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Maggie Thatcher death discussion thread - Mod rules in first post

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Comments

  • #362
    FTA69
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    true wrote: »
    she was held in high esteem around the world.

    Not in Chile funny enough. Any thoughts on Chile mate? You've been asked this a few times but your refusal to answer is leading me to think you might be a bit of an auld wind-up merchant.


  • #363
    mccarthy37
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 646 ✭✭✭mccarthy37


    Even in death Margaret Thatcher has the power to divide going by this thread. Looking back on some of the footage of the 80's Britain wasn't far from civil war. Police charging picket lines on horseback lashing out with their baton's at anyone in sight in Russia today would cause revulsion from most western democracies. How come looking back at this footage in Britain in the 80's today some people are saying it was the right thing to do. Margaret Thatcher certainly achieved to divide Britain between north and south which is a sad legacy really.


  • #364
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    getz wrote: »
    none of it was FACT its just one mans republican interpretation, another man will give you a very different story

    What is not a 'fact'?
    Did John Major's government demand that the IRA disarm before SF came to the table or not?
    And when did they actually 'disarm'?
    It's all out there, if you care to look at the ACTUAL events and stop depending on individual revisionist biographies and autobiographers. Here's a start for you, from just a quick, 2 second google.
    The issue dividing them is the British Government's insistence that the I.R.A. begin disarming before talks can begin with Sinn Fein and other political parties on the province's future.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/11/world/ulster-danger-point-dublin-cancels-key-meeting-with-london-over-british-demand.html


  • #365
    fishy fishy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,456 ✭✭✭fishy fishy


    getz wrote: »
    this thread was going quite well, up to now,with intelligent posts

    it was, I agree, but after that post from happy man it has actually raised the intelligence level. :)


  • #366
    fishy fishy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,456 ✭✭✭fishy fishy


    getz wrote: »
    none of it was FACT its just one mans republican interpretation, another man will give you a very different story

    now the thread has been dumbed down :roll eyes:

    there is a difference between opinion and fact.


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  • #367
    getz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,255 ✭✭✭getz


    FTA69 wrote: »
    Not in Chile funny enough. Any thoughts on Chile mate? You've been asked this a few times but your refusal to answer is leading me to think you might be a bit of an auld wind-up merchant.
    the president of chile says ;she is a great loss to the world;


  • #368
    Fratton Fred
    Closed Accounts Posts: 26,566 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    mccarthy37 wrote: »
    Even in death Margaret Thatcher has the power to divide going by this thread. Looking back on some of the footage of the 80's Britain wasn't far from civil war. Police charging picket lines on horseback lashing out with their baton's at anyone in sight in Russia today would cause revulsion from most western democracies. How come looking back at this footage in Britain in the 80's today some people are saying it was the right thing to do. Margaret Thatcher certainly achieved to divide Britain between north and south which is a sad legacy really.

    Sitting in our southern home playing board games by candlelight because northern miners were flexing their muscles yet again certainly felt like the divide was there before Thatcher came along.


  • #369
    Fratton Fred
    Closed Accounts Posts: 26,566 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    What is not a 'fact'?
    Did John Major's government demand that the IRA disarm before SF came to the table or not?
    And when did they actually 'disarm'?
    It's all out there, if you care to look at the ACTUAL events and stop depending on individual revisionist biographies and autobiographers. Here's a start for you, from just a quick, 2 second google.



    http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/11/world/ulster-danger-point-dublin-cancels-key-meeting-with-london-over-british-demand.html

    It was a last hurrah by an increasingly marginalized organisation.

    The winners were the normal decent people of the north who had by this time completely rejected violence.


  • #370
    grenache
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,477 ✭✭✭grenache


    Those people in Edinburgh and Brixton pictured celebrating, just how horrible a bunch of sadistic individuals are they?!

    Be they left or right, extremists like those are always bad news. And they're proving themselves to be much worse than the so called "Imperalistic bItch" they loved to hate.


  • #371
    FTA69
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    getz wrote: »
    the president of chile says ;she is a great loss to the world;

    I wonder would Victor Jara the folksinger agree with that if he were alive today? Or the 3000 other people who were taken by Pinochet's men and never seen again?


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  • #372
    Hoop66
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 3,273 ✭✭✭Hoop66


    I have to say, my main thought when seeing the people celebrating her death in parties in the UK is "they weren't even born when she was in power". I don't see that these people have anything to celebrate. That said, if I was 19 and in Brixton I'd be there drinking like a mad eedjit.

    I have no issue, onthe other hand, with the ex-miners' leader who said it was the best birthday present. Watching his community and, most likely, family torn apart by her policies gives him every right to feel satisfaction at her death.


  • #373
    Sergeant
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,362 ✭✭✭Sergeant


    LordSutch wrote: »
    How crass and insensitive

    Couple of stereotypical sorts in that photo.


  • #374
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    Fratton Fred wrote: »
    It was a last hurrah by an increasingly marginalized organisation.

    The winners were the normal decent people of the north who had by this time completely rejected violence.

    A 'last hurrah' that saw the British quietly drop the demand because this 'defeated' organisation where going to walk away.:rolleyes:
    The truth is important Fred if we have any chance as normal decent people, the truth is Margaret Thatcher on the advise of her generals, saw the writing on the wall, opened up secret discussions with the IRA and began dismantling the real cause of the conflict - 'the Unionist suprematist statelet'. She and her successor saw to it that SF and the IRA where accomodated despite the many many noisy attempts of Unionists and Loyalists to scupper it and the deal got done.


  • #375
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    grenache wrote: »
    Those people in Edinburgh and Brixton pictured celebrating, just how horrible a bunch of sadistic individuals are they?!

    Be they left or right, extremists like those are always bad news. And they're proving themselves to be much worse than the so called "Imperalistic bItch" they loved to hate.

    If your definition of extremism includes a couple of crusty mongs then you must be afraid to ever leave your house.


  • #376
    Fratton Fred
    Closed Accounts Posts: 26,566 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    A 'last hurrah' that saw the British quietly drop the demand because this 'defeated' organisation where going to walk away.:rolleyes:
    The truth is important Fred if we have any chance as normal decent people, the truth is Margaret Thatcher on the advise of her generals, saw the writing on the wall, opened up secret discussions with the IRA and began dismantling the real cause of the conflict - 'the Unionist suprematist statelet'. She and her successor saw to it that SF and the IRA where accomodated despite the many many noisy attempts of Unionists and Loyalists to scupper it and the deal got done.

    When we're the IRA accommodated? They dont exist anymore.

    It was a stand off, talks were happening but the IRA just wanted to throw their toys out of the pram one last time.

    Shame really, more lost lives that say far more about the IRA's bloodlust than anything else.


  • #377
    getz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,255 ✭✭✭getz


    Happyman42 wrote: »
    A 'last hurrah' that saw the British quietly drop the demand because this 'defeated' organisation where going to walk away.:rolleyes:
    The truth is important Fred if we have any chance as normal decent people, the truth is Margaret Thatcher on the advise of her generals, saw the writing on the wall, opened up secret discussions with the IRA and began dismantling the real cause of the conflict - 'the Unionist suprematist statelet'. She and her successor saw to it that SF and the IRA where accomodated despite the many many noisy attempts of Unionists and Loyalists to scupper it and the deal got done.
    so now maggie is your hero,bit of a turn round


  • #378
    true
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,325 ✭✭✭true


    FTA69 wrote: »
    I wonder would Victor Jara the folksinger agree with that if he were alive today?

    There are 7 billion people in the world. Mrs T. was elected by the people of the UK to act in the interests of the people of the UK. She was well respected by other leaders on the world stage, and admired greatly by diverse players such as the USA, Russia and China. She was not a "do-gooder" to every single inhabitant of the world : she would not have lasted long if she did. I know many foreigners who went to Britain during her reign - some of my friends and family among them - were all treated very fairly and got good work.


  • #379
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    getz wrote: »
    none of it was FACT its just one mans republican interpretation, another man will give you a very different story

    I'm well up on the GFA, the build up to it, and the aftermath of it. Which part of his post wasn't factually accurate, in your eyes?

    Just because another man will give a' different story' is irrelevant (if his story doesn't represent the facts)


  • #380
    FTA69
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    true wrote: »
    She was not a "do-gooder" to every single inhabitant of the world : she would not have lasted long if she did. I know many foreigners who went to Britain during her reign - some of my friends and family among them - were all treated very fairly and got good work.

    It's a simple question mate, and there's no need to bring Irish emigration to London or whatever into it because that has no relevance really.

    Do you think she was right to support Pinochet's dictatorship? You mentioned the fact repeatedly about Argentina "disappearing" its citizens but gloss over the fact Pinochet "disappeared" 3000 of his own people. She also sold arms to the Suharto dictatorship, do you agree with that as well?

    Do you not think that lecturing people about democracy is a bit hollow when you then go on to have tea with a murdering dictator like Pinochet?


  • #381
    Grandpa Hassan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,945 ✭✭✭Grandpa Hassan


    All those people celebrating her demise are looking at her actions from a very selective viewpoint.

    The fact is that in 1979 Britain was on its knees. It was broke. It had just been the first industrialised country to have to go to the IMF for a bailout (with stringent conditions with respect to reform, just like in Ireland today), inflation was rampant, and the intransigent unions were forcing ongoing public funding of a loss making mining industry with archaic working practices.

    And Thatcher turned all that around. Refused to used public money to bailout a failed industry (how much do boardsies wish that the Irish government had done the same thing with respect to the banks?). Her weakness was looking at things in black and white, and thus her actions were in many cases insenstive with insufficient regard to the social consequences. But make no mistake, the mines would have closed without reform of working practices that the unions were unwilling to consider. Fact. Britain was importing cheaper coal at that stage.

    She pulled Britain out of the mire.


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  • #382
    grenache
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,477 ✭✭✭grenache


    kunst nugget wrote: »
    If your definition of extremism includes a couple of crusty mongs then you must be afraid to ever leave your house.

    Ah behave. You don't have to be blowing up planes to be an extremist. These socialists will be the same people firing missiles at police at the next G8 Summit. Whatever way you look at it, these people are on the extreme fringe of politics.


  • #383
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    Fratton Fred wrote: »
    When we're the IRA accommodated? They dont exist anymore.

    It was a stand off, talks were happening but the IRA just wanted to throw their toys out of the pram one last time.

    Shame really, more lost lives that say far more about the IRA's bloodlust than anything else.
    getz wrote: »
    so now maggie is your hero,bit of a turn round

    I think you and Getz should take a long hard look at what happened while the British and Irish governments refused to take responsibility and do what inevitably had to be done and was done.
    The 'defeated' IRA came off ceasefire and bombed Canary Wharf in the heart of the UK, before the month was out, Major dropped the demand for disarmament and the rest is history, thankfully.
    You indulge your revisionism all you want, but the facts are the facts.

    And before you start; that is in no way a glorification of the IRA, it is just the facts.


  • #384
    karma_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,797 ✭✭✭karma_


    true wrote: »
    There are 7 billion people in the world. Mrs T. was elected by the people of the UK to act in the interests of the people of the UK. She was well respected by other leaders on the world stage, and admired greatly by diverse players such as the USA, Russia and China. She was not a "do-gooder" to every single inhabitant of the world : she would not have lasted long if she did. I know many foreigners who went to Britain during her reign - some of my friends and family among them - were all treated very fairly and got good work.

    Stalin was respected on the world stage. He was no do-gooder to everyone for sure, but he hung in there for years. Still, some people in Russia were treated fairly well and got good jobs.

    Before you have a conniption, not comparing Stalin to Thatcher, just making a point about the absurdity of your little passage there.


  • #385
    getz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,255 ✭✭✭getz


    SamHall wrote: »
    I'm well up on the GFA, the build up to it, and the aftermath of it. Which part of his post wasn't factually accurate, in your eyes?

    Just because another man will give a' different story' is irrelevant (if his story doesn't represent the facts)
    you can for instance say irish goverment ministers supplied arms to a terrorist organization and also funded them,buts thats only half true, its the slant on the way you tell it,its called being economical with the truth,


  • #386
    Happyman42
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,066 ✭✭✭✭Happyman42


    getz wrote: »
    you can for instance say irish goverment ministers supplied arms to a terrorist organization and also funded them,buts thats only half true, its the slant on the way you tell it,its called being economical with the truth,

    Would you at least contradict the 'facts' I stated before you wander off topic?


  • #387
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    getz wrote: »
    you can for instance say irish goverment ministers supplied arms to a terrorist organization and also funded them,buts thats only half true, its the slant on the way you tell it,its called being economical with the truth,

    That does not counter the facts given to you ref the GFA and Thatcher/Major and the IRA.

    All this reply does, is side step and avoid the question.


  • #388
    true
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,325 ✭✭✭true


    FTA69 wrote: »
    It's a simple question mate, and there's no need to bring Irish emigration to London or whatever into it because that has no relevance really.

    Do you think she was right to support Pinochet's dictatorship? You mentioned the fact repeatedly about Argentina "disappearing" its citizens but gloss over the fact Pinochet "disappeared" 3000 of his own people. She also sold arms to the Suharto dictatorship, do you agree with that as well?

    Do you not think that lecturing people about democracy is a bit hollow when you then go on to have tea with a murdering dictator like Pinochet?

    I have never been to South America but do realise that those banging on about civil rights there are the same people who advocate the civil rights of the ten hunger strikers, and who would give a very one sided explanation of the troubles in N.I. to a south American audience, which would be very far from the truth. If you are a player on the world stage sometimes you make wrong decisions, or decisions which seemed to be for the greater good at the time. Mrs T was know as a very hard worker ( 4 hours sleep a night - she was still working at 2 or 3 am when the PIRA tried to bomb her in Brighton ). If she had not the distraction of the PIRA trying to kill her and her employees, I am sure she could have diverted time and resources elsewhere.
    As JF Kennedy said, ask not what your country can do for you, but what u can do for your country. Mrs T was of the same mindset.


  • #389
    true
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,325 ✭✭✭true


    karma_ wrote: »
    Stalin was respected on the world stage.

    no he was not.


  • #390
    karma_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,797 ✭✭✭karma_


    true wrote: »
    I have never been to South America but do realise that those banging on about civil rights there are the same people who advocate the civil rights of the ten hunger strikers, and who would give a very one sided explanation of the troubles in N.I. to a south American audience, which would be very far from the truth. If you are a player on the world stage sometimes you make wrong decisions, or decisions which seemed to be for the greater good at the time. Mrs T was know as a very hard worker ( 4 hours sleep a night - she was still working at 2 or 3 am when the PIRA tried to bomb her in Brighton ). If she had not the distraction of the PIRA trying to kill her and her employees, I am sure she could have diverted time and resources elsewhere.
    As JF Kennedy said, ask not what your country can do for you, but what u can do for your country. Mrs T was of the same mindset.

    There you have it folks, thread winner. To paraphrase - making the odd mistake over Apartheid, mass murder and supporting dictatorships all down to wrong decision for the greater good, as long as you're a hard worker this can be forgiven.


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  • #391
    karma_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,797 ✭✭✭karma_


    true wrote: »
    no he was not.

    Wasn't he one of the Yalta 3? Perhaps my history is a little hazy?


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