Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher is a such a furious plasma of emotions pic.twitter.com/y6q5ZGsufC
— joe (@mutablejoe) August 20, 2020
Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher in The Crown is seriously freaking me out. I’ve never felt more sexually confused in my life. pic.twitter.com/vW2Y93TKxx
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) February 4, 2020
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81 comments:
Gillian Anderson and I share the same birthday only a few hours apart. I feel a kinship, so to speak...
Seasons 1 & 2 of the Crown were brilliant. Netflix good a job of toning down the leftie propaganda for the sake of the series. Season 3 was meh. I expect as we get closer to present day Season 4 will jump the Pronoun Shark™, same as the rest of Netflix original content...
'Iron Lady' indeed...
Maggie is everything the Woke AND the Trumpkins hate.
I hope they do her justice. The bien pensants hate her so, still.
She looks like she's playing Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher.
Thatcher was a girl. Anderson is a girl. You're a boy. You're not sexually confused.
I hope Thatcher's iconic response to socialists in Parliament is included, that they are happier with everyone being poorer so long as they insure the rich are poorer, too. Also, that socialists eventually run out of other people's money.
And yes, the Iron Lady looked that good in real life.
Ken B: "Maggie is everything the Woke AND the Trumpkins hate."
What in the hell are you talking about?
I was going to mock that she has been doing all of this British TV and affects an English accent.
Then I just read that she grew up in London from infancy to 11 years old, and spent most summers there after that. When she moved back to the States at 11, she had an English accent. Now she apparently calls London home.
So apparently the English accent is legit.
I can't think of a single thing a "Trumpkin" would hate about Margaret Thatcher.
Ken B providing the evidence that he has no idea at all what Trump voters actually think about anything. At all.
Uncanny likeness. I want to believe!
"No," she said. "Bow lower!" Smiling agreeably, I bent forward a bit farther. "No, no," she trilled. "Much lower!" By this time a little group of interested bystanders was gathering. I again bent forward, this time much more self-consciously. Stepping around behind me, she unmasked her batteries and smote me on the rear with the parliamentary order-paper that she had been rolling into a cylinder behind her back. I regained the vertical with some awkwardness. As she walked away, she looked back over her shoulder and gave an almost imperceptibly slight roll of the hip while mouthing the words: "Naughty boy!" ....
When Christopher Hitchens first met Thatcher. That's a lady I would vote for :)
Thatcher was great. Didya know she was a person with a uterus?
Anderson was a hottie back in the day, even if she is a very strange person and a leftie lunatic.
There was an X-files sequel on TV a few years back...she whispered every single line...you could barely hear her. I wondered it she had a medical issue.
She was born in the U.S. but lived in England for a long time growing up. Her English accent is damned near perfect.
But she is still completely insane.
I'm so old I can't figure out what those Twitterers are saying.
Ken B said...
Maggie is everything the Woke AND the Trumpkins hate.
Seems a gratuitous slur. Thatcher is what would have kept us not needing Trump as we do.
"What in the hell are you talking about?"
Remember, last week he was telling us Trump supporters hated Reagan. He's a troll.
I was living in the UK in the early 1980s. People have no idea how screwed up the country was in the 1970s. Some (state owned) car plants had more strike days than working days. Labor Party conventions featured speakers calling for "three cheers for international socialism."
Thatcher turned that around nearly single-handedly. She was tough and resolute while the unions tried to destroy her by destroying the economy. She faced down the "wets" in her own party who tried to undermine her. And she told the rest of Europe to behave themselves. They did.
The people who hate and deride her today have no clue.
BBC is always surprisingly sympathetic to the monarchy. The royal family are, after all, the very definition of privileged white people, but establishment types stick together. The BBC is stodgier than Prince Charles....My deep understanding of human nature leads me to believe that Gillian's portrayal will not be entirely sympathetic. They originally wanted to cast Melissa McCarthy, but she couldn't pull off the English accent. Otherwise, BBC felt Melissa would have been perfect for the part......Jenna Coleman as Victoria is appealing and fun to look at. What a pity that Queen Victoria didn't resemble Jenna Coleman. If Margaret Thatcher looked anything like Gillian Anderson, she would have had an entirely different career path......My choice for the most idealized casting was Greer Garson as Eleanor Roosevelt.....There's this thing in Hollywood now where they cast disabled people in the roles of disabled people and gays play gays. When will they start casting ugly women to play ugly women.
Christopher Hitchens wrote of how sexy Thatcher was. He noticed how the old men in her cabinet mooned over her, and how, when he finally met her in person, he observed that she had the most perfect natural 'English Rose' complexion he'd ever seen. When he gave a tart retort to something she said about Rhodesia, she swatted him on the bottom with a rolled-up magazine and called him a naughty boy.
Afterwards, he spoke to his close friend Martin Amis about the encounter, and asked "Is it actually possible that her appeal to conservative men is sexual?" Amis responded "Oh yes, she stinks of sex!"
Margaret Thatcher was certainly an impressive personality and an extremely accomplished politician. But the love affair with Reagan and Thatcher has had a terrible impact on conservatism. Although the grounds of neoliberalism were being laid in the late 1970's, it was Reagan and Thatcher who were primarily responsible for enshrining the so called "Washington consensus."
Maggie is everything the Woke AND the Trumpkins hate.
What?? Trump fans LOVE Maggie. I've never met one that didn't.
You Canucks don't know a lot about Americans, do you?
That Time Margaret Thatcher Spanked Christopher Hitchens
"Care to meet the new leader?" Who could refuse? Within moments, Margaret Thatcher and I were face to face.
Within moments, too, I had turned away and was showing her my buttocks. I suppose that I must give some sort of explanation for this. Almost as soon as we shook hands on immediate introduction, I felt that she knew my name and had perhaps connected it to the socialist weekly that had recently called her rather sexy. While she struggled adorably with this moment of pretty confusion, I felt obliged to seek controversy and picked a fight with her on a detail of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe policy. She took me up on it. I was (as it chances) right on the small point of fact, and she was wrong. But she maintained her wrongness with such adamantine strength that I eventually conceded the point and bowed slightly to emphasize my acknowledgement. "No," she said. "Bow lower!" Smiling agreeably, I bent forward a bit farther. "No, no," she trilled. "Much lower!" By this time a little group of interested bystanders was gathering. I again bent forward, this time much more self-consciously. Stepping around behind me, she unmasked her batteries and smote me on the rear with the parliamentary order-paper that she had been rolling into a cylinder behind her back. I regained the vertical with some awkwardness. As she walked away, she looked back over her shoulder and gave an almost imperceptibly slight roll of the hip while mouthing the words: "Naughty boy!"
Drago got that right. Many Trump supporters have endless admiration for Thatcher and, of course, Reagan. We remember the disdain aimed at both of them, and we see many of the same idiots sneering at Trump, joined by a few GOP has-beens who never saw a war they didn’t want to fight and lose.
The thing is that Thatchers, Reagans & Trumps seem to only get thrown up by history as onsies. After Thatcher, the wets. After Regan, Bush I. After Trump..?
Where were the young Tory Thatcherites, the young Republican Reganites?
All this talk of bottom-swatting...
Margaret Thatcher; the original GILF?
I see Gillian Anderson playing a conservative, and I'm certain she will do so in a manner that will not be honest to Thatcher.
of course, we can refer the grand mal freakout, salman rushdie had over her in the 1983 election, only surpassed from his reaction to the huntress,
Gillian Anderson plays a sex counselor shrink on a Netflix series and she is hot in it. Sleeps with every man she meets but rarely goes back for seconds.
Mrs T was the last PM who was a real man.
Farmer is, as usual, at war with "neocons." Thatcher and Reagan were about the Cold War. I grant that she tried to give Bush I some backbone but that concerned a time when we were still dependent on the Saudis for oil. I doubt she would have gone for all the Bush II adventures.
The mistake with Saddam was the armistice that ended the fighting.
Gordon Scott said...
I was living in the UK in the early 1980s.
--------============
I have been curious about this ever since -
- when the coal miners strike happened why did she not simply give the mines to Scargill?
- to run and make a go of it if he can? instead of shutting them down.
was there even any discussion about it? too much outside the box?
Ken B will now have to change his name. Again, probably. A self-beclowning like that can't be walked back.
It's always funny when liberal wussy boys go for strong Republican women. I knew one who hated Republicans but he was always kind of ga-ga over Ann Coulter. I think they imagine her in boots and a whip and they just want the pain.
Hollywood can't do Thatcher right because they only know the strawwoman they crafted from their own lies. Explain to me again how British teeth are bad because Thatcher canceled the daily milk ration. Pitiful Lefties!
Afterwards, he spoke to his close friend Martin Amis about the encounter, and asked "Is it actually possible that her appeal to conservative men is sexual?" Amis responded "Oh yes, she stinks of sex!"
I remember reading Hithchens' above text and thinking that sex appeal was not something that I associated with Thatcher. Could be that English men who went to boarding school have a thing for the strict schoolmarm type.
Take 2 Christopher Hitchens: <a href="https://youtu.be/-KGnkoYihBc”>I thought . . . she’s got charisma, and this charisma is not gender neutral.</a>
Maggie Thatcher was a PMILF.
I always wished this had been a true story:
[Margaret Thatcher is treating her Cabinet to a meal at a restaurant.]
Waitress: Would you like to order, sir?
Thatcher: Yes. I will have the steak.
Waitress: How would you like it?
Thatcher: Oh, raw, please.
Waitress: And what about the Vegetables?
Thatcher: Oh, they'll [The Cabinet] have the same as me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjE080TGEEk
Why does anybody feel the need to have sexual thoughts about the Prime Minister of England? Seems sexist to me.
He's threatened by strong women.
I always wished this had been a true story:
[Margaret Thatcher is treating her Cabinet to a meal at a restaurant.]
Waitress: Would you like to order, sir?
Thatcher: Yes. I will have the steak.
Waitress: How would you like it?
Thatcher: Oh, raw, please.
Waitress: And what about the Vegetables?
Thatcher: Oh, they'll [The Cabinet] have the same as me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjE080TGEEk
Wait, Farmer is upset America stood up to the Soviet Union too? I mean, he is upset we stand up to North Korea, China, and Iran... but the Soviets as well?
Next you'll hear him criticize Roosevelt for fighting the Japanese and Germans in WWII. "Just because they declared war on us and started attacking our shipping doesn't mean we should fight them! Those sailors were expendable! We should always bow to tyranny no matter where it is in the world, and never, ever, but never fight against it, even when they declare war on America!"
Isn't that essentially Farmer's position?
Screw it, I can’t fix the link from a phone, so just cut and paste to see the youtube vid of Hitchens telling the story.
@Ken B., what Qwinn wrote at 12:30. My dear boy, you really must get out and actually meet a few Trump supporters, instead of blindly permitting fools and idiots describe us to you.
@Michael K:
Farmer is, as usual, at war with "neocons."
I'm afraid you've misread me. I was talking about neoliberalism, not "neocons." She and Reagan were huge advocates of privatization, trade liberalization, and financialization. What we now refer to as "globalization." These policies cr peopleeated the conditions that gave birth to Trumpism in the US and Brexit in the UK. The establishment is dominated by the winners of globalization, and it is their singular focus to keep the project going. The deplorables are the losers of globalization, and it's the establishment's goal to crush them. There is a similar dynamic in the UK around supporters of UKIP and Nigel Farage. These resentments are largely what propelled Trump and Boris Johnson to victory.
Thatcher made some excellent reforms in the NHS. I went over when I was at Dartmouth to help implement them. They would have brought some market mechanisms to the NHS but, once Labour got back in, they were all abandoned.
She was wrong about selling Council Houses to tenants, though. Bush and the Democrats made the same mistake, thinking middle class appearance (owning a house) made someone middle class. We found how mistaken that was in 2008.
hmmm... I guess a lot of people on the Left, love Gillian Anderson, but hate Margaret Thatcher. It is confusing to me when people are confused that actors do what actors do. Actors play roles. Sometimes actors will play roles of people that they don't like, or are even bad guys. I'm not saying Gillian Anderson doesn't like Margaret Thatcher I do not know her opinions and I'm certainly not saying Margaret Thatcher is a bad guy. I'm honestly surprised that Margaret Thatcher doesn't get more accolades from Feminists. She was a strong, competent, resourceful, and largely self-made politician and leader.
---Margaret Thatcher was certainly an impressive personality and an extremely accomplished politician. But the love affair with Reagan and Thatcher has had a terrible impact on conservatism. Although the grounds of neoliberalism were being laid in the late 1970's, it was Reagan and Thatcher who were primarily responsible for enshrining the so called "Washington consensus." [J. Farmer]
This is an interesting assertion. It is 100% opinion and 100% uninformed.
I Callahan (to Ken B): "You Canucks don't know a lot about Americans, do you?"
Ken B has some strange ideas. The last time he checked in on "free trade" he was absolutely insistent that "free trade" necessarily means the US must be at a tariff disadvantage otherwise its not "free trade".
When "fair trade" was mentioned he studiously ignored the point being made about level tariff playing fields and continued to blather 2 legs good, 4 legs bad!
Kai Akker: "This is an interesting assertion. It is 100% opinion and 100% uninformed."
Farmer is just ticked that he hasn't been able to persuade anyone to follow him in his Give Up Now Because It's All Already Lost Anyway So Why Not? option.
as opposed to michael foot, soviet stooge, there is a cost to deindustrialization and outsourcing, but that wasn't exclusively the province of the right, thatcher was stalwart in support of south african regime on realpolitik grounds, but was too lenient on mugabes regime, which seems somewhat ironic,
I googled pictures of young Margaret Thatcher. Casting Gillian Anderson is actually fairly close to how Thatcher looked in the early 1950's.
GA was excellent in the BBC series, The Fall.
Looking more at those pictures of Gillian playing the part, I don't think she can pull it off. She looks vapid and confused, Thatcher was anything but.
"...a furious plasma of emotions." This is what happens when writing workshop graduates say after "Hold my beer."
What we now refer to as "globalization." These policies cr peopleeated the conditions that gave birth to Trumpism in the US and Brexit in the UK.
The trade cheating aspect of globalization followed Bush ignoring the crushing of the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. Bush sent Scowcroft to reassure the Politbureau that all was unchanged. Don't worry about the 30,000 dead. Then, of course, the Chinese bought the Clintons and we were off to the races. Reagan and Thatcher were about the Cold War, not China.
Why does anybody feel the need to have sexual thoughts about the Prime Minister of England
Aesthetic thoughts, she was a woman, color bias is intrinsic, yes. However, sexual thoughts implies a confused or incomplete lifestyle.
>>People have no idea how screwed up the country was in the 1970s. Some (state owned) car plants had more strike days than working days.
For example: In the late 70's and up through the late 80's, Jaguar dealers used to put cardboard under the new cars in the showroom. They leaked oil as delivered from the factory!
>>People have no idea how screwed up the country was in the 1970s. Some (state owned) car plants had more strike days than working days.
For example: In the late 70's and up through the late 80's, Jaguar dealers used to put cardboard under the new cars in the showroom. They leaked oil as delivered from the factory!
Kai Akker said...
This is an interesting assertion. It is 100% opinion and 100% uninformed.
Oh, Thatcher didn't support privatization, deregulation, financialization, trade liberalization, and global capitalism? She didn't support the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and IMF? She wasn't influenced by Hayek and the Chicago School? Berlinski's 2008 pro-Thatcher biograph There Is No Alternative got her record all wrong?
Farmer is just ticked that he hasn't been able to persuade anyone to follow him in his Give Up Now Because It's All Already Lost Anyway So Why Not? option.
You should get a job with a gossip magazine. Being bitchy about personalities seems to be the only kind of thinking you're capable of. Actually, if you'd like to know why I am "ticked" and why we've lost, take a good look in the mirror. People like you are so obsessed with fighting partisan battles you're completely oblivious to the fact that you're losing the war. Faced with demographic decline, a post-industrial economy, an entrenched elite that dominates the major power centers in the country and supports open borders, globalization, outsourcing, militarism, and social liberalism, you've pinned your hopes to a MAGA hat. Pathetic. But completely predictable. I spent eight years complaining about George W. Bush's support for immigration, internationalism, and free trade (the exact things his predecessor supported) and getting attacked in exactly the same terms you use now. Oh, but I'm sure another term of Trump will totally be the turning point this time.
@Michael K:
The trade cheating aspect of globalization followed Bush ignoring the crushing of the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. Bush sent Scowcroft to reassure the Politbureau that all was unchanged. Don't worry about the 30,000 dead. Then, of course, the Chinese bought the Clintons and we were off to the races. Reagan and Thatcher were about the Cold War, not China.
The Cold War didn't have an impact on relations with China?
If you insist on seeing history through a partisan lens in which everything is "the Dems" fault, you will remain with a confused position. US cooperation and integration with China were far more extensive under George W. Bush than Clinton. Bush supported permanent normalized trade relations and China's ascension to the WTO. The establishment consensus at the time was that trade liberalization would cause China to liberalize and democratize in a manner similar to South Korea in the second half of the 20th century.
But also, globalization is much more than simply an opening to China. Outsourcing American manufacturing was detrimental regardless if the factory went to Mexico, China, Bangladesh, or Vietnam.
if you'd like to know why I am "ticked" and why we've lost, take a good look in the mirror. People like you are so obsessed with fighting partisan battles you're completely oblivious to the fact that you're losing the war.
Farmer at his funniest. Do you think anything you midgets do, aside vote for Trump, would have the slightest influence
Guy who spoke well of Bernie Sanders and claimed voting for Sanders was no big deal: "Actually, if you'd like to know why I am "ticked" and why we've lost, take a good look in the mirror."
Discuss.
Farmer is very very very angry that no one is following him into the It's All Lost Camp.
Why are you even here if its all lost and not worth fighting for? (and speaking warmly of Bernie while you're at it)
Farmer: "But also, globalization is much more than simply an opening to China. Outsourcing American manufacturing was detrimental regardless if the factory went to Mexico, China, Bangladesh, or Vietnam."
Quite true.
As is the globalization having been pushed by the entire uniparty in DC. No question.
That's why we support Trump. He's the only non-uniparty/America First cat running around.
But you were running around here not that long ago claiming that the dems Stasi-like weaponization of the intel and law enforcement to execute a coup against a President-Elect and then President was, how did you put it?
Something along the lines of normal give and take between parties.
Yeah. You are a real big help in all this aren't you?
J. Farmer.... You had some of this addressed to me, although half what you quoted was Drago's post. That's OK, because Drago captured your argument far more concisely than I could have.
--People like you are so obsessed with fighting partisan battles you're completely oblivious to the fact that you're losing the war. Faced with demographic decline, a post-industrial economy, an entrenched elite that dominates the major power centers in the country and supports open borders, globalization, outsourcing, militarism, and social liberalism, you've pinned your hopes to a MAGA hat. Pathetic. But completely predictable. I spent eight years complaining about George W. Bush's support for immigration, internationalism, and free trade (the exact things his predecessor supported) and getting attacked in exactly the same terms you use now. Oh, but I'm sure another term of Trump will totally be the turning point this time. [J. Farmer]
Listen to yourself. You've got every pessimistic catch-phrase you can lasso in there. You're hung up on neoliberalism, which is one of the most amorphous terms on earth. The Euros mean it as anti-collectivists. "Bad." Americans, the few who use it, mean something else entirely. It's just another epithet to throw at those somebody doesn't like. You seem to get great satisfaction out of pronouncing doom. It's your thing. But what a drag of a thing.
@Drago/Michael K:
Farmer at his funniest. Do you think anything you midgets do, aside vote for Trump, would have the slightest influence
Guy who spoke well of Bernie Sanders and claimed voting for Sanders was no big deal: "Actually, if you'd like to know why I am "ticked" and why we've lost, take a good look in the mirror."
Discuss.
It's quite simple. Most power in our society is not contained in or controlled by the oval office. A president's ability to act is constrained in numerous ways. Part of this is by design and part of this is from the nature of bureaucracy and organizational structure. The reason the elite wield such disproportionate power is because of their ability to gain access to economic and political institutions like corporate boards, especially in important sectors like finance, energy, healthcare, big tech, and arms manufacturing, the media, elite universities, professional organizations, think tanks, policy-planning committees, lobbying groups, and federal and state bureaucracies. They also play an important role as fundraisers, and they tend to socialize and together and occupy the same wealthy zip codes.
If you've read Charles Murray's Coming Apart, the elites live in Belmont and the deplorables live in Fishtown. The elites benefit from immigration and outsourcing and internationalism, and the deplorables pay the price. And the elites are just fine with that. Their position on the deplorables is either "shut up hateful racists" or "learn to code." Also check out Robert Michels' Political Parties, where he defines the "iron law of oligarchy." =
“For example: In the late 70's and up through the late 80's, Jaguar dealers used to put cardboard under the new cars in the showroom. They leaked oil as delivered from the factory!”
One of the funniest questions I ever heard was on the Click and Clack Car Talk Show, “Why don’t the British make computers? Because they can’t figure out how to get them to leak oil.” In the day even NPR could be funny.
@Drago:
Farmer is very very very angry that no one is following him into the It's All Lost Camp.
That is where you are so laughably off-base. Pessimism is the key to happiness. I'm quite resigned to the fact that efforts to move the GOP off its self-destructive path have proven futile. Tribal affinity is deeply embedded in our psyche. My message to the people freaking out over a Bernie presidency is identical to my message to those freaking out over a Trump presidency: chill out. The problem is not something you can solve by going up to a ballot box every four years. For those who find partisan finger-pointing worthwhile, go right ahead for all I care.
Why are you even here if its all lost and not worth fighting for? (and speaking warmly of Bernie while you're at it)
For the same reason I've always been here: my own amusement. To say what I think and why I think it. And to occasionally have interesting conversations with people who have a different perspective. I find the kind of personal bickering and name calling that you so enjoy rather boring.
That's why we support Trump. He's the only non-uniparty/America First cat running around.
One person can't fix the problem, even if they weren't plagued by the ineptitude and personal pathologies that constrain Trump.
Yeah. You are a real big help in all this aren't you?
"I want people to come into our country, in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally." -Donald J. Trump.
Carry on.
If you've read Charles Murray's Coming Apart, the elites live in Belmont and the deplorables live in Fishtown.
I have and Trump has shown that, in spite of hysterical opposition from the bureaucracy and its allies, he has still gotten quite a bit done around the edges. Enough to get the economy going again after 8 years of stagnation.
I'm undecided if the Chinese virus is a weapon or an accident.
"This is an interesting assertion. It is 100% opinion and 100% uninformed." [me]
---Oh, Thatcher didn't support privatization, deregulation, financialization, trade liberalization, and global capitalism? She didn't support the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and IMF? She wasn't influenced by Hayek and the Chicago School? Berlinski's 2008 pro-Thatcher biograph There Is No Alternative got her record all wrong? [J.Farmer]
Here's why your post seems half-baked to me. Yes, of course Thatcher supported privatization and deregulation, and those things saved the U.K. economy. She certainly was influenced by Hayek, thank goodness.
What you said originally was this:
---Margaret Thatcher was certainly an impressive personality and an extremely accomplished politician. But the love affair with Reagan and Thatcher has had a terrible impact on conservatism. Although the grounds of neoliberalism were being laid in the late 1970's, it was Reagan and Thatcher who were primarily responsible for enshrining the so called "Washington consensus."
Thatcher and Reagan did not have a terrible impact on conservatism. They WERE conservatism, at least at that time. Most Republicans would vote for either of them in a heartbeat if they came back to revisit us. They were a refreshing change from the statism that ruled in Europe and in the U.S. Democratic Party -- and much of the Republican, for that matter.
The grounds of neoliberalism were not laid in the 1970s. You can pick a lot of times, but since "neoliberalism" was in part classical liberalism, it stems from far earlier days and writings than the 1970s or even the 20th century.
The "Washington Consensus" I had to go look up. Yes, it was someone's attempt to capture limited-government principles and related fiscal policies in one package. But you should recall that Reagan and Thatcher both spent more time fighting the World Bank, which was run by Robert McNamara all through the '80s. It should go without saying that McNamara was no Reaganite! Quite the opposite.
For those reasons, your original post was not well-informed, IMO.
@Kai Akker:
It's just another epithet to throw at those somebody doesn't like. You seem to get great satisfaction out of pronouncing doom. It's your thing. But what a drag of a thing.
I agree with you about the elasticity of the term "neoliberalism." That's an inherent problem with any term that attempts to describe a complex set of phenomena. "Conservatism" is another example. But that doesn't mean it's "just another epithet." It's describing a phenomenon that has been widely discussed and commented on in political science, economics, international development, etc.
It's generally accepted that the post-WWII economic consensus began breaking down in the 1960's and 1970's, most typified by Nixon's ending of the Bretton-Woods arrangement, the oil crisis, and stagflation. The paradigm shift away from the post-WWII consensus and towards market reform and liberalization is generally what "neoliberalism" refers to, which is most typified by the policies of Reagan and Thatcher. That it involved a paradigm shift is why historians use phrases like "Reagan revolution." These policies were exported to the developing world via structural adjustment programs through the World Bank and IMF.
These reforms are what paved the way for the huge increase in globalization since the 1980's. There was huge migration from the developing to the developed world, and international trade was liberalized via arrangements like the WTO, the European single market, NAFTA, etc.
This process of pushing market reforms, privatization, deregulation, and trade liberalization has been ongoing since and is broadly supported on the center-left and center-right, including every US president since Reagan. Pat Buchanan primaried George H.W. Bush in 1992 partially over opposition to this. In the early 90's, he was frequently referred to as "new world order." It was also opposed by the labor and environmental left, most typified by the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in 1999.
The establishment view was that the market liberalizations would fuel economic growth in the developing world and that such growth would result in political liberalization and openings, most typified by the advances of the so called "Asian Tigers." Enthusiasm for globalization continued in the 2000's as China and India experienced big growth in GDP and a huge influx of foreign investment. Profits from India and China were also flowing into Wall Street looking for returns. This culminated in the financial crisis and the first big backlash against globalization. On top of that, social disruptions from mass immigration were being felt, and China emerged as a powerful strategic competitor.
The disruptions from globalization were primarily concentrated among the working classes, whose wages were compressed by the arrival of a large number of low-skilled migrants and whose manufacturing jobs had been eliminated and sent overseas to take advantage of cheap labor and facilities and a more lax regulatory environment. Working-class resentments from these disruptions and the elites' perceived indifference to their plight is what fueled Brexit in the UK and the rise of Trump in the US. Undoing these developments has been the primary concern of the elites ever since.
For those reasons, your original post was not well-informed, IMO.
It was a brief summation of my point-of-view that I wrote in about 30 seconds. I stand by every single thing I said, but laying out the argument in detail would take thousands of words.
Smug typed words.
J. Farmer, you can go on saying the moon is made of green cheese all you want; no one can stop you. But it isn't.
Kai Akker:
J. Farmer, you can go on saying the moon is made of green cheese all you want; no one can stop you. But it isn't.
Unfortunately, I can't refute an incredulous stare. No worries, though. I long ago realized the futility in trying to reason with Republican partisans. They're the battered women's syndrome of American electoral politics.
Argentina, too, remembers Thatcher. Heh.
J. Farmer said...
Kai Akker:
J. Farmer, you can go on saying the moon is made of green cheese all you want; no one can stop you. But it isn't.
Unfortunately, I can't refute an incredulous stare. No worries, though. I long ago realized the futility in trying to reason with Republican partisans. They're the battered women's syndrome of American electoral politics.
8/25/20, 10:03 AM
Whyncha write a book? Get paid? You can get your ya-yas out all at once, describe whatever your coherent vision might be, be uninterrupted by the groundlings. Why waste your time and pearls here? Oh, don't ever let it be said I want to silence you, but from your perspective, the juice can hardly be worth the squeeze.
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