Posted on 02/19/2011 6:16:45 AM PST by Reaganite Republican
Then we have Obama and his signature is forcing a health care program his nation doesn't want.
Everything he has done is an utter failure.
great post
We have no opposition to it. The Repubs are turning out to be a big joke. I am going in to survival mode. There is no chance to stop it with the Republican Party.
Is Sarah Palin America’s Margaret Thatcher ?
Thanks Sam- much obliged
Perhaps Thatcher's most notable quote, an admonition we are seeing play out right here in the USA. A wonderful weekend post. THANKS!
If you admire The Iron Lady, as I do, may I suggest a MUST-READ,,Claire Berlinski’s “ Why Margaret Thatcher Matters”..wonderful book..also, a few months ago, the author did a long interview with National review. The video clips should be on their website..try search..
You got it, same to you SB
Sounds good Ken- I need to check that out for sure
Bumpus Maximus!
No. She is America’s Sarah Palin. There will never be another Margaret Thatcher.
Thatcher (and Reagan) failed.
Pinochet and Suharto succeded.
Word.
Good point...
bump
Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean -- power over people, power to the State.
Agree. It's hard for a lot of Americans to understand just exactly what Margaret Thatcher was up against when she was elected Prime Minister in 1979. The Trade Unions had successfully destroyed the 2 preceding governments, one Conservative and one Labour. It was far worse there then than it is here now. Great Britain had entire industries nationalized, not just one business within an industry owned by the government. British Telecom, British Airways, British Steel..all forms of energy..every industry was owned and operated by the government. Up until 1984 there was only one source for a phone line, and in fact one source for an actual telephone: the government, and often you had to wait months for a phone. Since every industry was owned by the government, every “trade” had a union. Most powerful of all at the time was the NMWU, The Coal Miners Union. They could literally bring the entire nation to a standstill, which they did. Margaret Thatcher broke the spine of Trade Union power, taking the Coal Miners head on when they went on strike in 1984 and stayed on strike for a full year! They went back to work having found out she was tougher than they were, and with the collapse of the Coal Miners power to cripple the country, British Trade Unions were effectively finished as a force in British Politics. And Thatcher was never given her due credit for her enormous contribution to the relationship Reagan had with Gorbachev. She was the one who laid the groundwork opening the door between them.
If you want the greatest single testimony to the legacy Thatcher created for herself, it's easy to summarize: she changed not just one party (her own Conservatives), but two. The Labour Party today is a FAR different entity than what it was when she became Party Leader in 1975. Back then, the Labour party was Communist “Red in both Tooth & Claw”. Today, thanks mostly to Tony Blair (who openly admired Thatcher endlessly - she being hs very first visitor to #10 when he was elected in 1997!), “New Labour” is essentially a clone of Thatcherism. Gone are the days of the Labor Party was wholly owned by Trade Union Bosses, when Labor was in favor of Nationalized Industries, and all of the other Socialist tenets. Margaret Thatcher was successful in forcing a huge rightward move of her opposition party, forcing them to accept her legacy of Thatcherism - Privatized Businesses, Privatized Housing, etc. - as the New Standard. There's the definition of a greatness as a leader if there ever was one.
To equate Sarah Palin with Margaret Thatcher is an insult to what Thatcher actually accomplished in the face of what confronted her. Whatever Palin achieves, and she hasn't even secured the leadership of her party, let alone assume the leadership of a nation, Palin has a LONG road to travel to be mentioned in the same breath as Margaret Thatcher. Even if she did, she would be starting at a point far more advanced than the starting line Thatcher was forced to begin from in 1979.
no
Excellent summary.
Interesting how a similar situation is playing out here in the US, except we have the SEIU instead of the Mine Workers. Let's hope we get the same result.
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