Ted Nugent Howard wasn’t always a raging libertarian/ GOP shoe-shiner who regularly spouts get-off-my-lawn black bile about kids, the president, unemployed people, way too many others and social safety-net programs.
In the inescapable, common-sense world to which producers of America are hopelessly addicted and in which they proudly reside, compensation is determined by dreams, work ethic, skill, knowledge, ability, expertise, level of effort and, last but not least, results. Put that in your merciless pay pipe and suck on it till you drop, Occupiers.
Employees who lack these most basic of work characteristics are tossed out on their lame rears in short order, as it should be …
It’s part five of five where a young Ted reclines and chats, looking and sounding a lot like the “hippies” he regularly damns and condemns in his many political columns now.
During the interview Ted and the interviewer gently laugh about the Soupy Sales show, also done in the studio.
“I’m not deep into politics, mind you,” Ted says.
“It’s a groovy place we’re livin’ in here,” he adds, near the finish.
Groovy.
According to Chuck Eddy, the interviewer is “Dave Dixon, co-writer of Peter Paul and Mary’s ‘I Dig Rock and Roll Music‘, and a big deal on Detroit underground rock stations in the early ’70s.”
Many have surely noticed that a lot of the current US doesn’t really support the way A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life turned out. Sure, everyone pays lip service to these stories. But if people were honest with themselves, surely a lot would admit a sneaking desire to see a Xmas movie where Scrooge laughed off the grim reaping spirit of Christmas future and Tiny Tim was dead of consumption by Xmas day.
In 2011 you could pitch a comedy TV series on the two really talented and fun guys in Robin Hood, Sir Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Ted Nugent is Dickensian. His inability to rally any significant fan base among the young, in direct proportion to his success as a shoeshiner for old white man radical right and extreme wealth makes him perfect material for any modern approach to the material.
One of the things associated with Dickens’ Victorian London is the burning of coal and soot of it everywhere.
(A year later an explosion at one of Blankenship’s mines killed 27, an incident which most probably will eventually see criminal charges levied against former Massey Energy executives.)
The poor get extra helpings of hardship and pain and Ted Nugent can be reliably counted on to tell us it’s all their own fault, a consequence of the alleged shit choices they make. Like being born into poverty. The time to have made your first good choice toward a life of plenty was when swimming down Pap’s penis at the moment of climax. Go back!
As we near Christmas, his new column at the WaTimes is in character.
The majority of people who are poor in America are poor because they knowingly have made poor decisions … Being poor is largely a choice, a daily, if not hourly, decision. If you decide to drop out of school, fail to learn a skill, have no work ethic or get divorced, a life of poverty is often the consequence.
At one point Nugent recommends the churches get more involved in helping the poor. Of course, they do. But it was only a year ago Nugent was doing the Dickens trip, too, hating on the church after Thanksgiving and suggesting the Vatican give up some of its swag.
Roughly 50 percent of all Medicare costs are spent in a person’s last six months of life. When a person is terminally ill or without hope of getting better, forcing taxpayers to keep them alive isn’t fair. If the terminally ill individual or his family wants to keep him alive for as long as possible, then they should pay for it, not taxpayers … Last time I checked, churches have a few billion dollars worth of gold, silver, jewelry, art, real estate and other assets. Maybe they could use some of it for such compassionate causes. Maybe not.
In this bit from November, a year back, Nugent not only went after the Catholics but also called for hospice care for the dieing to be ended. Medicare pays for the six months of such support, as those who have loved ones or close friend fall into the clutches of an incurable disease, like cancer, painfully know.
Nugent is one of the lousiest writers one could hope for, perfect for our times. Not only a wretched stylist, more importantly, he is devoid of any human warmth or empathy. Paradoxically, he papers over this failing with a regular clumsy implication that he’s a person who actually cares.
The Washington Times is the ideal venue for him, a Dickensian publication for DC. These days it attaches promotions to buy precious metals, or the consulting services of those who advocate for the hoarding of gold and silver to the end of Nugent’s columns.
And it does not surprise at all that a winning political idea for the current GOP is the torn from Oliver Twist suggestion that poor children be janitors of their schools so as to cultivate good work habits and the avoidance of crappy life choices that will make them forever poor. Of course they should.
A lucky winner of a raffle at TedNugent.com gets an all-expense paid weekend hunting with Ted on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. The second place prize is two weekends hunting with Ted on his ranch in Crawford. No, not really — I just made it all up.
When not hoping for the role of “Howard” in a remake of the Treasure of Sierra Madre, Ted curses the stinky young hippies to keep himself in the good graces of the 1 percent.
You don’t need to search the Internet far to read story after story of the Occupy stooges committing crimes, fighting the cops, destroying personal property, stinking the place up and engaging in other noble expressions of First Amendment rights. I find that beautiful – priceless, actually. Only human cockroaches spotlight themselves.
While I don’t condone violence, watching the cops pounce on and pepper-spray a few Occupy stooges and then drag the dirtballs off to jail in shackles is good for my conservative soul and gold for my sense of humor. Everyone needs at least one hearty laugh every day.
You have to admit that watching a stinky, dirty hippie being dragged off to jail is as funny watching James Brown drive across railroad tracks on the rims of his pickup truck …
“Where are the protests by today’s unemployed and underemployed young people?” he asked. “Why aren’t they demanding answers to fundamental questions about their future?”
Now that they’re here, he hates them and wants them pepper-sprayed.
He’s also offended on the grounds of cleanliness. Yes, the homeless and those who camp out often do not smell rosy.
And now he’s a bitter old man — Nugent turned 63 this week — cursing “stinky hippies” and “human cockroaches” because he thinks they’ll fill a bag with excrement, put it on his porch and set it on fire.
Yes, people, especially young people, have a right to be angry, and the smart ones are focusing their anger on President Obama, Rep. Barney Frank, former Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, and other anti-free-market socialists … The president is losing the support of educated young people in droves.
Of course, the uninspired, uneducated, unskilled and stoned have been conditioned for generations to expect something for nothing …
Instead of busting their humps working two or three jobs, they have time to protest on Wall Street …
Smart people know that [Mr. Michael Moore[ and [Miss Roseanne Barr] represent a fringe movement of people who are poor because they have made a lifetime of poor choices … Stinky hippies, generational slaves to Fedzilla and the transparent entitled are the problem, not the solution.
Ted routinely ridicules people who went to college. He never got over not being particularly popular in Berkeley or Ann Arbor. However, he did use momentary enrollment in community college to avoid service in Vietnam through deferment.
The Alachua County Republican Party has canceled Ted Nugent’s appearance at Thursday’s Black Tie and Blue Jeans BBQ fundraiser, citing low ticket sales, which the party blamed on “Obamanomics.???
“We started hearing heartbreaking stories,??? Stafford Jones, the party chairman, said of the tales he and other party officials heard when they contacted usual supporters who hadn’t purchased tickets, which cost between $65 and $125 for single tickets and $680 and $1,000 for eight-person tables.
Jones said there was more excitement for Nugent, a rock ‘n’ roll musician and an outspoken conservative, than other speakers in recent years, but people are struggling.
“The problem is that, thanks to Obamanomics and ‘trickle-up-poverty’, nobody has any money,??? the party said in a statement announcing that Nugent wouldn’t be appearing. “It became evident that small business owners and working Republicans were hurting, tremendously, and simply couldn’t afford to come to Black Tie and Blue Jeans.???
In an interview, Jones said, “We’re spending billions of dollars in stimulus money that is just going into black holes — Solyndra is one.???
“In Nugent’s keynote stead will be former state Rep. Adam Hasner, a South Florida Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate and won’t be paid for his appearance …” it finishes.
Trickle up poverty is a GOP dog whistle phrase for the idea, one that really didn’t catch on (coming as it did from a Michael Savage book that didn’t sell like gangbusters), that unemployment is kind of, like, contagious. And that it’s the poor that have dragged the nation down, not Wall Street.
Therefore, from the tortured logic on display in the brief newspaper piece, the poor, Solyndra and Obama are responsible for the inability to pay pricey tickets to see a Ted Nugent rant in Alachua County.
Another unintentionally funny item from the Tennessean, this on a Stand With Gibson [Guitars] rally.
[Gibson spokespeople] also said one or two surprise guests might show up unannounced but wouldn’t give many clues as to who, other than to say it will not be Ted Nugent. (Not sure whether that was a rumor they were trying to squash or just an obvious pick for a conservative rally.) Organizers neither confirmed nor denied another reporter’s guess, Hank Williams, Jr.
Hank Williams, Jr. The reporter may have been making a not so subtle joke.
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stated that he’s worried that American young people will begin to riot in our streets because of their unemployment.
While the mayor and I disagree on most things, he might be onto to something here.
The rest of the column indicates he’s largely unaware of the growing protest on Wall Street — by mostly young people in the Occupy Wall Street campaign.
Nugent believes the young should riot against Obama (unsurprising, he believes everyone must riot against the president):
Young people are starting to figure out that our president conned them in the last election, claiming that he could fix everything, make the world safer, create jobs, provide for everybody, redistribute earnings, coddle the unemployed, etc …
Many of the people in the Wall Street protest are unemployed. Per se, they are not protesting the President. They are protesting at the seat of capitalism before the wizards of finance who tore apart the US and world economy in 2008 and are busy going about it again. It is the biggest and most deserving target.
Since Ted cannot figure out young Americans — he semi-regularly insults them in his column for a variety of imagined sins from playing too many computer games to being lazy — he bags on them again.
For playing too many computer games and having a liberal education:
Where are the protests by today’s unemployed and underemployed young people? Why aren’t they demanding answers to fundamental questions about their future? Why aren’t they yelling that hope and change was a con job? Why aren’t they demanding answers to the reality that their generation will be the first in the history of America not to have a future at least as good as what their parents enjoyed?
Who knows? Maybe they can’t break away from playing computer and video games long enough to look around at their condition and the condition of America. Because of the toxic, liberal education they received, maybe they haven’t figured out how America is supposed to work instead of how our president wants to transform it into something that would inspire our Founding Fathers to call for a second American revolution.
Today they forced the closing of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Find the photos of crazy mean and stupid ol’ Ted playing his acoustic guitar, perfect for use in “Tough Crowd Boogie.” Sepia-toning him was the right touch.
A hunting buddy of mine proposes the following plan to ultimately eliminate the Social Security congressional slush fund:
Anyone over the age of 45 will receive Social Security. Anyone under the age of 45 will not receive a Social Security check upon retirement. However, those younger than 45 will still be required to pay into Social Security to cover the benefits of those who are 45 or older. What they will get in return is that all of the money they accrue through investing in their 401(k), etc. programs will be tax-free when they retire.
Nugent, protestations to the contrary, is (from evidence gathered over the past couple years from his columns and TV appearances) brainless. It’s a trait which binds him to Rick Perry. They are kindred souls, he’s implied a couple times. And I certainly believe him.
Nugent doesn’t realize or chooses to ignore that for millions of Americans, Social Security is all they have. And that as the nation slides further into its relentless decline with less good paying jobs of any kind, this number is likely to increase.
Therefore millions of Americans, under the “Nugent hunting buddy plan” would still see money being taken out of their paychecks to cover Social Security for elders. But have nothing when they retired.
Which is genuinely a Ponzi scheme, a criminal malpractice. Perhaps that is the entire idea.
Mary Rathbun gets an $809 check every month from Social Security and an additional $100 in food stamps. The 74-year-old former nurse pays $550 in rent for her apartment in St. Helens, Ore. That leaves less than $400 for food, utilities and other expenses, including medical bills.
When Social Security was launched 70 years ago Sunday, it was meant to be a supplement for retirees, not a full pension. But today, 10.6 million people, or 22% of the 48 million who will receive Social Security benefits this year, live on that check alone, the Social Security Administration says.
Living on only Social Security isn’t a happy prospect. It means stretching every dollar, depending on a patchwork of family, charity and state programs to pay for what Social Security doesn’t cover — and sometimes doing without. Those living on nothing but Social Security are often single women and minorities. AARP, the senior advocacy group, says 25% of retired women, including 46% of unmarried Hispanic women, have no income beyond Social Security. AARP also says 33% of retired African-Americans live on Social Security alone.
Those numbers could grow as the baby boom generation enters retirement. Currently, 53% of people in the workforce have no pension, and 32% have no savings set aside for retirement.
Under the “Nugent hunting buddy plan,” homelessness, premature death, hunger and truly destitute poverty among the elderly would explode. You don’t even have to do any arithmetic. The explanation and numbers in the entirety of the USA Today piece would predict a truly appalling future for everyone but the most wealthy and their class of most enthusiastic attendants.
What would you expect in wisdom from a “hunting buddy”? Would you like to live in a country run by the heartwarming charity and homespun country savvy of the “Ted Nugent hunting buddy”?
We must continue to kill them at every opportunity. Death and war are all they understand. We must give those to them nonstop by unleashing hell upon them at all times … Fund the military and slash the budgets of all other agencies, departments and programs … Americans must commit to this struggle for the long term. It will take years, possibly decades …
Nugent has never fought in a war although he is mighty fond of machine guns. He avoided Viet Nam through deferment and was not, in fact, a draft dodger.
The progressive professes that they know right from wrong but in fact deny Him that is right. How can this be, the Republicans and the Democrats today have failed to understand the Scriptures …
I believe separation of Church and State with its doctrine will be placed on center stage in 2012 with the Christians again showing their ignorance of scripture and the Biblical teachings. They will be supporting some Heathen claiming to be a Christian; all the while the so call Christian Voter ignores the Constitution and the essences of Romans 13:1-6 and what the civil magistrate should be doing.
The understanding of the Bible and God’s law is imperative if we are to know how to separate church and state, and knowing the true meaning of what a theocracy is. Neither the church nor the state can take away conscience or man’s right to property as given to him by God. All spheres of life are under God and owe their boundaries, as fixed, by Him and His sovereignty; this then becomes a true theocracy under Godly men …
As we drift away from God and His law we see 70 years later, the devastation done to the social fabric, the people and their freedom.
It remains for us to rightly divide the Word if there is going to be a correction and that correction will only come if God has mercy on us if we understand salvation is through Jesus Christ, and not the State …
Obama’s response thus far has been to offer compromises to a movement that does not compromise, and to argue facts with a movement that hates facts. Between now and November 2012, however, Obama’s audience isn’t that movement; it’s American voters. In a year when economic distress should doom his reelection chances, Obama’s best shot is to cast the election not as a choice between two competing visions of governance, but as a choice between democracy and theocracy. And a particularly nasty theocracy at that.
He won’t use that framing, of course …
The results were on painful display Monday night’s Tea Party debate. Our task for the next year is to remind Americans at every turn that almost all of us are not pure enough to have any place in the theocratic vision of the United States on display there …
The routine of another regretful Republican, Sarah Reidy, Facebooking:
“I am seriously thinking of logging off of Facebook until November 2012. I am embarrassed by how red meat our Tea Party has become. For years I have tried to prove the GOP isn’t the party of elitist, stereotypical people that lack compassion. When did creativity and growth become secondary to hate? Hearing the debate crowds go crazy over things like executions and the uninsured dying makes me sick and sad …”
Today’s laugher re Howard is an interview conducted by Detroit music journalist Gary Graff for Billboard.
Almost all US music journalists are milchtoasts. They’re simply not capable of doing honest interviews with the likes of Ted Nugent.
Today’s piece in Billboard is no exception.
Entitled “Ted Nugent ‘Too Divisive’ to Get Role in Rick Perry Campaign,” the headline telegraphs what any reasonable person would find obvious.
However, most of the story is devoted to more puff hagiography for Ted Nugent.
It’s not the first time.
DD has mentioned Graff in the Ted Nugent tab before. Last year, right around the same time — Labor Day — when Ted had just finished his annual anti-union ritual.
I put it this way:
Nugent eventually left Michigan for Waco, Texas. And while assorted cream puff music journalists have asked Ted this summer whether he might run for political office, given his views, he’s unelectable wherever there is still an informed middle class. Even in this toxic climate. And that rules out almost his entire old home state. Ted knows it, too.
Ted Nugent, elected to represent places like Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor or Lansing? Surely you must be joking.
Now, as for Waco or Crawford, Texas? Maybe.
Ted’s return to Michigan for a Labor Day gig has generated local advance press. Typically, no one brings up the very bad odor of Ted’s attitudes and politics toward Detroit.
The only significant item appeared in the Royal Oak newspaper, a reprint of a trivial Gary Graff wire news piece which was published at Billboard a few days ago.
And did Graff ask Nugent about what he thought of the auto unions now, for a Labor Day gig? Nope. That would be possibly rife with unpleasantness.
Someone with guts might have chosen to make Nugent actually look at himself in a mirror, for a change.
Good job, Billboard and Gary Graff! Get that news on Nugent’s next album, supposedly featuring “‘ stone cold motherf***king songs’ ready to go when he takes his band into the studio later this year … ???
Guts, of course, are almost entirely ruled out in music journalism. It’s a black mark, a sign of mental illness and unreliability to have any.
But back to today’s Billboard piece on Nugent, again by Graff, which skips all mention of Nugent’s virulently anti-union piece for the Labor Day weekend in the WaTimes. The same weekend Ted played his “homecoming” gig in Detroit.
An enterprising reporter might have pleasantly asked Ted if he took time to share any of his opinions with the crowd at the DTE theatre in Clarkson.
Ted often shares his opinions, sprinkled with profanity, from the stage.
So, Ted, did you tell your crowd in Detroit last night that auto unions fucking suck, teachers unions blow and you despise them all? If not, why not? Did you not have the time?
As a Texas resident for the past six years, a diehard conservative and a personal friend of Gov. Rick Perry, there’s no question where Ted Nugent’s loyalties will lie during the 2012 presidential campaign. His capacity to be vocal about his candidate, however, is still up in the air …
“I don’t know if I’ll get a stamp of approval because I am so volatile and because the line in the sand in a political campaign can be so ambiguous — and I’m anything but, [Nugent tells Graff]. The reality is that Perry must penetrate what is presumed to be the non-Perry demographic, and if I scare them away so he doesn’t get their ear, then I’m being counterproductive” …
“That bully pulpit can also have a serious tone to it,” Nugent explains. “But on a rock ‘n’ roll stage, I can tell Hillary Clinton to straddle my machine gun. The more something causes problems with people, the more I’ll say it ’cause it’s rock ‘n’ roll and you can eat me. But that’s a rock ‘n’ roll show. I know how to change the tone …
“Volatile.” It’s like calling the first H-bomb test, the one that dug a crater a mile wide at Bikini atoll, a “big bang.” Here’s Ted being his usual tricky self when he knows a journalist won’t call him on it.
The tone in Nugent’s regular opinion pieces for the WaTimes contains no real differences from his stage rants.
Well, wait, let me correct that.
There is one difference. Ted is not allowed to use a constant stream of profanity at the WaTimes.
But otherwise, it’s the same. Ted hating on huge swaths of American society — condemning teachers, education, all aspects of the government, all Democrats, Muslims, just about everyone not exactly like him.
It’s easy to review and DD has done so. Hey, Media Matters runs a regular ticker on Nugent, too, and it did not miss Nugent’s anti-labor Labor Day generosity this weekend.
Gary Graff, and Billboard, I’m reasonably certain, know all this. They just choose not to share it with readers or take time to make Nugent defend himself. It’s just too damn distasteful to have to walk Nugent back over most of his proclamations, particularly those which are totally indefensible in a reasonable society with any kind of heart.
At one point Nugent is asked about his “I Still Believe” song.
He seems to acknowledge it’s a duff piece, asserting that if only he’d had more money to spend on it, that would have fixed things:
[Nugent] considers it more of a demo than an actual single.
“It’s [sic] doesn’t have the big, musical sound I’d normally get,” he explains. “The guitars aren’t what they need to be. The drums aren’t what they need to be. But I’m not going to spend $100,000 to give something away. I’ll spend $10,000 to give something away, and I wanted to get that song out there.”
Ten thousand dollars to give that song away? More horseshit.
The Billboard piece includes the Ted concert vid on YouTube, the one I laughed at and linked to over the weekend here.
Nugent threatens a new album, one he knows his current audience won’t buy.
