£3million for thatchers state funeral

[Wyatt Earp]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Egg: "understandable" generally connotes a bit more approval than "able to be understood", and I think that's what has people riled.

[Hofzinser]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

I'm sure we can look at the minds of and understand why Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein et al did cunty things, but we don't condone it because we can see their chain of reasoning.

If there was a discussion about, say, Kristallnacht, and someone came onto the thread and said that Hitler's actions were understandable, would you not expect them to come in for a bit of stick?

[Eggchaser]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Ok, fine. I'm sorry if the semantics of "understandable" as per WE's post have led people to think I in anyway think Thatcher was justified in suggesting what she said.

Thatcher's a baby eating monster and the sooner she's dead the better, provided it's a slow and painful death at the same time as being swift. I trust otf now has me down as something other than a Tory boy.

[Gangster Octopus]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Venga wrote:

It's a pity Thatcher herself didn't try to empathise with her own enemies

It's a pity that the seas aren't made out of draught Tetley's...

[Eggchaser]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Only if it's not that fucking horrible draughtflow shite that passes for Tetley's down south.

[E10 Rifle]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

OK, I'm gonna make a sort of half-defence of Eggchaser here, not over the Ireland sectarian carve-up thing (that was just batshit insane and can be neither explained nor excused in her case, even if you've just been almost blown up) but in what he's saying more generally about understanding Thatch. What motivated Thatcher, and what motivated Thatcherism, is worth examining - as for that matter is what motivated Hitler or Stalin. If you don't subscribe to the Individual Great Man view of history - which I don't - then you shouldn't subscribe to the Individual Evil Man interpretation of it either. These people all managed to draw people in and were propelled where they were by wide and complex social forces.

And how Thatcherism pulled it off - how it managed to strike a chord with a certain sizeable chunk of the population - is important to understand. I think it certainly caught the left and centre-left unawares, with its appeal to a certain type of narrowly defined - and frequently illusory - aspiration, and to a certain type of resentment: of 'do-gooders', 'scroungers', 'yer foreigns', 'bloody unions' and the rest. It was a truly potent politics of envy, which was deployed not for the most part to the benefit of many of its new supporters, but to set the rich and powerful that bit more free.

And sometimes, you know, it feels like the ideas that drove Thatcherism are more popular and unchallenged now than they were back when she was in power. Just listen to the imbecilic texts and emails that got read out on the telly and radio today about the public sector strike and weep.

[Gerontophile]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

for E10. Nice piece of concise summation.

She is still a c*nt.

[E10 Rifle]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Oh absolutely.

[Brandenburger Toro]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Excellent post, E10.

Egg: "understandable" generally connotes a bit more approval than "able to be understood", and I think that's what has people riled.

Wyatt: people on here often to take refusal to understand something as a badge or moral purity, I think that's what's got them riled.

[Tubby Isaacs]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

I'm not sure public sector strikes have ever been much more popular, E10. It was the issue that propelled her to power, after all. Though I'm often a bit scornful of the Tony Benns who do all the "more and more people are agreeing with me" stuff, there might be slight truth in it here.

[Anton Gramscescu]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

How Thatcherism pulled it off - how it managed to strike a chord with a certain sizeable chunk of the population - is important to understand.

The Labour Party's seemingly absolute determination to make itself unelectable in the 80s surely rates a mention here, no?

[DCI Harry Batt]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Public - and private - sector strikes have been and will be more and less popular. People's ideas change and can change very quickly under some circumstances.

But for there to be a massive wave of public sector strikes, there has to be a fair old whack of public support in the first place, since these strikers are numerous and are of the public.

[Eggchaser]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

I don't know why everyone's making such a fuss about the strikes. After all, isn't usually just dole bludgers and kids that are affected? Why should this inconvenience the captains of white hot capitalism? It's not like they're benefits scroungers and they pay for a nanny/sex toy to bring the kids up anyway. Or Jocasta, Harry and Leo are safely away at boarding school.

[Wyatt Earp]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Doctoro Doctoro wrote:

Wyatt: people on here often to take refusal to understand something as a badge or moral purity, I think that's what's got them riled.

Something in that, sure. But still (for example), the phrase "That's perfectly understandable" doesn't simply mean "That's perfectly explicable", as I'm sure you agree.

[wingco]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Just like to second Bill Poster's endorsement for The Gods That Failed. And big-up E10's post - that's the sort of "understanding" of Thatcher we need.

[Eggchaser]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

It did in the context I was using it. Perhaps I should have got out my dictionary and proof read my post to ensure no misinterpretation could be taken from it.

[Andy C]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

I'm tickled that the top Google ad on this thread at the moment is for "Top Quality Thatching".

[Guest]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Perhaps I should have got out my dictionary and proof read my post to ensure no misinterpretation could be taken from it.

Er, maybe, yes.

[Eggchaser]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Here we go again.

[Guest]

£3million for thatchers state funeral

Well y'know, you misused the word, there's no reason to get all whiny and sarcastic and try to take the piss out of everyone else for picking it up.