April 8, 2013: Margaret Thatcher has departed. Wonderful to her supporters and despised by others, she now rests upon her contributions.
Is there a lesson learned? Maybe. Looking at British leaders for the last while, we've seen a few monumental figures with vision and resolve. Thatcher is among them. So also was Churchill and Gladstone. They are rare. Indeed they are the exception. Between Churchill and Thatcher there was no one, and after Margaret there has been almost no one. Maybe Blair, though he was caught up in the past and present. Articulate though he was and is, he did not command the world stage as did others. England's leaders have been populated and punctuated by true visionaries, and then replaced by unmemorable leaders and losers. This has been the nature of British affairs. In the US, we have seen Reagan, Roosevelt, and Lincoln - and in between, what? Affairs in the US are about the same.
Yet, the same obtains for other world leading countries. In the USA, in Germany, in Russia, and in China we have seen a mix of the same. Great leaders followed by no-bodies and often multiples of them - just maintaining the structures in place, just placating extant powers, just strutting in self-importance, just drifting along with little vision aside from the maintenance of power, just appeasing threats. The world is destabilized by the "in betweens." They give power brokers a license to proceed with nefarious goals. They give credence to wild-eyed goals, and when they emerge it takes another great leader to see what needs to be done and to lead their nation in defiance, and to victory.
While idle hands may be the devil's playground, it is certain that weak leadership is the devil's host.
Can we also say strong, visionary, and uncompromising leadership is welcome when needed but should step aside in the interim? Seems to be a strand in the cycles of history.
Is there a lesson learned? Maybe. Looking at British leaders for the last while, we've seen a few monumental figures with vision and resolve. Thatcher is among them. So also was Churchill and Gladstone. They are rare. Indeed they are the exception. Between Churchill and Thatcher there was no one, and after Margaret there has been almost no one. Maybe Blair, though he was caught up in the past and present. Articulate though he was and is, he did not command the world stage as did others. England's leaders have been populated and punctuated by true visionaries, and then replaced by unmemorable leaders and losers. This has been the nature of British affairs. In the US, we have seen Reagan, Roosevelt, and Lincoln - and in between, what? Affairs in the US are about the same.
Yet, the same obtains for other world leading countries. In the USA, in Germany, in Russia, and in China we have seen a mix of the same. Great leaders followed by no-bodies and often multiples of them - just maintaining the structures in place, just placating extant powers, just strutting in self-importance, just drifting along with little vision aside from the maintenance of power, just appeasing threats. The world is destabilized by the "in betweens." They give power brokers a license to proceed with nefarious goals. They give credence to wild-eyed goals, and when they emerge it takes another great leader to see what needs to be done and to lead their nation in defiance, and to victory.
While idle hands may be the devil's playground, it is certain that weak leadership is the devil's host.
Can we also say strong, visionary, and uncompromising leadership is welcome when needed but should step aside in the interim? Seems to be a strand in the cycles of history.
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