Thatcher's Funeral

 

With her now being buried I hope we can leave behind the endlessly revolting Thatcher praise.

 People think it’s respectful or honourable to praise this woman? To talk about her “accomplishments”? I say all of you spit on the graves of her victims, there’s some disrespect for the dead for you

 Under brutal, tyrannical regimes across the planet people suffered and died – Pol Pot, Pinochet, Apartheid South Africa, Saddam Hussein, Suherto – these are Thatcher’s friends and allies, these are the people she propped up. These are the people you praise and fawn over. The graves of their victims are the ones you spit on

 Under her, industries were sold off, British manufacturing was gutted and private owners become obscenely rich as they were given away for a fraction of their real value. Vast amounts of the property of the commons entered private hands and they paid peppercorns for these freebies. But it’s those on welfare we demonise, not these rich people and their hand outs

 The right to unionise, the right to collective bargaining was gutted under her regime as she devastated communities – especially the poorest and the most vulnerable in the country. Communities today are still in ruins, poverty has become accepted and stuck for generations and with each year they continue to take the worst of the cuts and “austerity.” Rarely has the North/South divide yawned wider – or have Wales, Scotland and Ireland had greater reason to loathe Westminster then when Maggie Iron Fist was in command.

 Her blatantly racist policies and policing lead to riots in Brixton, Toxteth and Handsworth; inflamed by anti-immigration scapegoating that continues to this day, and Thatcher’s racist sus laws POC took to the streets in fury.

 Her gross homophobia was enshrined not just in policy that made the police an enemy of GBLT people to this day, but was firmly ensconced in law. Section 28, perhaps the most reviled legislation for GBLT people ever produced in the UK, prevented any school or public body from saying anything positive about GBLT people. We were banned from the public sphere unless it was to insult and denigrate us, driven instead to the knife, the noose and the medicine cabinet to end our isolation and despair. While you cry over Thatcher’s coffin, picture the gay kids hanging over it.

 Her culture of privatisation and deregulation set the stage for all the crises to come – including our current recession that has Thatcher’s bloody hand print all over it. It wasn’t just her rule that left us scarred and hurting, but her cultural shift ensured that the pain would continue to this day

And today the government continues in the same path. Privatisation of schools, gutting of the NHS, gutting of legal aid, removing any pretence of having any kind of help or safety net for the most vulnerable. Cutting taxes for the richest in society while raising regressive taxes like VAT. Slashing money to councils then complaining because essential services collapse throwing the poorest to the wolves. Introducing the bedroom tax while fighting to reduce capital gains tax from their mansions. Introducing benefit caps but never looking at the stagnating minimum wage or the skyrocketing prices of rent. Demonising the unemployed while never considering that the majority of those on benefit are EMPLOYED by we don’t expect the rich employers to pay a liveable wage. Disabled people made to crawl for every penny they need to survive while the rich are given free reign in tax havens

 So watch the funeral, the massive funeral that we’re paying £10,000,000 and more for while the poorest in society are mocked for having to live on £50 a week. Watch this expensive boondoggle for a woman who hated every penny the public purse spent on people actually deserving, organised by Cameron and Osbourne who want children to starve and the disabled to find miracle cures. Watch the Bishop of London chide that this isn’t the day for politics – while praising her political legacy that buried so many from a pulpit where he tries to influence our laws for the continue disenfranchisement of vulnerable people in society. Watch Osbourne cry his tears when days ago he was callously exploiting the brutal murders for small children in an attempt to grind his boot further into the necks of the poorest in the country. Watch Cameron speak about how great Thatcher was while he continues her work of ensuring everything Great about Britain is destroyed.

 This is Thatcher’s legacy. This is the woman we bury today. So bury her, salt the earth and install the floor for us to dance on her grave – or, if you must, hold silent. But your demands for “respect” and “silence” spits on the graves of those she killed. Your glowing praise paints over the blood spattered. And for every crocodile tear you squeeze out for this woman, an ocean of grief was already sobbed by her victims.