Won’t Get Fooled Again?! (The Day That Margaret Thatcher Died)

"There is no such thing as society" --Thatcher, 1988
"There is no such thing as Thatcher…" --Society, 2013

Once upon a time (~1977) a group of savvy politicians (Thatcher, Reagan, et al) concluded that raging (peak oil) crises and economic decline (ever deepening recession) provided a unique opportunity to exploit fear among have-not voters.  Their premise was simple: FEAR could be used to convince people to vote against their own/social interest in favor of capital (too-big-to-fail) interests...  And so their policy argument became: "it's not the too-rich/corrupt but rather your lazy, worthless neighbor that is holding you back economically."  That the basic social contract (rule of law, equal opportunity, social insurance, social responsibility…) was the problem, not a solution.

Well, it worked, for awhile, until most realized (30 years too late) that--in real, inflation-adjusted, economic terms--they were poorer and more vulnerable to capital/job stress than even before Thatcher/Reagan/Friedman’s (Greed Is Good) agenda was legalized.  That terrible ideas (consumerism, plus ever more, self-deified, consumers) failed even worse than faltering, at least rational and well intentioned, public policy.

The End? (not until the last conservative—conservative as in moron, not as in conservation—is dead!)

Comments

Todd Ryder said…
http://www.alternet.org/world/singer-morrisseys-scathing-letter-public-about-margaret-thatcher-terror-without-atom-humanity

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