Regan and Thatcher....Good or Bad?

[PolePosition_1]

To me they changed the world, two of the most influential people in modern history. Its easy to forget just how long ago they both came into power, but its coming up 30 years now.

Did they change it for a better world, or a worst world? Were they influential?

Personally, I think they've changed this world for the worst. However, what kind of society (if it exists, Maggie didn't think so!) would we be living in if they didn't come into power.

Discuss :)

[Rudy Tamasz]

To me they changed the world, two of the most influential people in modern history. Its easy to forget just how long ago they both came into power, but its coming up 30 years now.

Did they change it for a better world, or a worst world? Were they influential?

Personally, I think they've changed this world for the worst. However, what kind of society (if it exists, Maggie didn't think so!) would we be living in if they didn't come into power.

Discuss :)

To me Reagan was a successful idealist in international relations, which is a rare exception. Spreading democracy around the world was a cause that he genuinely believed in and successfully promoted. Like every politician he resorted to dirty tricks and made many mistakes, but his role in bringing the end to the Soviet stranglehold on Eastern Europe is decisive in my positive judgement.

It is harder to judge Maggie, because her accopmlishments are mostly confined to her country and as far as I know the Brits are split over her legacy. But then again, her pro-market intellectual influence was instrumental for the architects of economic reforms in Eastern Europe. Positive.

[Hazell B]

It is harder to judge Maggie .... the Brits are split over her legacy.

You can say that agin!

Like Marmite, she's either loved or hated, both deeply. Personally I am quite proud of her, but can see she also made huge mistakes.

Her stance against the miners was something I went through as a kid and I was lucky enough to see both sides. My father's relatives are all mining families and they mostly did very well indeed out of the strike - going into other jobs during it, yet still claiming every penny they could from the unions, then taking handshakes and early retiremnets :mark: We lived in an area not too far from mines and our village was beset by begging miners' children (in designer clothes :s ) and house break-ins during the strike. I backed Thatcher then as a teenager and even more so now I see the wider picture.

No idea on Regan, all we got was the Spitting Image version and jellybeans were never the same again :laugh:

[jim mcglinchey]

[quote="Hazell B"]You can say that agin!

. I backed Thatcher then as a teenager and even more so now I see the wider picture.

Me too, Thatcher and her promotion of the financial service industry at the expense of the countries manufacturing sector, and her monetarist doctrine has been shown, now that we sit on the verge of resession, to be just what the UK always needed. NOT.

[Garry Walker]

Reagan was the greatest president of USA for a long time.

[F1boat]

Great, especially Reagan.

[BDunnell]

Could we at least spell Reagan's name correctly?

I don't believe that the influence of either was as appalling as those on the further reaches of the left suggest, but I do feel that they often forgot the wider human effects of some of their more significant policies.

[jim mcglinchey]

R-A-Y-G-U-N.

Ronnie was a big fan of the Star Wars Strategic Defence Initiative.

[rah]

Well someone has to be the stick in the mud. I think Reagan was led around like a dog by the CIA. But then show me a US president that hasn't made some big mistakes.

[Rollo]

Me too, Thatcher and her promotion of the financial service industry at the expense of the countries manufacturing sector, and her monetarist doctrine has been shown, now that we sit on the verge of resession, to be just what the UK always needed. NOT.

Amen to that. By breaking the unions, increasing the VAT from 5% to 15% and increasing indirect taxation, her government's effectively killed what little manufacturing prospects the UK had.
In the five years from the start of Thatcher's government in 1979 to 1984, manufacturing output had dropped 30% from 1979 levels.

I personally think that Britain has been ill-served by her government through incompetence (which is generally reflective of nationalised business anyway), by everyone since Attlee - which includes Churchill's second term.

[Garry Walker]

I don't believe that the influence of either was as appalling as those on the further reaches of the left suggest, but I do feel that they often forgot the wider human effects of some of their more significant policies.
Point out the "appalling" things they did, especially Reagan.


the "further left" consists of people whom such things as logic and realistic thinking have abandoned long ago.

[jim mcglinchey]

Well, he created the Muhjadeen / Taliban to fight the Rooskies in 'Stan, and that came back and bit everyones ass, he supplied Saddam with the chemical weapons which were later used to kill defenceless Kurds, and he backed the Contras in Nicaragua in their murderous efforts to overthrow a democratically elected government..I could go on all night.

[rah]

Well, he created the Muhjadeen / Taliban to fight the Rooskies in 'Stan, and that came back and bit everyones ass, he supplied Saddam with the chemical weapons which were later used to kill defenceless Kurds, and he backed the Contras in Nicaragua in their murderous efforts to overthrow a democratically elected government..I could go on all night.

Your obviously not thinking logically if you do not agree with Garry.

[TOgoFASTER]

Your obviously not thinking logically if you do not agree with Garry.

Ruined a good logical 'further right' neo spin.
What was he thinking?
:)

[PolePosition_1]

I think whilst colonialism is a think of the past, they've enforced a neo-liberal approach on the whole world.

They've also been partly responsibly for globalisation, by opening our markets up in the name of "free trade", when they're anything but free trade. They're a way of control, which they use institutions such as WTO, World Bank, IMF etc to control. So while we no longer live in a world of direct colonialism, we live in a world of economic colonialism so to speak.

And with the opening of world economies through globalisation, situations like today where we are in a world recession affects us all, for example Northern Rock was all started in USA.

Then for the UK we're got privatised utilties, so we've got energy prices going up 40% despite their profits being over £1billion.

[PolePosition_1]

I think whilst colonialism is a think of the past, they've enforced a neo-liberal approach on the whole world.

They've also been partly responsibly for globalisation, by opening our markets up in the name of "free trade", when they're anything but free trade. They're a way of control, which they use institutions such as WTO, World Bank, IMF etc to control. So while we no longer live in a world of direct colonialism, we live in a world of economic colonialism so to speak.

And with the opening of world economies through globalisation, situations like today where we are in a world recession affects us all, for example Northern Rock was all started in USA.

Then for the UK we're got privatised utilties, so we've got energy prices going up 40% despite their profits being over £1billion.

[Eki]

Well, Reagan is dead and Thatcher isn't in power anymore, so I think it's good.

[fandango]

I have never lived in Britain, but my impression is that Thatcher's style of leadership contributed to a less caring society in general, that whole eighties yuppie "breakfast is for wimps and only losers take the bus" attitude has lowered the general quality of life. However, it's not like those that followed have done such a good job. In fact, could Thatcher's style of government be the reason for the emergence of Blair's New Labour? I'm not blaming, just wondering....

As for her stance on Northern Ireland, I thought she got it so, so wrong, especially during the hungerstrikes, her attiutude to the Irish government, everything. British colonialism at its worst.

And Reagan? I just remember feeling terrified that he'd lose it completely and start WWIII.

[SOD]

Maggie could not have pulled off what she did without the North Sea Oil. See what Norway did with their revenues from the oil.

Reagan was a horrible horrible man. The Savings and Loans crisis was of his doing. See Oliver North for what Reagan was really about. :laugh:

[Eki]

To the memories of Reagan and Thatcher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLH5mCIGcvc

I'm sure there's still room for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeldt and their lapdog Blair in the Fletcher Memorial Home.

[BDunnell]

I have never lived in Britain, but my impression is that Thatcher's style of leadership contributed to a less caring society in general, that whole eighties yuppie "breakfast is for wimps and only losers take the bus" attitude has lowered the general quality of life. However, it's not like those that followed have done such a good job. In fact, could Thatcher's style of government be the reason for the emergence of Blair's New Labour? I'm not blaming, just wondering....

As for her stance on Northern Ireland, I thought she got it so, so wrong, especially during the hungerstrikes, her attiutude to the Irish government, everything. British colonialism at its worst.

And Reagan? I just remember feeling terrified that he'd lose it completely and start WWIII.

All very true, in my opinion.

[SOD]

Paramount Comedy 2 reruns Spitting from the 1980s, oh how they were clued in there an then, it is amazing.


Reagan, The president's Brain is missing LMAO.

[BrentJackson]

Certainly America on the world stage was changed by Reagan, but that needed to be done. Carter was sank more than anything by the debacle that was the American hostage rescue attempt in Iran that went dramatically tits up. Reagan certainly did lead a rebuild of the American military and certainly he did help bring about the end of communism. Thatcher and him had other allies in that, too, one of the notables being Pope John Paul II.

Both Reagan and Thatcher were champions of corporate power, no too ways about it. That effect, and the manufacturing job losses resulting from that, haunt both America and the UK. The UK it has to said though, needed Thatcher to kick the unions in the backside, as strikes crippled numerous British industries many times in the 1970s.

The Yuppie attitude wasn't really Reagan or Thatcher's creation, it was a sign of the times. Everybody tried to think of themselves as Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko, out to make more for themselves, and it showed in the Breakfast for wimps and losers take the Bus stuff. Did all that lower quality of life? I'd imagine it has, yes.

Overall, good or bad? Good, certainly, because their actions meant that John Major and George Bush were waiting when Gorbachev and his Eastern Bloc buddies finally threw in their cards.