Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died yesterday at the age of 87, leaving behind her much discussion of her impact on her nation, on America, and on the world.
Without doubt, Thatcher was the most significant Prime Minister of Great Britain since Winston Churchill, and was the most significant woman leader of the 20th century anywhere in the world.
Without doubt, she transformed the world by her alliance with President Ronald Reagan, and convincing him that working with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, the Cold War could come to an end and lead to the downfall of the Soviet system in eastern Europe.
Without doubt, Thatcher had a dramatic effect on domestic politics in her country, with her strong anti labor, anti immigrant policies, gaining a reputation as the Iron Lady who never compromised on her beliefs and created great social and political turmoil that still reverberates in a nation in the midst today of a failing austerity program, that should demonstrate what America should not be doing with its own economy!
But instead of Republicans and conservatives idolizing her for her hard line economic and social policies, they should learn from her ascendancy what happened to the opposition Labour Party, which had gone too far to the left, and was brought by default to the middle of the political spectrum, ultimately leading to the triumph of Prime Minister Tony Blair and a moderated party.
And this is what the extremist right wing Republican Party of 2013 so far has failed to accept—that their party has gone off the deep end in the era of Barack Obama, the first African American President, and that they will NOT come back to power on the national level as long as they veer ever further to the far Right, allowing right wing Christianity, right wing talk show hosts, and extremists on social and economic issues to continue to wield power over their future in the form of the Tea Party Movement!
Just as Margaret Thatcher led to Tony Blair over time, Barack Obama will lead, it is hoped, to a Republican Party more in the mold of the GOP of the 1960s and 1970s—the party of moderate conservative leaders who could appeal to a wide swath of Americans, rather than a narrow ideological group which causes a bad name and reputation for the party of Lincoln, TR, Ike, and the Reagan who was much more moderate in many ways than conservatives paint him to have been!
Three words: “Winter of Discontent”
On January 24, 1977, the Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) newspaper, in an article about Margaret Thatcher, the then-Prime Minister of Great Britain, called her “Iron Woman,†which, translated by the British Sunday Times newspaper as “Iron Lady,†sparked the universally known moniker Thatcher had been known by her entire political career.
On January 19, 1976, Thatcher, the Conservative leader at that time, claimed in one of her speeches that the Russians were striving for world domination. In response to that, the Soviet Defense Ministry, in the official Krasnaya Zvezda paper, published an article by military journalist Yury Gavrilov entitled “The Iron Woman Threatens…†The author said that was the name Thatcher had received in her own country. In reality, Thatcher did have a likely moniker prior to that — she had once been dubbed by a British journalist as “Iron Maiden,†after the midieval German torture device.
However, it was the Russian version she herself liked. By then, Thatcher had already earned herself a reputation as the “anti-communism crusader.†So actually it was her foreign policy and anti-socialist stance that gained her the moniker “Iron Lady”. And that is great!
PLAGIARIZED WORD FOR WORD FROM RUSSIAPEDIA
http://russiapedia.rt.com/on-this-day/january-24/
For guy who claims to be a professional with a law degree, one would think you would cite your where you copied your material from instead of trying to give the impression you were smart enough to write it Juan. You did learn this in Law School, right! LOL!!!
It’s one thing to give your opinion Juan, but don’t pretend to be an expert on everything.
Juan you might at least indicate that you copied you comment word for word from Russiapedia from
http://russiapedia.rt.com/on-this-day/january-24/
You’re attempting to make readers think you researched and read the article in the journal when you simply copied Russiapedia.
For a guy with a law degree you sure
Plagiarize a great deal.
Maggie: FYI I had the cite but I had to post the comment 2 times because it didn’t go through the first time so when I copy-pasted the cite to the link was left out! I always put the links!
Excellent article Professor! 🙂
Oh no you don’t Mr. Lawyer… which I don’t believe for one minute!
Sometimes you will cite the internet page but only when you’re referring to a specific person, report or study. You know you can’t claim it as your own.. …that would be too obvious. But you also plagiarize quite often! You’re trying to be an expert
on many subjects and you’re not. You even plagiarized Dr. Feinman! Did you think it would not be noticed?
You forget I’m also a Professor and we are used to students attempting to fool us by coping and pasting from the internet and taking credit for the work. We can tell when a student is writing in different formats, or voices and you do it a whole lot. AND. LOL! It’s easy to run it through an program, search it and find where you copied it from. I found it in less than a minute!
Juan, you are wrong historically, as Thatcher was NOT Prime Minister in 1977, but beginning in 1979, and was only Conservative Party leader from 1975 on , not the leader of the government of Great Britain!
Maggie: I am also a Professor. I taught for over 10 yrs Constitutional Law and Economic Constitutional Law at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. I really don’t need to plagiarize anyone. As for the list of filibusters of course I found it online, you don’t have to be a wizard to figure that out, nor was I trying to hide it. I mean who goes through life having the list of filibuster records on his mind?? I didn’t even recall Ron posting the same list. Goof grief Maggie its just a list that anyone can find online, loosen up..
The continued references to obama as the first black President as the reason for opposition to him are really off the mark. I think this shows a huge blind spot for the ranting progressives.
“Americans will always want some level of inequality because it’s a representation of a meritocracy. People who work hard and sacrifice and save their money and make major contributions: we think that they should earn a little more. And they should have more resources. And that’s fine.” -MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY MSNBC – Lean Forward (Comrades). Thanks Melissa for your graciousness in allowing those who work hard to “earn a little more”. You are a good socialist. As your hero Karl said, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, anyone? View the video after the jump.”
Oh how tyranny is slowly and silently creeping on upon America, and millions of “drones” don’t even realize it.
Tyranny?! ROFLMAO!
Princess Leia, Juan is being totally hysterical in trying to compare what went on in Russia or China or Cuba to a country that is as far from Marxist as the United States is. There is much more danger of a right wing fascist threat to us than from the left!
That’s why I’m on the floor laughing Professor 😉
@Ron: Why is it that it is so difficult for you to discern what I am saying? Are you that imbued by indiscriminateness? All countries, have cultures and political environment that are different and unique, although I grant some have more similarities between them. For example, there are more similarities between the US and the UK than between the US and China, the US and France or the US and Germany. Thus, collectivism, either in its internationalistic form (socialism) or its nationalistic form (fascism) takes different forms and degrees in each country. So of course collectivism in Venezuela today is not as tyrannical as the one in present day North Korea, Cuba or yesterdays USSR. But on the other hand Venezuela’s socialism is more tyrannical than the one in France or Italy or any present day European Hiper-Social State.And of course in any of these European states there is far less freedom than in present USA. But that doesn’t mean that the US cannot go back to the dark days of the National Recovery Act, the Blue Eagle, and General Hugh Johnson under FDR. So Ron, you know very well that tyranny can happen here again, in its “soft” American form, but tyranny nonetheless.
As we chat the progressives are working to take the individuals rights and freedoms as in the example of the tyranny displayed with obama care.
And by the way I bet Leia has no idea what the National Recovery Act, the Blue Eagle, and General Hugh Johnson were. I would be surprised if here High School teacher ever mentioned them.
I have no recollection of these topics being covered in high school, but then again my mind was other wise occupied.
“The present pseudo-planned economy leads relentlessly into the complete autocracy and tyranny of the Collectivist State.” – William Douglass , FDR close advisor and future Justice.
“The Washington administration has waged so ruthless a war on private enterprise that the US…is actually…leading the world back into the trough of depression.” – Winston Churchill 1937.
“Mr. Roosevelt made depression and unemployment a chronic fact in American life.” – Labor leader John L. Lewis to the NAACP in 1940.
” Make a test for yourselves. Just get the platform of the Democratic Party, and get the platform of the Socialist Party, and lay them down on your dining room table, side by side, and get a heavy lead pencil and scratch out the word ‘Democrat’, and scratch out the word ‘Socialist,’ and let the two platforms lay there.
Then study the record of the present administration up to date. After you have done that, make your mind up to pick up the platform that more nearly squares with the record, and you will put your hand on the Socialist platform. You couldn’t touch the Democratic.” Democrat Governor Alfred E. Smith , January 25, 1936
I know about the National Recovery Act. It helped workers to improve their working and wage conditions.
Juan, you fail to mention that Douglas without a second “s” turned out to be the most liberal Justice probably EVER on the Court from 1936-1975; that John L. Lewis was a Republican; that Al Smith was an embittered man because he was jealous that FDR became President and he did not, and turned against FDR on pure envy; and that Winston Churchill, as great a man as he was, had a checkered career not all worthy of being remembered if one wants to keep his reputation a sterling one without investigation. These quotes mean little, as anyone who is a public figure, will be found to have stated contradictory ideas in his lifetime!
Dave, you may have been preoccupied in school, but you still are, as you fail to recall that Hilllary Clinton, who you seem to have so high a regard for, promoted HillaryCare 20 years ago, a lot more advanced than ObamaCare turned out to be, as the Republicans and conservatives promoted, through the Heritage Foundation in 1993, a plan very close to ObamaCare, as an alternative to the more “radical” HillaryCare plan that was defeated in 1994.
But of course, the GOP HAD to oppose ObamaCare and hope that everyone “forgot” they had backed such a plan in the 90s, and RomneyCare was first “good” for Romney and then basically repudiated by Romney himself so that he could win over the far right, which he failed to do anyway, and therefore, came across as a massive chameleon and liar!
Anything Obama says or does MUST be opposed, because this guy from Chicago proposed it, and that makes it evil, right, Dave? Even if Hillary Clinton went further and was a loyal supporter of Obama, and will win the Presidency on his coattails!
I about choked when I just discovered my high regard for Hillery.
Ron: Everyone know Justice Douglas was extremely liberal, and even he realized what the NRA was. As for Smith, your reply doesn’t negate that fact about the Democrat Party , the Socialist Party platforms and FDR policies. Lewis nevertheless was labor first then a Republican. And as for Churchill ( and Smith), you, as all in the left, when you can’t discredit or deny the message you try to discredit the messenger. Typical.
Dave, I apologize, as I, apparently, have confused you with someone else, who I thought was you, who has expressed love for Hillary and contempt for Obama, so accept my apology!
Juan, the NRA was an attempt of FDR to work WITH big business, and it failed, because of their refusal to cooperate, and the Supreme Court negated it, and then FDR became what he should have become from the beginning, using the anti trust laws against uncooperative corporations, backing labor growth, and promoting progressive reforms, including the National Labor Relations Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, and Social Security.
Of course, that does not impress you, as you would discredit anything positive that progressives and liberals have done, but there is not ONE law that conservatives promoted that advanced the average American over the elite upper class, but to you, that is the purpose of government, to advance the haves and stick it to the have nots! So you also love to discredit any reformer who does what is good for the bulk of the American people, so look in the mirror yourself!
And the right wing constantly discredits anyone on the left, or have you not been paying attention lately to Hannity, Limbaugh, Savage, and all the other right wing hate mongers?
Ron: Big business did cooperate with the writing and implementation of the codes! They loved it, and ran to Washington to cooperate! They did so as to ruin small business that couldn’t comply with the ridiculous codes and price fixing! Prices were set artificially high and and businessman that set to provide services or sell product at a lower price was prosecuted and sent to jail! The idea was to destroy competition that reduced prices. The only one that refused to go along was Henry Ford! The NRA was one of the most despicable ideas FDR ever had. Hard to believe that there was a time in America when a man could be put in jail because he was selling his services/products at a lower price that the one established by the government codes. But it happened , right here in America. And Ron , I am talking specifically about the NRA , not SS or any other anti-trust laws.
You are correct, Juan, as FDR allowed himself to be wooed by big business as a way to promote “cooperation”, but big business abused it, and declared FDR a socialist, and he changed course, thank goodness, with the Second New Deal, the productive and positive part of the New Deal. You get into bed with big business, he learned, and you lose any chance to bring about recovery, as they exploited labor and consumers, and FDR finally got the message that corporations were the enemy of recovery, just as now!
That is why Obama still needs to realize that prosecution of corporate leaders for 2008 needs to be pursued, but the dynamics of Congress prevent that, sadly, as the GOP is in big business’s pocket, just as they were in the 1930s, but back then the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress!
“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.” – Thomas Sowell
“People who denounce the free market and voluntary exchange, and are for control and coercion, believe they have more intelligence and superior wisdom to the masses. What’s more, they believe they’ve been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider good reasons for doing so, but every tyrant that has ever existed has had what he believed were good reasons for restricting the liberty of others.” Walter Williams
Some things sound so familiar…. http://blogs-images.forbes.com/danielmitchell/files/2012/10/new-deal-humor.jpg
So familiar: http://danieljmitchell.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/new-deal-cartoon.jpg
Juan, you make Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell out to be icons, which they are not, except to right wingers, and the cartoon you last put on there is from the worst times of the Great Depression in 1932 under Herbert Hoover, not FDR, and the economy rapidly revived from 1933-1937, until FDR mistakenly cut spending in 1937, causing the Recession of 1937-38, as austerity then did not work, and is not working in Europe now, and would be a tremendous tragedy if it was done now in America, and Obama will fight to prevent that mistake of FDR in 1937-38 from happening again!
I don’t understand? The cartoon was against excessive spending and deficits under Hoover correct. So if excessive spending and deficits under Hoover was bad, how is it that under FDR it was good? It’s like today. If Bush’s excessive spending , was horrible, wiped out the Clinton/Republican Congress surplus and was responsible for the crisis, how is it that Obama’s far greater spending and deficits of today are somehow good and going to produce a different result?
By the way, I am not trying to make Sowell and Williams icons. I am just putting forth some points of view and arguments. But apparently since those ideas cannot be attacked, then the person must be attacked and discredited. Just like it is done with Dr. Carson.
I am a believe in John Maynard Keynes, and feel there is no other way to get out of a depression or recession, and therefore like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman.
Ron: I know and I am not a bit surprised you base your response on “beliefs” and “feelings”. In other words confirming that progressivism is an act of faith, sometimes blind. Reminds me of Obama in his debate with Hillary when Gibson asked him why raise capital gains tax when every time it was lowered (under Clinton and Bush) government revenues rose and when the rate was higher revenues decreased? In face of such data what did Obama respond? That it was a matter of fairness! Never mind lower revenues, his progressive faith & dogma (hate the rich) was much stronger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJimLZRC9N8.
Thus in the light that Keynesianism has utterly failed in the past, why would I support such policies? I would only if it were based on faith and beliefs.
I think the fact that 40th president of the United States Ronald Reagan was chummy with Margaret Thatcher says enough of just how good she was for the have-nots of Great Britain. If you’re a Republican, with jealousy and hatred for the middle class, for the working class, for unions, for people are not trying to prop up corporations, and for people who delude themselves into think they’re on a higher plateau that commoners … yeah, Ronald Reagan (dead since 2004) and Margaret Thatcher (now dead since 2013) were absolutely amazingly awesome.
The Great Margaret Thatcher may she R.I.P. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rlCrM4SOBbM
Ok, I do not wish Thatcher harm, but realize she was much more “liberal” on many domestic issues, not as much as the Labour Party of course, and because of that hated by most Britons then and now. She may have wanted to cut health care, but she did not oppose the “conservative” ObamaCare equivalent in GB, which was and is way beyond what we now have after such a long wait since TR first enunciated the concept in 1912.
Is President Obama snubbing Lady Thatcher’s funeral in London? No, he’s simply being consistent. Mrs. Thatcher was a great defender of democracy. Mr. Obama is not.
Mr. Obama went to London in 2009. There, he bowed to that desert despot, Saudi King Abdullah. It was Abdullah who refused in 1998 to give the U.S. access to Madani al Tayyib, the financial kingpin of al-Qaeda. So, of course, Mr. Obama would bow to Abdullah.
Back home, the new president tossed a bust of Winston Churchill out into the snow. The brave champion of freedom who resisted Hitler and triumphed over tyranny.
Mr. Obama extends his hand to tyrants.
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2009 invited him to come to Berlin to help celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, Mr. Obama gave her the back of his hand. Instead of joining the festivities to salute Germany’s democracy, he sent a video message. In it, he welcomed the Fall of the Wall, but mainly because it resulted in the election of a black president of the United States and a female chancellor. Political correctness über alles!
He sent Vice President Biden to pro-life Kenya to bully them into including abortion in their new constitution — or risk a cutoff of U.S. aid. Then he sent Hillary Clinton to Canada to give a public tongue-lashing to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government. The Canadians were bullyragged for not including abortion in Ottawa’s humane aid program for new mothers in Africa. Canadians are freedom’s friends. Argo, anybody?
President Obama created a stir when he went to Normandy in France to join the ceremonies in remembrance of D-Day. There, as Newsweek’s Evan Thomas gushingly reported, he “hovered over the nations” like a “sort of god.” Nobody can remember what Mr. Obama said there, but hover he did. Lately, he’s let his drones do the hovering.
Let’s not forget how he took former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to Ray’s Hell Burger outside Washington, D.C. This “hamburger summit” took place just days after he sent ten arrested Russian spies home without so much as a TSA pat-down. Later, he told Medvedev to carry the word to Moscow: “I will be more flexible after the election,” he wanted Vladimir Putin to know.
Now, even the liberal New York Times is noting that Mr. Obama’s decision to blow off Mrs. Thatcher’s State Funeral in London is causing ripples on both sides of the Atlantic.
” The official American delegation named by the White House was led by two more former secretaries of state, George P. Shultz and James A. Baker III. But some British Conservatives complained that President Obama did not send a senior serving member of his administration.”
We dissent, respectfully, from our Conservative British brethren. We are glad that President Obama is not going and not sending a senior member of his administration. His administration is working night and day to undo the great work of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher. It is far more appropriate to send to our great ally’s obsequies a delegation composed of those Americans who were actually Britain’s allies when Mrs. Thatcher governed at Number 10 Downing Street.
Should Mr. Obama send his vice president? Perish the thought! In 1979, as Mrs. Thatcher came to power in Britain, U.S. Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) went to Moscow. There, they managed to convince the Communist rulers of the Kremlin and the KGB that the U.S. did not care about human rights and that we were really interested in arms control. As a result of their intervention, we got no arms limitation for another decade, and thousands of Russians were thrown into the Gulag.
Snubbing the British is something of a tradition for the president’s party, after all. President Lyndon Johnson pointedly spurned the State Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965. He didn’t even send his garrulous vice president, Hubert Humphrey.
He did send Chief Justice Earl Warren, a Republican appointee. Warren conducted himself admirably. And Queen Elizabeth II invited former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Churchill’s great wartime ally and friend. Ike was on hand to watch the royal family stand for Winston’s favorite hymn — “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Hmmm. America was well-represented on that memorable occasion. And we didn’t have to live down any oafishness by LBJ.
Speaking of oafishness, better to keep Joe Biden at home. Besides, he has to go round to the Secret Service cottage on his property and collect the latest rent check from the annual $26,000 we are paying the veep.
So thank you, Mr. President for not going and for not sending Joe Biden. Your conduct during this time of mourning for our close friends in Britain should remain what it has been for the past four years. You’ve made it clear you don’t care about Britain — or any of America’s other democratic allies. Now, Sir, you and your cohorts should stay away.
By-Bob Morrison