Kindly Join Me In Wishing Baroness Thatcher Continued Good Health...

[*Bob*]

david_carnell Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I suspect "class" was probably pretty bad in

> feudal times! :(

At least you knew where you stood back then.

[TillieTrotter]

Funny *bob*, I'd be way below the salt.

[Atila Reincarnate]

Let's hope next time she falls over she doesn't break anything minor.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Atila Reincarnate Wrote:

Let's hope next time she falls over she doesn't break anything minor.

She's had enough of "minor" incidents for this lifetime and "major" ones for that matter....

Think she was misunderstood, sometimes....

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Poetic Licence required for spelling purposes...

[PeckhamRose]

Pat Condell, one of my fave comedians, said years ago as part of his stand up routine, something along the lines.

"Who says there's nothing funny about AIDS. If Thatcher got it, I'd fu**in' laugh"

Do watch his videos on the website - religious people with no logical or commmon sense will be offended.

Well, we know that!

[Keef]

I'm sorry but I could not disagree more. Whilst the strict three-tier definition of the past may no longer be relevant in an ever-more-diverse society, to suggest that somehow the strata of society you are born into does not impact upon your lot in life is naive.

Firstly, I didn't suggest that, of course social demographic can, and will impact on a person's life, believe me, I work for social services, and I have seen plenty of it.

I just don't buy in to "an ever-more-diverse society" equating to a "class" system.

But as I'm "naive" in your opinion, I shall bow to your worldly experience.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

We seem to be gently slipping away from the central theme of this fine thread.

Lets show our magniminity and wish Margeret well for her ( hopefully) many remaining happy and healthy years.

She has always got Sir Mark to keep her updated about his little sojourns abroad and Carol to regale her with anything she has been involved in so that should get Mags occupied...

[Jah Lush]

I think you're having a very large giraffe at our expense Tony.

[david_carnell]

Keef - don't get petty and sarcastic.

I meant "ever more diverse" as in we live in a society that has more variables than ever before and yet we still suffer from the same inherent problems that the class system highlighted so well.

As I'm aware of your social service background so I thought it was naive of you to think different. Obviously you don't so I take it back. Sorry. Perhaps we are arguing over semantics. Whilst the old three tier "class" system is outdated and near as useless the "have and have-nots" in society are getting further and further apart. Income equality is becoming ever more disparate.

Old working class professions in manual industries may have disappeared but they have been replaced on mass by other 21st drudgery like call-centres or retail. Low paid, low-skilled jobs remain in abundance. Poverty is still ever present. That's the new "class system".

[Keef]

David, I apologise for being a bit sarcy, and perhaps you're right regarding semantics. I have no wish to row with you whatsoever, but sometimes the tone of your posts just makes me feel like you're talking down at me, and I feel patronised, and probably react as such.

Most likely things just getting lost in translation, as they so often do in text, especially if we don't put a ;-) at the end of everything we bloody well say.

[gallinello]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I can see your perspective Gallinello, but it's a

> little bit self-obsessed to think that Thatcher's

> single dirving force was the wholesale slaughter

> of 'the working classes'

How is my perspective "self-obsessed" and where do I say wholesale slaughter?

> Picking up a few of your words:

> "destruction, smash, slash, attack, civil war,

> hungry, skinhead, murderous, onslaught, ruthless,

> assault" all meted out on the working class by

> "the nouveau riche, the petty bourgeois upstarts

> and the yuppies, the city slickers and the wide

> boys"

>

It's easy to extract words, then link them together, out of context (for example I mention "skinhead" in reference to Tebbits's nickname); I also mention "the nouveau riche, the petty bourgeois upstarts and the yuppies, the city slickers and the wide boys" as elements comprising Thatcher's power base, not in the context of them meting out an attack on the proletariat.

You criticise Thatcher for 'no such thing as

> society', whilst recommending wholesale class

> retribution. Hypocrite is too small a word for

> it.

Where do I recommend "wholesale class retribution" and is hypocrite too small a word for me, or is hypocrisy too small a word for it?

> Whilst you make many points that have value, the

> merit is lost in the spittle, bluster and

> contradictions.

Which contradictions? And "spittle and bluster"!? Rich words indeed coming from an individual who paints a hyperbolic picture of a dystopic '70s Britain in tones of:

"society was being held to ransom by a phalanx of extremist unelected tyrants controlling a mob without conscience; the despotism of under educated violent thugs in the hinterlands;Had the unions had their way, the UK would now resemble the polluted industrial wastelands and blighted lives of Eastern Europe."

[Marmora Man]

Galli,

Still up to your old parlour tricks - changing the meaning of words when the clear sighted analysis of others points out your inconsistencies.

[LegalEagle-ish]

I think Galli won that one myself - not just cos I agree with him either.

[Keef]

Not saying either of them have "won", but definitely don't see how gallinello has won, when they have just quoted Huguenot, and said "where have I done that?". Fair enough to ask for examples, but hardly a winning argument.

Sorry, I am stirring a bit because I like a good debate.

[daizie]

keef your spoiling for a fight.. come on someone, anyone,..

[woofmarkthedog]

gallinello Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Apologies for the length of this, but lest we

> forget all HER 'achievements':

>

> Margaret Thatcher presided over the destruction of

> more industry in Britain than that destroyed by

> the Luftwaffe in the Second World War. She plotted

> to smash the National Union of Mineworkers and to

> dismantle the welfare state and all the reforms

> that had been fought for over decades by the

> working class. She slashed welfare payments,

> attacked the old and the sick and basically

> co-ordinated a one sided civil war against the

> British (and Irish) working class. There were many

> people in Britain whose lives were cut short by

> unemployment, by sickness and poverty as a result

> of the politics of Thatcherism, many families that

> fell apart, many children who went hungry. Yet,

> she was admired by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown,

> who wants her to have a state funeral, the sort of

> event normally reserved for royalty.

>

> Thatcher represented a new brand of Toryism,

> ostensibly more middle class and "ordinary" than

> many of their predecessors. Thatcher and Norman

> Tebbit - the Chingford Skinhead - sought to appeal

> to the backward prejudices of the middle class and

> to layers of the most backward workers. Thatcher

> was heralded as possibly the first woman Prime

> Minister. She would understand therefore the needs

> of ordinary women and so on. Hardly a day went by

> without her appearing on telly armed with a

> shopping basket bemoaning the lot of the "little

> people." The fact is however that she was anything

> but ordinary. Married to oil millionaire Dennis

> Thatcher, she represented the most vicious and

> small minded layers of the bourgeoisie.

>

> The ideas of class compromise and a formal

> commitment to the goal of full employment that

> were dominant in both big parties during the

> period of the Post War boom and were based on the

> theories of Keynes were abandoned. Thatcher

> embraced monetarism and neoliberalism. Her

> ideology was a ragbag of reactionary prejudices

> and crackpot economic theories, but they

> represented a coherent set of ideas and programme

> to attack the working class with.

>

> It's no surprise that the dominant economic and

> political ideas that Thatcher and Reagan supported

> were those of the Chicago school of economics -

> ideas known as monetarism - that had been promoted

> by the likes of Milton Friedman and Hayek. These

> ideas had been tried before of course. They had

> been put into practice in Chile under the

> murderous military regime of General Pinochet.

> There the 'Chicago Boys' had advocated tight

> monetary controls ostensibly to reduce inflation -

> which means smashing up the public sector, mass

> privatisation and attacks on the poorest in

> society.

>

> This was combined with a political programme to

> advocate self help, standing on your own two feet,

> and all the other alleged petty bourgeois virtues.

> Thatcher went as far as to say that there was no

> such thing as society. This was the green light

> for a massive onslaught on the working class,

> their communities and their organisations. This

> onslaught wasn't restricted to Britain either. It

> generated a programme of liberalisation and

> deregulation, that was ruthlessly applied by the

> IMF and the World Bank across the ex-colonial

> countries. Thatcher dressed up this reactionary

> programme as the logic of commonsense and thrift,

> armed only with a handbag (and a small onion for

> when she needed to shed a tear - according to

> Private Eye) she set off to put the world to

> rights.

>

> Thatcher's programme of privatisation and so

> called "popular capitalism" was wrapped up with

> the idea of a "property owning democracy", where

> everyone owned their own council house and had

> shares in the gas board and the electricity board.

> They would travel to work on privatised buses, or

> privatised tubes and trains. Because everyone was

> thereby "standing on their own feet" they would

> forget about the evil ideas of socialism and

> accept the god of "market forces". The fact is

> though that the assault on the public sector had

> much more to do with providing productive fields

> of investment for the bosses. Compulsory

> competitive tendering and the internal market

> within the health service served to batter down

> wages and conditions across the public sector. In

> the ?service? sector the vast majority of costs

> are in wages. The logic of compulsory competitive

> tendering meant that private companies could

> undercut council services, by the very

> straightforward policy of cutting wage levels and

> staff numbers. Thus, once they had also built

> their percentage profit into the equation,

> resulting in a massive growth in the exploitation

> of some of the poorest sections of the working

> class. Of course Thatcher also opposed the minimum

> wage as it would ?harm industry?.

>

> The recession between 1979 and 1981 had a huge

> impact on the working class. Unemployment shot

> through the roof as millions lost their jobs. What

> was the Tory answer? These, they said, were weak

> old fashioned industries that were uncompetitive

> and overstaffed. In other words they took the same

> attitude as their Victorian predecessors; they

> introduced ?laissez faire? capitalism. In other

> words Thatcher did absolutely nothing; the Tories

> just let the industries fold with calamitous

> results for working class communities up and down

> the country. What about the unemployed? Well, they

> were lazy, layabout shirkers, ?moaning minnies?

> and scroungers. The Tories slashed the number of

> tax inspectors and took on hundreds of people to

> police the benefit system. There were huge tax

> cuts for the rich while benefits were cut and

> people were encouraged to ?get on their bikes? and

> look for work.

>

> Did the medicine work? Monetarism meant that

> unemployment went higher sooner in Britain than in

> any other major capitalist country. Neoliberal

> policies didn?t solve anything. They are now

> totally discredited and the policies introduced by

> Thatcher in the 1980s are seen as being a factor

> in the present crash.

>

> One of the biggest factors in the victory of the

> Tories in the general election was the Falklands

> war. Out of the blue, or at least it appeared to

> be, the Argentinean army invaded the Falklands

> Islands or Malvinas a small bleak and utterly

> inhospitable group of islands with a tiny

> population massively outnumbered by sheep,

> penguins and elephant seals. The Argentinean

> Junta?s invasion unleashed a wave of jingoism on

> behalf of the press, which Thatcher used to

> present herself as a great war leader, casting

> herself as the successor to Winston Churchill,

> Joan of Arc and of course Britannia. The Tories

> sent a task force to the South Atlantic to retake

> the islands in what was essentially the most

> expensive election campaign in history. It?s clear

> that the Argentine military were surprised by the

> level of the response from the British.

>

> But for Thatcher it was too good an opportunity to

> miss, an opportunity to play on all of the long

> faded traditions of the British Empire, Rule

> Britannia and so on by showing ?the Argies? who

> was boss.

>

> Thatcher has always been portrayed as a strong

> leader. She was certainly dogmatic, stubborn and

> inflexible, but her longevity in power was

> achieved in part as a result of accident and in

> large measure as a result of the absolute

> incapacity of the Labour and trade union leaders

> to seriously challenge the Tories. Weakness and

> prevarication invite aggression and the Labour

> Leaders helped to create the conditions whereby

> the Tories were able to lay in to the working

> class for over a decade. Thatcher was no great

> thinker either. Her social base within the Tory

> Party was the nouveau riche, the petty bourgeois

> upstarts and the yuppies, the city slickers and

> the wide boys, the very same people who brought us

> the credit crunch. Large parts of the country were

> decimated, whole industries wiped out of

> existence. Dogmatic monetarism drove the Tories?

> politics and it was the working class that

> suffered.

>

> Viva the grocer's daughter!

---------------------------------------------------

"But other than that...... she was alright!"

"Go on Mag's.....break a leg!"

W**F

[ratty]

I think she was a coont!

[Tony.London Suburbs]

woofmarkthedog Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

gallinello Wrote:

Apologies for the length of this, Brown,

"But other than that...... she was alright!" "Go on Mag's.....break a leg!"

I waded through the whole text of the above that you repeated chapter and verse for a "One-Liner" at the end??...:))

[Santerme]

gallinello Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Apologies for the length of this, but lest we

> forget all HER 'achievements':

>

> Margaret Thatcher presided over the destruction of

> more industry in Britain than that destroyed by

> the Luftwaffe in the Second World War. She plotted

> to smash the National Union of Mineworkers and to

> dismantle the welfare state and all the reforms

> that had been fought for over decades by the

> working class. She slashed welfare payments,

> attacked the old and the sick and basically

> co-ordinated a one sided civil war against the

> British (and Irish) working class. There were many

> people in Britain whose lives were cut short by

> unemployment, by sickness and poverty as a result

> of the politics of Thatcherism, many families that

> fell apart, many children who went hungry. Yet,

> she was admired by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown,

> who wants her to have a state funeral, the sort of

> event normally reserved for royalty.

>

> Thatcher represented a new brand of Toryism,

> ostensibly more middle class and "ordinary" than

> many of their predecessors. Thatcher and Norman

> Tebbit - the Chingford Skinhead - sought to appeal

> to the backward prejudices of the middle class and

> to layers of the most backward workers. Thatcher

> was heralded as possibly the first woman Prime

> Minister. She would understand therefore the needs

> of ordinary women and so on. Hardly a day went by

> without her appearing on telly armed with a

> shopping basket bemoaning the lot of the "little

> people." The fact is however that she was anything

> but ordinary. Married to oil millionaire Dennis

> Thatcher, she represented the most vicious and

> small minded layers of the bourgeoisie.

>

> The ideas of class compromise and a formal

> commitment to the goal of full employment that

> were dominant in both big parties during the

> period of the Post War boom and were based on the

> theories of Keynes were abandoned. Thatcher

> embraced monetarism and neoliberalism. Her

> ideology was a ragbag of reactionary prejudices

> and crackpot economic theories, but they

> represented a coherent set of ideas and programme

> to attack the working class with.

>

> It's no surprise that the dominant economic and

> political ideas that Thatcher and Reagan supported

> were those of the Chicago school of economics -

> ideas known as monetarism - that had been promoted

> by the likes of Milton Friedman and Hayek. These

> ideas had been tried before of course. They had

> been put into practice in Chile under the

> murderous military regime of General Pinochet.

> There the 'Chicago Boys' had advocated tight

> monetary controls ostensibly to reduce inflation -

> which means smashing up the public sector, mass

> privatisation and attacks on the poorest in

> society.

>

> This was combined with a political programme to

> advocate self help, standing on your own two feet,

> and all the other alleged petty bourgeois virtues.

> Thatcher went as far as to say that there was no

> such thing as society. This was the green light

> for a massive onslaught on the working class,

> their communities and their organisations. This

> onslaught wasn't restricted to Britain either. It

> generated a programme of liberalisation and

> deregulation, that was ruthlessly applied by the

> IMF and the World Bank across the ex-colonial

> countries. Thatcher dressed up this reactionary

> programme as the logic of commonsense and thrift,

> armed only with a handbag (and a small onion for

> when she needed to shed a tear - according to

> Private Eye) she set off to put the world to

> rights.

>

> Thatcher's programme of privatisation and so

> called "popular capitalism" was wrapped up with

> the idea of a "property owning democracy", where

> everyone owned their own council house and had

> shares in the gas board and the electricity board.

> They would travel to work on privatised buses, or

> privatised tubes and trains. Because everyone was

> thereby "standing on their own feet" they would

> forget about the evil ideas of socialism and

> accept the god of "market forces". The fact is

> though that the assault on the public sector had

> much more to do with providing productive fields

> of investment for the bosses. Compulsory

> competitive tendering and the internal market

> within the health service served to batter down

> wages and conditions across the public sector. In

> the ?service? sector the vast majority of costs

> are in wages. The logic of compulsory competitive

> tendering meant that private companies could

> undercut council services, by the very

> straightforward policy of cutting wage levels and

> staff numbers. Thus, once they had also built

> their percentage profit into the equation,

> resulting in a massive growth in the exploitation

> of some of the poorest sections of the working

> class. Of course Thatcher also opposed the minimum

> wage as it would ?harm industry?.

>

> The recession between 1979 and 1981 had a huge

> impact on the working class. Unemployment shot

> through the roof as millions lost their jobs. What

> was the Tory answer? These, they said, were weak

> old fashioned industries that were uncompetitive

> and overstaffed. In other words they took the same

> attitude as their Victorian predecessors; they

> introduced ?laissez faire? capitalism. In other

> words Thatcher did absolutely nothing; the Tories

> just let the industries fold with calamitous

> results for working class communities up and down

> the country. What about the unemployed? Well, they

> were lazy, layabout shirkers, ?moaning minnies?

> and scroungers. The Tories slashed the number of

> tax inspectors and took on hundreds of people to

> police the benefit system. There were huge tax

> cuts for the rich while benefits were cut and

> people were encouraged to ?get on their bikes? and

> look for work.

>

> Did the medicine work? Monetarism meant that

> unemployment went higher sooner in Britain than in

> any other major capitalist country. Neoliberal

> policies didn?t solve anything. They are now

> totally discredited and the policies introduced by

> Thatcher in the 1980s are seen as being a factor

> in the present crash.

>

> One of the biggest factors in the victory of the

> Tories in the general election was the Falklands

> war. Out of the blue, or at least it appeared to

> be, the Argentinean army invaded the Falklands

> Islands or Malvinas a small bleak and utterly

> inhospitable group of islands with a tiny

> population massively outnumbered by sheep,

> penguins and elephant seals. The Argentinean

> Junta?s invasion unleashed a wave of jingoism on

> behalf of the press, which Thatcher used to

> present herself as a great war leader, casting

> herself as the successor to Winston Churchill,

> Joan of Arc and of course Britannia. The Tories

> sent a task force to the South Atlantic to retake

> the islands in what was essentially the most

> expensive election campaign in history. It?s clear

> that the Argentine military were surprised by the

> level of the response from the British.

>

> But for Thatcher it was too good an opportunity to

> miss, an opportunity to play on all of the long

> faded traditions of the British Empire, Rule

> Britannia and so on by showing ?the Argies? who

> was boss.

>

> Thatcher has always been portrayed as a strong

> leader. She was certainly dogmatic, stubborn and

> inflexible, but her longevity in power was

> achieved in part as a result of accident and in

> large measure as a result of the absolute

> incapacity of the Labour and trade union leaders

> to seriously challenge the Tories. Weakness and

> prevarication invite aggression and the Labour

> Leaders helped to create the conditions whereby

> the Tories were able to lay in to the working

> class for over a decade. Thatcher was no great

> thinker either. Her social base within the Tory

> Party was the nouveau riche, the petty bourgeois

> upstarts and the yuppies, the city slickers and

> the wide boys, the very same people who brought us

> the credit crunch. Large parts of the country were

> decimated, whole industries wiped out of

> existence. Dogmatic monetarism drove the Tories?

> politics and it was the working class that

> suffered.

>

> Viva the grocer's daughter!

Isn't it protocol to attribute pieces here to the original writer of the piece??

[macroban]

Santerme, I believe this is a Googlewhack.

[Marmora Man]

Just to add to santerme's and Macroban's posts.

The entire rant from Gallinello is an edited version of a longer, somewhat one sided "history" from the "Socialist Appeal" website - Socialist Appeal is the youth wing of the Intermnational Marxist Tendency. Their programme includes the following demands:

1. For a socialist programme to solve the problems of working people. Labour must break with big business and Tory economic policies.

2. A national minimum wage of at least two-thirds of the average wage. ?8.00 an hour as a step toward this goal, with no exemptions.

3. Full employment! No redundancies. The right to a job or decent benefits. For a 32 hour week without loss of pay. No compulsory overtime. For voluntary retirement at 55 with a decent full pension for all.

4. No more sell offs. Reverse the Tories privatisation scandal. Renationalise all the privatised industries and utilities under democratic workers control and management. No compensation for the fat cats, only those in genuine need.

5.The repeal of all Tory anti-union laws. Full employment rights for all from day one. For the right to strike, the right to union representation and collective bargaining.

6. Election of all trade union officials with the right of recall. No official to receive more than the wage of a skilled worker.

7. Action to protect our environment. Only public ownership of the land, and major industries, petro-chemical enterprises, food companies, energy and transport, can form the basis of a genuine socialist approach to the environment.

8. A fully funded and fully comprehensive education system under local democratic control. Keep big business out of our schools and colleges. Free access for all to further and higher education. Scrap tuition fees. No to student loans. For a living grant for all over 16 in education or training.

9. The outlawing of all forms of discrimination. Equal pay for equal work. Invest in quality childcare facilities available to all. Scrap all racist immigration and asylum controls. Abolish the Criminal Justice Act.

10. The reversal of the Tories? cuts in the health service. Abolish private health care. For a National Health Service, free to all at the point of need, based on the nationalisation of the big drug companies that squeeze their profits out of the health of working people.

11. Trade unions must reclaim the Labour Party! Fight for Party democracy and socialist policies. For workers? MPs on workers? wages.

12. The abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords. Full economic powers for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, enabling them to introduce socialist measures in the interests of working people.

13. No to sectarianism. For a Socialist United Ireland linked by a voluntary federation to a Socialist Britain.

Break with the anarchy of the capitalist free market. Labour to immediately take over the ?commanding heights of the economy.? Nationalise the big monopolies, banks and financial institutions that dominate our lives. Compensation to be paid only on the basis of need. All nationalised enterprises to be run under workers control and management and integrated through a democratic socialist plan of production.

14. Socialist internationalism. No to the bosses European Union. Yes to a socialist united states of Europe, as part of a world socialist federation.

Naturally there is no mention of how this Utopia is to be funded nor any recognition that the state they propose has no support from those they claim to represent and would, if implemented, bankruptb the country inside a year - if not sooner.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Santerme Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> gallinello Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Apologies for the length of this, but lest we

> > forget all HER 'achievements':

> >

> > Margaret Thatcher presided over the destruction

> of

> > more industry in Britain than that destroyed by

> > the Luftwaffe in the Second World War. She

> plotted

> > to smash the National Union of Mineworkers and

> to

> > dismantle the welfare state and all the reforms

> > that had been fought for over decades by the

> > working class. She slashed welfare payments,

> > attacked the old and the sick and basically

> > co-ordinated a one sided civil war against the

> > British (and Irish) working class. There were

> many

> > people in Britain whose lives were cut short by

> > unemployment, by sickness and poverty as a

> result

> > of the politics of Thatcherism, many families

> that

> > fell apart, many children who went hungry. Yet,

> > she was admired by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown,

> > who wants her to have a state funeral, the sort

> of

> > event normally reserved for royalty.

> >

> > Thatcher represented a new brand of Toryism,

> > ostensibly more middle class and "ordinary"

> than

> > many of their predecessors. Thatcher and Norman

> > Tebbit - the Chingford Skinhead - sought to

> appeal

> > to the backward prejudices of the middle class

> and

> > to layers of the most backward workers.

> Thatcher

> > was heralded as possibly the first woman Prime

> > Minister. She would understand therefore the

> needs

> > of ordinary women and so on. Hardly a day went

> by

> > without her appearing on telly armed with a

> > shopping basket bemoaning the lot of the

> "little

> > people." The fact is however that she was

> anything

> > but ordinary. Married to oil millionaire Dennis

> > Thatcher, she represented the most vicious and

> > small minded layers of the bourgeoisie.

> >

> > The ideas of class compromise and a formal

> > commitment to the goal of full employment that

> > were dominant in both big parties during the

> > period of the Post War boom and were based on

> the

> > theories of Keynes were abandoned. Thatcher

> > embraced monetarism and neoliberalism. Her

> > ideology was a ragbag of reactionary prejudices

> > and crackpot economic theories, but they

> > represented a coherent set of ideas and

> programme

> > to attack the working class with.

> >

> > It's no surprise that the dominant economic and

> > political ideas that Thatcher and Reagan

> supported

> > were those of the Chicago school of economics -

> > ideas known as monetarism - that had been

> promoted

> > by the likes of Milton Friedman and Hayek.

> These

> > ideas had been tried before of course. They had

> > been put into practice in Chile under the

> > murderous military regime of General Pinochet.

> > There the 'Chicago Boys' had advocated tight

> > monetary controls ostensibly to reduce inflation

> -

> > which means smashing up the public sector, mass

> > privatisation and attacks on the poorest in

> > society.

> >

> > This was combined with a political programme to

> > advocate self help, standing on your own two

> feet,

> > and all the other alleged petty bourgeois

> virtues.

> > Thatcher went as far as to say that there was

> no

> > such thing as society. This was the green light

> > for a massive onslaught on the working class,

> > their communities and their organisations. This

> > onslaught wasn't restricted to Britain either.

> It

> > generated a programme of liberalisation and

> > deregulation, that was ruthlessly applied by

> the

> > IMF and the World Bank across the ex-colonial

> > countries. Thatcher dressed up this reactionary

> > programme as the logic of commonsense and

> thrift,

> > armed only with a handbag (and a small onion

> for

> > when she needed to shed a tear - according to

> > Private Eye) she set off to put the world to

> > rights.

> >

> > Thatcher's programme of privatisation and so

> > called "popular capitalism" was wrapped up with

> > the idea of a "property owning democracy",

> where

> > everyone owned their own council house and had

> > shares in the gas board and the electricity

> board.

> > They would travel to work on privatised buses,

> or

> > privatised tubes and trains. Because everyone

> was

> > thereby "standing on their own feet" they would

> > forget about the evil ideas of socialism and

> > accept the god of "market forces". The fact is

> > though that the assault on the public sector

> had

> > much more to do with providing productive

> fields

> > of investment for the bosses. Compulsory

> > competitive tendering and the internal market

> > within the health service served to batter down

> > wages and conditions across the public sector.

> In

> > the ?service? sector the vast majority of costs

> > are in wages. The logic of compulsory

> competitive

> > tendering meant that private companies could

> > undercut council services, by the very

> > straightforward policy of cutting wage levels

> and

> > staff numbers. Thus, once they had also built

> > their percentage profit into the equation,

> > resulting in a massive growth in the

> exploitation

> > of some of the poorest sections of the working

> > class. Of course Thatcher also opposed the

> minimum

> > wage as it would ?harm industry?.

> >

> > The recession between 1979 and 1981 had a huge

> > impact on the working class. Unemployment shot

> > through the roof as millions lost their jobs.

> What

> > was the Tory answer? These, they said, were

> weak

> > old fashioned industries that were

> uncompetitive

> > and overstaffed. In other words they took the

> same

> > attitude as their Victorian predecessors; they

> > introduced ?laissez faire? capitalism. In other

> > words Thatcher did absolutely nothing; the

> Tories

> > just let the industries fold with calamitous

> > results for working class communities up and

> down

> > the country. What about the unemployed? Well,

> they

> > were lazy, layabout shirkers, ?moaning minnies?

> > and scroungers. The Tories slashed the number

> of

> > tax inspectors and took on hundreds of people

> to

> > police the benefit system. There were huge tax

> > cuts for the rich while benefits were cut and

> > people were encouraged to ?get on their bikes?

> and

> > look for work.

> >

> > Did the medicine work? Monetarism meant that

> > unemployment went higher sooner in Britain than

> in

> > any other major capitalist country. Neoliberal

> > policies didn?t solve anything. They are now

> > totally discredited and the policies introduced

> by

> > Thatcher in the 1980s are seen as being a

> factor

> > in the present crash.

> >

> > One of the biggest factors in the victory of

> the

> > Tories in the general election was the

> Falklands

> > war. Out of the blue, or at least it appeared

> to

> > be, the Argentinean army invaded the Falklands

> > Islands or Malvinas a small bleak and utterly

> > inhospitable group of islands with a tiny

> > population massively outnumbered by sheep,

> > penguins and elephant seals. The Argentinean

> > Junta?s invasion unleashed a wave of jingoism

> on

> > behalf of the press, which Thatcher used to

> > present herself as a great war leader, casting

> > herself as the successor to Winston Churchill,

> > Joan of Arc and of course Britannia. The Tories

> > sent a task force to the South Atlantic to

> retake

> > the islands in what was essentially the most

> > expensive election campaign in history. It?s

> clear

> > that the Argentine military were surprised by

> the

> > level of the response from the British.

> >

> > But for Thatcher it was too good an opportunity

> to

> > miss, an opportunity to play on all of the long

> > faded traditions of the British Empire, Rule

> > Britannia and so on by showing ?the Argies? who

> > was boss.

> >

> > Thatcher has always been portrayed as a strong

> > leader. She was certainly dogmatic, stubborn

> and

> > inflexible, but her longevity in power was

> > achieved in part as a result of accident and in

> > large measure as a result of the absolute

> > incapacity of the Labour and trade union

> leaders

> > to seriously challenge the Tories. Weakness and

> > prevarication invite aggression and the Labour

> > Leaders helped to create the conditions whereby

> > the Tories were able to lay in to the working

> > class for over a decade. Thatcher was no great

> > thinker either. Her social base within the Tory

> > Party was the nouveau riche, the petty

> bourgeois

> > upstarts and the yuppies, the city slickers and

> > the wide boys, the very same people who brought

> us

> > the credit crunch. Large parts of the country

> were

> > decimated, whole industries wiped out of

> > existence. Dogmatic monetarism drove the

> Tories?

> > politics and it was the working class that

> > suffered.

> >

> > Viva the grocer's daughter!

>

> Isn't it protocol to attribute pieces here to the

> original writer of the piece??

Galli must be the original Author as "Mark" is red-hot and absolute mustard in spotting a plagirised post.

Quicker than Linford Christie in his hey-day, "Mark" would be in like veritable lightning to trip the plagirist up in his attempt to belittle and embarass him (he wouldn't do it to a Lady, the Man has standards) and has he has not seen fit to comment then we can safely assume that this post is kosher...

Either that or he is having a night off....B)

p.s I've been sussed twice by our own Sherlock and it was a humilitating experience.

I felt very humile afterwards I can tell you...

[woofmarkthedog]

Santerme Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> gallinello Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Apologies for the length of this, but lest we

> > forget all HER 'achievements':

> >

> > Margaret Thatcher presided over the destruction

> of

> > more industry in Britain than that destroyed by

> > the Luftwaffe in the Second World War. She

> plotted

> > to smash the National Union of Mineworkers and

> to

> > dismantle the welfare state and all the reforms

> > that had been fought for over decades by the

> > working class. She slashed welfare payments,

> > attacked the old and the sick and basically

> > co-ordinated a one sided civil war against the

> > British (and Irish) working class. There were

> many

> > people in Britain whose lives were cut short by

> > unemployment, by sickness and poverty as a

> result

> > of the politics of Thatcherism, many families

> that

> > fell apart, many children who went hungry. Yet,

> > she was admired by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown,

> > who wants her to have a state funeral, the sort

> of

> > event normally reserved for royalty.

> >

> > Thatcher represented a new brand of Toryism,

> > ostensibly more middle class and "ordinary"

> than

> > many of their predecessors. Thatcher and Norman

> > Tebbit - the Chingford Skinhead - sought to

> appeal

> > to the backward prejudices of the middle class

> and

> > to layers of the most backward workers.

> Thatcher

> > was heralded as possibly the first woman Prime

> > Minister. She would understand therefore the

> needs

> > of ordinary women and so on. Hardly a day went

> by

> > without her appearing on telly armed with a

> > shopping basket bemoaning the lot of the

> "little

> > people." The fact is however that she was

> anything

> > but ordinary. Married to oil millionaire Dennis

> > Thatcher, she represented the most vicious and

> > small minded layers of the bourgeoisie.

> >

> > The ideas of class compromise and a formal

> > commitment to the goal of full employment that

> > were dominant in both big parties during the

> > period of the Post War boom and were based on

> the

> > theories of Keynes were abandoned. Thatcher

> > embraced monetarism and neoliberalism. Her

> > ideology was a ragbag of reactionary prejudices

> > and crackpot economic theories, but they

> > represented a coherent set of ideas and

> programme

> > to attack the working class with.

> >

> > It's no surprise that the dominant economic and

> > political ideas that Thatcher and Reagan

> supported

> > were those of the Chicago school of economics -

> > ideas known as monetarism - that had been

> promoted

> > by the likes of Milton Friedman and Hayek.

> These

> > ideas had been tried before of course. They had

> > been put into practice in Chile under the

> > murderous military regime of General Pinochet.

> > There the 'Chicago Boys' had advocated tight

> > monetary controls ostensibly to reduce inflation

> -

> > which means smashing up the public sector, mass

> > privatisation and attacks on the poorest in

> > society.

> >

> > This was combined with a political programme to

> > advocate self help, standing on your own two

> feet,

> > and all the other alleged petty bourgeois

> virtues.

> > Thatcher went as far as to say that there was

> no

> > such thing as society. This was the green light

> > for a massive onslaught on the working class,

> > their communities and their organisations. This

> > onslaught wasn't restricted to Britain either.

> It

> > generated a programme of liberalisation and

> > deregulation, that was ruthlessly applied by

> the

> > IMF and the World Bank across the ex-colonial

> > countries. Thatcher dressed up this reactionary

> > programme as the logic of commonsense and

> thrift,

> > armed only with a handbag (and a small onion

> for

> > when she needed to shed a tear - according to

> > Private Eye) she set off to put the world to

> > rights.

> >

> > Thatcher's programme of privatisation and so

> > called "popular capitalism" was wrapped up with

> > the idea of a "property owning democracy",

> where

> > everyone owned their own council house and had

> > shares in the gas board and the electricity

> board.

> > They would travel to work on privatised buses,

> or

> > privatised tubes and trains. Because everyone

> was

> > thereby "standing on their own feet" they would

> > forget about the evil ideas of socialism and

> > accept the god of "market forces". The fact is

> > though that the assault on the public sector

> had

> > much more to do with providing productive

> fields

> > of investment for the bosses. Compulsory

> > competitive tendering and the internal market

> > within the health service served to batter down

> > wages and conditions across the public sector.

> In

> > the ?service? sector the vast majority of costs

> > are in wages. The logic of compulsory

> competitive

> > tendering meant that private companies could

> > undercut council services, by the very

> > straightforward policy of cutting wage levels

> and

> > staff numbers. Thus, once they had also built

> > their percentage profit into the equation,

> > resulting in a massive growth in the

> exploitation

> > of some of the poorest sections of the working

> > class. Of course Thatcher also opposed the

> minimum

> > wage as it would ?harm industry?.

> >

> > The recession between 1979 and 1981 had a huge

> > impact on the working class. Unemployment shot

> > through the roof as millions lost their jobs.

> What

> > was the Tory answer? These, they said, were

> weak

> > old fashioned industries that were

> uncompetitive

> > and overstaffed. In other words they took the

> same

> > attitude as their Victorian predecessors; they

> > introduced ?laissez faire? capitalism. In other

> > words Thatcher did absolutely nothing; the

> Tories

> > just let the industries fold with calamitous

> > results for working class communities up and

> down

> > the country. What about the unemployed? Well,

> they

> > were lazy, layabout shirkers, ?moaning minnies?

> > and scroungers. The Tories slashed the number

> of

> > tax inspectors and took on hundreds of people

> to

> > police the benefit system. There were huge tax

> > cuts for the rich while benefits were cut and

> > people were encouraged to ?get on their bikes?

> and

> > look for work.

> >

> > Did the medicine work? Monetarism meant that

> > unemployment went higher sooner in Britain than

> in

> > any other major capitalist country. Neoliberal

> > policies didn?t solve anything. They are now

> > totally discredited and the policies introduced

> by

> > Thatcher in the 1980s are seen as being a

> factor

> > in the present crash.

> >

> > One of the biggest factors in the victory of

> the

> > Tories in the general election was the

> Falklands

> > war. Out of the blue, or at least it appeared

> to

> > be, the Argentinean army invaded the Falklands

> > Islands or Malvinas a small bleak and utterly

> > inhospitable group of islands with a tiny

> > population massively outnumbered by sheep,

> > penguins and elephant seals. The Argentinean

> > Junta?s invasion unleashed a wave of jingoism

> on

> > behalf of the press, which Thatcher used to

> > present herself as a great war leader, casting

> > herself as the successor to Winston Churchill,

> > Joan of Arc and of course Britannia. The Tories

> > sent a task force to the South Atlantic to

> retake

> > the islands in what was essentially the most

> > expensive election campaign in history. It?s

> clear

> > that the Argentine military were surprised by

> the

> > level of the response from the British.

> >

> > But for Thatcher it was too good an opportunity

> to

> > miss, an opportunity to play on all of the long

> > faded traditions of the British Empire, Rule

> > Britannia and so on by showing ?the Argies? who

> > was boss.

> >

> > Thatcher has always been portrayed as a strong

> > leader. She was certainly dogmatic, stubborn

> and

> > inflexible, but her longevity in power was

> > achieved in part as a result of accident and in

> > large measure as a result of the absolute

> > incapacity of the Labour and trade union

> leaders

> > to seriously challenge the Tories. Weakness and

> > prevarication invite aggression and the Labour

> > Leaders helped to create the conditions whereby

> > the Tories were able to lay in to the working

> > class for over a decade. Thatcher was no great

> > thinker either. Her social base within the Tory

> > Party was the nouveau riche, the petty

> bourgeois

> > upstarts and the yuppies, the city slickers and

> > the wide boys, the very same people who brought

> us

> > the credit crunch. Large parts of the country

> were

> > decimated, whole industries wiped out of

> > existence. Dogmatic monetarism drove the

> Tories?

> > politics and it was the working class that

> > suffered.

> >

> > Viva the grocer's daughter!

>

> Isn't it protocol to attribute pieces here to the

> original writer of the piece??

YOUR NAME HERE

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok

Go on then Santerme beat me with the protocol stick then but make it brief as you can, beatings were so regular at my bourgeois

fee paying boarding school that I may well fall asleep whilst you do it.

W**F

[woofmarkthedog]

Tony.London Suburbs Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> woofmarkthedog Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> gallinello Wrote:

> Apologies for the length of this, Brown,

>

> "But other than that...... she was alright!" "Go

> on Mag's.....break a leg!"

>

> I waded through the whole text of the above that

> you repeated chapter and verse for a "One-Liner"

> at the end??...:))

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Oh but what a one liner eh TLS.......Only you could wade so far, for so little, for so few.

We salute you

W**F