we'll be dancing on Thatcher's grave

[Phil]

groups from all over the UK are preparing to party on the Saturday following the death of Margaret Thatcher.
I'll be there with knobs on!
here's why :

Ding dong, the witch is (not quite) dead
You can’t mark the date in your diary yet (unless you know something we don’t), but the long organisational build-up to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral is humming along nicely. The call has gone out for a massive party in Trafalgar Square starting at 6pm the Saturday after she finally drops dead. Organisers say that if she dies on a Friday or a Saturday morning, the fun will still kick off at the advertised time, but they reserve the right to come back the next Saturday as well. When she dies, the corporate media will be full of sycophantic bullshit about how she was Britain’s first female prime minister & how she had such a huge effect. She did, but in a completely rotten way. By throwing a massive party, we’ll be standing up against the crap & reminding everyone that Thatcher’s political views & actions created misery for huge numbers of people in Britain & across the globe. Thatcher’s contempt for us was unparrelled, & expressed through policies ranging from the re-introduction of birching, to the war in the Falklands, to selling off services that should be basic rights, not businesses. She was committed to destroying unions & cutting education funding. She supported the bombing of Libya & brought US nuclear missiles into the UK. She introduced homophobic legislation & invited apartheid South Africa’s president over for a nice chat. Bobby Sands & nine other Irish hunger-strikers died under Thatcher’s reign. Here in Wales, we haven’t forgotten the misery she put us through over the mines. For those who can’t get to the big party in London, South Wales will definitely be hosting a celebration, or two or three or a lot more. Thatcher hasn’t made public appearances for some years, & is 81. We can’t say when she’s going to finally rid the world of her presence, but when she does the world average levels of compassion, humanity, & love of freedom will go up a notch. We will have every reason to celebrate.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regio...11/355525.html

[DanaC]

*grins* Ohhh......oh now that's a day I'll treasure almost as much as the day she left Downing Street in tears!

When she dies, the corporate media will be full of sycophantic bullshit about how she was Britain’s first female prime minister & how she had such a huge effect

I've heard it said, that Thatcher did for feminism, what the Boston strangler did for door to door sales.

Like Wales, the region I lived in suffered under her rule. I watched my home town die a death. Streets and streets of repossessed houses, unemployment at hideous levels, communities broken up and disheveled. It's what made me political.

[Phil]

i know of a few families that were torn apart too. many of the valley towns have still not recovered from her "reign" (did you see her when she referred to herself as "we"?) and are officially classed as the most poverty - stricken areas in the UK.

[DanaC]

ohhh, the Royal 'We'. "We are a grandmother".

Bless her little cotton socks.

The manufacturing base in the North was pretty much decimated. Some areas never recovered. The ward I represent is one such area.


My friend Tom, used to talk a great deal about the mining communities he was involved with during the 70s and 80s. One family in particular, he mentioned often. One of the sons of this large mining family married a lass from a non-mining community; when the effect of the strike started to bite, she didn't really understand why they needed to continue. She persuaded him to cross the line. He and his father never spoke to each other again.

One of the things I remember about that time, was the strength of so many of the miners' wives.

Ah man......but they went to war didn't they? With their soldiers in police uniforms and their violent reprisals.

Phil did you happen to get involved in the Poll tax demos in '90?

[Phil]

Poll Tax; how did that slip through and become so acceptable as Roof Tax?
i got involved locally; couldnt make it to London. a friend did and was close to the well known horse charge where that poor woman was trodden to death by a police horse. he said the cops were out of control; they were grinning manically as they truncheoned anyone in their path,and he had never been so scared in his life.

[DanaC]

Yah. They were. I was there. In the horse charge, I was dragged out of the way by my boyfriend. It was horrible, very scary. A friend of ours was chinned by a cop (she was only 17, looked about 15). We were at the barrier to Downing Street at the time. That was what sparked the violence at that part of the march, the crowd saw this cop floor a young lass and it erupted.

At one point, Judah and I were trying to get to the 'front lines' running up the side of the march, along a verge. There were people coming back from the line with bloodied faces and heads and some people lay on the grass being tended by medics.

We got to the front. A large demo that turns violent is a very strange place to be. There's a push and pull between the two sides that seems almost organic.

It was the same with the big anti-nazi rally after the Isle of Dogs BNP victory. Huge march, lot of people: police used similar tactics as the ones they used in the poll tax demo, they tried to split the march by driving dogs, horses and riot cops between different sections of the march, then when a section was boxed in they'd charge. When you are stood there in the crush of people and they surge forward at you, the whole crowd surges back, they try to grab or hit the people atthe front.....then there's a reaction and the crowd surges back forward again and tries to grab or hit one of them.

We got one of the bastards off his horse at least. It was small comfort given the amount of people who got hurt.

Thing is, every demo I've been on has descended into violence and rioting; and every single time it's been the police who started it, yet every time I have come home to find the press full of 'the poor police' sentiment.

Incidentally, the reason I had to be dragged out of the way of a charging horse, was that I'd tripped over a toddler who had become separated from her parents and was crawling about on the floor. The march had gone from a fairly relaxed family march on a sunny day, with people playing on pipes and drums and kids on parents shoulders and old people with zimmer frames ("Pensioners Against the Poll Tax), to a bloody battle.

Funny thing is, during the initial stages of the march, we were going past lines of police who were cheerful and civilised, then as we marched along, we began to notice that the police were a) much less friendly looking and b)not wearing any numbers on their shoulders. That's about when things started to get nasty.

We found out later that the army were on standby with rubber bullets and orders to fire into the thickest part of the crowd if we breached Downing Street.

I was 18 and it was a hell of a political awakening.

[JayMcGee]

welcome to the real world, Dana & Phil.


Though Thatcher was perhaps the most public personification of the police state, it has always been there. The police forces, and most especially the Met, have always been heavily politicised and committed to uphold the status quo. A good friend of mine was a police inspector during the miners' strike..... it is a subject we have learned to avoid....


Scargill was right, of course.

[DanaC]

Oh undoubtedly. A little like with my recent experience of the world of politics: knowing something is so and actually experiencing it first hand are two different things. I knew the police were violent towards the miners; I knew that their role in such situations was less about maintaining public order and more about upholding the state. Actually watching people battered by police in body armour and having a fucking big horse charge towards me was nonetheless a tad shocking:P

I went on quite a few demos after that; some small some big. After the Poll tax riot though, I had one eye out for oncoming trouble. Judah and I generally tried to be in the thick of it if it kicked off. I've had some interesting experiences because of that tendency:P

Of course that was when I was young and invincible......these days I am convinced enough of my own mortality and frailties (ie. fear of pain) that I generally avoid fights with baton wielding riot police.


Funnily enough, I met and got to know a guy in Halifax a couple of years ago (still a good friend) and during a stoned, drunken exchange of war stories, it transpired that he had been there too! He still had his placard.

[DanaC]

Out of interest, what do you guys think about the 'right to buy' policy the tories introduced?

[JayMcGee]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Out of interest, what do you guys think about the 'right to buy' policy the tories introduced?

A deliberate attempgt to bring local govt. under central control. The 'right to buy' was on the one hand a carrot to the populace, in that it was an attempt to increase the perceptions of the new house-owners that they were now 'middle class' - the traditional Tory voting class. But the legislation had some nasty teeth. Though councils were obliged to sell to residents who asked for it, the council was forbidden to plough back the procedes of the sales into either maintence of existing housing stock or the building of new housing. Eventualy, the councils were starved of the income to maintain social housing stocks, and were forced into partnerships with profit-driven housing assosiations.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

From an exterior perspective, the important thing was Maggie Thatcher brought the Welfare State essentially to its end. This is not, I assure you, a bad thing -- as then adult persons need to behave as adults, strong, wise, and independent. This too is not a bad thing.

I don't doubt the process was uncomfortable -- learning experiences and maturing experiences usually are, and one shouldn't complain.

No, I'll not be joining this... festival. I don't think much of the brains of the people in it.

[JayMcGee]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

No, I'll not be joining this... festival. I don't think much of the brains of the people in it.

You're Californiya? hey, man, forget the thinking.... surfs up, dood....

[Ibby]

I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign
A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain
She spills with compassion, as that young childs
Face in her hands she grips
Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
Coming down on that childs lips

Well I hope I dont die too soon
I pray the lord my soul to save
Oh Ill be a good boy, Im trying so hard to behave
Because theres one thing I know, Id like to live
Long enough to savour
Thats when they finally put you in the ground
Ill stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down

When england was the whore of the world
Margeret was her madam
And the future looked as bright and as clear as
The black tarmacadam
Well I hope that she sleeps well at night, isnt
Haunted by every tiny detail
cos when she held that lovely face in her hands
All she thought of was betrayal

And now the cynical ones say that it all ends the same in the long run
Try telling that to the desperate father who just squeezed the life from his only son
And how its only voices in your head and dreams you never dreamt
Try telling him the subtle difference between justice and contempt
Try telling me she isnt angry with this pitiful discontent
When they flaunt it in your face as you line up for punishment
And then expect you to say thank you straighten up, look proud and pleased
Because youve only got the symptoms, you havent got the whole disease
Just like a schoolboy, whose heads like a tin-can
Filled up with dreams then poured down the drain
Try telling that to the boys on both sides, being blown to bits or beaten and maimed
Who takes all the glory and none of the shame

Well I hope you live long now, I pray the lord your soul to keep
I think Ill be going before we fold our arms and start to weep
I never thought for a moment that human life could be so cheap
cos when they finally put you in the ground
Theyll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down

[DanaC]

Brilliant.

[Ibby]

<33 Elvis Costello.