Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 08:39 PM

Not annoying. It's good to iron stuff out.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 05:48 PM

Agreed, Steve. Sorry & ashamed to have been annoying. ☹

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 04:58 PM

Michael, I agree that fatuous and usually frustrated attempts to compare people with Hitler is seriously counter-productive and is to be avoided at all costs. Godwin, however, never intended that all mention of Hitler and the Nazis should be studiously avoided. You'd think so though, when you see Godwin invoked so often at the merest mention of old Adolf. Annoying, that.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 08:54 AM

"Socialism is extinct.....and people like you made it so."
If Socialism ever meant the virulent homophobia you constantly spout, the suggestion that the smass murderer of young people, Brievik had something to say worth listening to, as you have suggested, and the outpouring of race hatred aimed at immigrants to which you are prone - good ******* riddance to it as far as I'm concerned. I've never met a 'socialist' who vomits such garbage - that't B.N.P. territory as I see it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 08:44 AM

You have been a member of the communist party most of your life...

Now, I don't spend time studying discredited dogma but I was always led to believe it was based on the Marx principle of equality.

Is everybody equal in your mind Akenaton? And where is the missing h?

Oh hang on, this is about Thatcher. . Cremated her the bastards. They promised me a sprung dance floor on her grave due to miners' knees.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 03:12 AM

Steve....unlike you, my views on social issuse are not determined by what any political grouping thinks.
I do not consider myself to be "homophobic"...whatever meaning you wish to invest in the word.

GSS.....My definition of "socialism" would almost certainly be very different from either yours or Steve's......however, Communism is a leap of faith...often misplaced..

I do not believe that Capitalism, the cyclical "prosperity" and materialism that it engenders are good for humanity.
At the end of the cycle it produces idiots, vultures and human refuse.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 02:02 AM

Steve ~~ Godwin's Law, to my understanding anyhow, always contained implication of the qualification "even where not germane to the topic" [which, btw, I will admit your most recent ref to Hitler was, so my invocation of it there was probably misplaced & a bit facetious. Apologies]. In that sense, I don't think it mistaken or superseded, and I think he should himself have made this qualification rather than admit it flawed and appear to disown or withdraw it. Still valid for me ~ with that overtone assumed.

~M~

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 08:42 PM

akneaton, you clearly do not understand the definition of socialism or the definition of communism.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 08:22 PM

Almost all politicians are "terrible people"

Well, I've heard many a complaint of that sort. But, unfortunately, someone has to run the bloody country. So, if you have a better idea...

Jim....I never voted for Mrs Thatcher, but as I have been a member of the Communist Party for most of my life, neither am I a supporter of the Capitalist System.

Well, a minute ago you were singing her praises as the saviour of capitalism and I had to put you right with a hard fact or two. And do your comrades in the CP know about your rabid homophobia? I wouldn't have thought that that was an integral part of the Communist Party manifesto, somehow...

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: akenaton
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 05:07 PM

"Simpleton"?......Who said anything about Mrs Thatcher or Mr Blair being "bestowed with wisdom, or a sense of fair play and justice"?

Not I.    You are the "simpleton", if you are unable to read or comprehend.

Almost all politicians are "terrible people"

Jim....I never voted for Mrs Thatcher, but as I have been a member of the Communist Party for most of my life, neither am I a supporter of the Capitalist System.

Most of you "liberals" like to talk about Socialism and "equality", but when the chips are down you stick with the status quo.
I was truly shocked at the numbers of Labour voters who took Mrs Thatchers thirty pieces of silver.

Socialism is extinct.....and people like you made it so.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 04:24 PM

Godwin's Law (redundant, but you seem to want to cling...) was never intended to make people scared of mentioning Hitler or the Nazis. Godwin himself acknowledged that it was fine to mention Hitler or the Nazis so long as the context was appropriate. In my case, I was trying to point out to that simpleton ake that, just because you win elections, you are not necessarily bestowed with wisdom and a great sense of fair play and justice. If anyone thinks I was trying to compare Thatcher with Hitler, they were misreading what I said. Simple as that. Thatcher was a terrible person, but she was no Hitler. OK now, The?

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 03:43 PM

No, I didn't for a second think you were, Steve. Just saying that your comment did exemplify Godwin's Law; and then that, even if he has changed his mind about its validity where & why btw?, it remains valid just the same ~~ as your post exemplified... A bit like OPs here trying to bring the threads they have started to an end, and nobody taking a blind bit of notice but going on with the topic just the same.

~M~

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 03:04 PM

where!

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 03:04 PM

Over whwere?

If you think I was in any way comparing Thatcher with Hitler, you misread my post. Just the winning thing, that's all. Winning doesn't turn you into a goodie.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 12:19 PM

... or maybe it was Churchill...

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 12:17 PM

The fact that he might have contradicted himself doesn't mean his law was 'refuted'. It remains true, as you have just demonstrated. Not but what your point is a perfectly fair & valid one. But then so was Ake's. As I never tire of saying, all you lot over there call yourselves believers in democracy, but then throw a fit of the vapours when anyone not on your 'approved' list gets in. That is, of course, the paradox of democracy, which is precisely as Mr Lincoln described it. The other great paradox is that the Lefties claim themselves motivated by love of humanity, but are consumed with obsessive hatred of practically all actual humans.

~M~

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 11:29 AM

Now The, I was simply making the point (as you do have to do with ake...simply...) that to win is not automatically to be the good guy. Incidentally, Mr Godwin refuted his "law" many years ago.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 10:44 AM

And so has Mr Godwin, eh?

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 09:32 AM

Mrs Thatcher won!....get used to it.

So did Mr Hitler in 1933!....get used to it!

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 08:49 AM

You want a capitalist system, Maggie was the only one who could make it competitive. She tackled the problem of our obsolete manufacturing sector and working practices.

Margaret Thatcher's 1979 election campaign's main theme was that Britain wasn't working under Labour, accompanied by a poster depicting a dole queue. After four years in power, she had almost tripled Labour's unemployment rate, and it was still virtually double Labour's rate by the end of her regime. On top of that she put an extra two million people out to grass on permanent "incapacity benefit", mostly in mining, steel or shipbuilding towns. Most of those people were not incapacitated at all, but that was a convenient way of making the unemployment figures, terrible as they already were, not look totally apocalyptic, which is what they were. There was a recession at each end of her rule. She never achieved growth of more than 2.2% at best. At the end of her reign, inflation was still at almost ten percent and mortgage rates were around 14 percent. The gap between rich and poor widened, as did the pay gap between men and women. Margaret Thatcher deregulated the City to such an extent that even some right-wing Tories were gobsmacked, and that deregulation (sadly, never addressed by Blair/Brown) led directly to the irreponsible behaviour that got us into the present mess and which cost the taxpayer hundreds of billions in order to bale out your precious capitalism. Still, ake, never mind. You don't want facts to be getting in the way of your prejudice, do you?

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Apr 13 - 08:22 AM

"Save your odium for the guilty on your own side Jim"
What side would that be Ake? - I stopped voting altogether when New Labour was revealed as Old Thatcherism with a new label.
Yet to hear a peep of criticism from the pros for her support for the "democratic" mass murderer - silence says it all really
Of course, you've always gone in for that sort of thing, haven't you?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: akenaton
Date: 18 Apr 13 - 12:50 PM

Mrs Thatcher won!....get used to it.

You want a capitalist system, Maggie was the only one who could make it competitive. She tackled the problem of our obsolete manufacturing sector and working practices... she offered the bait that proved the "lefty liberals" were complete hypocrites(Right to Buy)
She made the Labour Party remove the word "socialism" from their vocabulary(shameful bastards).
Blair ditched the principles of the founders of Labour, in exchange for a few years in power, polishing and de-odourising the Capitalist brand, even taking us into a war that nobody wanted except poodle Blair himself,(criminal)

Save your odium for the guilty on your own side Jim

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Apr 13 - 11:27 AM

'Namecalling"
"Numskull", "fatuities" v "moron" (addressed elsewhere) - you're one up on me Mike.
Wouldn't have thought you'd have thought "Thatcherite" namecalling, though most here certainly would.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Apr 13 - 09:07 AM

Keep going with your everlasting characteristic name-calling, Jim, which you appear to confuse with rational argument*. Your tendentious fatuities are liable to choke up your intellect entirely before you have done.

~M~

* just as you appear to confuse me with someone who might give a tinker's cuss what you think.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Apr 13 - 08:48 AM

"possibly due to your exquisite talent for evading whatever might be the particular topic under discussion"
You seem to be still trying to make something of nothing - assuming you are still referring to my 'target practice" statement which was, as you have pointed out, down to my being a "numbskull" and, wrongly apparently, believing it was Palestinians who were the refugees being referred to, hence, giving the Israeli history of massacring such people, were fair game for Israeli target practice.
"Evasion" comes a bit rich from somebody who refuses to comment of the late and not very lamented lady's friendship, admiration and successful attempt to help a mass murderer and war criminal evade justice.
I evade nothing Mike, nor do I advocate or excuse war crimes - don't you and your moron mate wish you could claim the same?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 18 Apr 13 - 08:24 AM

Here's some
footage from the celebrations in Liverpool last night. It doesn't include the moment when the crowd immolated Maggy's effigy, but it sure was worth seeing.

In any event, forget what the accompanying article says about 100 people attending the party. There were at least five times that number, as anybody who knows the size of St George's Plateau will testify.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Rog Peek
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 12:33 PM

After she's had tea with her bosom pal Augusto of course!

Rog

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Rog Peek
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 12:26 PM

I understand Thatcher was to be cremated today.

Mmmmmmmmm.... so that's twice then.

Rog

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 10:33 AM

You certainly were, Jim ~~ possibly due to your exquisite talent for evading whatever might be the particular topic under discussion ~~ as here!

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 10:28 AM

But there again - were all "the enemy within" to the lady in the box, weren't we?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 10:12 AM

"But, having infiltrated"
Is that how you see passing an opinion - spoken like a true Thatcherite
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 09:50 AM

'a reference to an ironic remark ' ...
.,,.
It was that idiocy on your part that was really the irony!

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 09:48 AM

Agreed that it is a bit irrelevant to this thread, Jim. But, having infiltrated ~~ Have you not yet got into your peculiarly, on this occasion, numb skull, that it was Jewish refugees who were at issue at the time. So whom were you accusing of being likely to find them 'useful for target practice'?

Eh? Numskull!

~M~

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 08:39 AM

"useful for target practice"
This is apparently a reference to an ironic remark I made on the Israeli regime's tendency to massacre refugees (and everyone else who happened to get in their expansionist way) and that regimes having a number of refugees on their territory - "handy for target practice" was my ironic comment.
Can't see what connection it has with this subject - but then again, I do have a life outside this forum!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 08:35 AM

in answer to musket, what we need to be fearful of are political decisions that are made without considering the best interests of the country, political decisions that are made as acts of vengeance, political decisions that mean the country is at the mercy of another country when it comes to providing a nation with fuel/ energy.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 08:24 AM

Still no answer from Jim on that one, mind, is there?

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 08:23 AM

Fred ~~ I withdrew that statement, admitting to having confused two discourses 15 apr 1011pm. Mixed you up with Jim, can't remember why. Sorry!!!

I should nevertheless appreciate not being threatened at my age with physical violence, if you wouldn't mind too much. Don't think I should be a match for a young fellow like you at the age of 81.

~M~

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 08:17 AM

A question I have been asking myself lately and although with trepidation, thought it worth asking as part of this debate. (After all, once you stop smiling at Fred saying how he hates fascism and then threatens MtheGM with violence should they meet, you are minded to move the conversation on a bit.)

What is worse.   A conservative government that is incompetent and has no way of seeing through policies or a socialist government with the drive and determination of Thatcher?

It's just that not liking tory ideology and not being enamoured by Thatcher needs unpicking.   Many right wing people hated her approach but admired her outcomes. Many left wing people hated her outcomes but admired her approach.

I hated her for what she did in my community. My pit is shut my industry gone. Even now, despite the many and varied answers I could give, professionally I say I am an ex miner.

Yet rather than jump on the ding dong wagon, I am far more interested in learning from history. Is it strong leadership we need or be fearful of? Is it her approach, ideals or outcomes we need to reject?

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 07:56 AM

Don, have another look at the '86 Act.

In a place that was not a police state I would not be potentially subject to arrest if I turned up with a placard accusing the bitch of complicity with Pol Pot, or shouted "Burn in hell, bitch" as the coffin passed.

Time to face up to what she did.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 06:58 AM

mrs thatchers maternal grand mother was a kerrywoman, who emigrated to england to escape poverty.cest plus ca change.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 06:34 AM

Michael Grosvenor Myer has accused me of issuing some kind of "apparent invitation to shoot Jewish refugees ['useful for target practice']". See above.

That is an outrageous lie. I am not, never have been and never will be anti-semitic in any way shape or form. I have never been party to any form of discrimination whatsoever, whether it be on the basis of race, religion, class, sexual orientation, gender or anything else.

Unlike Mr Grosvenor Myer, I spend a considerable part of my life fighting racism and fascism and all forms of bigotry, and have been abused, spat at and physically threatened on many occasions by the so called hard men of the far right. Even so, I have no intention of giving in to them and will continue campaigning until I am dead or until fascism has been buried completely under the rubble of history.

I am not going to waste my time demanding an apology from this creep. I shall just warn him that if we ever come face to face, he will be extremely sorry.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 06:02 AM

Thatcher's legacy - a government that is prepared to use the murder of six children to cut unemployment benefits
"Thatcher ain't dead...." as the song would have said if its composer was still alive.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 05:36 AM

""I note that the police have stated that protesters are allowed to turn their backs as the coffin passes. SINCE WHEN DID WE NEED PERMISSION FOR THAT? WHAT HAS BECOME OF THIS COUNTRY?""

I think that their point is that such action is all that will be allowed Richard.

Turning up with a sack full of half bricks will probably be frowned on, so I wouldn't bother if I were you.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 05:28 AM

""Ignoring the usual tirade of twists and turns from Mr W (wouldn't it be easier just to admit you were wrong""

If it will stop your ad hominem I'll admit that I was wrong, even though I have only YOUR word that I was.

You know my name. Kindly use it.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 12:55 AM

Let us also remember that Thatcher was up to her neck in support for Pol Pot.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 10:11 PM

Or did I just mix up two different previous discourses? Feel I might have done. Oh, well; take which bits apply & forget the rest.

Back to bed. Heigh-ho!

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 07:14 PM

I am sure that an awful lot of people feel very insulted and offended at this carnival of a funeral for Thatcher. But somehow I doubt very much if those responsible will have their collars felt.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 07:14 PM

I am sure that an awful lot of people feel very insulted and offended at this carnival of a funeral for Thatcher. But somehow I doubt very much if those responsible will have their collars felt.

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 05:12 PM

"Nevertheless, I feel I must tender an apology to anyone who has been bored out of their skull by the cyberspacial intercourse between MtheGM and I".should be 'me'. ~M~
.,,.
I associate myself with that; pausing only to point out that F's paranoid irruption on to the thread to defend himself against an attack which had never occurred, and also his apparent invitation to shoot Jewish refugees ['useful for target practice'], remain unexplained despite repeated requests from others as well as me.

With cage entirely unrattled ~

~M~

Subject: RE: Obit: Margaret Thatcher Dead (1925-2013)
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 03:12 PM

Stu is absolutely correct, and the introduction of a police state is something else we have to thank Thatcher for.

A couple of interesting examples.

When David Cameron dared to show his face in Liverpool recently, the dozen or so protesters who had gathered to greet him, had the Public Order Act read at them, while they were peacefully assembling, and before Cameron had got anywhere near the place.

I recently helped occupy one of the Liverpool branches of Starbucks. This was at the height of the scandal over the taxes which this ratbag multi-billion pound rganisation weren't paying. Again, the protest was entirely peaceful. In fact, long story, but some of the women protesters had organised a creche, so there were quite a few babies and toddlers present. So that's how violent it was. Nevertheless, I was approached by a police inspector, as the presumed "leader" (I wasn't the leader, presumed or otherwise) and told that if we didn't disperse, we would be arrested for aggravated trespass. On what grounds? Well, according to this inspector, we were intimidating the staff. I remarked that I'd never seen a bunch of workers who looked less like shitting themselves in my entire life. He said "Ah but you haven't seen the girl who's out in the back crying". For a moment I was rather discomforted and asked if I could go and offer her a word of comfort and an apology (that word again), because the last thing any of us wanted was to cause any distress to the underpaid and overworked employees of Starbucks. They weren't our target. Of course I couldn't talk to her. She didn't exist.

On another occasion, I and a small number of others were getting ready to protest at the local government cuts. The area where we assembled was on a public thoroughfare, and it was was far too wide to cause any inconvenience to passers by, or to the objects of our protest (a conference being held in a building across the way). We were told by a police sergeant this time that, unless we stood inside the spot they'd designated for us, they would escort us away from the area. No, we hadn't broken any law, but our presence was intimidating the staff inside the building!!!

The paramilitarisation of the police is just one more reason why the party started immediately the news of Thatcher's death broke, and why it will continue until her name is buried for ever more.