On “Thatcher’s legacy”

Thank you for this.

“Margaret Hilda Roberts embodied everything that is narrow-minded and philistine in the English middle class. She was preoccupied solely with self-advancement and enrichment, owing much of her success to having secured a rich husband. Her political talents, such as they were, consisted of the nasty cunning and ruthlessness of the social climber.”

Comments such as these are extremely valuable.

Although we don’t primarily engage in vitriol, the attempts by the media to lionize this figure, guilty of the atrocity that was their stay in power, and their continuing legacy, is almost a breath of fresh air.

In particular, the second to closing paragraph, which states: “Much more can and will be said. But five years on from the 2008 financial crash, with mass austerity the order of the day, any objective appraisal makes clear that Thatcher’s real legacy is the greatest economic and social crisis wrought by capitalism since the first half of the 20th century.”

Is perhaps the most accurate summation of what this prior generation of bourgeois thinkers have left us with, with all the congealed putrescence and conceit currently being engaged in by the British and US media to cover for it.

Nick
Washington D.C.
9 April 2013

***

I think you are too generous to Winston Churchill. I would put him in the same category of small-mindedness as Margaret Thatcher. He was also a power-hungry whose policies flip-flopped according to what he believed would garner him most support. There are historians who rate him as a war criminal for encouraging Allied fire-bombing of Dresden in February 1945 and other atrocities: the fact that they were directed against Nazi Germany does not lessen the criminal nature of aerial fire-bombing of civilians. His determination to run Germany into the ground blinded him to the fact that such a destructive goal was also ruinous to Britain, made that nation subservient to the US and allowed the Soviet Union to over-run eastern and central Europe and make the region over as a group of colonies.

Jennifer H
New South Wales, Australia
9 April 2013

On “Steubenville, Ohio: Portrait of a rust belt city”

This is the kind of reporting which I really appreciate. Of course, it is good to read analyses as well. However, it means a lot to me to hear the voices of the ordinary people who are suffering now with this universal panacea/punishment of “austerity”.

Mark L
Czech Republic
8 April 2013

***

That’s not the only reason they called it “little Chicago.” This is a great piece. Thank you for writing it.

HM
8 April 2013

On Chrysler layoffs and the CAW

In Windsor, Chrysler is targeting all employees over the age of 50, employees who have had temporary or permanent workplace accidents, disease or illness, and workers who have had non-occupational illness, disease or accidents.

The CAW is also turning a blind eye to the discrimination and harassment by Chrysler. When asking to file a grievance, they say we don’t understand the contract term that Chrysler has violated; or you are a Pennsylvania lawyer stirring up the pot.

K
8 April 2013

On “Disney shuts down video game developer LucasArts, lays off 150 staff”

I never worked for Lucasfilms, LucasArts, nor any other Lucas-related outfit. However, I lived in an area where many did, and had a number of friends and acquaintances who did work for the Ranch in some capacity or another. The pay was not stellar. One friend who worked at the San Rafael office had to live on the outskirts of Sonoma. As rents in Marin and San Francisco rose and priced many out of the immediate area such commutes were not unusual.

The people who worked for Lucas did so largely for the prestige that was accorded that enterprise and for the atmosphere engendered by having such a tremendous collection of wildly talented co-workers.

Lucas’ history in regards to labor relations is not fabulous; an example would be his insisting that everyone who worked for the company who was union would join IATSE, so he would only have to negotiate with the one entity.

He also funded courses at the College of Marin, which served as training in the technology he needed to produce the effects for which his films were so lauded. While on the surface of it, this might seem a good thing, I tend to wonder if this was not a model for what has since become the norm: the paying by the future employees for training which formerly would be considered on the job—and paid—training.

Christie
6 April 2013

On the WSWS

I’m pretty conservative on most issues. I have to say that your journalism is some of the best on the web.

Thanks,

Kevin R
8 April 2013