I just finished watching "The Iron Lady"

[SoutherDem]

This movie left me a bit perplexed, it left me not knowing what to think of the U.K.'s first woman Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

On the one hand it shows how a woman became the first leader of the Western World and on that I can't but admire her for the accomplishments she made.

But, on the other, it showed her to be a stanch conservative and her policies were more excessive that that of Ronald Reagan's and we know the results of that. One scene showed her defend what I took to be a flat tax where the poor would be taxed at the same rate as the wealthy. That I can't admire.

However, this was a movie and I don't trust it to have told the truth without at least some literary license. I have tried to look it up on the internet but have found multiple answers, most extreme opposites. Margaret Thatcher seems to be either the most love Prime Minister the U.K. has had or the most hated.

Does anyone on here know the truth? This is not something which I want to do deep study, I am just wondering because I am unsure how to feel about this pioneer of woman's rights.

[PDJane]

1. Go on feeling unsure.

She was a woman, and a pioneer, and all that. She was also a rock-ribbed, gold-plated bitch, the most despicably neo-con leader outside of the US, and a woman who really wanted to destroy the so-called 'nanny state,' which she did a good job of. This wasn't a woman to respect.

[Warpy]

2. Thatcher was an iron fisted right winger

and her massive attack against the unions in 1984 has left deep scars still felt today.

Wikipedia has a good and fairly even handed article about her, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Basically, because Reagan admired her (and vice versa), I do not think highly of her positions

I tried so hard to like the movie - Meryl Streep is my favorite actress - but I just found it hard to get through bordering on boring. I guess it was just hard for my wife and I to get absorbed into the story of a politician that we didn't care for (from afar, of course).

[Swede Atlanta]

4. Hello SoutherDem.....

Unfortunately this is where the hard work comes in. No one here on DU or elsewhere can give you an answer to your question. I agree Thatcher's history (and legacy) is difficult to discern. She was a strong woman who, in many ways, brought the UK out of the economic doldrums but at what cost?

I wish I was as willing to go to "a source" on an issue and let that settle things for me. Unfortunately, unlike an evangelical Christian who blindly listens to her or her pastor or a Muslim who blindly listens to his or her imman or a Faux News watcher or Rush Limbaugh listener that are willing to believe and accept what they are told, I am more inquiring.

So we all have to educate ourselves. We need to use online sources, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, personal research, etc. in order to arrive at a balanced view of any subject. It is hard work and that is why the average American just accepts what they are told. They accept "death panels" as truth. They accept "businessman knows how to create jobs", etc. It is the lack of intellectual engagement and reasoning that has created zombies out of the American electorate.

[SoutherDem]

13. I understand what you are saying,

Before the movie, I found Margaret Thatcher guilty by association just for her close relationship to Reagan.
Like I said this is not something I wanted to do a lot of study on, just because she is in the past and from a different country. But, if I did this is one of those things from history which I find to be revised so much even after much study one can be mislead because so much is written from a preconceived opinion.

An example on a different subject, Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Japan. Many years ago I became interested in was it necessary. I checked out a book from the library (this was before the internet) once I finished it I felt it was justified. Then someone told me of another book. I checked it out it was written from the opposite point of view. Both, were written by scholarly persons with tons of information with references. At the end of the day I would have done just as well if I flipped a coin. On that I decided it was not justified but not form facts but from a personal hate of nuclear weapons, which was my position before I started my study.

[bhikkhu]

15. That's one thing I get from history as well

...if you are a person inclined to come to conclusions and pass judgment on things, any half-decent author can convince you of their version of history. I was like that when younger, but I also hated to be wrong; as an avid reader of history, I found it vexing to be convinced of one perspective by one book, then a different perspective by another book, then another by a third...One imagines that it is a learning process where each step provides more information toward a completely informed finish, but rather one finishes with uncertainty, as many different perspectives can apparently be honestly held at once, depending on all the people involved.

Its hard to judge a person of a previous time based on our own experiences. We know the results of decisions, we have better data, and we have the luxury of hindsight. Most people at any point in history had to make decisions the same as we do current ones - given the best of intentions, fully-engaged intelligence, and partial information, miserable errors with long-term consequences are possible.

I tend to look at Thatcher's world-view as rather grim and misanthropic, looking at humanity as a problem with few solutions. She probably imagined herself to be otherwise.

[2ndAmForComputers]

5. You can't go wrong

by assuming the reality about a right-winger is less flattering than the depiction. No matter how unflattering such depiction is.

[TeamPooka]

6. Relax, just because you like Meryl Streep's acting

doesn't mean Thatcher wasn't a right wing idiot.

[PDJane]

7. I end up watching UK and USA news for similar reasons.

The US is one of our biggest trade partners and the UK is part of the commonwealth. This is not a woman that I've had much respect for from the beginning. She did the standard neo-con stuff; killing unions, deregulating banks and business, destroying environmental protections. In fact, she did what she could to make the UK into the USA, and did a fine job of it. Whatever economic gains there were were strictlly temporary, as the current crises make all too clear.

She took the UK on the wrong side trip, and that's led to some very tough results.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Most loved and most hated, yes

No PM in recent memory has been as divisive. Tories still love her, nearly every single one (many have pushed for her to get a state funeral, for instance - the last to get that was Winston Churchill, and he led a wartime coalition with Labour acknowledging his wartime leadership). She attacked unions, started the privatisation of many state assets, was highly critical of the European Community (though she never tried to leave it), and went to war to retake the Falklands. All these are excellent things in the modern Tory mind.

Attacking the unions is not good for the working person, though; and she split the country in a way no-one had tried for a hundred years. Unemployment sky-rocketed, and never got back down to the levels before she came in. Yes, she brought in the poll tax - for which every adult paid the same basic amount for local councils (note not a rate, but an amount - ie a millionaire paid £500, and a cleaner paid £500. Even people with no income at all, such as students, had to pay 20%, I think).

She was not a leader in women's rights - she just succeeded in a male-dominated world. She did nothing to advance the rights of women - she just said "if I can make it, so can others".

[Tennessee Gal]

9. Watched it recently, too, and came away just as perplexed as you.

I attempted to do a little research on Thatcher, but did not come away with a full sense of how she really was.

In the movie, Thatcher behaved bitterly towards the unfortunate and that I cannot abide.

I came away from the movie and the research admiring her strength, but not her political positions.

I found the movie slow moving and boring except for Meryl Streep who always turns in top notch performances.

[craigmatic]

10. She wasn't a pioneer of women's rights she was just the first female PM of the UK.

She was harsh heartless and single handedly turned the UK into a service economy. She started a pointless war in the Falklands and crushed Labour unions. That's not really something to be admired. She might've been a woman but she made life harder for the average women.

[gregoire]

11. Streep did a great job of showing why we should hate her

She hated the people that worked for a living. She hated the people that weren't born to wealth. She hated pretty much everyone that wasn't royalty. She was everything we hate. The movie did a great job of showing just how horrible of a person she was and how there is nothing to admire there.

[obamanut2012]

12. She was a High Tory despot

Who made Reagan look seem all warm and fuzzy.

She broke the glass ceiling in an amazing way, but she still was a High Tory despot.

She really spit upon her middle class roots and the people who made Britain. She slammed a jackboot on Northern Ireland like no one since Cromwell. She was a union buster. She was a High Tory despot who stabbed her closest colleagues in the back.

Her climb to power is Cinderella-like (in a kinda evil way).

I think the movie about her rise was pretty fair and balanced. For real.

[NV Whino]

14. Round up a copy of Elizabeth R and watch the extras featuring an interview with Glenda Jackson

She'll give you an earful about the Iron Lady. Jackson went into politics because she so disagreed with Thatcher's policies. It's a wonder the DVD doesn't catch on fire, she is so heated in her opinion.

[SoutherDem]

19. Thanks,

[AnotherMcIntosh]

16. She had dementia, as did Reagan. Both were controlled by RW handlers and supported by the RW press.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

17. Watch "Billy Elliott" to get a feel for the lives of miners under Thatcher.

And if you can stomach it, Greenaway's "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover."

Maybe enjoy some anti-Thatcher music, compliments of The Jam, The English Beat, The Specials, Elvis Costello, Morrissey, Billy Bragg, etc.:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=anti+thatcher+songs&gbv=2&oq=anti+Thatcher&aq=1&aqi=g4g-K6&aql=&gs_l=hp.1.1.0l4j0i30l6.2031.6453.0.10812.13.10.0.0.0.0.703.1859.2-1j0j2j0j1.4.0...0.0.iwtq3p67k5E

Should give you an idea without "deep study."

Oh, and I think she was referred to as "Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher" during her tenure as Education Secretary. Nice.

[SoutherDem]

18. Thanks,