Thatcher Is Dead. Long Live Thatcherism.

Bernard Shaw's play "Caesar and Cleopatra" has a preface titled "Better than Shakespeare". It was Shaw's contention that Shakespeare, a genius in portraying tragedy, failed to understand the heroism of a character like Julius Caesar and therefore his eponymous play on Caesar was flawed. Upon Margaret Thatcher's death many editorials and the redoubtable Paul Krugman have weighed in on her legacy. Almost all liberal magazines and op-ed writers, except the lunatic far left fringe, couched their appreciation of Thatcher in carefully worded statements that were a shame to linguistic clarity. Reagan and Thatcher will remain beloved in the minds of many of their citizens and in the minds of many across the globe. Yet they will remain the least understand by the academia and the ivory tower of preening intellectuals who wallow in the wooly term 'progressives'. They, like Shakespeare, cannot understand or explain the strength of a Reagan or a Thatcher or a J.P. Morgan or a Leland Stanford.

In an interesting parallel Thatcher and Reagan ascended to power in the gap of a year. Both were instrumental in reversing four decades of run away 'progressive' liberalism that yielded economic misery and devastated both countries. Richard Nixon, Republican, gleefully implemented wage controls, sought and recieved the support of the large unions, campaigned for universal healthcare (when Unions did not want it). Nixon is to the left of Obama. Both US and UK were wracked by runaway inflation or the more dangerous stagflation. The arrival of Thatcher and Reagan did not happen in a vacuum. 

A deep bench of conservative intellectuals, especially in the US, mounted the offensive on liberalism. Ayn Rand battled FDR along with H.L. Mencken and others, then followed Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and finally Milton Friedman. Buckley and Friedman provided the intellectual ballast for conservative revival. Friedman's lectures on public TV, assailing statist Keynesian economics while raising the edifice of free market, provided the intellectual platform for Ronald Reagan. Thatcher schooled herself in Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek. Hayek's 'Road to Serfdom' was a modern classic in economics and a rage in the 50's. Hayek detailed how nations yield to statist fantasies and find themselves in a thralldom.

The day after the first post-war election Churchill, in his own words, 'woke up with a feeling of a sharp stab'. Churchill, who had rescued England and the world from the twin monstrosities of Nazism and fascism was roundly defeated by an England that was tired of being an empire. Churchill, justifiably, was seen as incapable of peacetime rebuilding. Clement Attlee, a liberal, took the helms, liberated India and set England on a course of liberalism for the next 40 years. Along the way the Anglo-French-Israeli misadventure in the Suez canal put paid to any pretension of colonial glory for England. England became a second fiddle to its bigger sibling across the Atlantic.

Until Thatcher became PM there was little difference in economic philosophy between Tory and Labor. The unions had a stranglehold on the economy and practically held the country to ransom as Edward Heath learned at the hands of the miners. 

What was life in UK before Thatcher? A liberal writer writing in the staunchly liberal 'The Guardian' gives a glimpse: "But if today's Guardian readers time-travelled to the late 70s they might be irritated to discover that tomorrow's TV listings were a state secret not shared with daily newspapers. A special licence was granted exclusively to the Radio Times. (No wonder it sold 7m copies a week). It was illegal to put an extension lead on your phone. You would need to wait six weeks for an engineer. There was only one state-approved answering machine available. Your local electricity "board" could be a very unfriendly place. Thatcher swept away those state monopolies in the new coinage of "privatisation" and transformed daily life in a way we now take for granted."

In another curious parallel both Reagan and Thatcher faced down crippling strikes and broke down the unions. Thatcher had her miners strike in her second term and Reagan had the PATCO strike in his first term. Both strikes were led by greedy unions willing to prove they were militant unions. Reagan fired the entire PATCO union. The miners lost broad public sympathy with their arsonous streak. Organized labor never recovered from those death blows. Both countries, thanks to that, have since prospered.

Between Thatcher and Reagan it was Thatcher who found the words to taunt socialists: "you want to make the poor poorer as long as the rich are less rich". Asked if she would do a u-turn on her policies a stout Thatcher retorted "u turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning". "There is no such thing as public money" said she. Yes, its not a revelation or a discovery. But such truths had been forgotten for decades under the assault of liberal Keynesian policies. Truths needed to be re-told and thats what Thatcher did and for that the world owes her gratitude.

It is not for nothing that 'The Economist' called her a 'Freedom Fighter'. Hugo Chavez was mourned by millions across the globe with little regard to how he mismanaged his country and plundered his country's economy, particularly its oil wealth and fashioned himself a ruler for life. Thatcher, as 'Economist' mourned, was the true 'freedom fighter'. She made England anew and left it a better place than when she ascended. Her biography, from a grocer's daughter to the most powerful and longest reigning PM in modern history in UK, is a story of inspiration and awe.

Paul Krugman in his oped 'Did Thatcher turn around Britain' had two graphs. One, showed that UK's GDP relative to France was in decline, year over year, from 1945-79 and then with Thatcher becoming PM, as if on cue, the graph starts rising. It continues till today. Another graph showed the wild gyration of the employment market which starts to decline, decisively, only from 1993 until the financial crisis of 2008. In fact Thatcher's economy saw an upswing of unemployment. Krugman archly asked 'if it took 20 years for her policies to reap benefit, were they creditable'. I wish he said the same of Obama. Thatcher was reversing the economic decline of nearly 40 years and re-shaping entire segments of the economy. It is bound to disruptive.

Thatcher's reluctance to be drawn into the Euro fantasy cost her the PM chair. Yet as the Euro zone  faces its worst existential crises Thatcher stands vindicated. The Brits owe her a measure of thanks.

Not even Reagan saw the turning of history with Gorbachev as Thatcher did. While Thatcher was not an imperialist in the mould of Churchill her conduct of the Falkland war and joining hands with Reagan to battle Soviet menace brought back England's lost glory. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait Thatcher famously told George H.W. Bush "George, now is not the time to go wobbly".

No obituary of Thatcher was complete without the word 'divisive'. Reagan, on the other hand, was not seen 'divisive' on a similar scale. During the heated 2008 primaries Obama would chide the Clinton era for being 'divisive'. Clinton retorted 'yes. Thats because we fought the fights that had to be fought'. UK was in a deeper mire of liberal nonsense and the entire country was being threatened by unions. Thatcher yanked back the country to life. It is difficult to say if she could have done so with lesser divisiveness. Countering decades of entrenched thinking her laser like opposition to those ideas with very firm articulation of free market could not come across as soothing.

Thatcher and Reagan were the products of an era without whom who knows what course history might have taken in two important countries. Before them nobody thought liberalism could be challenged. After them it was difficult to doubt the blessing of free markets. Both Clinton and Blair were intellectual heirs to Reagan and Thatcher. Clinton, the new-democrat, declared 'the era of big government is over'. Blair re-invented the Labor party and veered away from kowtowing to militant trade unionism. Conservatism was here to stay. When ideological opponents speak your language you have won.

"She and comparisons are odious". Thatcher is dead. Long Live Thatcherism.

Ryan and Rand Vs Obama and Wright

Ever since Mitt Romney chose Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan to be his running mate op-ed writers, bloggers and talking heads are all abuzz with talk of Ayn Rand. Paul Ryan had said in the past that Ayn Rand was his greatest inspiration to come to public life. Ryan gives Rand's tome 'Atlas Shrugged' as Christmas gifts to staffers and others.

Paul Krugman the unofficial town hall crier of the democratic party declared in his column "Galt, Gold and God", "what does it say about the party when its intellectual leader evidently gets his ideas largely from deeply unrealistic fantasy novel?". Another blogger seized on the fact that Ayn Rand, according to Jennifer Burns's biography 'The Goddess of the market: Ayn Rand and the American right", expressed admiration for a grisly serial killer and wrote a column titled, yes, titled "Paul Ryan's guru Ayn Rand worshipped a serial killer who kidnapped and dismembered little girls". Jennifer Burns herself took  to op-eds to ask if Ayn Rand, who disapproved Ronald Reagan, would approve Paul Ryan. Burns wrote two op-eds.

Paul Ryan told an interviewer that for all his love for Ayn Rand her militant atheism is not something he agrees. Ryan's another mentor is Friedrich Hayek. Hayek, Nobel laureate in economics, is revered for his polemical book that argued about the evils of socialist/communist model of economics in 'The Road to Serfdom'. Hayek nevertheless had voiced support for a government run health care program. An idea that Ryan and Romney now oppose. Another columnist pulled up Ryan for 'cherry picking' ideas from Rand and Hayek.

Liberals and the Press would have drooled 'intellectual' if Obama talked about philosophers and economists so passionately. They drool so even when he does not talk serious ideas and offers his 'Robinhood' as a choice against what he calls 'Romneyhood'.

Ayn Rand did indeed express some admiration for a serial killer from the perspective of a man who defies society's mores. As repugnant as it may seem let us not forget that Truman Capote's 'In cold blood' is considered a classic despite the fact that Capote did indeed almost admire two very gruesome murderers. Jennifer Burns does trace how Rand obsessed with Nietzchean idea of 'super human' did fashion her heroes mostly as anti-heroes first and only then progressed to stylizing her heroes as defying society in a positive way.

No human being ever picks up a book and accepts all that is said, even for the Bible. If Ryan as a Catholic said he believed the Book of Genesis these same liberals would chortle. We all read and love many books. We imbibe cherry picked ideas to create the most complex phenomenon in the world, our own composite identities. Ayn Rand hated Friedrich Hayek exactly for Hayek's concession that government could still have some legitimate role. If Krugman thinks 'Atlas Shrugged' is just fantasy he needs to take some classes in literary appreciation. Maybe his employer, Princeton University, will give him a discount to attend its humanities courses.

Jennifer Burns's biography details the strife between Ayn Rand and the intellectual vanguard of the right, particularly its rising intellectual lodestar William F. Buckley Jr. The conservatives ridiculed Rand for her atheism and for idolizing strident unbridled individualism. Liberals scorn conservatives use of religion as a yoke for their ideas. It is a topic for another blog. We all read great works of literature without agreeing with all of the ideas or the personal ideologies of the author. Tolstoy was a philanderer. Does it mean that we condone or look to emulate that part of Tolstoy when we lose our hearts in his immortal works?

Compare all this brouhaha to how quickly the media and opinion makers were eager to pass over discussion of Obama being influenced by Jeremiah Wright.

After a month of unbroken string of crushing victories as the 2008 primaries ground towards three big states PA, OH and TX. ABC broke news about Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright's incendiary sermons. The week after 9/11, Wright, in elaborate embroidered dress, thundered "America's chickens have come home to roost". In another sermon he intoned at high pitch "no, no, no. Not God bless America but God damn America and that's in the Bible".

America was stunned. Obama campaign went into a tail spin. Hillary archly said "if he had been my pastor I'd have changed my church". The news was not broken by Fox News and hence even Obama loving liberal media had to sit back and take notice. Questions of 'does Obama share these views' dominated the airwaves. Obama the orator rode to the rescue of his own candidacy. Obama's belief that he could mesmerize audiences and make them suspend logic proved, by hind sight, a great prophetic gamble that paid off handsomely.

Obama confessed that Rev. Wright used to speak critically of USA in his sermons while Obama sat in the pews for two decades. Rev. Wright presided presided Obama's marriage and baptized his children. Obama nevertheless added that these remarks, now looped on national TV, were 'incendiary'. The remarks, Obama said in his landmark address, had "the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but view that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike". He then went on to say that this was not all there was to Rev. Wright and why he can no more abandon his pastor than he could abandon his white grandmother who raised him but was prone to racial stereotyping. Obama gave a carte-blanche good conduct certificate to Rev.Wright, "not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms".

More of Rev. Wright's sermons tumbled out. Rev. Wright himself chose to address the country at a 'National Press Club' event. The press conference was sheer circus. Obama advisers showed him a taped video and told him to make the final decision of what to do. In a brief terse address Obama repudiated the pastor and severed all connections with Rev. Wright's church. In the general election when GOP surrogates raised the Wright issue John McCain, a gentleman, forbade any discussion of that saying that such a topic is beyond politics. Big mistake.

Obama's assertion that he has never heard such 'incendiary' remarks from Rev.Wright is a facetious claim that was eagerly lapped up by his enablers in the media and propagated for consumption to his adoring masses. The night before his announcement in Springfield, IL, for his candidacy Obama campaign was worried. Rolling Stones magazine had run a profile on Rev.Wright the pastor supposed to offer invocation at the historic ceremony. Obama personally called Rev. Wright and said 'you have a way of saying things' and suggested that Rev.Wright offer a prayer away from the public eye in the basement before the chosen 'One' ascends the stage.

Rev. Wright was known for such remarks and known to make anti-semitic remarks in sermons. Long after the election when asked if he had spoken to Obama Rev.Wright said "them Jews will not allow me to talk to him". Obama's then chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel was a Jew. Afro-American community and their leaders have a fraught relationship with Jews and Israel. Malcolm X, according to his Pulitzer awarded biographer Manning Marable, would recount the words of Saudi emperor referring to New York as 'Jew York'.

Sarah Palin's 'palling around with terrorists' helped the Obama campaign to ridicule any legitimate criticism. Lost in the mind numbing adulation of Obama was any discussion of intellectual influences on the candidate.

Obama's recent biographer David Maraniss says he referred to his first employer as 'working for the enemy'. That was Obama's vision of corporate America decades before he called Wall Street CEO's 'fat cats'. This view was strengthened and deepened in the crucible of Rev.Wright's church. From W.E.B. Du Bois to MLK Jr to Rev Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson, criticism of capitalism is an article on faith amongst Afro-American leaders especially in church sermons.

 Everyone talked about MLK Jr's comment that 'Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America' referring to how whites and blacks have separate churches. No journalist or magazine thought it fit to write articles about black churches and their ideologies. Jodi Kantor, NYT journalist, wants to visit Mitt Romney's Mormon church and talk to fellow Mormon church goers. Recently Mitt Romney invited journalists to his church and a CNN columnist wrote asking for more such invitations.

Obama spoke in his address about being referred to as 'not black enough'. That's true. But what he failed to mention was that that whisper campaign was what the black political leadership used to destroy his run for becoming congressman in Chicago. Pulitzer winning author David Remnick recounts Obama's testy relationship with black leaders in Chicago in 'The Bridge: The life and rise of Barack Obama'. Obama needed a foothold in Chicago politics amongst Afro-Americans and the door for that was Jeremiah Wright's influential church.

Oprah Winfrey was another congregant at Wright's church. When her show started being noticed Winfrey, knowing Wright's incendiary attitude, withdrew herself from the church. It is little wonder that Obama followed her example.

Recently Rev.Wright claimed that he was offered a bribe during 2008 election to disappear and not cause a problem for Obama. Of course the press acted like they never heard the interview.