Nooners has been hitting the turps again.
The left in America has largely thrown in the towel on Ronald Reagan, but in Britain Thatcher-hatred remains fresh. Why?
Because she was a woman. Because women in politics are always by definition seen as presumptuous: They presume to lead men. When they are as bright as the men they’re disliked by the men, and when they’re brighter and more serious they’re hated. Mrs. Thatcher’s very presence was an insult to the left because it undermined the left’s insistence that only leftism and its protection of the weak and disadvantaged would allow women to rise. She rose without them while opposing what they stood for. On the other hand, some of the Tory men around her had been smacked on the head by her purse often enough to wish for revenge. What better revenge than to fail to fully stand up for her to posterity?
And so her difficult position. But one senses that is changing.
Of course, it has nothing to do with the Poll Tax riots, her opposition to sanctions against South Africa, the closure of 150 coal mines and the resulting devastation of mining communities and mining unions, the abolition of school meals, Section 28, the massive long-term unemployment and hardship she inflicted on communities (particularly in the North) from which many have still not recovered, the slashing of higher education funding, the privatisation and deregulation of everything possible, or the fact that Margaret Thatcher was an evil, rabid, vicious, mean-sprited, homophobic, Reagan-snuggling, Pinochet-loving old trout.
No. It’s all because she’s a woman.
jayjaybear
Peggers also ignores the fact that Maggie is still alive, thus not having achieved the apotheosis that most helps rehabilitate a politician.
Trakker
The Nooner must live in a conservative bubble. Some Democrats have embraced Ronny as a great – if misguided – leader, but the left? I don’t think so.
Garm
Who says we’ve thrown in the towel on Reagan? I think a lot of the anger that was directed at him is now pointed at W. Bush. IMO a lot of Reagan’s policies came to fruition during W’s presidency.
chopper
i’d throw a towel at reagan if he were still alive and the towel was a brick.
c u n d gulag
Ah, Nooners, after finishing her usual pre-dinner 2 dozen double-martini’s (slurred, never shaken), and sits down to write about Thatcher while fondling her plaster-of-paris copy of Reagan’s private parts.
Humming “Memories…”
She’s got a grip on Reagan’s dick because she can’t lift Thatcher’s.
In her mind, the balls accompanying it are too big.
Thatcher was Nixon in a dress – less the extra portion of paranoia.
PeakVT
Republicans still hate FDR, so why is Nooners surprised that so many Brits still hate Thatcher? Could it be that she, like most other Republicans, is completely self-unaware?
burnspbesq
Apparently one day for the airing of grievances was not enough.
Interrobang
If that were actually true, here in Canada, Kim Campbell would be equally as reviled as Brian Mulroney.
Sure, sexism and misogyny exist, but there are plenty of good reasons to hate what Thatcher did.
eemom
I almost never go to movies anymore but I want to see Iron Lady.
Any opinions?
I’ve seen one or two reviews by outraged Brits to the effect that it’s a despicable hatchet job on a poor old sick lady who is no longer able to defend herself — but I gather that is not the prevailing opinion across the proverbial pond.
Felonious Wench
Whaaaat?
There are so many reasons to revile Thatcher. Her vagina is not the issue.
And who says we’ve left Reagan behind? I will never forget ketchup as a vegetable in school lunches…and I was 9.
arguingwithsignposts
@c u n d gulag: i did not need that image tyvm
Ian
As the son of a former air traffic controller, I can say FUCK REAGAN FOR MAKING ME GO HUNGRY as a kid.
zzyzx
For the first time since July, Obama is in the black in the Gallup daily tracking poll – 47/45. Sure it might just be a blip, but it could also be backing for the ABC poll a few weeks ago.
Amir Khalid
Noonan also reviews The Iron Lady. More Thatcher worship:
MonkeyBoy
So,is Nooners point that Maggie was a dried up thing that nobody would have sexual fantasies about, and that is true about Nooners herself and the reason that some dislike her?
ETA: There aren’t many rules here, but that word is unnecessary. Thanks. Sarah.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
I would pay to see Meryl Streep do pretty much anything, including reading from the collected works of Glenn Greenwald.
Professor
Sarah she did all that and much more. You forgot the Race riots, the demise of British Leyland because she hated the unions, the sale of BP on the cheap and she had to beg the UAE not to take majority equity share of the company etc. She was chucked out of 10 Downing St crying her eyes out! AND it had NOTHING to do with her being a WOMAN!
burnspbesq
@MonkeyBoy:
Noonan has one valid point: many (if not most) men continue to have problems dealing with smart, accomplished women. The rest of her essay is nonsense. As is your comment.
mellowjohn
1. my favorite movie about “margaret fucking thatcher” (as she is referred to in it) is “brassed off.”
2. any R-rated movie starring ronald reagan would have had an odd number of boobs in it.
3. nooners is terminally disappointed that she never had the opportunity to be in the middle of a three-way with her heroes.
Persia
@jayjaybear: And didn’t die a horrible death of a disease most people wouldn’t wish on their worst enemies.
Downpuppy
Reagan is still horrible, but when every year the Republicans sink to new levels of insanity, there’s always someone new to fear & revile.
Still, it’s worth playing his song every now & them.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
No disagreement there. I’m sure she would do his whiny little ass justice.
Professor
@Professor: And she did all this with the help of one Australian, who is now an American citizen. I wouldn’t wish that man on my worst enemy!
BO_Bill
Since the first one did not fly, another characteristic of females with any degree of power is abject intolerance of dissenting opinions. Thinking individuals never underestimate these females’ penchant for violence. I am deadly serious .
Ruckus
@mellowjohn:
any R-rated movie starring ronald reagan would have had an odd number of boobs in it.
That sounds familiar. In any event it is a great line.
Anoniminous
I LOVE Peggy.
One can always depend on her to issue forth, in vapid prose, vacuous inanities loosely based on the most jejune premise it is possible to find.
She’s the intellectual equivalent of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, “Three Buck Chuck,” McDonald’s hamburgers, or Howard Johnson’s Friday night deep fried
rubber bandsclam dinner. One can rest assured whatever she produces is ersatz swill, with anything approaching Art and Excellence lobotomized to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator.Linda Featheringill
@BO_Bill:
Yes.
One thing that Thatcher and some other women have shown is that a woman with power is not much different from a man in power. It depends on the individual. Gender doesn’t determine politics and/or philosophy.
Halcyan
Yes! I am so glad that you get it.
Linda Featheringill
Perhaps I should add in Thatcher’s defense:
Maggie is not whining. Peggy Noonan is. And we shouldn’t criticize Thatcher for that.
Schlemizel
St. Ronnie did all those things and more so, sorry Sarah, thats not why Thatcher is still so hated. The fallacy is that the left has stopped hating Bonzo’s acting partner. The American Media has completely bought into his beatification and the Kewl Kids Klub just knows he is universally loved but it ends there. Millions of decent Americans hope his after life is a duplicate of the hell he created in this one for so many others.
Does not matter if there was a pee-pee or a who-who in the panties. Hopefully they can share a room and a daily pineapple suppository.
arguingwithsignposts
@Anoniminous:
Why you hate PBR?
Calouste
@Linda Featheringill:
Maggie isn’t whining because she is so senile she can’t even remember her husband is dead. If she’s going to watch the movie, she’s probably going to ask who it is about.
Downpuppy
@arguingwithsignposts: Prolly a Jersey Shore fan who’s forgotten his roots.
Raven
@arguingwithsignposts: What’s shakin?
BO_Bill
Linda; Men and women fight differently. Not that long ago men settled scores in something called a ‘duel’. Dueling involves putting one’s own skin, Talent, and courage on the line, and in a public display, resolving a conflict once and for all. In my experience, men still fight one-on-one to determine physical Alpha status, although not currently using lethal means.
Females are more passive, and more aggressive, then men. I have observed female room-mates threaten to burn each other’s faces with irons while they are sleeping to resolve a conflict. In the above video, we see Hillary, fresh from the all-you-can-eat buffet, cackling that she assassinated a former US ally by having him mauled to death by a bunch of Arabs. The two female US Senators from California are probably our most sadistic and corrupt lawmakers, outside of Barney Frank, which is a completely different situation.
priscianusjr
@PeakVT:
Amir Khalid
@mellowjohn:
Y’mean, like that Martian hooker in Total Recall?
Mnemosyne
By all accounts, Thatcher has it, too, which I have a hard time not seeing as poetic justice.
Robert Sneddon
The weird thing about Maggie was that she got re-elected three times although nobody voted for her, apparently.
She got elected in the first place because the British left committed suicide in front of her — Google “Winter of Discontent 1978”. The left responded with purity purges and the Labour Party elected Michael Foot as leader resulting in a Labour manifesto for the next election that was dubbed “the longest suicide note in history”.
As for the miners strike… there wasn’t much coal left to dig up in Britain. We had been extracting it and burning it on an industrial scale for two hundred years and what was left was mostly bad quality, deep underground in thin seams. There were some economic pits left but the rest were charity cases where it cost more to extract the coal than it fetched on the open market. Scargill, the miner’s leader was easily manipulated into shutting the entire industry down and when the strike was over a lot of pits couldn’t be reopened because of flooding and roof falls due to lack of maintenance. The coal industry wasn’t a mass employer any more by that time — the glory days of half a million miners digging coal out by hand (Google “Bevan Boys” sometime) had been replaced by automation and coal-cutting machines in the 50s and 60s.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
If i am throwing a towel in on reagan, you don’t want to be the poor soul who’s job it is to pick that towel back up, unless, thanks in large part to ronald reagan, its the only job you can get.
which, in that case, i’m sorry, but you understand, its the principle of the thing.
Bill in Section 147
I still hate Reagan and do not miss any opportunity to bring up what a horrible mess he made of California and the United States. He died and went to hell folks if the old, “as you judge so shall you be judged,” ever meant anything. He never apologized or sought forgiveness for the commandments that he broke so he wasn’t and couldn’t be forgiven by his Lord and Savior.
Brachiator
Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, was seen as presumptuous. After that, the Brits were able to get used to the idea. You know, like Queen Elizabeth. They even managed to get a female prime minister, while we have yet to elect a woman as president. Oh, and by the by, doesn’t Australia have a woman prime minister?
In any event, from all that I can see (and emphasized by the BBC Friday night comedy shows), the Brits detest Thatcher for all the right reasons. For her dreadful policies.
JenJen
The coal miners strike pops up in British pop culture a lot; I recently saw “Billy Elliott” for the first time and the strike and subsequent hardships were front and center in that plot.
There’s a gorgeous ballad from that period by Peter Gabriel featuring Kate Bush called “Don’t Give Up” which communicates the effect of the pit closures on workers beautifully, but it’s heartbreaking.
Fuck Thatcher.
Trentrunner
Now that that damn Thatcher movie is coming out we’ll be treated to Sully’s Solemn Songs of Maggie’s Spine, wherein his rhetorical jizz will be sprayed all over the diaphanous bouffant hair helmet like little star-kissed droplets of liberal anthrax.
It’s going to be a fun coupla weeks over at Milky Loads Central.
Cacti
@Garm:
Dubya was Reagan’s intellectual (har har) and political heir in a way his father never was. And he enjoyed single party rule in multiple years of his Presidency, as opposed to Reagan.
So, with Dubya, we all finally got to see the fruits of unchecked Reaganism, and we’re still digging out from under it 5 years later.
Mike G
Her passionate defense of Pinochet in her retirement summed up her priorities nicely — grab the money, screw the little people.
mellowjohn
@Amir Khalid: ummm, no. more like when bush was pictured on the front page of the murdoch rag “the sun” and i said it took two of their boobs on page 3 to match one of ours on page 1.
Raven
@Bill in Section 147: Plus hge ruined the dedication of the WWII Monument in DC by dying and hijacking the festivities.
PPOG Penguin
@Brachiator: The reaction to female prime ministers in Australia and New Zealand helps give the lie to the ‘it’s because she’s a woman’ nonsense. Jenny Shipley (right wing PM of New Zealand from 1997 to 1999) isn’t a particular bogeyman of the NZ left today: don’t get me wrong, there’s no love for her, but she doesn’t loom over NZ politics the way Thatcher and Reagan do in their respective countries. Helen Clark (left wing PM of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008) *is* still a bogeyman for the NZ right, and they attack her in explicitly sexist terms, attacking her appearance as masculine and insinuating that she’s a lesbian because she’s not ‘properly’ feminine. The hate for Clark is still very strong, and while I don’t know if it’s *because* she’s a woman, the fact of her gender *is* part of the attack. With Thatcher and Shipley, that was never (or at least rarely) the case, which undermines Noonan’s argument.
Not that it needed much undermining, of course.
Mustang Bobby
It really galls me that Ms. Noonan is hiding behind the skirts of faux-misogyny. That’s more of a setback for feminism than any of the perceived bashing by progressives.
NobodySpecial
The only thing that needs to be said about Margaret Thatcher.
Brachiator
@PPOG Penguin: Thanks very much for this background on female PMs in Australia and New Zealand. This just underscores the laziness and stupidity of American pundits, who are just willfully ignorant of examples of leadership besides Magaret Thatcher.
As an aside, I remember some lame attacks on Obama, claiming that his respect by foreign leaders had plummeted, countered by photos of the president being warmly received by Australian prime minister Julia Gillard.
suzanne
Can two things be true at the same time: Thatcher was and is a toad of a human being, and sexism is real and impacted her legacy? I would be less inclined to think so if Britain had seen other women come to that level of prominence since she left power.
We’re not in a post-racial society because we have a black president. I see no reason to think that Britain is a post-sexist society.
Mike E
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s that whole anti-hipster cred bullshite. I think I will have another one of those, thankyouverymuch!
Raven
@Mike E: That’s not a PBR This is a PBR!
Mike E
@Raven: Never get outa the boat, man!
Raven
@Mike E: Fuckin A!
Lojasmo
@BO_Bill:
Not to defend Clinton, but you are an ass-wipe, and your terrible choice of roomies confirms it.
Drink bleach.
SiubhanDuinne
@Trentrunner:
That’s a thing of rare beauty, it is.
13th Generation
Even though BO_Bill won’t link to his own website, I think I will.
http://www.brickoven.blogspot.com/
Tony J
@suzanne:
Theoretically, yes, both could be true, but in the case of Thatcher, only the first is, and it’s the recognition and acknowledgement of her essential inhumanity by a large majority of mainstream British society that’s left her with the legacy she has. She’s judged by her actions and by the imprint she left on British politics and culture, not on her gender.
Put it this way, there’s a reason labelling someone ‘Thatcherite’ in Britain is both an attack on their moral compass and a recognition of their political power, and it has nothing to do with the fact she wore skirts.
And there have been a grand total of four Prime Ministers in office since Thatcher left, and yes they’ve all been men. But I don’t think that can be put down to sexism. There might be a case to be made that Thatcher’s legacy has adversely impacted the chances of any female politician challenging for the top job precisely – because – the inevitable Thatcher comparison hits a very sore point in the British psyche that rivals can exploit, but is that ‘sexism’, or just a result of her general awfulness giving those rivals a conveniently heavy axe to swing?
YMMV
eemom
Golda Meir. Indira Gandhi. Both in unabashedly sexist societies.
As usual, the truth is never as simple as knee jerk morons on either side of the political spectrum want to make it.
Linkmeister
John Major was male?
Shawn in ShowMe
Why does Noonan feel compelled to defend the legacy of such a cruel person? When she watched 101 Dalmations as a kid did she think that Cruella deVille was just a misunderstood victim?
Mark B.
The Reagan corpse humping is also pretty much a myth. The villagers love him, but a good number of real Americans are well acquainted with the completely hollow nature of his accomplishments, and how he set back history 50 years by reviving white racism and destroyed the economy by letting the infrastructure go to hell and undermining science education and alternative energy research. The fact that America is tending toward a second-rate backwards country has a great deal to do with the Reagan administration having a higher priority of cutting taxes on the rich instead of investing in the future.
Edit: And I forgot to mention murdering nuns and arming terrorists. So many crimes, so little time!
Tony J
@Linkmeister:
Very. Just ask Edwina Currie.
chopper
nooners just has her blinders on as usual. as pointed out above, goopers still have a seething hatred of FDR, even though most of them were born after he was in the ground. they’ll also carry a hatred of the clintons and obama hotter than a thousand suns for the next 60 years at least. one thing about republicans, they know how to hold a grudge against their enemies.
yet nooners is confused as to why people on the other side would still hate thatcher after 30 years. LOL, what a dummy.
rea
@Schlemizel: “St. Ronnie did all those things and more so”
No, he didn’t. Hell, the poll tax is something that the present day Republicans are still shy about admitting they want.
jonas
@JenJen: Don’t forget “The Momentum of Things” with Jim Broadbent and Ellen Burstyn.
“I never realized British coal miners had it so bad…There’s blood on your hands Mrs. Thatcher!!!”
The Moar You Know
Here’s the difference between Reagan and Thatcher, and it is a pretty minimal distinction:
Thatcher was a murderous, amoral asshole who cared for nothing but the enrichment of her, her husband, and their friends.
Reagan was told what to do by murderous, amoral assholes who cared for nothing but the enrichment of themselves and their friends.
You cannot overstate the utter lack of curiosity, the unwillingness to even entertain an original thought, that was the hallmark of Ronald Wilson
Reagan. Left to his own, he’d need a tape loop to remember to breathe. He was told what to do and what to say at every point in his murderous career, and most of what got said and implemented were the butcher’s nightmares of fascists like the alcoholic Nooners.
Schlemizel
@rea:
What I meant was that he did every evil thing that Magpie Thacher did & more. That he didn’t do every evil thing that the wingnuts wanted is hardly the point.
slightly-peeved
Probably part of the reason there are more British who hate Thatcher is that British politics is well to the left of U.S. Politics. There are a fair few socialists still around.
Kyle
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Why does Noonan feel compelled to defend the legacy of such a cruel person?
One of the Fox/Limbaugh/Rabies-Right media tumor’s current projects is rehabilitating the image of Joseph Fucking McCarthy, for pete’s sake.
Sometimes I think they say things as an experiment just to see how far they can stretch the propaganda before their credulous authoritarian-follower droolers begin to have doubts, and they haven’t found the limit yet.
Lysana
If sexism has an impact on Thatcher’s legacy, it’s more in that people cling to the delusion that women in power are going to be smarter, nicer, and kinder than she was. Though I do think her last name would still be synonymous with “asshole in power” if she’d been Mark instead of Margaret, all else being equal.
flak
Thatcher never was all that popular in the UK. The Tories never achieved a majority. She was removed from power by her own party. The Noonan comparison doesn’t work from the very beginning. But, I suspect her main interest isn’t honest comparisons.
slightly-peeved
Part of the reason a lot of Thatcher hatred is prominent in the UK is that the country is well left of the US, and the UK media portrays the views of the British populace more accurately than the US media.
@Brachiator:
i’d assume any US pundit talking about Obama being unpopular overseas is talking out of their arse. Moderate centrist technocrats are the kind of people a lot of the world elect to run their countries all the time. We’re used to leaders with his style.
Nutella
Considering just the issue of the Iraq invasion, roughly the same majority percentage of Brits and Americans opposed it but the press coverage here gave the false impression that a majority of us were for it.
Speaking of the poll tax, I remember first reading about it in Time Magazine, which had actual news in it in those days. I turned the magazine over a few times looking for the National Lampoon parody label that I was sure must have been there because poll tax? That had to be a sick joke.
chuckieboy
thatcher isn’t despised because her memory induces ear ringing vomit, or because she’s a woman, it’s because she’s a cunt.
chuckieboy
This characterization has nothing to do with one’s gender, Ronnie Raygun far outperformed her and is about the most worthless cunt, up to his term, this country ever produced.
Auldblackjack
Why do people still hate Thatcher?
Well, I could be like Noonan and just pull shite out of my arse or you could ask someone who lived it.
Like Elvis Costello.
Auldblackjack
@NobodySpecial: Just clicked your link. Well played, sir.
suzanne
@Tony J:
Well, if those women are being compared to Thatcher because they’re women, then, yes, that’s absolutely sexism. Men don’t seem to bear the burden of having to answer for other men’s actions when all they share is being men. It exploits the bias against women to liken a woman to Thatcher merely because they have similar reproductive equipment.
Well, what would be responsible for that? I mean, if all was equal, we’d see women in power roughly 50% of the time. Thatcher was and is an absolute waste of a human life, but I think it strains credulity to say that sexism is absolutely not a factor of her legacy.
Haiwei
Nooners would still do him. For all we know, she may still be humping him daily.
Thoughtcrime
@Auldblackjack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Znn5a-88tY&feature=related
Janeane The Acerbic Goblin
Reagan was a dumbed down version of Thatcher (if that’s possible).
The only real difference between them is that Thatcher spoke better English and was marginally better looking.
Jerzy Russian
Has anyone heard a progress report on the Reaganosarus that was discussed on these pages last week? Does the GOP still have plans for it?
Lojasmo
@13th Generation:
What a tool that dude is.
Earnest Bunbury
Noonan’s “analysis” completely ignores the role she and her ilk played in the last 30 years of constantly fluffing Reagan. The “left” never threw in the towel, but vast swaths of the mushy middle think of him at worst as a well-meaning if doty old man who killed communism because everybody from Fox to the Times tells us so.
The little I know about the British press suggests that at least half of its members make a paycheck by afflicting the comfotable, so the average Nigial or Jane probably have a clear view of their pols.
valdemar
As a Brit I never loathed Thatcher for her gender, just for her policies. Not everything she did was wrong, but she still began a process – privatisation – that handed her country over to looting by foreign speculators. She also had no genuine interest whatsoever in promoting democracy overseas, was a complete hypocrite over the Falklands issue, and abused her influence to enrich not only her lazy drunken husband but also her worthless son.
These are all valid reasons to despise any person. Her death will be greeted with partying by many, many people, and while I might not join in, I won’t condemn those who do.
Why hasn’t another British PM been female since Thatcher? Well, hey, why hasn’t a single US president been female? Sexism inherent in the system, absolutely. But we have had a female head of state since 1952, guys…
Nutella
@Tony J:
Seeing Thatcher as an exemplar of her sex so that her legacy adversely impacts the chances of other female politicians is a classic example of sexism. If Thatcher’s sins affect all women and Cameron’s sins are his own then sexism is a major factor in politics.
That you can see how one bad woman prime minister affects the reputation of all women and not see sexism shows that you are so marinated in male privilege that it’s like the air you breathe: completely un-noticable as long as it’s right there with you like it’s always been.
Auldblackjack
@Thoughtcrime:
I live for the day when a flash mob of countless individuals disrupt her State Funeral with a rendition of that song …
suzanne
@valdemar:
Because American culture is incredibly sexist.
I’m not in a glass house throwing stones.
@Nutella: Word. The privilege is strong here. This is approaching but-I-have-a-black-friend territory.
Todd Dugdale
And Bachmann, the only female candidate for President in 2012, is not supported by most women. In fact, her supporters are primarily elderly (65+) men.
When I’ve pointed this out to conservatives, I’ve been told that men are the “new” feminists. Or, the “true” feminists. Essentially, the narrative is that women are too flaky to know what their “best interests” are. Once (conservative) men lay it all out there, women will understand what’s best for them, and fall into line. Anything else would prove that conservatives are wrong, so reality must conform or no longer be reality.