Thatcher: Will We Debate Her In 500 Years time? Telegraph Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Thatcher A Style Icon? Guardian Unlimited Take a look at an interesting article we found.
How The Iron Lady Was Forged BBC News Take a look at an interesting article we found.
When my time comes, I want to die in England. If for no other reason than to have the Times of London write my obituary.
 by OncDoc |
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 by Doc Nolan |
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 by Peter Lake |
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June 20, 2008
In a country where male chauvinism was practically invented, Margaret Thatcher didn’t get to be the first Woman Prime Minister of Britain by being soft. Just ask the Russians.
On Jan. 19, 1976, she made a speech in Kensington Town Hall.
“The Russians are bent on world dominance, and are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns.”
In response, the Soviet Defense Ministry newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, gave her the nickname "Iron Lady,” which served her well.
Doing the popular thing was never in her lexicon.
In the 1979 election, she ridiculed Socialist Prime Minister Callaghan’s style by saying:
“The Old Testament prophets did not say, 'Brothers, I want a consensus.'”
It couldn’t have been prudent, but she was one of few Conservative Prime Minister’s to support decriminalizing male homosexuality and voted to legalize abortion.
Thatcher was concerned about the environment long before it was fashionable. In a major speech in 1988 she addressed the problems of ozone depletion and acid rain that even got Carl Sagan to stop talking about himself and recognize her contributions.
In her second term, she put pressure on U.S. President George H.W. Bush to deploy troops to the Middle East to drive Saddam Hussein's army out of Kuwait with the advice, "This is no time to go wobbly.”
When the 1980s brought riots, strikes and unemployment, political commentators wondered if she would consider a "U-turn" in her beliefs.
"To those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catch phrase—the U-turn—I have only one thing to say: you turn if you want to; the Lady's not for turning.”
Her stubborn convictions were borne out in the 1981 budget, when, despite concerns expressed in an open letter from 364 leading economists, she increased taxes in the middle of a recession.
Thatcher's extreme lack of wobbliness, well documented in “Downing Street Years", secured her place in history, along with Reagan, for ending the Cold War. She also put in place an economic system that perhaps served future generations better than her own.
When Margaret Thatcher was given the Winston Churchill Award, the citation read: "Like Churchill she is known for her courage, determination and will power."
And, like Churchill, she was both loved and hated.
In a recent book by one of her "speechwriters,” Ferdinand Mount, he says, "She never became endearing...she never was nice. But it is easy to slip into thinking that some of the things she achieved could have been achieved in a kinder style. I rather doubt it. There are times when what is needed is not a beacon but a blowtorch.”
I’m just glad she was on our side. And I hope she won’t object to being called a “Cowboy,” in our pantheon of people that persevered against all odds and stuck to their guns.
And if Baroness Thatcher does object, I have no fear she’ll get word to us.
Share the Eye:
Thatcher And Reagan, Political Soul Mates msnbc.msn.com/ Take a look at an interesting article we found.
10 Downing Steet gov.uk/output Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Tony Blair Still 'Most Influential' Man In Britain, poll says Earthtimes.org Take a look at an interesting article we found.
still thinking about today...
Who's your favorite straight shooter?
31% 8% 15% 8% 23% 0% 15%
In addition to the above, she was also the Prime Minister during the Falkland's War. She dispatched naval warships, some of them in secret, and didn't tell the Queen the nation was at war till after the shooting started.
Talk about an Iron Lady, she had a couple of body parts made of steel that were probably the envy of those male socialist Members of Parliament who couldn't find theirs.
She was a "cowboy" with a blowtorch!
Thatcher is sometimes blamed for the death of punk and birth of New Romanticism by 1981. The music certainly sums up the decadent spirit of the times (I wrote about this for a Masters thesis).
Similarly, the Reagan era spawned Madonna and Prince; two great decadent artists.
To: Heiress,
You've got me thinking about the musical era that our current President has spawned.
Please let's not invoke a comparison of The Decider with the Iron Lady...it's way too depressing.
During her tenure in office, she was not given an easy time and yet she was able to hold true to her principles. I wonder if we could bottle that and give a dose of it to our politicians who go the polls go...so they can stay in office. (granted, the two political systems are a bit different)
Even as a young girl, I looked to her as a role model.
Dutchman said...
To ExPat, I think the music our current president has spawned is baroque.
We're all going baroque. And he's leaving us, fortunately soon, morally bankrupt as well.
To: Dutchman,
That sound you hear is Bach turning over in his grave........Perhaps, with the Mississippi levees flooding, we should conjure up a little "water music"......
I have always liked Prime Minister Thatcher but I have certain English friends who don't. And it's interesting that some of the most vocal figureheads in the gay community (Stephen Frears and Sir Ian McKellen for starters) have made staunchly anti-Thatcher comments in spite of her efforts to alleviate state-sponsored homophobia.
All in all, it is VERY rare to have a politician who takes seriously Edmund Burke's notion that a representative owes it to his people (or her people, in this case) the use of his own judgment rather than subjugating it to theirs.
Let us be wary, however. George W. Bush has also held firm to his own principles. Whatever his faults (and they are LEGION), we cannot deny that he has always stuck to his guns, used his own judgment, and refused to compromise his principles to popular opinion. The same has been true of a few notable leaders in 20th Century Germany, Italy, USSR, and China, to name a few.
Now, I don't presume to compare Prime Minister Thatcher to the villains referenced in the above paragraph. I merely point out that, while sticking to your principles is admirable, it is not everything. The principles to which you stick need to have a certain value. For further study, check out Shakespeare's "Coriolanus".
Dutchman, you've touched a soft spot with me. Baroque is the specialty of my group's fiddler... I too have made the analogy.
The obvious wave of the future is acoustic folk music - think Woody Guthrie; we're headed back to the 30s.
Dutchman said...
DreadPirate makes a good point about principles. They have to be decent ones to be admirable. And I think Thatcher caved in a bit on hers' about homosexuals in her
second term.
To Heiress, I'm on that 30's train right now.
Gia said...
The only appropriate score to the last 8 years would be The "Sounds of Silence."
Anything else, I think, would be like putting a train wreck to music.
If I had a cowboy hat, I'd tip it and bow at the waist to the magnificent "Maggie". "Cowboy" is high praise from this group and is well deserved by the "Iron Lady".
Well Dutchman, that reminds me of a song...
This train is bound for glory this train...
This train is bound for glory this train...
This train is bound for glory
Don't ride nothin' but the righteous and the holy
This train is bound for glory
This train...
;)
Always admired Thatcher
Always admired Thatcher ~ She was one of the few "great" women of my childhood others being Sandra Day O'Conner & Corazon Aquino.
While my peers were watching videos on MTV I was watching Thatcher meet with Reagan & Gorby, a Women be confirmed to sit on the Supreme Court & a Woman take over a little island in the Pacific after years of male opression.
Who said NOTHING positive ever happend in the 80's?... Now days kids have no idea who she & the others are & really she has done more for womens rights when it comes to world of politics than most other women.
She had to be an Iron Lady to continue to play in the world that she lived in & thank GOD she was. Today's political role models leave a lot to be desired, In Thatcher's case though maybe she should be the role model that anyone thinking of politicals should aspire to.... ..
(sorry for the 1st post accidentally hit the enter key to early)
Gia said...
Thatcher Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. Anyone who could overcome removing
free milk from school kids, as she once dictated, has got to be strong.
Funny you think of her as a giant, and I think she was around 5' 3.