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Preach it, Margaret!
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.
"Margaret" is Margaret Thatcher, (Score:3)
"The late '70s in England were troubled times: high unemployment, secession, the fear of nuclear war breaking out, the kind of fantasy end-of-the-century, end-of-the-world kind of feeling. And Margaret Thatcher came on, kind of like the last great hope of the British Empire. She'd actually been born above a grocery store in Nottingham, a working class city. But had developed airs and graces and a posh accent and kind of saw herself as being of the upper classes, which she wasn't. So it was sort of a false accent, and a false attitude that went with it. Then she fell head over heels with her teenage heartthrob, Ronald Reagan, and went about trying to dismantle any sense of social unity that England had: breaking the unions, letting people go out on strike and starve. And in a very few short years she managed to turn people in England from neighbors to competitors. A lot of people bought shares in the gas company and the train company and the water company, bought shares in the companies that our dads had already paid for. And in doing so turned everybody into competitors - instead of neighbors now we were competing as investors, jealously guarding our shares. Our people stopped talking to each other at bus stops. People started to become more suspicious of each other. And the sense of camaraderie was broken in a way that I haven't ever seen fully replaced, really. It may have been that Britain needed dragging into the 21st Century, but it may also be that making the mistake of believing that just because communism was obviously collapsing, that didn't mean that all of the tenets of world capitalism were absolutely accurate. That there was perhaps stuff in our system that weren't that great, either. And I think they're starting to see that it's okay for someone to make a billion dollars, but if they do, somebody else has to go without dinner that night, because that money comes from somewhere. And so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and poor old Margaret was acting as though she had airs and graces to the manor born. So it was stand down in the political sense -- resign. But it was also stand down as in get off your soap box. Get off your high horse. Stop trying to talk down to people. You don't really know that much more than them, anyway. And stop putting on this hoity toity accent, because you know you're really a shop girl from Nottingham."
http://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/dave_wakeling_of_the_english_beat/ [songfacts.com]
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Thatcher.
Like Genghis Khan.
Apologists for Thatcher harp about the dreadful state of labour, dominating British industry with an unbreakable death-grip, before the coming of Thatcher.
What they fail to cogently recognise, is that WE HAD British industry prior to Thatcher. Now, there is none - unless you regard a couple of German-owned auto factories.
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She and Reagan paved the road to hell, added a few lanes, and closed all the exits.
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Their trickle down policies are the biggest ponzi scheme ever devised.
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You actually believe that the fed makes the decisions? They serve their master like everyone else. They are only the 'buttonmen'. Why do you focus on them instead of the Wall Street bankers who make the orders? It is to feed currency speculators and the derivative markets that they print all the money, to hoard and stash away offshore. If they, for some reason didn't comply, an absurd idea in itself, they would be replaced (to put it mildly). No, it was trickle down that rolled the people, fooling them into
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Point taken about Button-man Ben Bernanke. But his institution is odious, and very near the core of all of our ills.
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That's a separate question from the notion of nation building, which I think daft [youtube.com].
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The institution is the hammer, not the carpenter, and it's hardly his. You are doing like the gun control people and blaming the gun instead of the trigger man for the criminal act. I believe you are doing this to avoiding seeing the real core of all your ills, those institutions and the people who actually run them that you admire most. The heartbreak that you are trying to avoid at all costs will be devastating and will crush the very core of your faith. It will prove the nihilists right.
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Oh please! The very core of our involvement is of the most despicable corruption. The 'best laid plans' have been wildly successful, as such things go. It's entire pretext laid before the public couldn't have been more phony. War is still peace, and ignorance is still strength. This isn't nation building, it's empire building. Or rather, empire maintenance. And as emperors come and go, the empire stands as tall as it ever has. I am not fooled by their lies. I can only try to stay out of their path, away fro
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I further use this line of argumentation to walk back people going all ad-hominem on #OccupyResoluteDesk, saying that Obama is just symptomatic, not the disease.
But if your task is to provide beat-downs, I suppose that actually reading what I'm writing isn't necessary.
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It's entire pretext laid before the public couldn't have been more phony.
Oh, I don't know. If the task was to have been recreationally phony, I'm sure they could have tarted the argument up further.
The question is not "Does military adventurism suck?"--it does--but, rather, "What consistent foreign policy alternative can you articulate?"
Isolationism strikes me as even worse naïveté than our gunboat diplomacy.
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The Federal Reserve was a complete urination...
Wow, did you even read my comment? I was attacking the Federal Reserve Act...
Act?? Where did you say that? Was I supposed to infer it? Sorry, my mind reading abilities aren't quite up to your standards. Besides that still doesn't describe who's responsible, nor the root of their motivation. In fact, your post is kind of vague, not addressing the root cause at all. Even if you are saying that the "Act" is "very near the core of all of our ills", you would be incorrect. Look for the "core" reason for its implementation (the disease), not the act (the symptom). Look for why the Federa
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I'm sure they could have tarted the argument up further.
No, there was no need. Simply lie and convince people they are under attack, and they will fall in line. It's a trick that works every time, all around the world, throughout the history of mankind. It is a primal method of suppressing dissent. From the outside, it's an amazing thing to watch.
What consistent foreign policy alternative can you articulate?
Well, first and foremost, you set a better example, because right or wrong, that's what people will f
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100 years ago, some (possibly well-meaning, but see 'human nature') folks planted the seeds of our demise.
A century on, we stand in the Gonsnell-ian wreckage. The discussion focuses on what to do about it.
I am incapable of joining the 'smoke-em-if-ya-got-em' crowd that wants to punt on the Enlightenment and what this country is still about, at its intellectual
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I freaking lived that idiocy, bro. You want to know what's good about Afghanistan? Splendid mountain views of the Hindu Kush, and some really big, full moons, due to elevation and a lack of light pollution.
What's interesting is the way the global ruling class acts more like a club representing itself than anything representing the populations of the various countries.
Well, first and foremost, you set a better example, because right or wrong, that's what people will follow.
OK, yes, but what does that mean, in terms of a stated policy that you can imp
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"Human nature... U.S. Constitution... 100 years ago"...
You really are comfortable in that little box you built for yourself. You just ain't comin' out...
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I can only describe it by referring back to you, but it always results in an infinite loop. The only way for you to see it yourself is to step outside, even if just for an instant. You may want to consider a parachute, it's a long fall.
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;-) You'll see...
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I'm quite confident I will be, more so in fact...
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