The Wicked Witch is Dead: Why the Right is Wrong

You know, I never believed the death of any human being should be celebrated. And I’m not saying the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher should be, either.

But nor should it be mourned.

We can only hope her draconian anti-society ideology now dies with her. As her Conservatives dominate a coalition after receiving a minority of votes in 2010 from an electorate that, in fact, overwhelmingly voted for progressive politics (as they usually do) but never got it (because they rarely do), the media obituaries may or may not include her appalling track record that I’ll address in a moment. Sure, too often Adolf Hitler is used as a comparison to any politician any of us dislike, but we did celebrate the ruthless Nazi’s death, and few would have ever objected to such jubilation. So why the offence at applause to the news of Thatcher’s death?

You see, Thatcher the Milk Snatcher didn’t just remove free milk drinks from our schoolchildren. She sided with and befriended General Augusto Pinochet, the Chicago Boys’ own poster boy dictator of Chile after U.S.-backed forces successfully removed democratically-elected socialist leader Salvador Allende and, from September 11th of 1973, slaughtered three thousand people and tortured many more under Pinochet. And Thatcher loved him, and his regime. She wholeheartedly supported it. Maggie may have had dementia, but no Meryl Streep movie will make Chileans forget that.

At home though, Thatcher also launched an all-out and at times illegal attack on workers’ rights, and deregulated not only the media sector for the likes of Rupert Murdoch to come closer to monopolizing, but also the financial sector – embracing the Chicago Boys doctrine that let the bankers run amok, ultimately leading to the current economic crisis.

But perhaps worst of all, Maggie decimated communities through removing their local industries, and declared a Social Darwinist free-for-all where it was survival of the fittest, stating, “There’s no such thing as society” – dividing and compartmentalizing people. By focusing on individuals, differences began to overtake commonalities, and, as a result, increased prejudices. It was a society being divided and conquered. But hey, that’s what Right-wingers thrive on. It’s what they rely on; they’d never get elected otherwise.

Thatcher was merely representative of the Right-wingers she was supposedly leading in the Conservative Party, wielding her handbag and using her “Iron Lady” image to intimidate and at times seduce the populace that read Murdoch’s press that provided her with further propaganda. But racist, sexist, homophobic views have all predominantly been supported or perpetuated by the Right – they opposed suffrage, opposed gay rights, opposed the anti-war movement, and even opposed the fox-hunting ban. They protected the filthy rich time and again while launching assaults on the disadvantaged and chinking their champagne glasses together.

As the decades become centuries, time tells us again and again that they are to be damned by history as not only being “Conservatives” trying to “conserve” things but, beyond that, actually prevent progression. They should change their name to The Anti-Progression Party, perhaps with the slogan “We’re Behind You – And The Times.” These bastards have been wrong about almost everything ever, with the people blasting back against them to forcibly have them change, because they won’t do it without persuasion. Thatcher’s Milton Friedman economics are already now widely regarded as absolutely grotesque, and dangerous, let alone passé.

Thatcher was damaging to our society. She decimated communities and destroyed the lives of generations. She rolled back rights at home and endorsed death and torture abroad. Unfortunately Britain’s current Prime Minister embraces much of what she stood for, and is taking things even further.

The corporate mainstream media ensures we have short memories. So let her demise bring back to the collective consciousness all she did from the perspective of the people’s history – not just a Hollywood portrayal distributed by her old friend Rupert Murdoch. Instead, ask for the opinion of people in Swansea, or Newcastle, or Liverpool, or Sheffield. If Hollywood doesn’t give them a voice, my next film hopefully will.

Without alternative media not fuelled by a simple profit motive, though, much of this is likely to be washed away in the sands of time by the waves of radio, television and print that presents us with cleansed obituaries.

When democratically-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was on his death bed – despite being an albeit controversial figure who fought against US oppression and attempted coups, to alleviate pain on millions of working class Venezuelan lives – millions more right-wingers in the UK and US tweeted their celebratory remarks in all their glorious sickness; it was all over Twitter, unashamedly posted for all to see:

Now though, Thatcher’s death is already being covered by the press with sensitivity, even tenderness. Beyond Hugo Chavez, if Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden or Muammar Gaddafi had been reported on in the same way Thatcher is following death, there’d have been outrage. No, people were cheering and throwing parties when those guys were hanged on television, or dumped in the sea, or dragged through the streets.

Yet when more people in our streets choose to instead celebrate the death of a true homegrown tyrant who did nothing but harm to poorer people, the media condemns it. Reject the hypocrisy, think critically, and you find it’s all actually quite understandable, perhaps even patriotic. Yet the media will cleverly demonise demonstrators as “sick” for protesting a funeral. But looking at the actual reasons why, it becomes perfectly acceptable: they’re not picketing a funeral as perhaps Thatcher’s anti-gay followers might have following the demise of an AIDS victim – they’re angry because even now, Thatcher is empowered to steal money from poor people despite being dead…

Thatcher represented the 1980s rise of unabated capitalism and mass private ownership. The only insult to her, then, is to actually give her a state funeral. As has been argued for a while now, the entire ceremony should be privatised. If she’s the darling of the greedy corporate world, let them show their support, and fund it.

Britain’s greatest ever Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, never received a state funeral, despite helping to give us welfare and free universal health care, and save the country from total financial collapse thanks to his Keynesian economic policies.

Not only is Thatcher undeserving of a state funeral, she’s undeserving of any grief from a nation she so badly damaged, and which is still struggling to recover from her decisions to this day. Let her death be instead a time to remember what the Right are really all about, and why she shouldn’t be mourned. The wicked witch is dead. We lost another oppressive piece of wretched refuse; a cancer on our society, preying on the weak and vulnerable. The world just got a little lighter.

Not just here, but perhaps somewhere in Chile, cheers are being heard after the thousands of deaths there that Thatcher herself celebrated. Yes, karma is often like Thatcher herself.

In the words of Mark Twain, “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”