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PostPosted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:10 pm 
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erm............right, okay. everyone is entitled to their opinion. you're just wrong.


That's what everyone said about Einstein at first but doesn't mean he was wrong!

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:15 pm 
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:roll: ... so did Thatcher invent capitalism? Funny that I thought it was a 19thC ideology, and some bloke called Adam Smith was involved.

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:37 pm 
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... so did Thatcher invent capitalism? Funny that I thought it was a 19thC ideology, and some bloke called Adam Smith was involved.


No, but she made capitalism mainstream (property ownership and all that) and we all seemed to have jumped happily on the bandwagon.

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:21 pm 
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Phil King wrote:
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... so did Thatcher invent capitalism? Funny that I thought it was a 19thC ideology, and some bloke called Adam Smith was involved.


No, but she made capitalism mainstream (property ownership and all that) and we all seemed to have jumped happily on the bandwagon.


ahem, excuse me but whats all this 'WE' you mention, some of us haven't embraced the capitalism bandwagon, she is (and hopefully very soon WAS) the most uncaring 'person' to have ever lived during my days on this planet, anyone that thinks she did good for this country is wrong and needs to be shown the devastation and suffering (which has now become a long term social problem that is now affecting the whole country) she caused while allowing everyone else to make shed loads of money at their expense


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:45 am 
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Hi

Maybe not al' 'we' but although you speak about devastation and suffering no doubt you've got a nice job yourself and probably a nice car and house?
(altho' obviously I don't know for sure and I'm not crticising you or anyone for this) but all I'm saying is that for 'winners' to exist there must also be 'losers' too. I don't see anyone going on protest marches against the status quo (which Tony Blair carried left by Mrs. T). If we were still all proper socialists we'd be riding on buses and working in woollen mills.

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PostPosted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:14 am 
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Phil King wrote:
Hi

Maybe not al' 'we' but although you speak about devastation and suffering no doubt you've got a nice job yourself and probably a nice car and house?
(altho' obviously I don't know for sure and I'm not crticising you or anyone for this) but all I'm saying is that for 'winners' to exist there must also be 'losers' too. I don't see anyone going on protest marches against the status quo (which Tony Blair carried left by Mrs. T). If we were still all proper socialists we'd be riding on buses and working in woollen mills.


What I think you're possibly missing here is that while she banged on about "the greater good" and "short sharp shocks" and such, there is a generation that react as they saw and felt at the time. And when you come from where me, and many other people came from, it fucking stunk to high heaven.

Also - the open hatred of the working classes, "there is no such thing as society", "feminism has largely served it's purpose", "what did the suffragettes ever do for me" (er, a some of them died for you, seeing as you're asking) - she was a massively polarizing figure, and admire her for it as you obviously do, you should note that you're leaning into the wind a lot.

The capitalist tidal wave of the 80's and 90's wasn't Thatcher's brainchild. She was savvy enough to identify the short-term benefits of the relaxing of international trade regulation, the liberalising (interesting adoption of the term there) of Financial market regulation, selling off nationally owned housing stock (why is that actually deemed to be a wholesomely positive thing? Do explain) but she did this in the slipstream of international trend. And I don't know if you've read the papers lately, but there seems to be a bit of a problem with all of this...

On this forum, leastways.

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PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 5:04 pm 
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Phil King wrote:
Hi

Maybe not al' 'we' but although you speak about devastation and suffering no doubt you've got a nice job yourself and probably a nice car and house?
(altho' obviously I don't know for sure and I'm not crticising you or anyone for this) but all I'm saying is that for 'winners' to exist there must also be 'losers' too. I don't see anyone going on protest marches against the status quo (which Tony Blair carried left by Mrs. T). If we were still all proper socialists we'd be riding on buses and working in woollen mills.


I've got a good standard of living now - achieved by hard work on the part of me and my husband, who, just coming out of his time as a young apprentice in the plumbing trade during Thatcher's halcyon (tongue VERY firmly in cheek!!!) years found himself effectively on the scrap heap and without a job for almost three years from early 1980 onwards due to the dramatic slowdown in all areas of construction at that time.

The cry at that time was to re train - not so easy to find opportunities to do that when you live in an area that is seeing steelworks, shipyards and mines closing down, yes there were 'programmes' to help people equip themselves for change, but these were largely directed at the men affected by the closures of the shipyards etc. and they didn't help much anyway - just a sop provided by the government so that they could say they were putting some remedial action in place.

The early 80's weren't a good time for a young couple saving to get married and as I had a farily well paid, secure job I scrimped as my then partner took a range of jobs including taxi driver and barman. If the capitalist dream had worked he'd have pulled himself together and evolved as some self employed magnate or gone into the army which I am sure would have fit in perfectly with Thatchers plans!!

Yes we wanted to own our own home, not because of any latent Tory - ism (frankly, i'd shoot myself) or any dis loyalty towards the Labour ethos but because times and expectations move on and we progress.

Speaking as a someone who took regular food parcels to their (miner) cousin's so that their kids could eat properly - I was 20 years old and growing up VERY quickly - but I was in the enviable position of being in employment - I think THAT is what socialism is about. You spread the economy so there's less of a fat cat/underprivileged ratio and you look after those less fortunate. (That doesn't mean pandering to the spongers, it's up to whatever government that's in power to manage that as best they can - and it's difficult to run any welfare system fairly 'cos the potential for abuse is so great.)

I saw first hand what it was like to be a 'loser' at this time and I can honestly say that the hurt and bitterness I, my neighbours and my family experienced at that time cannot be put into words. I certainly don't consider myself to be a 'winner' now. I do, however, live in fear that the Tories will get in again as there is (imho) a misplaced view that people who now regard themselves as successful will be better off under their regime. I think that if they do get in the divide between the haves and the have nots will become even greater and we'll see the escalation of the underclasses on a huge scale.

I'm not saying that Thatcher / the Tories had any power over world markets which no doubt influenced the decline of industry at that time, but she DID stick the boot in and cripple the production and working class pride of this country.

Next............ :twisted:


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PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 6:54 pm 
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i agree maggie but i think society will split or divide further even if the tories don't get in at the next election. let's face it though, they will, i'd put my hard earned mortgage on it.

i don't understand why the goverment doesn't bite the bullet and tax the higher earners more, windfall tax the gas and petrol giants and stop the obscene pay offs for cocksuckers who get kicked out of high earning jobs because they're useless. but what do they do? scrap the 10p tax rate. thanks for that gordon.

the tories say they will give tax breaks and cuts. and where will the money come from for that?! they're all as bad as each other. it's the lesser of three evils when youvote. :evil:

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PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 7:52 pm 
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I do agree mph, New labour is diluted and slightly less toxic Thatcherism and i'm not happy but I cannot, and will not while there's breath in my body, bring myself to not vote at all, and that's the only viable alternative to voting Tory/Labour.. Not much point in voting for any alternative to either of the main two parties - maybe in a few years,,,


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 1:38 pm 
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7579352.stmThatcher now suffering from dementia...maybe there is justice, I can only hope it's chronic & that she spends the rest of her days feasting on her own excrement. After all, she made an awful lot of people eat shit when she was in power.
Anyway, I'm going back to my happy place now.


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:39 pm 
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Aye, rant over from me too! :P


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:51 pm 
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Havenhand wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7579352.stmThatcher now suffering from dementia...maybe there is justice, I can only hope it's chronic & that she spends the rest of her days feasting on her own excrement. After all, she made an awful lot of people eat shit when she was in power.
Anyway, I'm going back to my happy place now.


i don't like the woman but that's harsh.

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:17 am 
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 1:04 am 
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i don't like the woman but that's harsh.

Apologies mph. Yes, it is harsh - sorry didn't mean to offend you.

My dad was a miner & the strike had a big impact on my family. I can't forgive that government for picking off two industries which provided jobs for a lot of people in my hometown, namely steel & coal.....but I will take back the comment I made. It was harsh, but then so was she. Giving her a state funeral is a mockery though.


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:04 pm 
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she was a massively polarizing figure, and admire her for it as you obviously do, you should note that you're leaning into the wind a lot.


No, that's not true I'm afraid. You're making sweeping assumptions here.

I think we should maybe just get things in to perspective.
It's not like she was General Pinochet or General Franco or somesuch.

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And when you come from where me, and many other people came from, it fucking stunk to high heaven.


You're assuming that just because I don't subscribe to your viewpoint that 'I can't possibly know' the downsides to Mrs. T's policies?

OK I might not be in quite the same boat as working class Sheffielders (which I assume you might be) but I've still had to subscribe to the hard-working ethics of Mrs.T's legacy. Say Mrs. Thatcher benefitted 70% of the population at the expense of the 30%? In which case it wouldn't be unreasonable for a lot of people to have thought she'd given them a fair crack (and this doesn't neccessarily preclude the working class).

I think the knee-jerk reaction of blaming all the inner-city malaise
(altho' us rural folk still have our problems), totally on Thatcher misguided when it could equally be aportioned between her, and Messrs Blair and Brown (don't get me started on the latter!)........

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