that was a good read. though i find him annoying, i've always thought that brand was quite brilliant.

I read this yesterday and found it to be the best article on her death thus far. Shocking given that he seems like such a crass jackass whenever you see him.

Irving Maimway: I read this yesterday and found it to be the best article on her death thus far. Shocking given that he seems like such a crass jackass whenever you see him.

It's just that: he's not actually that much of a jackass.  He's brilliant.  He's just chosen a different way to entertain himself (first drugs and sex, then just sex, now apparently a bit of both) that shapes his expression towards the comical instead of straightforward.  His success as a writer and comedian - and don't forget how successful his books are - has enabled him to embrace that entertainment without reserve.

Yet he's still brilliant.

Comedians, at their best, are insightful.  Sometimes it's situational ("Whats the deal with...") and other times it's just wonderful absurdism ("I know what you're thinking, 'Steve, when do YOU find time to juggle?'") but it's always about seeing something just outside the normal field of view.

mattharvest:

Comedians, at their best, are insightful.  Sometimes it's situational ("Whats the deal with...") and other times it's just wonderful absurdism ("I know what you're thinking, 'Steve, when do YOU find time to juggle?'") but it's always about seeing something just outside the normal field of view.

This is totally true. Bill Murray and Adam Sandler come to mind as comedians or comedic actors who have done their best work in dramatic parts.

I've never read any of Brand's books, but I'll put him on my list.

He does repeat the myth that Margaret Thatcher "declared war on the unions".  In the UK in the seventies and early eighties the unions were open about them using their power to bring down governments or force them to do their bidding no matter what the country at large wanted. They declared war first, and openly. Maggie was the first leader to have the balls to stand up to them.
She didn't declare war. It was self defence, and the UK benefited hugely from her time.
From being totally written off as a country in the seventies to having an economy so strong that when Blair came to power he kept to the spending plans of Major and coasted on the economic success of the Conservatives.

Flint Ironstag: He does repeat the myth that Margaret Thatcher "declared war on the unions".  In the UK in the seventies and early eighties the unions were open about them using their power to bring down governments or force them to do their bidding no matter what the country at large wanted. They declared war first, and openly. Maggie was the first leader to have the balls to stand up to them.
She didn't declare war. It was self defence, and the UK benefited hugely from her time.
From being totally written off as a country in the seventies to having an economy so strong that when Blair came to power he kept to the spending plans of Major and coasted on the economic success of the Conservatives.


What many don't seem to remeber was that the UK was well on its way toward being a 3rd world economy before Thatcher became Prime Minister (they needed an IMF bailout).  Unions were part of the problem-not the whole problem but a large part of it.  Inefficient state owned busnesses like the coal mines (there was a world-wide coal glut) were another part.

Clemkadidlefark: Flint Ironstag: He does repeat the myth that Margaret Thatcher "declared war on the unions".  In the UK in the seventies and early eighties the unions were open about them using their power to bring down governments or force them to do their bidding no matter what the country at large wanted. They declared war first, and openly. Maggie was the first leader to have the balls to stand up to them.
She didn't declare war. It was self defence, and the UK benefited hugely from her time.
From being totally written off as a country in the seventies to having an economy so strong that when Blair came to power he kept to the spending plans of Major and coasted on the economic success of the Conservatives.

This

When she took office unemployment was 17%. When she left office 5%. This pissed off the Unions.

Unions. Another way of saying thug.

You know she jiggered that number by moving a large chunk of the "unemployed" to "disabled" right?

Wendy's Chili: Clemkadidlefark: Flint Ironstag: He does repeat the myth that Margaret Thatcher "declared war on the unions".  In the UK in the seventies and early eighties the unions were open about them using their power to bring down governments or force them to do their bidding no matter what the country at large wanted. They declared war first, and openly. Maggie was the first leader to have the balls to stand up to them.
She didn't declare war. It was self defence, and the UK benefited hugely from her time.
From being totally written off as a country in the seventies to having an economy so strong that when Blair came to power he kept to the spending plans of Major and coasted on the economic success of the Conservatives.

This

When she took office unemployment was 17%. When she left office 5%. This pissed off the Unions.

Unions. Another way of saying thug.

And I'm sure you give President Obama credit for bringing down our unemployment rate, right?

...Right?

Also, somebody is going to have to explain to me how full employment is bad for union power?

Irving Maimway: Clemkadidlefark: Flint Ironstag: He does repeat the myth that Margaret Thatcher "declared war on the unions".  In the UK in the seventies and early eighties the unions were open about them using their power to bring down governments or force them to do their bidding no matter what the country at large wanted. They declared war first, and openly. Maggie was the first leader to have the balls to stand up to them.
She didn't declare war. It was self defence, and the UK benefited hugely from her time.
From being totally written off as a country in the seventies to having an economy so strong that when Blair came to power he kept to the spending plans of Major and coasted on the economic success of the Conservatives.

This

When she took office unemployment was 17%. When she left office 5%. This pissed off the Unions.

Unions. Another way of saying thug.

You know she jiggered that number by moving a large chunk of the "unemployed" to "disabled" right?

CBO: Record Number of Workers on Disability to Increase

Social Security Disability Increased by 5.4 Million Under Obama

A White House study found that more and more people have lost jobs, received unemployment benefits for as long as possible, and then received disability.

Oh Russell, still seeing things with "a kid's memory" and living life carefree as if still a child you have no clue what it is like in the "real world."Russell has no clue as he has never had to want for anything EVER in his life. Even now he is where he is because of his mother make no mistake.

 Mrs. Thatcher increased spending on Law & Order, Employment & Training services, Health services and Social Security.

What pissed people off is she demanded able bodied people take advantage of the job training and get off the dole.

Someone has to work to keep things moving wake up Mr. Brand as you are nothing but the weight of a rock on society.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was a rock star who will be remembered fondly way after you are returned to dust.

FlashHarry: that was a good read. though i find him annoying, i've always thought that brand was quite brilliant.

I don't think it was a good read at all his dissed her then just in-case there is back lash makes up for it at the end. It reads like the writing of a bipolar manic.

czetie: Wendy's Chili: Clemkadidlefark: Flint Ironstag: He does repeat the myth that Margaret Thatcher "declared war on the unions".  In the UK in the seventies and early eighties the unions were open about them using their power to bring down governments or force them to do their bidding no matter what the country at large wanted. They declared war first, and openly. Maggie was the first leader to have the balls to stand up to them.
She didn't declare war. It was self defence, and the UK benefited hugely from her time.
From being totally written off as a country in the seventies to having an economy so strong that when Blair came to power he kept to the spending plans of Major and coasted on the economic success of the Conservatives.

This

When she took office unemployment was 17%. When she left office 5%. This pissed off the Unions.

Unions. Another way of saying thug.

And I'm sure you give President Obama credit for bringing down our unemployment rate, right?

...Right?

Also, somebody is going to have to explain to me how full employment is bad for union power?

Because unions can use the threat of unemployement, and the lack of any alternative jobs, to boost their own power. If there are plenty of jobs then people can just walk away from a union they don't like and go work elsewhere. And the unions don't have any "threat" to scare their members with to support taking action.

Thatcher's dead.  Good riddance.

http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/22919

Flint Ironstag: Because unions can use the threat of unemployement, and the lack of any alternative jobs, to boost their own power. If there are plenty of jobs then people can just walk away from a union they don't like and go work elsewhere. And the unions don't have any "threat" to scare their members with to support taking action.

Huh. Apparently, for the first time in living memory, I was insufficiently cynical about human nature and in particular people in positions of power.

The way I looked at it was this: In periods of full employment, unions have much stronger negotiating power with employers through their ability to monopolize the labor supply, especially in countries with strong pro-union laws ("closed shop", for example). Employers can't use the threat of hiring non-union labor if there's little or no labor of any kind available to be hired. Conversely, in a period of high unemployment, employers can more readily go around the union monopoly because people are desperate for work and can set aside their own fear of the union's power to lock them out.

So I guess it depends on whether you think that the union is primarily motivated to help its members or control its members...

JNowe: tl;dr version:  I was too young to follow politics, but she seemed very stern.

Exactly same reason why conservatives like her

czetie: Flint Ironstag: Because unions can use the threat of unemployement, and the lack of any alternative jobs, to boost their own power. If there are plenty of jobs then people can just walk away from a union they don't like and go work elsewhere. And the unions don't have any "threat" to scare their members with to support taking action.

Huh. Apparently, for the first time in living memory, I was insufficiently cynical about human nature and in particular people in positions of power.

The way I looked at it was this: In periods of full employment, unions have much stronger negotiating power with employers through their ability to monopolize the labor supply, especially in countries with strong pro-union laws ("closed shop", for example). Employers can't use the threat of hiring non-union labor if there's little or no labor of any kind available to be hired. Conversely, in a period of high unemployment, employers can more readily go around the union monopoly because people are desperate for work and can set aside their own fear of the union's power to lock them out.

So I guess it depends on whether you think that the union is primarily motivated to help its members or control its members...

If you are an employee in a time of full employment, with employers competing to hire you, why would you need a union?
Get fired? Just walk into another job.
Want a raise? Just get a job that pays better.
Who would need a union? What could they offer their members? And what could they threaten their members with if they left?

Flint Ironstag: Who would need a union? What could they offer their members? And what could they threaten their members with if they left?

It would depend on the time and the place, and on unions being powerful enough to control the availability of jobs. Bear with me a little, it's not easy to explain without a lot of context. Britain in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s was a very strange place that's hard to picture if you didn't grow up there.

In Britain when Thatcher came to power, the big unions were strong enough to control the supply of labour (sic). For example, if you wanted to work as a miner you had to be a member of the National Union of Miners (NUM). Nearly all the mines were controlled by the government itself (what was called a "nationalized industry"), but even the very few private mines wouldn't hire non-union workers. If anybody did so, the union would go out on strike, not just at that mine but across the industry. The transport unions (who controlled road and rail freight) and the steel workers would come out "in sympathy". Within a couple of weeks, stocks of coal would be exhausted and the country would grind to a halt. This was the chokehold the unions had. Furthermore, the unions at that time were led by a generation of deeply militant leaders (for example, Arthur Scargill) who were so ideologically committed to their beliefs that they were willing to let the country go to ruin rather than concede this control (ask any British person of a certain age about the "three day week"...).

So now imagine that you're a miner. You live in a mining town, where nearly all the jobs -- and certainly all the well-paid jobs -- are down the mine. You're the son and grandson of miners who've lived in the same town for generations. Your only skill is mining. There's no "better paying" mining job because the wages are agreed between British Coal -- the only employer -- and the National Union of Miners -- the only supplier of miners. There's no other job to walk into because all the mines are run by British Coal, not only in your town but in every town. Even if it were possible, it would never occur to you to get a job in a different line of work. You have (or perceive yourself to have) no mobility. We're not talking about people with transferable, white collar skills. From your point of view as a miner, the union owned your ability to work, full employment or not. (And in return, it guaranteed that you got paid, even if the economy was in recession and demand for coal was down and in a normal market-driven economy, employers would be slowing production and laying off workers).

(If you didn't experience it, it's hard to imagine the degree of control that the unions had at the time. The closest American circumstance I can think of is the days when some US unions were controlled by the mob -- except that everything the British unions were doing was completely legal. In many ways it was analogous to the evils of the "company town" in the US -- with the bizarre twist that the exploiter was the Union that supposedly represented the workers, rather than the employer. The Union had in effect become the employer, and power had moved one step along the chain.)

As bizarre as it sounds, this was the reality of Britain from the 1960s into the early 1980s. The big unions really were able to control access to employment so tightly that they didn't have to fear full employment.

For this reason, there is a good case to be made that Thatcher deliberately embraced high unemployment because in those circumstances it weakened the unions. It reduced their membership, and made people more willing to defy the union and take a non-union job because jobs were so hard to come by. Having broken the union's power with the combination of a deep recession, changes to the law, and frankly brutal police action, she was able to return to full employment in pretty much the situation that you described, where full employment no longer handed power to the unions because their monopoly was broken.

So this really is the core of the disagreement about Thatcher's legacy. Did the power of the unions need to be broken? Yes. Did it have to be done at such cost to ordinary workers? I think not, but there's no way to ever know.

Does that help at all?

czetie: Flint Ironstag: Who would need a union? What could they offer their members? And what could they threaten their members with if they left?

It would depend on the time and the place, and on unions being powerful enough to control the availability of jobs. Bear with me a little, it's not easy to explain without a lot of context. Britain in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s was a very strange place that's hard to picture if you didn't grow up there.

In Britain when Thatcher came to power, the big unions were strong enough to control the supply of labour (sic). For example, if you wanted to work as a miner you had to be a member of the National Union of Miners (NUM). Nearly all the mines were controlled by the government itself (what was called a "nationalized industry"), but even the very few private mines wouldn't hire non-union workers. If anybody did so, the union would go out on strike, not just at that mine but across the industry. The transport unions (who controlled road and rail freight) and the steel workers would come out "in sympathy". Within a couple of weeks, stocks of coal would be exhausted and the country would grind to a halt. This was the chokehold the unions had. Furthermore, the unions at that time were led by a generation of deeply militant leaders (for example, Arthur Scargill) who were so ideologically committed to their beliefs that they were willing to let the country go to ruin rather than concede this control (ask any British person of a certain age about the "three day week"...).

So now imagine that you're a miner. You live in a mining town, where nearly all the jobs -- and certainly all the well-paid jobs -- are down the mine. You're the son and grandson of miners who've lived in the same town for generations. Your only skill is mining. There's no "better paying" mining job because the wages are agreed between British Coal -- the only employer -- and the National Union of Miners -- the only supplier of miners. There's no other job to walk ...

Sort of. But then I'm British and remember Maggie being elected...

That's why my original comment was "He does repeat the myth that Margaret Thatcher "declared war on the unions".  In the UK in the seventies and early eighties the unions were open about them using their power to bring down governments or force them to do their bidding no matter what the country at large wanted. They declared war first, and openly. Maggie was the first leader to have the balls to stand up to them.
She didn't declare war. It was self defence, and the UK benefited hugely from her time. "

And my point was that were there other, non union, mines, railways etc around and hiring, and full employment, that would be very bad news for the unions. That is why they had to fight so hard to keep the closed shop system.

And I'm not anti union in principle. I walked the picket lines during the writers strike for example. Because there you have the employer having all the power and the workers being screwed, big time. But, as you say, in the seventies UK it was the unions doing all the screwing.