Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher
with thanks to sakuratea
Roll over Hitchens, Russell Brand can write:
When John Lennon was told of Elvis Presley's death, he famously responded: "Elvis died when he joined the army," meaning of course, that his combat clothing and clipped hair signalled the demise of the thrusting, Dionysian revolution of which he was the immaculate emblem....
Perhaps, though, Thatcher "the monster" didn't die yesterday from a stroke, perhaps that Thatcher died as she sobbed self-pitying tears as she was driven, defeated, from Downing Street, ousted by her own party. By then, 1990, I was 15, adolescent and instinctively anti-establishment enough to regard her disdainfully. I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. I was on my own. We are all on our own. Norman Tebbit, one of Thatcher's acolytes and fellow "Munsters evacuee", said when the National Union of Mineworkers eventually succumbed to the military onslaught and starvation over which she presided: "We didn't just break the strike, we broke the spell." The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. The spell of community.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher
At the end of article who ponders, "I do not yet know what effect Margaret Thatcher has had on me as an individual or on the character of our country," but he answered that question in the paragraph cited above.
It strikes me as indicative of the Gen X ethos... and what it says that our communities are now 'virtual' certainly bears some thought. What else broke with that spell?
Roll over Hitchens, Russell Brand can write:
When John Lennon was told of Elvis Presley's death, he famously responded: "Elvis died when he joined the army," meaning of course, that his combat clothing and clipped hair signalled the demise of the thrusting, Dionysian revolution of which he was the immaculate emblem....
Perhaps, though, Thatcher "the monster" didn't die yesterday from a stroke, perhaps that Thatcher died as she sobbed self-pitying tears as she was driven, defeated, from Downing Street, ousted by her own party. By then, 1990, I was 15, adolescent and instinctively anti-establishment enough to regard her disdainfully. I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. I was on my own. We are all on our own. Norman Tebbit, one of Thatcher's acolytes and fellow "Munsters evacuee", said when the National Union of Mineworkers eventually succumbed to the military onslaught and starvation over which she presided: "We didn't just break the strike, we broke the spell." The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. The spell of community.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher
At the end of article who ponders, "I do not yet know what effect Margaret Thatcher has had on me as an individual or on the character of our country," but he answered that question in the paragraph cited above.
It strikes me as indicative of the Gen X ethos... and what it says that our communities are now 'virtual' certainly bears some thought. What else broke with that spell?