The Lady Nyx

My life is a shitpost

[colourofoctober]

“Allow cookies to cool for 10-15 minutes”

[harrypotterhousequotes]

RAVENCLAW: “Ah yes, action. The eternal excuse for not stopping to think.” –Richard Carpenter (The Sheriff of Nottingham: Robin of Sherwood: The Witch of Elsdon)

[weloveshortvideos]

if this ain’t me

[nathanvj]

me me me

[just-shower-thoughts]

The giant gates in Jurassic Park shows that they always had the plan to let the dinosaurs out

[lethargybomb]

[dionysusdarling]

me

[mjalti]

me, interacting with another 20+ year old on tumblr:

[catchymemes]

[dracofidus-deactivated20200523]

Hey, dumb American question here. Every UK person I have ever met hates Margaret Thatcher. Why? What terrible thing did she do to piss off that many people for so long?

Where do I fucking start?

So, Thatcher was the bane of the working classes, and much of what she did still has repercussions to this day. So, in no particular order, just in the order I remember them, here are some things she did that pissed us off - 

•In 1989 she introduced this thing called the “Community Charge” but which everyone calls the “Poll Tax” which replaced an older system in which your tax payment was based on the rental value of your home. This new tax meant that people living in one bedroom flats would pay the same as a billionaire living in a mansion. Obviously, the rich loved it, everyone else… not so much. So there were riots (video of news about the riots) - There were lots of riots in the Thatcher years, and they were all notable for the extreme levels of police brutality.

(photo, poll tax protest in Trafalgar Square, 1990)

•Then there was her war on industry. There was a lot of inflation when she came to power, so she instituted anti-inflationary measures. All well and good… except not the way she did it. She closed many government controlled industries, most famously steel and coal. The amount spent on public industries dropped by 38% under Thatcher. The coal miners went on strike, for almost a year, but in the end, the pits were still closed, and 64,000 people lost their jobs. Unemployment rates soared in industrial areas, and inequality between these (generally northern or welsh) areas and the rest of the UK is still there. During the strike there were numerous violent clashes with the police at picket lines which were widely televised. As a memoir from one miner attests: “I saw a police officer with a fire extinguisher in his hand, bashing a lad in the back. I tried to get closer to note down the officer’s number but they were wearing black boilersuits with no numbers. The next thing I knew, a police officer struck me from behind. I was coming in and out of consciousness as I was dragged across the road into an alleyway. They blocked off the alley and beat another lad and me with sticks until I was unconscious.” (I can’t post the whole thing it’s too long, but read it in the Guardian) Images such as this swept the country, turning many people against Thatcher -

And after it was all over people felt Thatcher had lied, saying she wanted to close only 20 pits, when in the end, 75 were closed down.

• Inequality soared whilst she was prime minister. There is a thing called the gini coefficient, it is the most common method of measuring inequality. Under gini, a score of one would be a completely unequal society; zero would be completely equal. Britain’s gini score went up from 0.253 to 0.339 by the time Thatcher resigned.

•During her time as prime minister the notorious ‘Section 28′ was published. It stated: A local authority shall not (a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality; (b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship. - Section 28 wasn’t repealed until 2003.

• She introduced the Right To Buy scheme, which allowed people to buy their council houses for a very low price, which, at first glance, seems like a great idea, allowing people who normally wouldn’t be able to afford their own home to have one - however, loads of people have entered the scheme and now we have far too little social housing, meaning there has been a sharp rise in homelessness.

• The Battle of the Beanfield was a clash between hippies and police near Stonehenge in 1985. 1300 police officers converged on a convoy of 600 new age travellers who were heading to Stonehenge to set up a free festival in violation of a high court order. Again, there was an insane amount of police brutality, and 16 travellers were hospitalised, 573 people were arrested (one of the biggest mass arrests in UK history) - “Pregnant women were clubbed with truncheons, as were those holding babies. The journalist Nick Davies, then working for The Observer, saw the violence. ‘They were like flies around rotten meat,’ he wrote, ‘and there was no question of trying to make a lawful arrest. They crawled all over, truncheons flailing, hitting anybody they could reach. It was extremely violent and very sickening.’” (source) - Once everyone was arrested, the empty vehicles, which were in many cases the only homes the travellers had “were then systematically smashed to pieces and several were set on fire. Seven healthy dogs belonging to the Travellers were put down by officers from the RSPCA.” (source same as above)

Most of the charges were dismissed in court after Lord Cardigan, who had tagged along with them to see what would happen, testified on behalf of the travellers against the police. 

•Her removal of Irish dissidents right to be placed in a category that essentially made them political prisoners instead of merely criminals led to a hunger strike that ended in 10 deaths, including that of Bobby Sands, who was elected from his prison cell, reflecting the immense national, and international support for Irish nationalists. Thatchers lack of sympathy, or even empathy led to her becoming even more of a hate figure.

• She presided over a rapid deregulation of the banks, which ultimately led to much of the problems during britains 2007-2012 financial crash many years later.

• She took free milk from school children, which, though not as serious as anything else listed here, directly affected every child in the UK and was very unpopular, leading her to get the nickname “Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher”, which is still used today.

• Oh… and she supported Apartheid and called Mandela a terrorist.

This is nowhere near everything she’s done that pisses people off, but I hope it goes some way to explaining why when she died “ding dong the witch is dead” became number one in the UK charts, people partied in the streets, and people protested her (State funded) funeral. She is a decisive figure, some people in the UK do actually love her. I do not. She decimated the UK’s industrial heartland, she caused mass unemployment and the destruction of much of working class culture, she was cavalier in her financial policies and increased inequality by staggering levels, she approved serious police brutality and attempted to destroy the culture of unions in this country.  I fundamentally disagree with all she stood for and it angers me that her mistakes are still affecting this country and the people who live in it. And I am VERY angry that the current government are spending £50 million on a museum about her.

[imbackbaybee]

Regarding selling off social housing, it was specifically that the income that local authorities generated from doing so was not allowed to be reinvested in acquiring new social housing. And no extra budget was allocated to cover building new social housing. The aim was clearly to create a social housing shortage as a twisted way of “motivating” people to stop being poor.

Great post. I hate seeing US feminists praising Thatcher, and I’ve seen it a lot.

Let’s not forget how she made repeated attempts to get Britain’s most prolific sex offender Jimmy Savile a knighthood, gave him free rein to do whatever the hell he liked at Stoke Mandeville hospital (including running it into the ground, making himself indispensable there, and oh yeah, abusing scores of patients), as well has having a close friendship with him. This is all in spite of the fact that rumours about him were going around even back then, and on a related note, she actually knew of the abuse accusations against many of her ministers and let them go free despite this.

A feminist? Pah! She actually said, “The feminists hate me, don’t they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.” (and if for some reason you don’t trust that article, just google that quote). She also said that “the battle for women’s rights has largely been won. I owe nothing to women’s lib”, and whilst being PM for 11 years, she only ever appointed one woman, Baroness Young. As this article says, she basically “refused to accept that the majority of women do not have the privilege she had, in other words a rich partner, and lots of childcare provision.” In terms of feminism, she hated any woman who wasn’t financially well off, able-bodied, cishet, white, neurotypical (as you can see in this article), and basically, like her. Great feminism.

She also played a huge part in making Rupert Murdoch the hugely powerful man he is today (and consequently, making the British press so unreliable, ridiculous, and downright dangerous), and it seems she also used this connection to help giver herself more “sunshine headlines” (read: favourable).

I could go on but I feel like I’ve been at this for a while. OP has done a great job in summarising most of the main reasons she’s so hated. I’ve added a number of other important ones here too, but to be honest, just look at any reasonably credible article about her. If it seems positive, then google the topics at hand, and I guarantee there will be the flip side, often explained with a more socially conscious approach.

If you want proof of the bigoted, unrepresentative establishment’s continuing hold on Britain and our politics, just take a look at Thatcher, and take a look at those who praise her to the skies.

[bitchmael]

This is a great post, all I really want to add is that Section 28 (which was a hateful enough piece of legislation anyway) was introduced during the AIDS crisis, & homophobia was very much on the rise at the time.

It’s also worth looking up the controversy surrounding the sinking of the General Belgrano, which killed 323 people. during the Falklands War (Thatcher’s response on hearing of it was “Just rejoice at that news”)

[assassinregrets]

she supported pinochet both politically and personally and i hope she burns for 10,000 screaming years of agony

[twistsofsilver]

My favourite piece of London graffiti (since been removed, I believe) was on the line coming up from south London to London Bridge station:

“The witch is dead but the spell remains.”

It’s tragically true in the UK.

[earhartsease]

Elvis Costello said it well - she was a monster and I’d happily piss on her grave.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

OP talks about a lot of disparate things but doesn’t really tie them together. Thatcher did hundreds of awful things and this doesn’t talk about the horrific things she did in Northern Ireland enough (we are talking children being killed with rubber bullets).

However, the real reason people hate Thatcher is because she tried to break working class class consciousness in the UK, and arguably destroyed the UK’s social democratic ‘Post war consensus’.

The destruction of nationalised industries, selling off of council housing, breaking the power of the unions - all of this aimed to break the idea of a working class which were ‘looked after’ by the state.

And the thing is she succeeded-she dragged Britain drastically to the right, and everything that has come after, from the Iraq war to austerity to asylum seekers dying in the back of lorries to Boris fucking Johnson can be blamed on that.

Thatcher broke this country and we never recovered and that’s why we hate her.

[callmestannismaybe]

[thebibliosphere]

“For three million they could give everyone in Scotland a shovel and we would dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan personally.”

[teaboot]

I understand why people dislike leather and animal products. But leather is such a good resource? Like… My mom bought a sturdy leather coat in 1989. I’m in my 20’s and I now wear that coat. That’s a 30 year old coat? 30 years, two generations, one coat. Versus, like… A plastic one, that rips and gets thrown out, or releases bits into the ecosystem every time it’s washed, takes a billion years to decompose, lasts maybe a decade if you’re super duper careful, and uses oil products in it’s construction. Like, yeah leather is expensive and comes from a living animal, and I’m not saying that you should go out and buy fifty fur and leather products for the he’ll of it, but like… Maybe the compromise is worth it? One animal product, valued and respected and worn down for generations, versus like… Six plastic products that will never ever go away?

idk, I could be wrong.

[800-dick-pics]

this is why im so fucking pissed white colonial fucks and white vegans get so enraged at indigenous people for using hides/leather and animal bones as if that shit breaks or rips like cheap polyester does

[drtanner]

Remember, kids:

It’s not “vegan wool”, it’s plastic.

It’s not “vegan leather”, it’s plastic.

It’s not “vegan fur”, it’s fucking plastic. It’s all plastic.

It’s all fucking plastic, and every time you wash it, or damage it, or try to dispose of it, that plastic winds up in the water, in the earth, in the air.

Hell, the damage has already done when the fucking thing’s been made. As the OP says, it’s all oil and oil products; it creates pollution just to produce synthetic fabrics and materials, even before you try to throw them away, which, I mean, good luck with that.

A lot of vegan ideology is built up around a very superficial set of ethics that are supposedly about protecting animals, wildlife and the environment, but they fall apart when you look even a little bit below the surface. Every time you eschew an animal-based product in favour of something “synthetic” for the sake of “saving an animal’s life”, you’re creating pollution and trash that won’t go away for thousands of years, damaging the Earth and making life so much worse for countless animals and people.

Think about this stuff more than not at all, please.

[appropriately-inappropriate]

Eeeeeeverybody loves to get up my asshole because I wear fur. Yeah? Okay then.

When you live somewhere with -40C winter temperatures, you realize that pragmatism and warmth trump all other considerations.

I’m in and out of cars and buildings all day, every day. I have to dress for the weather and fur is hands down one of the warmest things you can wear — ask the fucking Inuit.

So you know what I do?

I check consignment stores. I check estate auctions. I get family heirloom furs.

I buy furs that are literally older than I am, in styles that would consign them to the dumpster, and then get them tailored to fit. My fur earmuffs? Salvaged fur from a coat that was ripped and functionally useless. My fur short coat? A fur that got raggedy and moth-eaten at the bottom and so was hemmed to hip height. My long fur coat is almost fifteen years older than I am, and I’m thirty one years old. Do that math.

So yes. I wear fur, because it fits my needs, my budget, and my ethics. The vegans wearing pleather can kick a brick. Only one of our coats is going to destroy the planet, and it isn’t my grandmother’s mink stole.

[mycroft-valentine]

Not to mention the fact that buying these natural leather products from indigenous peoples both subverts capitalism (that wants you to buy cheap shit that breaks), and also supports indigenous communities and artisans.

[appropriately-inappropriate]

I’m reading the notes and it’s really cute when people go “but use hemp! Use cotton! Try linen!”

Yeah?

Imma wear linen when the weather looks like this:

I am NOT going to wear hemp, linen or cotton when the weather looks like this:

When the weather outside is frightful, I’mma make like an Inuit and dress like this:

(Also, as you say: it is possible to responsibly source ethical furs. I prefer furriers like Victoria Kakuktinniq, who is an Indigenous Inuit fashion designer who interprets traditional fur designs for a modern sensibility. The funds from her clothing — and from other northern Indigenous communities — allows those northern communities to maintain their cultural traditions, while also introducing a much-needed revenue stream. If you have to buy fresh fur, Indigenous furriers are a good bet!)

[ms-hells-bells]

@acti-veg this is just…. *sigh*

[appropriately-inappropriate]

Which part is *passive aggressive sigh*?

Would it be the:

-reuse of fabrics and furs that are generally anywhere from 10-50 years old?

-recycling and repurposing of old or otherwise unusable materials like leather and fur to make smaller items like jackets, vests, gloves, hats and balaclavas?

-support for Indigenous traditions, handicrafts and artisans?

-recognition of the fact that there are very few plant-based products that will stand up to winters where the average temperature is anywhere from -20 to -50

I know, I know. Your ethics are itchy and it’s very simple to talk that good shit.

But let me introduce you to a Canadian phenomena: frostbite.

Frostbite occurs when your cells freeze. Your cells.

Ice crystals begin to form in cells in temperatures lower than -4C, which is what Canadians call “spring, fucking finally”.

In the teeth of winter, you get maybe ten hours of sunlight a day and your highest temperature is still double digits below 0C and the weather channel is saying “WEATHER WARNING: skin freezing in 30SECONDS”, and the government has put out a WEATHER EMERGENCY: EXTREME COLD WARNING.

When the weather is that severe, we don’t actually get the luxury of waxed cotton, woollen peacoats and a few layers of linen.

Sanctimony and sighs and good intentions don’t keep us warm.

[systlin]

Seriously, it hit -50F here last winter, linen and cotton don’t do fuckall in those temps.

Well, that’s not true. They DO, actually. They get wet from sweat and then get clammy and suck the heat out of you, leading to frostbite. Polyester is plastic, and I avoid that, because it’s bad for the environment.

You know what actually keeps you warm when it hits -50F? Wool, fur, and down. All animal products, all renewable and biodegradable, and all of which will last years with proper care.

I have two fur coats, both of which I paid $20 or less for at thrift stores, and both of which are vintage. Wool doesn’t harm the sheep it’s sheared from…they need to be sheared to stay healthy, actually…and down is harvested from animals that will be eaten, meaning none of the animal goes to waste.

[systlin]

Ah, yes. Truely, sheep live terribly. (Note; sheep wool is useless unles they have good pasture they’re raised on)

Ah, yes, the sheep are so mistreated when they’re sheared. A whole four minutes and they’re done. It’s like giving a fussy toddler a haircut.

And if they’re NOT shorn, you get flystrike, which I’m not going to post a pic of here because it is very unpleasant. Basically, flies lay eggs on the thick wool and the larvae eat the sheep’s skin off. It can be fatal.

https://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/health-welfare/livestock-diseases/parasitic-diseases/fly-strike-warning-warm-wet-weather-continues

But please, tell me, the granddaughter of farmers who lives in farm country and who has neighbors who keep sheep, how sheep work.

[kookiechimchimtrash]

[dyrus]

IS THAT A SHARK?

[les-etoilles]

[furrama]

[ghost-coven-deactivated20240127]

if you watch any video today it needs to be this one

[sleepy-bookworm]

I LOVE THIS NEWSCAST AND IM NOT EVEN FROM AUSTRALIA.

[frederick-the-great]

#like that little cage is gonna help ya

[pipistrellus]

Theyre so. Honest

[bamby0304]

Me, a person who is terrified of sharks, before seeing this clip: Stuff summer.

Me now: Fuck summer!!

[ribly]

[just-shower-thoughts]

People who take naps are the real heroes. It takes courage to wake up twice in one day.

[polyesterdress]

[weloveshortvideos]

“Thats alright, its just yer legs fell off”

[john-paul-jonesing-for-liberty]

“Es less weight” “Dun’t stop cause yer leg’s fell off” @lastgunfighterballad

[lastgunfighterballad]

God bless the Scots

[salty-inc]

Gonna tell y’all what I can hear now that I got my hearing aids

[salty-inc]

Birds! They chirp and it’s so beautiful.

[salty-inc]

Far away cow moos

[salty-inc]

My friend has this is his back yard and to say I cried is an understatement.

[salty-inc]

My best friends singing voice

[salty-inc]

Chickens: *chicken noise*

Me, sobbing:

[salty-inc]

The filter for my fish tank! Bubble bubble bubble

[salty-inc]

I sit in the bass section in band. Today I could clearly hear the flutes up at the front! They’re not great, but I can finally hear them!

[salty-inc]

The sound of walking in sand.

Soft but kinda crunchy? Very nice sound 10/10

[salty-inc]

Me playing guitar for the first time. Took the hearing aids out. Not a very good sound… yet

[salty-inc]

Tree leaves in the wind. I got a little spooked at first because it’s 1 am and I’m alone in the park but it’s a real good sound.

[salty-inc]

Bees

Let me say, it was really fucking terrifying walking past the flowering tree in my backyard and hearing zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz coming from it.

[salty-inc]

“sunlight” by Hozier

I sat in my car alone while listening to it. I knew it would be special but wow, that was a religious experience.

[salty-inc]

Their hooves make sounds in the grass but they are completely silent. Beautiful creatures. Beautiful sound

[salty-inc]

Pine needles and pine cones make crunchy sounds!!! Oh my! Very nice

[salty-inc]

Colored pencils make a real nice scratch noise when I’m drawing. I didn’t know they did that

[salty-inc]

I forgot to add this is the beginning! But that little sniffing noise that dogs make when they’re smelling the air or the ground? Wonderful!

[salty-inc]

OCEAN!!!!!!

[salty-inc]

So there was just an entire booth full of wind chimes for sale at mountain fair. It started to get a little windy and they all went off at once. It was so pretty.

[yermemeblog]

[whatacartouchebag]

Accurate as shit. Also, have this from an old vet nursing text book:

[mysterymeat6649127739816]

why is everything so hard but not actually that hard just i cant do it