“The society which has abolished every kind of adventure makes its own abolition the only possible adventure.” Paris, May 1968


Saturday 26 July 2008

Lest We Forget

I don't know how long we will have to wait for the big day, but I for one am looking forward to the Thatcher Funeral bash in Trafalgar Square. I am also aware of the fact that many people, especially those who did not live through the Thatcher years, feel that the idea is petty and small minded. It is all getting to be a long time ago. Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron are all fitting heirs to the Thatcher legacy. They have served the project well. Soon, very soon I fear, Thatcherism will seem the norm. It will appear absurd to talk of anything but neocon reality. And that Margeret Thatcher, wasn't she, all in all, a force for good?
Well just for the record this is why I will be in Trafalgar Square. Thatcher not only pauperised whole working class communities,
not only sacrificed hard won social benefits on the altar of market forces and reduced the idea of social housing and comprehensive education to second rate safety nets for the underprivileged (read underachievers). Worse, much worse, all of this could be turned around but for her (their) master stroke, the destruction of the last vestiges of collectivism in this country and the seeming triumph of middle class individualist values. Fucks sake, I know that the post-war settlement was not Catalonia 1936 but looking around now at the increasing social polarisation, its beginning to look like some kind of Golden Age.

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