I can't abide



Photographer: Elina Pasok. Test for Dove
... all these crocodile tears and this eulogising of Mrs Thatcher. A true feminist (puke), a saint (puke) a saviour of Great Britain (puke) etc etc (more puke). As you can gather, I am no fan of Mrs T, never was.
Glenn Greenwald yesterday wrote a very good piece about why not speaking ill of the dead cannot be applied to public figures. Especially Mrs Thatcher. Had Hitler died today would you go round saying he was a man with integrity of purpose - yes, he definitely was, he killed a few million Jews after all - a saviour of Germany etc etc?  Well, I can't help thinking this as I hear all this praise heaped on Mrs T. Where is the loo please? I want to throw up!
I want to throw up because this woman who was definitely no feminist was bent on privatising everything and we are living with the consequences of this.  Greenwald writes as follows:

[she] engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as "terrorists", something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto ("One of our very best and most valuable friends"). And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milne detailed last year, "across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted – and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown."

Photographer: Milly-Anne Kellner
Stop please stop this insane hagiography. I suspect that those who are writing Mrs T's praises were not around in the 1980s and have no clue of what it was like to live under Mrs T's rule. We can't, we really can't forget what she did, it has had long lasting effects and they are definitely not positive. 
Not everyone is keen to praise her, however. There was a petition going round - it has now been stopped - to privatise her funeral. It really bugs me that as a taxpayer I shall have to contribute to Mrs T's State funeral. Money ill spent, totally. 
"She will be for ever unforgiven by those who now see worse being done in her name to another generation"

 See my previous post on Mrs T. written last year when the film about her came out 

(Photos modelled by Alex B)

Comments

  1. When we write about people, whether it is good or bad. We kind of idolize them. It's like we are keeping their spirit alive, when in reality they should remain dead.

    When we respond to those that have different views to your own. We give them the power to attack you. Just say, with grace that their views and your's don't have the same outcome. Tell them, why should they force their opinion on to you, when you have your own. <3

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