On his well-titled 1988 solo album “Viva Hate,” the British pop star Morrissey sang “Margaret on the guillotine / Cause people like you / Make me feel so tired / When will you die?”
Twenty-five years later, Thatcher has died, and Morrissey’s hate is still going strong. Tina Brown’s Daily Beast website provided a forum for Morrissey proclaiming Thatcher was “a terror without an atom of humanity.” He began by mocking the “Iron Lady” nickname:
Thatcher is remembered as The Iron Lady only because she possessed completely negative traits such as persistent stubbornness and a determined refusal to listen to others.
Every move she made was charged by negativity; she destroyed the British manufacturing industry, she hated the miners, she hated the arts, she hated the Irish Freedom Fighters and allowed them to die, she hated the English poor and did nothing at all to help them, she hated Greenpeace and environmental protectionists, she was the only European political leader who opposed a ban on the ivory trade, she had no wit and no warmth and even her own cabinet booted her out. She gave the order to blow up The Belgrano even though it was outside of the Malvinas Exclusion Zone—and was sailing AWAY from the islands! When the young Argentinean boys aboard The Belgrano had suffered a most appalling and unjust death, Thatcher gave the thumbs-up sign for the British press.
Iron? No. Barbaric? Yes. She hated feminists even though it was largely due to the progression of the women's movement that the British people allowed themselves to accept that a prime minister could actually be female. But because of Thatcher, there will never again be another woman in power in British politics, and rather than opening that particular door for other women, she closed it.
Thatcher will only be fondly remembered by sentimentalists who did not suffer under her leadership, but the majority of British working people have forgotten her already, and the people of Argentina will be celebrating her death. As a matter of recorded fact, Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity.
Morrissey himself isn't displaying a lot of humanity, as far as it goes. Between the old Newsweek offering Morrissey a forum and Time magazine listing five hate-filled Thatcher protest songs, the two news magazines are showing why they're dead or dying. Both have adored Obama with an embarrassing ardor.
Please recall that the same callous British editor who helped Morrissey vent couldn't believe Rush Limbaugh would wish that Obama's campaign to make America more socialist would fail. He was "like the bad fairy at Sleeping Beauty's christening."
Tina Brown's been a very bad fairy indeed.
