07.23.13
WhiteManistan’s Minister of Hate formally named
Because of his well-publicized comments on the Zimmerman trial, Ted Nugent has become the object of a picket to get him out of a gig at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Conn.
The local newspaper, the New Haven Register, came down firmly on the matter. It is the first time I’ve seen a mainstream daily newspaper have the stones to call Nugent a bigot in no uncertain terms. The newspaper runs down the laundry list of Nugent-isms, many of which you have read here. His public record is quite clear.
Ted Nugent is not welcome in New Haven, and Toad’s Place should cancel the Aug.6 concert he is planning here.
It’s not a question of censorship. It’s about the type of people to whom Toad’s Place, as an institution in a community whose values are the opposite of Nugent’s, chooses to provide a platform.
Nugent is a racist, misogynistic, homophobic hate-monger who has demeaned and even threatened violence against the people who live in our community …
Toad’s Place wouldn’t (we hope) choose to host a lecture by David Duke or a concert by the KKK’s house band. So why do its managers think it’s acceptable to support someone who is saying the same kinds of things …
And this is the key to making people pay a penalty for empowering Ted Nugent in the marketplace of ideas. It’s possible for the New Haven newspaper, the city, and a big picketing group, to hurt Toad’s Place. Maybe not enough to stop the Nugent show this year but enough to guarantee he won’t be back again.
I worked for a newspaper. You hand out enough bad press and you can afflict those who need and deserve affliction.
Media Matters has put together a video chain of Ted Nugent words over the last few years.
Nugent’s speech may be protected but he’s also a certified shit-heel, someone who if he were not famous would be treated with no more deference than a guitarist in a white supremacy punk rock band. In a real democracy, not American democracy, he would be a pariah.
And there’s the thing in 2013 America. It made Ted Nugent’s public hate into a money-maker. He is as much a creature of CNN and the Washington Post as he is of the extreme right wing.