THATCHER? I HARDLY KNOW HER. HEY-OOOOO!

You don’t need me to tell you that Margaret Thatcher is gone.

And I do feel compelled to post something about it, if only because there are a disturbing number of young people who apparently have no idea who she is. (Either that, or they DO know but get a kick out of f***ing with grown-ups who don’t “get” Twitter. I’m hoping it’s the latter.)

I should start at the outset by saying that, as an American, I regard her more as a sociopolitical icon of the 1980s than as a prime minister. Which is to say, what I remember of her when I was in high school and the US Army comes down to five things:

1. Everyone called her The Iron Lady.

2. She and Ronald Reagan were BFFs and occasional dance partners.

3. The Falkland Islands.

4. The HAIR.

5. She invented punk rock.

Okay, I’m stretching things a little on that last one, if only because punk started before she became PM. But there’s little doubt she gave UK punk bands – and really, lots of rock bands and musicians in general – a lot of material to work with. None of it flattering.

Morrissey was certainly no fan.

Anyway, as to Thatcher’s actual political legacy, obviously my take is going to be a lot different from people who actually had to live with her political policies, as well as people who have chosen sides in the political ideology wars – which means I don’t have the emotional investment that they do in assessing her accomplishments. It's sort of like asking farmers in Greenland what they think about Obama’s stimulus package – they may have an opinion, but they’re not going to have a conniption fit over it.

It’s fair to say that whether you lived in the UK in the 80s or not, yr opinion of Thatcher will largely depend on which side of the political spectrum yr on, whether you were a beneficiary or a victim of her policies, and whether you think being tough, ruthless and strong-willed regardless of the consequences is admirable or dickish.

The results are fairly predictable: the Right Wing generally adore her at Reagan-level proportions, and the Left Wing hate her and everything she stood for. Put another way, I’m betting that everyone over at Fox News is swooning with grief and fanboy admiration on the air right now, and ripping to shreds anyone over at MSNBC who isn’t. And vice versa.

On a purely objective level, I think it’s fair to say she was tough as nails and politically ruthless, and her economic policies were clearly painful for a lot of people. It’s only now that people can maybe say it was worth the pain, and even then, not everyone is going to agree with that.

The dance parties are a bit mean. But it's worth remembering that Thatcher basically pushed through pretty radical economic change for Britain. It would be like an American president using his/her bully pulpit to, say, abolish Medicare and welfare, privatize Social Security, bust unions, and implement a flat tax. Those might be good ideas on a long-term macro level, but the impact would be severe for millions of people. And you can’t expect them to thank you for that when yr response to their concerns over the resulting unemployment spike is (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Suck it up, buttercup, this is for the greater good, so stop whining and deal with it.” You certainly don’t get to act surprised when they describe you as inhuman. (Then again, if yr nickname is “Iron Something”, odds are that's not going to bother you much anyway.)

Meanwhile, Thatcher’s death comes with a local angle for me: she is widely known here in Hong Kong for negotiating the deal with China to take over HK from the UK.

Legacy-wise, that’s also a mixed bag. On the one hand, she arguably got HK the best possible deal for reuniting with a totalitarian state, which could have turned out much worse if we had been handed back unconditionally. On the other hand, even Mags admitted in 2007 that she didn’t get the deal she wanted, which was to extend the colonial lease.

So much for the “Iron Lady” rep.

And given the current state of things politically – as well as the sight of protesters waving colonial flags to make the point that the ersatz Beijing-approved democracy we have now isn’t an improvement over the colonial days – an argument could be made that Thatcher failed HK in that regard.

For all that, Thatcher was reasonably popular in HK at the time, and as far as I know, most people here don’t really blame her for the handover and the subsequent unrest concerning Beijing’s influence on local affairs. That’s being directed at both Beijing and whatever HK chief is “elected” at the time.

Okay, I’m done now.

Tramp the dirt down,

This is dF

dEFROG ON 45 #54: TRY, TRY, TRY TO UNDERSTAND

Here’s a true story: 

When I was in 8th grade, I took a music appreciation class as an elective. Obviously, we listened to a lot of music, most of it classical. But one of the highlights was that, every Friday, students were invited to bring their own records to class, so we could listen to and discuss the current popular music of the day.

The catch (and you knew there was one), was that there were a few rules on what we could bring. I remember three of them.

1. No songs with naughty words in them (obviously).

2. Nothing Satanic.

3. No acid rock.

I was the first student in the class to contravene Rule No. 3, largely because I actually had no idea what “acid rock” was. I’d never even heard the term before. My brain being what it was, I assumed it meant “acidic” (like battery acid or sulfuric acid), and from there I imagined some kind of RAWK measurement scale, where “hard rock” was at the top – the bad-ass, hardcore rock (this being in the days before heavy metal, black metal, etc) – and acid rock was somewhere below that, but still in the top third of the scale. (At the bottom of the scale was, of course, Shaun Cassidy.)

Anyway, this is the 45 I brought in one Friday that violated the “acid rock” rule.

Naturally, I had no idea at the time that Heart counted as acid rock. And knowing what I know now about acid rock, I’m even less convinced. Maybe it’s the magic references? Or the break in the middle with the wind chimes effect and the Minimoog? Or the lyric “Let’s get high awhile” (which I didn’t know was in there because I couldn’t understand half the lyrics anyway)?

I don't know. The teacher didn’t give any rationale. He just looked at it and said, “No, John, I said no acid rock.”

The next week, I brought my Meco “Star Wars” 45. It got played. And everyone in class said I was a such a dork.

I got that a lot in 8th grade. But then I got it a lot from kindergarten to my high school graduation. Especially when it came to music.

I’m rather proud of that now.

Through being cool,

This is dF