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# Let’s both be one-eyed
- URL: https://goodoil.news/lets-both-be-one-eyed/
- Published: 2019-05-07T02:30:34.000Z
- Updated: 2019-05-06T08:30:03.000Z
- Author: WH
- Tags: #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-17 04:14

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/31/f4/31f4e20a-0315-499e-83ff-139e8eab53bf/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/one-eyed-girl-fabrice-martin.jpg)

One Eyed Girl. A painting by Fabrice MARTIN

The latest opinion piece, in the Bay of Plenty Times, from ex-Labour MP Bryan Gould, is a very one-eyed view of Margaret Thatcher. Let’s use his words with a simple Ardern/Thatcher substitute. (Strikethrough and italics added.)

Quote.

> It was 40 years ago last Friday, May 3, *2017* that Margaret Thatcher *Jacinda Ardern* won the British was given the general election of 1979 *2017* and became the UK’s NZ’s first *pregnant* woman Prime Minister.  
>  
> For her devoted followers, it was an opportunity to celebrate, marking the dawning of a new era.  
>  
> For most of the rest of us, however, it was the date that ushered in what is today called “neo-liberalism” *socialism* – the belief that government should *not* have only a limited role, that individuals should *not* be encouraged to pursue their own interests. \[…\]  
>  
> Whatever the merits or otherwise of these tenets, we should be careful not to elevate “Maggie” Thatcher *“Cindy” Ardern* to the status of world-changing pioneer and innovator.

> The truth is that her role in bringing about the neo-liberal *socialist* revolution was that of time-server and hand-maiden rather than heroine and prime mover. The doctrines she made her own were on the whole the product of other people’s thinking *such as International Socialist Youth, Greenpeace and school children.* \[…\]  
>  
> Where Thatcher *Ardern* came into her own is that her very limitations as a thinker made it easy for her to drive through the programme that others had devised for her.  
>  
> She was not assailed by the doubts that might have given pause to a more thoughtful person.  
>  
> Her strength was the simple force of her *media* personality that allowed her to dominate a male Cabinet\[…\]  
>  
> Whether the ideas were hers or not, her supporters will maintain that their implementation made a huge difference – and a difference for the better.  
>  
> Even today, they will argue that her tenure as Prime Minister heralded a national revival and reversed what was becoming a national decline.  
>  
> Sadly, these romantic notions have no foundation. \[…\]  
>  
> On the wider world canvas, her contribution was equally negative. Her collaboration with Ronald Reagan *Emmanuel Macron* (hardly an intellectual giant) helped to convince onlookers that neo-liberalism *social media contro*l was the way of the future and that it could not, and should not, be resisted.  
>  
> Their joint decision to remove exchange controls *censor social media* was a major step – indeed, the major step – towards a global economy *control*. \[…\]  
>  
> Even as a standard-bearer for feminism, she was a disappointment, She espoused what RH Tawney called “the tadpole” philosophy; when she finally made it to the lily pad as a frog, after all the other tadpoles had fallen victim to predation, she croaked “There’s nothing wrong with this system – I made it!” *donned a hijab, the ultimate symbol of female subjugation.*  
>  
> Yes, we should mark and understand the significance of the 40-year anniversary *Ardern’s control* – but whether it was *is* something to be celebrated is much more open to question.

End quote.
  
  
A newspaper

  
Bias is easy – balance is much harder. Perhaps that is why the media have given up on balance?