as reggae basslines pounded.

Clive Barger, a 62-year-old adult education tutor, said he had turned out to mark the passing of "one of the vilest abominations of social and economic history".

He said: "It is a moment to remember. She embodied everything that was so elitist in terms of repressing people who had nothing. She presided over a class war."

Builder Phil Lewis, 47, a veteran of the 1990 poll tax riots, said he had turned out to recall the political struggles the Thatcher years had embroiled him in. "She ripped the arsehole out of this country and we are still suffering the consequences."

[idwiyo]

10. That's another great link. Saw it earlier today. :) thank you!

Someone on DU called those people "boors" yesterday. Wonder if they would have enough guts to repeat it IRL in Brixton.

[DAngelo136]

7. Maggie and Ronnie are dead...

Milton Friedman is dead; Ayn Rand is dead; Frederick Von Hayek is dead as well. It it high time to bury their dead ideas along with them. "Let the dead bury the dead", I say. The Soviet Union collapses and they declare that "Socialism is dead". Their capitalism has died the same death and like some zombie they manage to keep it "alive" as it were and have the stones to say that it "works".

Let us not forget that it was a Polish labor union, "Solidarity", that began the first fall of dominoes in the collapse of the Soviet style of Socialism; it was the students in Egypt and other places that brought about the "Arab Spring". And even now, "Occupy Wall Street" has changed the tone of the political conversation in this country. And lest we forget, that lone man standing in the path of the tank in Tienanmen Square. No ideology is written in stone, nor is it handed down from god on high. It is merely how mankind organizes himself at a particular time and place and THAT can always be changed.

Whether by peaceful means or by revolution, customs can always be changed. What Maggie and Ronnie have wrought, let us put asunder. As the "Iron Lady" is put into the grave, let her idea of Britain and the world be buried along with her. And good riddance.

[malaise]

8. I say burn their ideas at her cremation

Good post but remember to add womankind as well.