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Maggie Thatcher....
Running Bhoy
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Hail Hail
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4581368.stm
Glad to see the Tory Government is in fine fettle!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4581368.stm
Glad to see the Tory Government is in fine fettle!
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Comments
Dunno, but I think the fruit idea is a good one.
This kind of thread is known as a Barnsleyrunner trap among the cognoscenti :-)
Can't be long now.
Personally free milk at schools put me off it for life. Warm thick milk - makes me feel ill just thinking about it.
Also as the mother of a p2 in Scotland, what subsidised milk??? I'd go for the fruit over the milk anyday.
I'm with gymbunny. As a non-dairy person myself I'm ambivalent. Of course they should replace it with something like fruit...
...unlike Thatcher who was just out to harm the health of my generation at school. In fact we complain about the decline in British running standards. Well the current crop of runners were brought up post Thatcher and her attack on the working class in ordinary schools. Makes sense - she's to blame!
Thatcher was actually one of the big spenders of Heath's administration. She had not at that time come under the influence of Joseph, Sherman, et al (or she was only just coming under their influence)...
I'm no fan of Thatcher - I partied when she went down - but that's actually a bit unfair.
At that time she just didn't have leadership ambitions. Informed opinion then had it that Edward Du Cann (yes, hard to believe now) was in line to be Heath's successor. But he committed political suicide with a speach he gave (in Preston, if I remember correctly), and Thatcher kind of came up on the rails.
Also, I don't think anybody doubts that she was genuine in her beliefs. Her intellectual conversion was real. Indeed the whole post-war settlement, Keynesian thing *was* running out of steam in the 1970s, so she kind of had it right.
i don't know whether to do:
mrs T bad -> anarchism good
or
dairy farming bad -> vegan good
<duck sits in middle of thread looking confuzzled>
and I've given up ranting for New Yr too.
No fair. you are all horrible. WAAAAAAAAH!
i am aware of the existence of people who call themselves anarcho-capitalists, but i think that by aiming for economic rather than personal freedom, they've got the wrong idea.
I don't believe that markets are a measure of a successful society, because that merely makes the argument circular. which is the most successful society? the one where markets are operating 'best'. why? because it has the 'best' markets.
I also don't believe in private property rights. Property belongs to those who can make the best use of it, and above providing for basic human needs, material goods or the wherewithal to make them are not an individual possession so much as a common resource for the community.
I do find common ground with some of the views conservative-voting friends express about the importance of localised commnuities, and the idea that the state / inter-community networks should be there to support what people are doing for themselves and share resources and ideas, rather than a top-down organisation of resources and work. The NHS is one of the things which makes me most glad to be British, but I do think that there should be scope for local people to input into their local services in a very direct way, rather than imposing a common national model. Inequalities in regional provision could then be ironed out by sharing best pracice & resources as locally appropriate.
It might be worth noting that I'm operating in a particularly Quaker framework. Whilst I wouldn't regard everyone believing exactly what I do about God to be necessary to a functional anarchist community, some appreciation of the worth of each individual simply as a human being (whether or not they belonged to 'your' group), and for values other than competitive acquisition, would probably be essential for such a society to work. This would also facilitate a high degree of out-group co-operation - groups would choose to help one another (thereby promoting equality) because other groups would be recognised as needing a share of common resources.
... Strange but true...
Well there's a lot in that I could reply to, but I won't trouble you with it.
Except to say that one only has to be vaguely Hobbesian in terms of how one views human nature to think that the kind of anarchism you're talking about is a non-starter.
Ooh it was a bit of a slow burner, but its warmed up nicely now. Cannae believe it took BR over 6 hours to think of summat to say though!
The 1946 ‘Free Milk’ act ordered the issue of one third of a pint of milk to all school pupils under 18 (Even though the bulk of the working class, at who this legislation was aimed left school at 15).
I hated it as a kid, especially in the summer when it was usually tainted and ‘blobby’. However as my Jamaican granddad pointed out to me when I was 9, “Ya don’t see many youngn’s in callipers any more… drink ya milk sunshine”
(Though, I rather think that claper free kids had more to do with the eradication of polio as well as rickets free skeletons).
Ban healthy foods, bring back turkey twizzlers, ban capitalist posterboy Jamie Oliver from using kids to add to his brand image!
Bollox aside, did you hear that a politicain wanted to get a "big name" celebrity chef in to sort out hospital and OAP home food....
This was a serious suggestion by an elected representative....., who is paid lots....
Oi Teachur.....
Politicain splet lair in my book!
Yep, I'm idealistic. But given how much life in Britain has changed in the last hundred years - I would not say hopelessly so.
Imp: irrelevant, I don't think it's right! (but since you ask - after a few yrs of soya milk, i can't smell the difference between fresh & turned milk any more - it all just smells icky. And my carnivourous housemates now buy vegan ice-cream 'cos they like it better).
Canterbury Foods (the erstwhile suppliers of processed foods)go to the wall thanks to Jamie (although the the CE says otherwise- try telling the workers laid off but surely it's Ruth kelly's fault??)
And the near extinction of North Atlantic fish species due to over fishing. I believe HRH Maggie was the first to curb fishing quotas, and despite the latest administration cutting quotas by up to 40% last week (good job too), there wasn't the slightest link from the Maggie bashers....
"But given how much life in Britain has changed in the last hundred years"
But surely the history of the last one hundred years can't make you optimistic about the capacity of human beings to get along with each other?
Doesn't it just bear witness to the plausibility a Hobbes-like view that the lives of human beings, in a state of nature or otherwise, are nasty, short and brutish?
And if you want an example of the egregious nature of in-group and out-group thinking, just take a look at the asylum seekers post that appeared on here today.
some people simply seem to have more capacity to enjoy their lives, others will moan and be miserable whatever happens. If you asked each group whether they thought their lives had been nasty, short and brutish, you'd get a different answer.
Well Hobbes's point was that without a state - or Leviathan, as he would have had it - the lives of human beings are nasty, short and brutish.
I think he was optimistic.
Also, I wouldn't want to conflate nastiness and brutality straightforwardly with misery. Some people seem to enjoy the former...
But, having said that, I think you're right - people do seem to have different capacities to enjoy life. I guess the trite explanation is that this is partly genetic, partly environmental. Brutal conditions beget brutal, unhappy people (e.g., Beslan), but maybe some people are more disposed to brutality and unhappiness than others.
"Canterbury Foods (the erstwhile suppliers of processed foods)go to the wall thanks to Jamie (although the the CE says otherwise- try telling the workers laid off but surely it's Ruth kelly's fault??)"
Perhaps it's thanks to the bosses' inability to organise a healthy nutritious product at a servicable price. They operate in a free market and could not move with the times. Surely you capitalist fans would applaud this?
what about replacing "state" with "community" or "society"? How would that change the outlook?
although I suppose a state is just an expression of the way a society regulates itself. a state implies (to me anyway) something to tell people what to do and how to behave, but of course it comes originally from the people (or community/society) anyway, developing an efficient way of living together and sharing resources.
"do you mean you think he was optimistic in that even with a state life is like that?"
Yes. Though to be fair to Hobbes he had in mind a very particular kind of state (he thought that the power of the sovereign had to be absolute; that that was the only guarantee of protection against the horrors of a state of nature).
"How would that change the outlook?"
I don't think it would. Steve Pinker (the evolutionary scientist) points out that all the best ethnograhic evidence - contrary to what most people believe - show that the highest rates of violence are found in pre-state, foraging societies. Rates of homicide and death by warfare in these societies are, by orders of magnitude, higher than in the modern West.
We're all doomed, I tell you. Doomed.