Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

[G-Man]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

Tony C wrote:

Don't get how David Brent is "right-wing" and don't think we're supposed to really "like" him, pity him maybe.

"The bad news - you've all been made redundant. The good news - I've had a promotion". As an example of unabashed, uncaring Thatcherite rhetoric that takes some beating, and encapsulates Brent's ethos perfectly. Exactly how "right wing" do you want?

That's not necessarily being "right-wing", that's giving in to the impulse to be a selfish twat that affects people, left, right or whatever.

It's the amount that we allow ourselves to give in to being a selfish twat that determines our personal politics.

Broadly speaking - and I am a little uncomfortable with these generalisations - a 'left wing' person, with the notion of community-spiritedness that accompanies it, ought to be less of a selfish twat than a 'right wing' person.

Brent consistently thought only of himself and his aspirations, the redundancy quote simply one example out of many I could cite. I have to say I didn't see Brent as being "shame faced" when he imparted the news - just happy that he was okay and fuck the rest of the workforce.

I'm not sure of that. There's an element of that, but Brent is convinced that he is greatly loved, so the quote might suggest a delusion that his underlings might welcome his good fortune. The delivery also suggests a characteristic lack of courage in communicating a difficult announcement: better to set up the news as an "ironic" gag than face it with gravity.

It would be consistent with his character.

[Bored Of Education]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

To echo an E10 "Che"-related query over on the LWD thread, in what universe does The Nuge "get a free pass"?

Well, I hate to say it but the metal universe, mostly.

[The Purple Cow]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Abraham Lincoln Charlston, Illinois September 18, 1858

**

"Who freed the slaves? To the extent that they were ever ‘freed,’ they were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, which was authored and pressured into existence not by Lincoln but by the great emancipators nobody knows, the abolitionists and congressional leaders who created the climate and generated the pressure that goaded, prodded, drove, forced Lincoln into glory by associating him with a policy that he adamantly opposed for at least fifty-four of his fifty-six years of his life."

Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’ s White Dream, p. 19

[Freestyling buck wilding Stijn Stijnen]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

The Purple Cow wrote:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Abraham Lincoln Charlston, Illinois September 18, 1858

**

"Who freed the slaves? To the extent that they were ever ‘freed,’ they were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, which was authored and pressured into existence not by Lincoln but by the great emancipators nobody knows, the abolitionists and congressional leaders who created the climate and generated the pressure that goaded, prodded, drove, forced Lincoln into glory by associating him with a policy that he adamantly opposed for at least fifty-four of his fifty-six years of his life."

Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’ s White Dream, p. 19

Nothing noteworthy to add to this, just wanted to mention that I linked these quotes on my facebook one evening, but when I woke up the next day and checked my account, it had been removed.

So I put it up again, and lo and behold it was taken down again.

[Bruno]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

Well, now I'm even more glad I'm not on Facebook.

[Flynnie]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

I don't really buy that.

Bennett's book has been favorably viewed by huge neo-Confederate (and hack) Thomas diLorenzo, which is damning enough, but it's also riddled with shoddy scholarship.

Bennett brings some things to the table: it's he who largely redefined Lincoln from The Great Emancipator to a complicated human being with complicated racial views. But white supremacism was a mainstream political position in 1850s white America, and Lincoln's views changed over time, so just pointing to the Lincoln-Douglas debates when Lincoln was speaking to an all-white audience who didn't give a fudge about racial equality doesn't cut it for me.

Skip Gates wrote a very good article on Lincoln's attitudes towards race that traces his adjusting and evolving views over time: Was Lincoln A Racist?

The last bit is pure horseshit though. Lincoln opposed slavery throughout his life, independent of his judgement that a President only had limited powers to abolish slavery. He vigorously campaigned for the Thirteenth Amendment's passage and his Emancipation Proclamation changed the ballgame. It made abolishing slavery the central objective of winning the war. It was the full realization of Lincoln and the federal government that the Union could no longer continue with slavery alive in its boundaries. That it didn't free any slaves in border Union states that permitted it was obvious political expediency in light of the necessity of keeping those states onside in a war which was by no means a certainty when the EP was issued - it's simply illogical to believe slavery would have been permitted to continue in those states post-war. And tell the freedmen in the South who followed Sherman and Grant's armies, eventually taking up arms for the Union, that it didn't free any slaves.

[Flynnie]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

Also, no TR in a list of good Republican presidents? Though I think even accounting for his imperial attitudes and quotes as a young man about the only good Indians being dead ones, it would be difficult to consider him right-wing for his time. The Square Deal made sure of that. He also was the first president to intervene in a labor dispute on the side of the strikers.

[alyxandr]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

Bored of Education wrote:

To echo an E10 "Che"-related query over on the LWD thread, in what universe does The Nuge "get a free pass"?

Well, I hate to say it but the metal universe, mostly.

Sure, but so does, well, Satan. Not entirely unexpected.

[Bored Of Education]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

I know that "metallers are all thick and reactionary" narrative is a compelling one but it's even a small section of the metal world now that still like Nugent. Perhaps, less than Satan, even

[Flynnie]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

I don't have much time for metalheads but is the Nuge even metal? I considered him hard rock, which to me implies a little more allegiance to pop themes and approach.

[Bored Of Education]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

He's that kind of hard rock that didn't really translate all that well over here. Sammy Hagar, Heart, Styx, Aerosmith (to an extent), Kiss (again to an extent) etc. It is only because Metallica and others were into him really and started covering his stuff.

Harry and I went to see him at the Astoria, knowing that we probably wouldn't warm to him that much but he was fucking atrocious and we left after three songs. We were heartened by the fact that we knew that there were loads of "G.A.Y." signs all over backstage to piss him off

[Cal Alamein]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

I liked him in high school. Played the shit out of that Byrdland. He was merely a sexist hose bag back then. He does the casino circuit here and you couldn't drag me to see him today.

[Flynnie]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

Maybe I'm just too Bay Area and I think of metal as thrash, but you listen to early Metallica before they folded up their penises and returned them to Dave Mustaine and it's hard to classify Sammy fucking Hagar as metal.

It's become a weird punk trope to dig the Nuge - Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye famously go to Nuge shows together. I've just found him shit, and obviously his views on the world are deeply repulsive.

[Bored Of Education]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye famously go to Nuge shows together.

Really? I mean, really? That is just fucking stupid. having know Harry for 45 years, he is the person I can be at my most, let's say, unreconstructed with and we were just appalled. Not 'sharp intake of breath' liberal antennae quivering as you would with, say, Frankie Boyle or something. Genuinely appalled.

[Valentino Mazzola]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

They did in the 70s as teenagers, I'm not sure about now. I'm not sure what would tempt them now to be honest.

[Bored Of Education]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

No, I did a bit of checking and it appears it was in the 70s. Back when gun toting right wing homophobic sexism wasn't bad. That's fine

[Valentino Mazzola]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

Hard to get definite info on ZZ Top - how much that was down to some sort of fellow Texan thing I dunno.

[Flynnie]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

Hmm, I was under the impression they still go to Nuge shows, in a sort of "We can still enjoy the low culture of our youth!" kind of way.

The 70s is a little bit more defensible, Nuge could actually play a little bit and I don't think he was trying to prove himself as America's Biggest Right Wing Jackass 24/7.

[Valentino Mazzola]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

It seems from reading MacKaye's interviews that he was attracted to the visceral element of the arena shows TN put on at the time - coupled with the 'rebellious' even within 70s hard rock persona of the Nuge at the time - the whole teetotal, anti-drugs, catch your own food thing - more the consistency of the persona rather than the specific right-wing thing.

Although how much actual shit he spouted then in interviews compared to now, I've no idea - if it was half as bad as TN circa 21st century I can't help thinking how fans, teenagers even (maybe even especially them) would completely go off him.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

Bored of Education wrote:

Harry and I went to see him at the Astoria, knowing that we probably wouldn't warm to him that much but he was fucking atrocious and we left after three songs. We were heartened by the fact that we knew that there were loads of "G.A.Y." signs all over backstage to piss him off

Mat might have been working there.

[beak]

Right-wing dicks we're supposed to like

glen e. friedman has a photo of ted nugent in fuck you heroes; the text mentions that all the skate/future-hardcore kids loved it because it was the hardest, fastest music they could get their hands on (until punk started filtering through).