Margaret Thatcher: Reality vs. Mythology

Lawrence O'Donnell did a fantastic analysis of Thatcher's actual policies and how far to the left of present day Democrats these policies are. She defended the National Health Service (socialism, by the way) and increased its funding, she increased funding for the British version of Social Security, she extended unemployment benefits during a recession, she lowered tax rates for top incomes down to 60% (?!?!) then only in her last year in power did she drop them to %40 (close to Obama's proposed %39.6 but still higher). The British average tax rate the year she left office was double what Obama proposes raising taxes to now. For the Christian right, her clear and unequivocal support for evolution would make her unelectable. To demolish the mythology further: she expressed a firm belief that global warming was not only real but caused mostly by human activity and that industrialized, better-off countries had an obligation to help less developed ones through the coming crisis - all of this would set the any right-wing nut's hair on fire.

Make no mistake, she had horrible other policies. But the mythology surrounding her among the right-wing radicals in the Republican party ignores boat loads of easily verifiable history. As O'Donnell points out:

Ignorance is the first requirement for Republicans' adoration of Margaret Thatcher.

His entire segment is well worth viewing:

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