Tag: Pink Floyd

Oh Maggie, what did we do?


“Well I hope I don’t die too soon, I pray the lord my soul to save. Because there’s one thing I know, I’d like to live long enough to savor. That’s when they finally put you in the ground, Ill stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.” The soundtrack for today was written decades ago: I went with Elvis (who talks about this song here), but could just as easily have gone with Morrissey or Pink Floyd or Sinead O’Connor or a whole host of others.

In any case, Margaret Thatcher, 1925-2013. As I said when Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms passed, I’m of the Hunter Thompson on Nixon school when it comes to political obits. Let’s not diminish what Thatcher passionately stood for throughout her life by engaging in ridiculous happy talk at the moment of her death.

This Prime Minister has lot to answer for, from bringing free market absolutism and trickle-down voodoo economics to England, with all the readily preventable inequality it generated, to supporting dictators and tyrants around the world — Pinochet, Botha, the Khmer Rouge — to, of course, the Falklands War.

Much as with Reagan here in America, England still lives under Thatcher’s shadow. To quote today’s Guardian, “her legacy is of public division, private selfishness and a cult of greed, which together shackle far more of the human spirit than they ever set free.” But to her credit, at least Thatcher (a chemist by training) was very vocal about the threat of climate change in the last years of her life.

Update: Salon‘s Alex Pareene has more evidence for the prosecution, including graphs of the rise of inequality and poverty on Thatcher’s watch:

“Britain no longer ‘makes’ much of anything, and when those lost jobs were replaced, they were replaced with low-wage, no-security service industry work…Really, it’s hard to argue with former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who remembered Thatcher on Sky News yesterday: ‘She created today’s housing crisis. She created the banking crisis. And she created the benefits crisis…In actual fact, every real problem we face today is the legacy of the fact that she was fundamentally wrong.'” (Last quote also birddogged by Dangerous Meta.)

Shine On, You Crazy 8-Bit Diamonds.


The lunatics are in my head…and they won’t stop playing NES. By way of my sis, enjoy the soothing 8-bit syncopations of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, as scored for Nintendo. And, hey, look they have The Wall also. Just got started on that one (my personal favorite Floyd, and an album I listened to pretty much every single day of 1988), but at least so far, “The Thin Ice” actually sounds kinda great.

Bada-Bingaman | Supers, then and now.

“To make progress, we must rise above the partisanship and the issues that divide us to find common ground. We must move the country in a dramatically new direction. I strongly believe Barack Obama is best positioned to lead the nation in that new direction.” Along with Roger Waters and the Pink Floyd pig, Sen. Obama picks up another Senate super in New Mexico’s Jeff Bingaman, thus putting him in the lead among his and Sen. Clinton’s colleagues. Update: Clinton counters with NC Governor Mike Easley.

Meanwhile, over the weekend Matt Drudge ventured into the Wayback Machine to examine superdelegates’ issues…with Bill Clinton in 1992. “‘The voters haven’t embraced Clinton, so I don’t see any reason why I should endorse him,’ Mr. Eckart said. ‘Look at the exit polls. People have terrible doubts about this guy, and we’re talking about Democrats.’” Cut to 2008, where, thanks to his recent transgressions, undeclared supers — particularly African-American supers like my old rep, Jim Clyburn — still don’t think much of the man. “How do you play the race card on the ex-president of the United States? How do you do it? I would like to know how that’s done and who they [are]. And I’d like to see these memos he’s talking about. That’s what’s so bizarre about this,’ Clyburn said“. (Nor, it seems, is Pres. Clinton a fan of Obama, but that’s not really surprising at this point, is it?)

Shame on you, Hillary Clinton.


“Enough with the speeches and the big rallies, and then using tactics right out of Karl Rove’s playbook. This is wrong, and every Democrat should be outraged…So shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That’s what I expect from you. Meet me in Ohio. Let’s have a debate about your tactics.” What was that about feeling “absolutely honored” the other night? No doubt in an attempt to stem all the final days talk, Sen. Clinton goes ballistic on Barack Obama this afternoon, claiming he’s the one that has used Rovian tactics this primary cycle. (Watch the video for the full “Dean Scream” effect. I wonder what Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, fidgeting behind her, was thinking.) Sen. Obama responds here and here, and the Obama campaign’s official rebuttal is here.

Ok, I’m going to try to put this as delicately as I can: Sen. Clinton, shame the fuck on you. After all the low-down, reprehensible, and thoroughly scummy maneuvers we’ve seen from your campaign this primary cycle, no doubt courtesy of your $10 million bust Mark Penn, how dare you get before the public and act the aggrieved party here? I’ve compiled this list before, but let’s go over it again. In the past three months, Sen. Clinton and/or her campaign has:

  • tried to play the 9iu11iani fear card, the defining strategy of the Rovian playbook.
  • attempted to wallow in drug hysteria, and argued Obama was soft on mandatory minimums (Willie Horton ring a bell?)
  • blatantly distorted Sen. Obama’s remarks about Reagan to paint him a closet GOP’er.
  • sent out an obviously misleading mailer suggesting Obama was a closet pro-lifer.
  • sent out a blatantly false mailer about the social security cap that invoked the GOP standby, “He’s gonna raise your taxes!”
  • sent out a mailer on Obama’s health care plan that’s clearly more disingenuous than the one she decries above.
  • repeatedly tried to mischaracterize Sen. Obama’s stance on the Iraq war.
  • insinuated Obama was guilty of some undefined, unknown scandal later to emerge.
  • lobbied constantly to change the rules after the fact in Florida and Michigan.
  • suggested Obama was a well-spoken empty suit who peddles false hopes.
  • suggested Obama voters were dupes or cultists wanting only an “imaginary hip black friend.”
  • tried to push the story that Obama was soft on domestic “terrorists.”
  • seen campaign staff forward along “muslim”/madrassa e-mail smears about Sen. Obama.
  • seemingly sent out anti-“Barack Hussein Obama” robocalls in Nevada.
  • argued in obviously ridiculous fashion that Obama is a no-good plagiarist.
  • dabbled in the classic Southern strategy of the race card.
  • indulged in oppo research about Obama’s kindergarten stances.
  • tried to salvage her campaign with an obviously illegal 527, made up of $100,000 donors.
  • indulged in union-busting rhetoric when convenient (“They think they’re better than you.“)
  • actually attempted to suppress the vote in Nevada with the ill-advised casino lawsuit.

    And I’m sure I’ve missed a few things. So who’s “using tactics right out of Karl Rove’s playbook” again? Don’t you worry, Sen. Clinton, “every Democrat should be outraged, and they are: That’s arguably one of the main reasons you’ve lost eleven contests in a row. It seemed the Clinton campaign had seen the situation for what it was, and was content to fade away, with grace and dignity intact. Had they done so, I might’ve let bygones be bygones. But, once they start indulging in this sort of Hail Mary raging against the dying of the light, which will no doubt poison the well for an easy reconciliation once Clinton has conceded, all bets are off. Update: This well-made video helps put today’s rant in perspective, and with Pink Floyd to boot.

    Update 2: She’s getting worse.

    Update 3: A few hours before the final Ohio debate, Sen Clinton concedes she “got a little hot over the weekend in Cincinnati.” Presumably, this means that the campaign’s internal polling suggests it backfired massively.