Interview: Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground Sets the Record Straight

Thank you Moe Tucker. You speak the truth. Your music is fantastic. Glen Beck exposed by Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB defector: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij7m_38Lyss&feature=related Methinks people from communist countries appreciate American music, like the Velvet Underground, more than Americans do. Spoiled Americans throw their liberty away, while people from communist countries, revere American freedom, or what's left of it. How tragically ironic.  

I know where the evil lies. Inside of your heart.

"anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a fool, a racist, a Nazi"

Tucker seems to personify several of the major threads running through Tea Party conservatism: paranoia, rage, and rank stupidity. Tucker is angry with the first lady for working on the issue of childhood obesity not because she denies the First Lady the right to personal freedom and expression but because she thinks what other people do is a direct affront on herself. She simply cannot divorce other people's actions from her own persona. It's a kind of solipsism muddled with a smug ignorance that the Tea Party leaders rely upon, and you can see as she trips up over prototypical Tea Party talking points: the Endangered Species act, government meddling in Social Security, the role of inflation and what the Bush administration did to US economy. She professes no love of Palin yet voted for her and personifies exactly what drives Palin's fan base: deep contempt for others, profound ignorance, and relentless paranoia.

Great interview, with well-tailored and respectful questions. Congrats for scoring it to Mike Appelstein, whose work we've enjoyed since the fanzine days.

What idiotic pompous blather from Aaron Solomon. Particularly stupid is his complete unawareness of what Marxism or Communism is. No less stupid is that the countries he mentions were/are socially "Conservative". This is the crux of his stupidity. Conservative! They were conservative tyrannies. You have no clue. If you knew even the slightest thing about Marxist Communism is that no one has ever done it. The countries mentioned are no more marxist communist than anyone who hates and murders is a christian. Marxism has never existed other than in theory. Try knowing of what you're talking about. Clearly you just like to hear yourself babble on.

Oh, yes. Please tell me what is America and how to be one. Typical conservative. Typical uncreative narrow mindedness. They think American is only one thing and lo and behold, it's just what they happen to be. How much more politically correct and fascist can you get than to think we're a mono culture? A mono culture that supports only boot licking fools who bend over for government authority. If you knew the slightest thing about conservatism you'd know that authority, order and conformity is your game. Conservative fools don't even have the balls to come out and say it because they know it doesn't sell well to America, so they lie.

Where on earth are these donkey museums,turtle tunnels and salamander crossings she mentions? Perhaps if she could back up her allegations with specific examples I'd be prepared to take her argument just a tad ore seriously. As it is it just sounds as though she's been spending too much time sequestered in small-town isolation and too much time watching Fox News.

Nice to see that tax subsidized libraries have free internet access for libtards...I can sum up all of their rants as follows:REAGAN RAPED OUR COUNTRY GAVE ALL THE MONEY TO THE RICH AND SCREWED ALL OF US ON THE WELFARE WHICH ISN'T WELFARE BUT OUR GOD-GIVEN, SCRATCH THAT, EARTH GODDESS GIVEN RIGHT TO HAVE EVERYTHING THAT IS PAID FOR BY THE RICH BECAUSE THEY STEAL EVERYTHING AND DON'T GIVE US ANY OF THEIR MONEY FREELY LIKE WE WANT AND WANT TO SIT AROUND ALL DAY MAKING POETRY AND POTTERY AND BEADS AND OTHER STUFF THAT IS SO IMPORTANT TO AN ECONOMY BUT THE RICH ARE ALWAYS STOPPING US FROM SELLING IT BECAUSE THEY WANT TO TAKE OUR TAXES AND SPEND IT ON YACHTS AND THE MILITARY!it's all bush's fault!!!!!!

i dont agree thast obama wastes money ..they all do.all polticians are scum i agree with.whats the deal with a bit of what she perceives as waste when ..america spends millions a day /on wars to steal oil off middle east?of which an elite recoup profit while country gets deep debt.wake up and make a revolution usa.

@Sanity.Please, do not compare with Greece (a country without industry and with major corruption), France (which mainly depends on its agriculture, which in turn don't survive without government subsidy). Maybe England, which mainly depends on its financial market, which then collapsed. But they are all small countries in comparison with the U.S. The question one should ask is: How much loan can one country have? By what means can you pay back? But most important, what centers of power lends? Look at yourself in the mirror. (This applies to yourself as your country.) Regardless of who created the debt, you must repay the loans. If you were in too much debt, you are not free. The British at least know that, and know it's an acid test awaits. Hopefully, they now have politicians with nerves of steel. As they will certainly need. They have considerable hard work ahead. All countries with large debts have to realize that. Low-wage countries and the hard-working peoples of Asia is not likely to stand still and watch.

"In my opinion, as soon as you start name-calling, your opinion is immediately deemed invalid!"

"My philosophy was and is all politicians are liars, bums and cheats."

This is the type of conversation you'll get with someone who's too busy ranting to stop to think about what they're saying.

DEMOCRATS: READ THE FACTS FOR YOURSELVES, OR LOOK IT UP!!!

CLINTON BALANCED THE BUDGET ONLY BECAUSE THE REPUBLICANS HELD THE CONGRESS!!

The day the democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actually January 3rd 2007 the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, the start of the 110th Congress. The Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this: January 3rd, 2007, was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress At the time: The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77 The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%The Unemployment rate was 4.6% George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!

Remember the day...January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES! Thank Congress for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment to this CRISIS by dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fiasco's!

(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001, because it was financially risky for the U.S. economy, but no one was listening).And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA.And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie???OBAMA and the Democratic Congress.So when someone tries to blame Bush...REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!" Bush may have been in the car, but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel they were driving. Set the record straight on Bush!

So, as you listen to all the commercials and media, AND THESE POSTS, from the Democrats who are now distancing themselves from their voting record and their party, remember how they didn't listen to you when you said you didn't want all the bailouts, you didn't want the health care bill, you didn't want cap and trade, you didn't want them to continue spending money we don't have.I'm not forgetting their complicity in getting us into this mess, and I'll be marking my vote accordingly!

"It's not that liberals aren't smart, it's just that so much of what they know isn't so" -Ronald Reagan

It's "Lo and behold," not "Low and behold."

You can't cure stupid and liberals won't be happy until the US is bankrupt like Greece, France, England, etc. Obnoxious leeches, if allowed, will screw up their country. So, let's follow their footsteps, huh? One day we'll wake up and smell the stink of corruption. Socialists/marxists here and abroad think tax payers are going to keep handing out unlimited credit cards to those who won't help themselves. I'd say they're in for a rude awakening. Try to get some sense, hold a job and be proud at the end of the day that we've made something of ourself. Then maybe we should mind our own business, shall we?

I think those of you who call Obama -- and every other Democrat -- a socialist need to go back and re-learn the definition of that term. I also think the Tea Party ignorance on this board is what got us into this mess in the first place.

There are certainly come interesting and informed comments here. As for choosing sides, I'll pick the one that offers the most cogent arguments, best written, an no expletives. If you go to an event with open seating, where will you sit? with the thugs, screamers, or those who have an interest in what is being said? Which side has the tendency to shout down the other? disrupt the flow of ideas? plant "false flags" to blame the other side?Neither major political party is innocent in our current straits. However, one group is more complicit in keeping us divided......"as in divided we fall."As long as we are fighting amongst ourselves, we will continue to lose our freedom and our ability to work our way out the current, or for that matter any situation.I find nothing divisive in anything Ms. Tucker stated.

There are certainly come interesting and informed comments here. As for choosing sides, I'll pick the one that offers the most cogent arguments, best written, an no expletives. If you go to an event with open seating, where will you sit? with the thugs, screamers, or those who have an interest in what is being said? Which side has the tendency to shout down the other? disrupt the flow of ideas? plant "false flags" to blame the other side?Neither major political party is innocent in our current straits. However, one group is more complicit in keeping us divided......"as in divided we fall."As long as we are fighting amongst ourselves, we will continue to lose our freedom and our ability to work our way out the current, or for that matter any situation.I find nothing divisive in anything Ms. Tucker stated.

An expressionist expressing an expression! Thought it great. She said "Methinks" The one thing I remember from reading The Prince. Some kind of Machiavellian reference? Dunno...Like it though.

Wouldn't worry...Don't think she's running for office...

THe real history of pensions in America http://www.newyorker.com/archi...

Moe complains about union pensions, saying, "The unions made the contracts which include insane pensions."

Umm...One side does not make a contract. Both sides have to agree to contracts. For instance, if you don't like the contract that your record label offers, you either don't sign it - meaning you're not on that label - or you get your lawyer to negotiate a better deal.

The same is true with unions.

Now...Should the government bail out private unions? If their contract was with a private company, it's the company that owes them the money. Of course, if the company misappropriated funds or didn't work the numbers correctly, those funds aren't there. How is that the fault of the employees or their union? The reason the company gave them what was supposedly a good pension was because they didn't want to pay them more in the present. So they figured they'd just defer it to the future. And now people want to blame the union for that? So why bail out the union? Well, you're REALLY bailing out the company that screwed up, since they're the ones who don't have the money that they contractually *owe* these people.

Do I want my money spent on this? Well...No, but then I don't want these people losing everything when they made a deal that was supposed to take care of them. Remember, they said, "OK, you don't have to pay us more now. You can pay us some money later." And I'd rather see them get the money than a bunch of Wall Streeters that get massive bonuses at the end of every year.

Private unions that created their own pension system that has something to do with their dues? OK, well, if their leaders misappropriated the funds, that sucks.

Public unions: I'm with them 100%. These people looked at the private sector for years and watched them getting big, fat raises (especially in business). They watched private sector employees with fat 401k's. But they took their little raises year after year and stuck with their defined benefit pension plans. They never said, "Give us 10% raises." They didn't say, "Hey, peg what we make to what equivalent private sector employees make." They took their smaller raises and kept their benefits. (And studies show they still make less than equivalent private sector employees.)

Chuck 2.0

"Moe, where was your financial outrage when President Bush II drastically cut Federal tax revenue with large tax cuts"

Actually, the Bush tax cuts resulted in the greatest INCREASE in gov't revenue ever recorded (as tax cuts almost alwasy do, by the way). Why is that? Because when the productive are allowed to keep their money, they grow the economy (jobs anyone?), which results in more revenue.

I love the Velvet Underground, but I don't particularly care what their idiot drummer thinks about politics. She's so wrong in so many different ways.

Let's count them.

1: The government is not providing anyone with televisions, five pairs of shoes, Levi's, etc.

2: The bail outs were necessary to sustain the capital market. If the banks all fell at the same time, we'd all starve. Welcome to capitalism.

3: Ecosystems (eg the one inch fish) are vital to our survival as a species. Farming in California isn't.

4: No one's telling you not to eat salt, they're telling restaurants and food manufacturers to stop artifically adding sodium to our diets and giving us all heart disease.

5: Spending/borrowing/printing is how the economy works. What you're actually against is spending/borrowing/printing at an inflationary rate. Unfortunately that's necessary to keep the capital markets liquid. See above.

I'd keep going but I don't really care all that much. Go read some books and newspapers before you open your mouth pls.

"I thought liberals loved everyone: the poor, the immigrant, the gays, the handicapped, the minorities, dogs, cats, all eye colors, all hair colors! Peace, love, bull! Curious they have no tolerance whatsoever for anyone who doesn't think exactly as they do. You disagree and you're immediately called a fool, a Nazi, a racist. That's pretty f'd up!!"

And all the left wing nutjobs posting here have just proved her right over and over and over again and are so stupid they can't even see it.Priceless!

Obama is so unqualified for that position that it's a joke. Then he plugs in all his czar cronies to dizzy things up a little more. Come on man! Be a REAL socialist. Go to Cuba, Russia, Harvard and Venezuela and bring back some experience, those boys know what to do to get us there fast. A lot of us are just aching to live the everyday life of a Cuban, so come on man, kick it up a notch.

@Norm -- clearly you yourself care, or you wouldn't have read this article let alone commented on it!

Hate to burst your bubble kids, but there's a lot of us libs out there who can't stand what the guy is doing to our country and civil liberties.

(cough...cough)Moe Tucker publicly criticized Walmart's salary policies several years before it was a prerequesite for sensitive hipsters everywhere...

Take care, Ms. Tucker...

Well...she is a drummer, you know. And not a very good one, either.

LOL! So much for free speech...

Ms. Tucker is absolutely correct. What Obama is selling ain't Liberalism...

Why do people care what musicians think about politics?

Moe Tucker for President!

It's actually not socialism.....not that you progressives would change your tune.

This woman along with millions of others PAID INTO THIS PROGRAM THEIR WHIOLE LIFE.

It WAS her money to begin with. That is until libtards stole it to use on other vote buying schemes....a promise made when it was implemented,broken by progressive politicos.

It's identical to the canard foisted by you folks too about unemployement benefits. WE PAY THAT TOO. It's our money to begin with.

It's like paying for car insurance and you don't use it until you need it. But the Federal "extensions" allowing folks to lay about for 99 weeks is not what the initial program provides for. 26 weeks IIRC. The other 73 weeks coming from Nanny fed is taking from me and giving to you. NOT WHAT YOU PAID IN.

PS........while inflation is flat, progressive policies are driving the value of the dollar down so far that it simply does buy what it did and that creams fixed income folks.

Oh, and Lou Reed says that he had you as drummer just as some " nice eye candy for the boys in the crowd " and that " she couldn't outdrum Ringo " which pretty much somes it up.I also like the comment from someone else earlier, " who the fuck cares what this woman has to say"10XCSN

R.I.P. MOE TUCKER !!!Too much drugsToo much Wal Mart brainwashingGlad you did not get your Social Security Cola,after all, Social Security is just another socialist ploy, just ask your Tea Bagging friends.

Moe, where was your financial outrage when President Bush II drastically cut Federal tax revenue with large tax cuts, gave Senors prescription drugs, and funded two wars on our children's backs? Where were your Tea Party friends when the Republicans controlled the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, and managed to bring the Clinton SURPLUS into not only an enormous deficit, but plunge the world economy into a near depression from which we are still struggling to emerge?

Moe, where was your financial outrage when President Bush II drastically cut Federal tax revenue with large tax cuts, gave Senors prescription drugs, and funded two wars on our children's backs? Where were your Tea Party friends when the Republicans controlled the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, and managed to bring the Clinton SURPLUS into not only an enormous deficit, but plunge the world economy into a near depression from which we are still struggling to emerge?

The left has been losing its grip on power for years. Thanks to Fox News, talk radio and the internet; the left no longer has complete control of the media as they did for decades.

And now even moderate Democrats such as Maureen Tucker are starting to realize that the socialist far left has basically been taking over the party for years and now completely doinates it with the culmination of Obama's election.

People know that we can't just give everyone everything for free as the Obama administration is promising. You do that and our country suddenly becomes a socialist banana republic and just starts to rot from within.

Moderates on the left know that isn't what America is about. They know America has always been a vibrant and dynamic capitalist economy that's always on the move and always trying to grow at every level; and where being self-reliant and hard working is expected of every able-bodied citizen.

That's why they're starting to wake up from their media induced worship of Obama. They now have a massive hangover and are joining the Tea Party to sober up.

I know I did.

Holy sh*t, B7thSFG, people spent countless hours of their precious time - when they could have been doing something productive - grinding their axes on this site, with the pretense of having the interests of this great country at heart. And now you come in and make them all - liberal and conservative alike - realize their posts, worded for maximum humiliation of the "opposition" are just a bunch of counter-productive crap. Thank you.

WOW I am not sure what was worse. The right wingers name calling when they had no answer to the question posed. Or the left wingers name calling when they had no answer to question posed. As to the few who had answers (not all I agreed with) thank you. Untill we the people can sit down and talk to each other about what we want for this nation we are screwed. Untill we can look for and find answers to the problems we face as a nation we will for ever fail to be what we can and should be. While not all social programs are good nor are they all bad. However I do believe they all need to be adressed. Some may need to ended. Some only need to be changed to fit todays world. Some may need more money and yes some may need less. But unless we can get past this 3rd rail thinking how can we fix what is truly broken. If by simply bringing up changes in SS, welfare, and health care you become a idiot or by retaining this 3rd rail thinking about these issues you are an idiot. Where will the ideas come from to A)Keep these programs goingB)End the programs that have become out datedC)Or programs that over lap that are being misused or even abused?When the right and the left become so blind to its own view that it can no longer speak to the other side and see no problem in that. Thats the problem. We the people are the answer not them the Gov. We are the Gov. We did this and only we can fix it. And if you see We as only you well... Well you are the problem.

Now you know why Aliens will not give you the common courtesy stop by and say hello.

An "increase" in nominal payments to keep up with inflation is not an increase...it just maintains the current real value of SS payments. And Tucker did not object that the real value of HER payments weren't being maintained, she objected to the bullshit REASON the government gave for not maintaining the real value of EVERYBODY's payments. She's pissed about the lying...which was a recurring theme of hers...if you didn't notice...but I guess you need to learn how to READ before noticing "subtleties" like that.

How does this effect her wonderful bodty of work?How sad that so many lefties come unglued at the thought that someone they like(d) may disagree with their views.Geez, talk about intolerant!!!

I wish happiness for her always!

Coolest woman in the history of rock.

Coolest woman in the history of rock.

I find the frothing amusing.

So what if a music artist of ancient times is also a Tea Partier?

I don't care what any _entertainer_ thinks about anything other than their field of expertise.

I also separate the music from the musician. Music is what they produced, not who they are.

That was painful to read. Oh, well. The albums you appeared on are genius, Moe, but other than that, I wish The Voice didn't give you a platform to spew this messed up right wing BS.

uneducated democRAT sheeple are the problem...they vote.

I was smoking some mary jane when I came across this article. And Moe still came across like a crotchety senior citizen what wants her some freedom....