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British museum brackets former PM Margaret Thatcher as a 'villain' alongside Hitler and bin Laden
American Thinker ^ | 03/19/24 | Rajan Laad

Posted on 03/19/2024 9:17:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Recently, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum sparked controversy over an exhibit that places former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the same light as Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden
 
This display is part of an exhibition called Laughing Matters: The State of the Empire, which looks at the role of humor relating to ‘identity, empire, and power over the last two hundred years.’

The exhibit attempted to depict how villains in the Punch and Judy caricatures have evolved over the last century. Punch and Judy is a British puppet show about a couple whose name features in the title.
 

The caption read: “Over the years, the evil character in this seaside puppet show has shifted from the Devil to unpopular public figures including Adolf Hitler, Margaret Thatcher, and Osama bin Laden, to offer contemporary villains.”

To bracket Britain’s first female prime minister with mass murderers is staggeringly offensive and shockingly unfair. To call her "unpopular" is inaccurate and ahistorical, (not a good thing to see from a museum), given that she was re-elected by the British public in two landslides in 1983 and 1987. The Time magazine headline on June 20, 1983 read: "Maggie by a Mile."
 
It has to be remembered that any items to be displayed at an exhibition at Victoria and Albert Museum have to go through a series of approvals as part of the national British museum system. Yet no one at any stage of these approvals seem to have objected to this vile affront.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: britain; margaretthatcher; museum; villain
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1 posted on 03/19/2024 9:17:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

2 posted on 03/19/2024 9:18:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

OMG!!!! DEMONIC INSANITY IS EVERYWHERE!!!


3 posted on 03/19/2024 9:19:00 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I watched many British TV dramas. It is fairly common for a snide remark about Thatcher to be said in them.


4 posted on 03/19/2024 9:24:08 AM PDT by PghBaldy (12/14/12 - 930am -rampage begins... 12/15/12 - 1030am - Obama team scouts photo-op locations.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Well, she did play a role in the collapse of the USSR. That will make her a villain to many leftists. I am aware that she is loathed by the left in the UK for her domestic policies as well. And since the left dominates the popular culture no matter what government is in power, well, there you are.


5 posted on 03/19/2024 9:24:17 AM PDT by hanamizu ( )
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To: SeekAndFind

Well she was pro-abortion.


6 posted on 03/19/2024 9:25:22 AM PDT by Clemenza
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To: SeekAndFind

I will never forget that she curtsied besides Ronald Reagan’s casket at his funeral. That was astounding, yet no-one reported it................


7 posted on 03/19/2024 9:25:23 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Ann Archy

Without the Iron Lady’s support, I wonder if Reagan could have been successful in ridding the world of The Red Menace.


8 posted on 03/19/2024 9:27:46 AM PDT by hardspunned (Former DC GOP globalist stooge)
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To: hardspunned

Don’t think he could have!! She was a GREAT LADY!!


9 posted on 03/19/2024 9:28:50 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I recently finished watching “The Crown” on Netflix.

All in all, I think they portrayed Mrs. Thatcher in less than a favorable light.

Part of the agenda. Rewriting history.


10 posted on 03/19/2024 9:29:38 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (A truth that’s told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent ~ Wm. Blake)
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To: Ann Archy
Perhaps some of the 100,000s or millions of babies aborted by the U.K. equivalent of Planned Parenthood, Marie Stopes, would regard Mrs. Thatcher as a saint.

Image of Letter from Margaret Thatcher to Judy Adams confirming passing on abortion legislation.


11 posted on 03/19/2024 9:29:52 AM PDT by CharlesOConnell (CharlesOConnell)
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To: SeekAndFind

They need to switch out Thatcher for Barrack Obama.

Thatchers great sin was to be fast ad accurate.

Socialists hate Thatcher, an so they call her Hitler?

NOt so

Her Thoughts on Socialism

No need to take my word for it, though. I offer here some of Margaret Thatcher’s most incisive remarks about the socialism some Americans seem attracted to these days. They stretch across decades of her public life:

“It is good to recall how our freedom has been gained in this country—not by great abstract campaigns but through the objections of ordinary men and women to having their money taken from them by the State. In the early days, people banded together and said to the then Government, ‘You shall not take our money before you have redressed our grievances.’ It was their money, their wealth, which was the source of their independence against the Government.”
“The philosophical reason for which we are against nationalization and for private enterprise is because we believe that economic progress comes from the inventiveness, ability, determination and the pioneering spirit of extraordinary men and women. If they cannot exercise that spirit here, they will go away to another free enterprise country which will then make more economic progress than we do. We ought, in fact, to be encouraging small firms and small companies, because the extent to which innovation comes through these companies is tremendous.”
“I was attacked for fighting a rearguard action in defense of ‘middle-class interests.’…Well, if ‘middle class values’ include the encouragement of variety and individual choice, the provision of fair incentives and rewards for skill and hard work, the maintenance of effective barriers against the excessive power of the State and a belief in the wide distribution of individual private property, then they are certainly what I am trying to defend. This is not a fight for ‘privilege’; it is a fight for freedom—freedom for every citizen.”
“Our challenge is to create the kind of economic background which enables private initiative and private enterprise to flourish for the benefit of the consumer, employee, the pensioner, and society as a whole…I believe we should judge people on merit and not on background. I believe the person who is prepared to work hardest should get the greatest rewards and keep them after tax. That we should back the workers and not the shirkers: that it is not only permissible but praiseworthy to want to benefit your own family by your own efforts.”
“I place a profound belief—indeed a fervent faith—in the virtues of self-reliance and personal independence. On these is founded the whole case for the free society, for the assertion that human progress is best achieved by offering the freest possible scope for the development of individual talents, qualified only by a respect for the qualities and the freedom of others…For many years there has been a subtle erosion of the essential virtues of the free society. Self-reliance has been sneered at as if it were an absurd suburban pretention. Thrift has been denigrated as if it were greed. The desire of parents to choose and to struggle for what they themselves regarded as the best possible education for their children has been scorned.”
“I do not believe, in spite of all this, that the people of this country have abandoned their faith in the qualities and characteristics which made them a great people. Not a bit of it. We are still the same people. All that has happened is that we have temporarily lost confidence in our own strength. We have lost sight of the banners. The trumpets have given an uncertain sound. It is our duty, our purpose, to raise those banners high, so that all can see them, to sound the trumpets clearly and boldly so that all can hear them. Then we shall not have to convert people to our principles. They will simply rally to those which truly are their own.”
“I shall never stop fighting. I mean this country to survive, to prosper and to be free…I haven’t fought the destructive forces of socialism for more than twenty years in order to stop now, when the critical phase of the struggle is upon us.”
“What are the lessons then that we’ve learned from the last thirty years? First, that the pursuit of equality itself is a mirage. What’s more desirable and more practicable than the pursuit of equality is the pursuit of equality of opportunity. And opportunity means nothing unless it includes the right to be unequal and the freedom to be different. One of the reasons that we value individuals is not because they’re all the same, but because they’re all different. I believe you have a saying in the Middle West: ‘Don’t cut down the tall poppies. Let them rather grow tall.’ I would say, let our children grow tall and some taller than others if they have the ability in them to do so. Because we must build a society in which each citizen can develop his full potential, both for his own benefit and for the community as a whole, a society in which originality, skill, energy and thrift are rewarded, in which we encourage rather than restrict the variety and richness of human nature.”
“Let me give you my vision. A man’s right to work as he will to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the State as servant and not as master; these are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free economy. And on that freedom all our others depend.”
“Some socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a State computer. We believe they should be individuals. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the socialists may pretend otherwise. We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important.”
“The socialists tell us that there are massive profits in a particular industry and they should not go to the shareholders—but that the public should reap the benefits. Benefits? What benefits? When you take into public ownership a profitable industry, the profits soon disappear. The goose that laid the golden eggs goes broody. State geese are not great layers. The steel industry was nationalized some years ago in the public interest—yet the only interest now left to the public is in witnessing the depressing spectacle of their money going down the drain at a rate of a million pounds a day.”
“There are others who warn not only of the threat from without, but of something more insidious, not readily perceived, not always deliberate, something that is happening here at home. What are they pointing to? They are pointing to the steady and remorseless expansion of the socialist State. Now none of us would claim that the majority of socialists are inspired by other than humanitarian and well-meaning ideals. At the same time few would, I think, deny today that they have made a monster that they can’t control. Increasingly, inexorably, the State the socialists have created is becoming more random in the economic and social justice it seeks to dispense, more suffocating in its effect on human aspirations and initiative, more politically selective in its defense of the rights of its citizens, more gargantuan in its appetite—and more disastrously incompetent in its performance. Above all, it poses a growing threat, however unintentional, to the freedom of this country, for there is no freedom where the State totally controls the economy. Personal freedom and economic freedom are indivisible. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t lose one without losing the other.”
“One of our principal and continuing priorities when we are returned to office will be to restore the freedoms which the Socialists have usurped. Let them learn that it is not a function of the State to possess as much as possible. It is not a function of the State to grab as much as it can get away with. It is not a function of the State to act as ring-master, to crack the whip, dictate the load which all of us must carry or say how high we may climb. It is not a function of the State to ensure that no-one climbs higher than anyone else. All that is the philosophy of socialism. We reject it utterly for, however well-intended, it leads in one direction only: to the erosion and finally the destruction of the democratic way of life.”
“There is no such thing as ‘safe’ socialism. If it’s safe, it’s not socialism. And if it’s socialism, it’s not safe. The signposts of socialism point downhill to less freedom, less prosperity, downhill to more muddle, more failure. If we follow them to their destination, they will lead this nation into bankruptcy.”
“The economic success of the Western world is a product of its moral philosophy and practice. The economic results are better because the moral philosophy is superior. It is superior because it starts with the individual, with his uniqueness, his responsibility, and his capacity to choose. Surely this is infinitely preferable to the socialist-statist philosophy which sets up a centralized economic system to which the individual must conform, which subjugates him, directs him and denies him the right to free choice. Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice, there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.”
“In our philosophy the purpose of the life of the individual is not to be the servant of the State and its objectives, but to make the best of his talents and qualities. The sense of being self-reliant, of playing a role within the family, of owning one’s own property, of paying one’s way, are all part of the spiritual ballast which maintains responsible citizenship, and provides the solid foundation from which people look around to see what more they might do, for others and for themselves. That is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the State is responsible for everything, and no-one is responsible for the State.”
“Once you give people the idea that all this can be done by the State, and that it is somehow second-best or even degrading to leave it to private people…then you will begin to deprive human beings of one of the essential ingredients of humanity—personal moral responsibility. You will in effect dry up in them the milk of human kindness. If you allow people to hand over to the State all their personal responsibility, the time will come—indeed it is close at hand—when what the taxpayer is willing to provide for the good of humanity will be seen to be far less than what the individual used to be willing to give from love of his neighbour. So do not be tempted to identify virtue with collectivism. I wonder whether the State services would have done as much for the man who fell among thieves as the Good Samaritan did for him?”
“Popular capitalism, which is the economic expression of liberty, is proving a much more attractive means for diffusing power in our society. Socialists cry “Power to the people,” and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State. To us Conservatives, popular capitalism means what it says: power through ownership to the man and woman in the street, given confidently with an open hand.”
“I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ or ‘I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!’ ‘I am homeless, the Government must house me!’ and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbor and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn around and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.”
“I set out to destroy socialism because I felt it was at odds with the character of the people. We were the first country in the world to roll back the frontiers of socialism, then roll forward the frontiers of freedom. We reclaimed our heritage; we are renewing it and carrying it forward.”

https://fee.org/articles/margaret-thatcher-on-socialism-20-of-her-best-quotes/


12 posted on 03/19/2024 9:35:00 AM PDT by Candor7 (Ask not for whom Trump Trolls,He trolls for thee!),<img src="" width=500</img><a href="">tag</a>)
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To: Clemenza

RE: Well she was pro-abortion.

Margaret Thatcher’s stance on abortion is a bit complex. Here’s a breakdown:

* Voted for legalization: Notably, she voted in favor of the 1967 Abortion Act, which legalized abortion in certain circumstances. This was a progressive stance at the time.

* Supported some restrictions: Later, she expressed openness to amending the law to restrict abortion access, though not a complete ban for cases such as rape or incest. She believed there should be a balance and opposed using abortion as birth control.

* Abstained from key votes: Interestingly, she abstained from voting on private member’s bills that aimed to significantly reduce the legal timeframe for abortions.


13 posted on 03/19/2024 9:36:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: CharlesOConnell

WHAT??


14 posted on 03/19/2024 9:37:30 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: SeekAndFind

This is what Orwell was writing about — reversal of history’s realities and shaping of history to align with present fantasies.


15 posted on 03/19/2024 9:42:25 AM PDT by Migraine ( )
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To: Ann Archy

Clemenza speaks truth.

Merely bi-lateral, left-right politics is very limited.

The best view is that the Oligarchs who control everything think in terms of High and Low, and Left and Right are merely their toys.

We who think we think, might take note that Libertarians are often permissive on abortion, but that early feminists before the late 1960s alliance between sexual freedom and population control, often rejected the blanket identification of abortion with feminism.

Betty Friedan’s 1963 “The Feminine Mystique” doesn’t contain the word, “abortion”.


16 posted on 03/19/2024 9:46:55 AM PDT by CharlesOConnell (CharlesOConnell)
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To: SeekAndFind

If this is all it says, I think the headline for this piece is a little over the top.

To echo what someone else here said, she was a great lady.

Sorry to learn from someone’s info here that she was pro-abortion. I suspect, though, that she could have evolved from that position in time, as there are other public figures who have come into the light on this isssue.


17 posted on 03/19/2024 10:55:43 AM PDT by Bigg Red (Trump will be sworn in under a shower of confetti made from the tattered remains of the Rat Party.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Absurd overreaction. It’s historically undeniable that she was a deeply divisive figure at the time, and that political caricaturists went for her with all guns blazing. Caricaturists like Gerald Scarfe (and more recently Steve Bell) continued a long British tradition of scabrous political cartoons dating back to Hogarth via Gillray and Cruikshank (always much more unrestrained than the relatively demure U.S. equivalents). It’s entirely appropriate to put these in the same cultural bracket as Punch and Judy. The V & A is simply presenting a historical reality.


18 posted on 03/19/2024 1:14:02 PM PDT by Winniesboy
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To: SeekAndFind

Mad Margaret? Rambo Reagan’s pet poodle?

Say it isn’t so!


19 posted on 03/19/2024 1:16:20 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et de phrases)
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To: SeekAndFind

We’ve got the same crap here in the USA.

The Left tears down historic old statues because they have never built anything and can only destroy and dictate lies shoveled out by their useful idiots.

They hate capitalism because of it’s merit which they cannot compete with. The leftist in power wants to erase every trace of our civilization and our culture.

I’m not fond of English Government. Or of our European entanglements in the past. The USA saved them from Fascist/Communist slavery, twice in a century. At 19 my father was packing an M1 pursuing Fascists through Belgium, Germany and into CZ (before we pulled back to allow Russian to take Prague).

Margaret Thatcher was a great PM. On the Scale of Winston Churchill.

Margaret was held in high respect with President Reagan. They worked closely together.

Margaret came to Texas and was right at home.

Her grand daughter is a Texan, she gave an amazing “reading” at Margaret’s funeral. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmQDOVtET08 )


20 posted on 03/20/2024 4:18:39 AM PDT by Texas Fossil (Texas is not about where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind and Attitude.)
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