Reason: John Blundell- 'Margaret Thatcher, Meryl Streep and The Iron Lady: Fact vs. Fiction'

Source:Reason Magazine- actress Meryl Streep playing United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Conservative, England)

“When I first heard of this movie,” says John Blundell, “I immediately was a little worried because of Meryl Streep’s own ideas and polices and so on that are very distinctly not Thatcherite.”

As a longtime Margaret Thatcher ally, few people are in a better position than John Blundell to assess the veracity of the Oscar-nominated bio-pic, The Iron Lady. The former head of influential free-market organizations such as The Institute of Economic Affairs, The Institute for Humane Studies, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Blundell is also the author of Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady (2007) and the new Ladies for Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History.

On the eve of the 2012 Academy Awards ceremony, Blundell sat down with Reason.tv to discuss the controversy surrounding the film (which depicts its titular character in the throes of demenita), Streep’s widely praised performance, and the continuing power of Thatcher’s social and political legacy.

“I must admit,” he says, “to being pleasantly surprised. I think overall Margaret comes out of this process with her reputation enhanced and, of course, Meryl Streep’s reputation hugely enhanced.”

From Reason Magazine 

I saw the Iron Lady, the Meryl Streep bio movie about former United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher back in May. And I was expecting a great movie about one of the most important world leaders, in at least the last thirty years. And I was disappointed, I don’t believe this movie was intended for political junkies. Or even people who love history such as myself, whether its American history or world history. This movie was intended for people who love movies and feel the need to be entertained.

I think this movie is for people who are not interested in learning about important historical events and people and don’t find that interesting enough to watch that type of thing or read about it. So they see a movie and hopefully its more dressed up for them and comes off as more and I hate this term to describe things like this, but as sexy.

One credit I would give the Iron Lady and something that I was pleasantly surprised by, was that this movie didn’t try to make Maggie Thatcher look like some type of Conservative fool who was interested in selling out the interests of the country to private business interests and didn’t care about the needy and was always looking to go to war. I think Meryl Streep did a very good job of playing Maggie Thatcher as the person she was. And not some Hollywood Leftist vision of her.

To me, what stands out about Maggie Thatcher, who had about a twenty year career in the British Government in the UK Parliament, as Leader of the Opposition and then of course as Prime Minister, is all the important things in her career that they didn’t cover. They didn’t cover much of her as Leader of the Opposition and how she rose from that to be Prime Minister or. Her interactions with the UK Prime Minister. I believe they showed one Question Time performance, or her relationship with President Reagan, or, how she dealt with the Soviet Union.

The Iron Lady covered a little bit of the Falkan Islands conflict with Argentina in 1982 and her attempts to cut the British debt and deficit. But about an hour of this movie was about her life post-Prime Ministership. Even though it’s as Prime Minister where she really made her impact, not only in Britain, but the world as well.

I thought that Meryl Streep did a very good job of playing Maggie Thatcher with the material that was given her. As far as what aspects of her life they covered. But no offense to Prime Minister Thatcher, this movie as far as appearances has a similar issue as the movie Game Change had with Sarah Palin. Except that I believe that Meryl Streep is too attractive, too cute, and beautiful to play Maggie Thatcher. Whereas in Game Change, Julianne Moore is not attractive enough to play Sarah Palin, at least as far as I’m concern. 

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Governor Ronald Reagan: Versus The Hippies (1967)

Source:Michael O'Sullivan- Governor Ronald Reagan (Republican, California) talking about the California Hippies in 1967.

"Another bit of humour from the gipper against communists" 

From Michael O'Sullivan 

“A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.” 

Source:AZ Quotes- Governor Ronald Reagan (Republican, California) talking about the California Hippies in 1967.

From AZ Quotes 

"Ronald Reagan versus the Hippies"

Source:The Daily Post- Governor Ronald Reagan (Republican, California) talking about the California Hippies in 1967.

From Jonah McSwain

There's a lot about Ronald Reagan as a Liberal that I like and respect about his career and his politics. But even though he described his politics as libertarian as late as 1975 when he was already considering another run for President in 1976, there's one aspect about his career that I don't have much respect for. And thats what he thought and how he dealt with he Hippie Movement in the 1960s and 70s.

Ron Reagan  essentially treated Hippies as Socialists or Anarchists who were looking to take down America and create some type of a Socialist State or something when in actuality the opposite was true. Ron Reagan basically had this Father Knows Best 1950s view of what America was supposed to be. And anyone who went against that he sort of saw them as Communists working for Russia. Or something crazy like that.

The Hippies of the Boomer Generation were running away from the American establishment, that Ron Reagan was a product of and that was way too conservative for Hippies culturally, otherwise they wouldn't be Hippies. How many Hippies do you know who where suits and ties everywhere they go, as well as sweaters and walk around with pipes that they barley smoke. I mean, the only pipes that Hippies are familiar with have marijuana in them.

In the 1950s and even early 1960s, America was a very conservative society culturally. Sort of Phyllis Sclafly's fundamentalist Christian-Utopia of what she believed America is supposed to be.  Culturally there was this feeling that this is how Americans are supposed to live life and if you don't follow this way of life, there's something wrong with you and you are even Un-American. You should be locked away for being Un-American, whatever that is supposed to mean. And that's the America that then Governor Reagan was defending, while putting down the New America that was already forming.

AMC: Breaking Bad Season 5- Trailer

Source:AMC- If the trailer doesn't get you into Breaking Bad, perhaps nothing will.

"The official new trailer for Season 5 of Breaking Bad from Comic Con 2012, SDCC 2012."

From AMC

AMC's Breaking Bad is about a high school chemistry teacher who is probably way too overqualified for that job. Probably should be scientist at NIH or some major lab in the country, but he's a high school chemistry teacher in New Mexico. Played by the great comedian/actor Brian Cranston who played the father on Malcolm in the Middle, as well as the dentist on Seinfeld. Who comes down with lung cancer and is told by his doctor he might have a year or two to live. His prognosis gets better as the show moves along for obvious reasons.

A highly rated show on AMC and they don't want to take the star of the show off and other things. But one of the great things about this show is its timing. A high school chemistry teacher making 40K$ a year with a son and a wife who is a homemaker and they have another baby on the way.

And this show comes on the air right at the start of the Great Recession. When no one in the middle class especially lower middle class where money is tight even in good times, is looking to spend money and are losing money, their jobs, their homes, etc. Where even people with money aren't looking to spend it or invest it, because they don't want to lose or not have it later when they need it to pay bills.

So Breaking Bad comes on at the beginning of the Great Recession, where the economy is dropping 7% per quarter, where we are losing 700K jobs per month. And this teacher making 40K$ a year who doesn't have much money to begin with, is now looking at huge medical bills with his cancer treatments with his health insurance only covering so much of that. And now he needs to find a way to save his life essentially, find a way to pay his medical bills so he can get the treatments he needs to save his life.

And Walt ( played by Bryan Cranston ) runs into one his former students Jesse one day. Who I'm guessing dropped out of high school, I don't know that for sure but who is a drug dealer. He deals meth and is looking for a new product to sell and Walt, just happens to be a chemist who knows how to make drugs like this, who also needs thousands of dollars if not more to pay his medical bills and they go into business.

Another ironic and great thing about this show is that Walt's brother in law, his wife's brother ( played by Dean Norris ) who might be as funny as Brian Cranston on this show, is a pretty successful and pretty high ranking DEA agent based in New Mexico and these two guys are like brothers or friends. And Walter White is running his drug business under his family's nose, including his wife and brother in law who also happens to be a DEA agent. This is a very funny, entertaining and even dark show on AMC that moves in all sorts of directions. Because it has a certain desperation factor to it.

WCW: 'Ric Flair & The 4 Horseman'

Source:Amazon- WCW's original 4 Horseman.

"One of the first, and coolest, factions in sports-entertainment was the Four Horsemen. This stable was a powerful group that ran roughshod over WCW and lasted for the better part of a decade with its various members, including 16-time World Champion Ric Flair. The constant among the Four Horsemen, the "Nature Boy" was joined by other members such as Arn Anderson, Ole Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Barry Windham, Sting, Lex Luger, Brian Pillman, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and more. This release covers the creation of the Horsemen, with interviews from many of the superstars that were part of it, as well as highlights and complete matches." 

From Amazon 

"Originally formed over thirty five years ago, the Four Horsemen are still considered within the

professional wrestling industry to be the measuring stick as far as stables are concerned. Coming into existence in Jim Crocket promotions in 1985, the original Horsemen lineup consisted of

Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard and Ole and Arn Anderson, AKA the Minnesota Wrecking Crew... 

Source:Cultaholic Wrestling- the original WCW 4 Horseman.

From Cultaholic Wrestling 

I guess I look at World Championship Wrestling's 4 Horseman the way I look at the Pittsburgh Steelers Steel Curtain defense or the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers, or Phil Chicago Bulls from the early 1990s.. I'm interested in the original group. 

There's the old sayings in Hollywood that the original is always better than the sequel, or there will never be another original. Well, by the late 1980s the 4 Horseman in the WCW were no longer the Horseman. Ric Flair was mostly doing his own thing and settling his own scores with Ron Garvin, Ricky Steamboat, and Terry Funk personally. Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard were in the WWE. Barry Windham and Lex Lugar were never really full-time members of this new group anyway. The 4 Horseman were almost out of business all together, at least as a group until they short of came back briefly as a group in the mid 1990s. 

When I think of the 4 Horseman, it's Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and Ollie Anderson. If Arn and Tully weren't part of the Horseman, they would be world heavyweight championship contenders themselves. They weren't the 4 best wrestlers in the WCW, but if they were all wrestling singles full-time, Ric, Arn, and Tully, would all be top 10 contenders for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. They were the best of the best in the WCW. 

The Horseman weren't just 4 friends, 5 friends if you include James Dillon their manager. This was a partnership whose job was to watch the back of each other and to make sure that all of their members were always taken care of. They were the originally bad boys of pro sports who were so good at being bad and eliminating the competition, that if you didn't have to like them as a group and individually, you at least had to respect them and be fans of them, even if you always rooted for any of them to loose, regardless of who they were wrestling. 

The guys after the fab 4 of the Horseman, were guys who were probably fans and admirers of the Horseman who wanted to be part of the elite wrestling, but other than Lex Lugar, Barry Windham, and Sting, were never good enough to be full-time members of the group. Paul Roma, Dean Millenko, and unfortunately many other WCW wrestlers who were never in the league of the Horseman, but were part-time members anyway.  

I think the Horseman went out of business in the 1990s because they were all getting older and perhaps their party lifestyles caught up with them, but also because the WCW was getting bigger and better, with more and better competition. But from about 1985-89, the 4 Horseman represented the best of the WCW.