Maureen “Moe” Tucker, former drummer for the iconic rock band the Velvet Underground, came out last year as a conservative at at Tea Party rally in Tifton, Ga., which happens to be the ancestral stomping grounds of the Ham clan, by the way. Here’s what she said at that rally (it’s at 2:43 in the video):
“I’m furious about the way we’re being led toward socialism. I’m furious about the incredible waste of money, when things that we really need and are important get dropped, because there’s no money left.”
Needless to say, the lefty blogosphere was aghast, first doubting that this was THE Moe Tucker, and second, wishing all kinds of misfortune on her. So incredulous was the left that it dispatched a reporter to make sure she had said what she said. And, God bless Moe, she doubled down:
My family was damn poor when I was growing up on Long Island. There were no food stamps, no Medicaid, no welfare. If you were poor, you were poor. You didn’t have a TV, you didn’t have five pairs of shoes, you didn’t have Levi’s, you didn’t have a phone; you ate Spam, hot dogs and spaghetti. We all survived! I am not against food stamps, welfare or Medicaid, if only they would oversee these programs properly!
I am also against the government taking over the student loan program, car companies, bailouts and the White House taking control of the census (what the hell is that all about?); [about] any First Lady telling (I know, I know, “suggesting to”) us what to eat, the mayor of New York City declaring “no salt” (screw you, pal!), the mayor/city commissioners of Anytown, U.S.A. declaring you can’t fly a flag, can’t say the Pledge of Allegiance and can’t sing the National Anthem. I’m against a President dismissing any and all who dare to disagree; the water being turned off in (central) California, at [an] area where they’ve turned off the water because they want to save a one-inch fish — turning that huge area of farming land into another dustbowl — the insipid start of food supply control methinks! The government deciding what kind of lightbulbs we can use (all you “think green” people, three objections to this b.s.: 1) Those bulbs give off the light of a candle; 2) They’re very expensive; 3) They have mercury in them – how the hell are we supposed to dispose of them?).
I know whereof she speaks. In the past two weeks I have had to stand in the grocery store line for an extra 15 minutes as the cashier painstakingly rang up the individual items allowed by the WIC program, the various other food stamp freebie programs, and, finally, rang up separately things like cheese doodles and soft drinks that aren’t allowed to be purchased on these programs.
In once of these instances, the woman bought more than $200 worth of groceries and paid about $5 in cash, and she was dressed like a professional woman. In the other instance, the woman, who spoke no English and didn’t understand that the cashier was telling her she could only buy 1 or 2 percent milk on the WIC program, was also well-dressed, did not look like she lived in poverty, and her two kids looked like they could have come from the nearest cul-de-sac neighborhood.
As Moe says, I think there’s a lot of waste in these programs, evidenced by the fact that the folks benefiting from these programs are no longer the needy people they were set up to help. They’re just moochers out for a free lunch that the government is incompetent enough to provide them with.
Here she is singing “After Hours” on the Velvet Underground’s 1967 debut album:
