THATCHER AND KISSINGER UNITED AGAIN IN THE NEWS
One Died, The Other's Documents Were Dumped
By
Danny Schechter
The past fired back Monday with two barrels.
Margaret Thatcher's death at age 87 ushered in a non-stop sycophantic display of adulation across all the television networks, who we need to recall used the same playbook when her ideological kith and kin, Ronald Reagan, also suffering from dementia, departed this mortal coil
Then, there was a six-day televised praise poem between his death and what amounted to a state funeral with an unending orgy of uncritical commentary, as if the media had fallen down the amnesia hole and forgotten that the great communicator was not that good a communicator and often an embarrassment, not to mention a political fraud.
Now it's Maggie's turn, with acres of soundbites stressing "we should never forget" how tough the "Iron Lady" was. Baroness "Lady Thatcher" was spoken of reverentially as royalty by the high and mighty as a divine figure.
In life, her role was debated; in death, she was consecrated as a goddess. Such is the power of celebrity. Once you have it, you never lose it.
All of the controversy and the critiques of "detractors" were mostly forgotten or buried.
One by one, the "LEADERS'" of the west including Barack Obama and virtually every head of state gushed at how wonderful she was. Never mind that it was members of her own Party that turned her back on her. She sought to insure that there could be no alternative to her conscience-free "free market" policies that enriched the rich and further impoverished the poor.
There was a sprinkle of soundbites from Irish leaders and union activists trying to tell it like was. Chris Kitchen, a spokesman of the Mineworkers Union said:
"We've been waiting for a long time to hear the news of Baroness
Thatcher's demise and I can't say I'm sorry. I've got no sympathy for Margaret
Thatcher and I will not be shedding a tear for her. She's done untold damage to
the mining community.
I don't think Margaret Thatcher had any sympathy for the mining
communities she decimated, the people she threw on the dole and the state she
left the country in.
I honestly can't think of anything good I can say about Margaret
Thatcher"
Among the great minds that CNN interviewed was its own pundit for all seasons, that profile in courage, Richard Quest who began speaking first of those who lost their jobs because of her policies but then quickly turned to support her "reforms."
Newsweek Editor Tina Brown spoke about how great she was as a "trailblazer" for women. She then, like Quest, blasted the unions.
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