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Thread ID: 5719 | Posts: 14 | Started: 2003-03-22

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Faust [OP]

2003-03-22 07:49 | User Profile

NeoCon Goons hate the Dixie Chicks. Time to buy some CD's

** Dixie Opportunism Kevin McCullough Friday, March 21, 2003

There is a new low in crass attempts to gain popular good will and it has been spewing forth in record volume in recent days. Last week a sitting U.S. senator, a former U.S. president and a country music icon all used shameless opportunities to garner the favor of those they were in front of.

What has happened to dignity, intelligence and patriotism? What has happened to common sense? What has happened to the idea that when America faces great crisis we don't show our home-based squabbles abroad?

Apparently we've lost them all.

Last week ex-President Clinton, in speaking to a crowd at a YMCA in Manhattan, took the opportunity to say, "Look, this war is gonna be over with quick, and you can always wait a day to kill someone ... but you know you can't wait a day to bring them back."

Besides showing complete rhetorical ignorance as a former head of state, surely even Mr. Clinton knows that we have no guarantees of anything we will find when the War on Terror liberates Iraq.

How can he be so sure it will be a quick finish? It is my hope that he is right  but it is truly irresponsible for a person of his former status to embark on such campaign-like shtick to get some applause.

Not far behind him was the man who many say is the leading front-runner for the Democrats’ presidential hopes, Sen. John Kerry, calling the efforts of the U.S. in recent days "some of the worst diplomatic efforts in the history of the U.S."

In observing Secretary Colin Powell appear on the normal round of Sunday morning shows, I see an administration official who is going in to the venues  answering the hard questions about everything from his travel habits to the exact number of phone calls he has made before 5 a.m.

Sen. Kerry is forgetting a key item in this whole process as well. He is behaving in a highly hypocritical way considering he voted in favor of the congressional houses giving President Bush all the authority he needs and more to go and liberate Iraq.

Sen. Kerry must be particularly vexed because France was not willing to support our efforts and thus derailed the entire attempt at diplomacy. But Sen. Kerry does not acknowledge, not in his address to the California Democrats anyway, that the French have abstained or been against every single resolution ever offered in the U.N. Security Council that has ever been brought forward.

Sen. Kerry does not raise the issue of sweetheart deals that France has enjoyed with Iraq and its dictatorial regime. Sen. Kerry plays both sides of the fence and is losing credibility every time he switches sides on this issue. But again the mantra is "Whatever it takes to get applause to the people I'm in front of now!"

Finally, last week a very foolish little singer from Texas went on stage in London and publicly pronounced her shame for our current president. In a later non-apology apology Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks did her best to say that she worries about the women and children who will be hurt.

Right. Women and Children. Like the 10,000 Saddam has had killed every year since 1979. The ignorance of her comments raised the ire of her fans  and for good reason.

You can be unpatriotic and survive in the world of Rock and Roll, or Alternative, or Rap, or just about any other genre of music in existence. But when our sons and daughters are on the front lines, ready to do a task that none of them wishes to but realizes that they must in this post-9/11 world, you cannot diss them or our nation in the world of Country.

It's your right to speak out, but the moment you do it on foreign soil, for foreign applause, simply because you are too illiterate or too unsophisticated to know that you don't air your dirty laundry on your neighbor's front porch after ringing the doorbell and summoning them to observe, you lose your right to be titled a patriotic American.

Of course after a period of time has gone by, when we have liberated the people who have been so oppressed and when democracy begins to take shape in a part of the world most thought would never see it, these Dixie Opportunists will be shown for what they are. Their selfishness, ambition or little-girl insecurity will relegate them to the same status as that of the U.N. Security Council  completely useless.

And as a small symbol of this, I'm asking you to send me your entire collection of Dixie Chicks memorabilia. I will have my radio show producers collect it and store it, and a few days from now we are going to light up the biggest Dixie Chick bonfire ever seen. Pictures will be taken of it and sent to Ms. Maines.

And in the process we will continue to pray for our men and women in harm’s way, for having the courage to do that which this former U.S. president, sitting U.S. senator and former country music icon have yet to do.

What's that?

Protect the future of my children and yours in the post-9/11 world that has already been visited upon us!

Send to: Kevin McCullough WYLL Radio P.O. Box 56500 Chicago Illinois 60656

Kevin McCullough is enjoyed weekdays 3-5 p.m. on AM 1160 WYLL, a 50,000-watt station in Chicago, Ill. (http://www.wyll.com/nafternoonaudio.asp) Kevin may be reached at kmc@wyll.com.

url: [url=http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/3/20/144521.shtml]http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/...20/144521.shtml[/url] **

Drakmal

2003-03-22 14:22 | User Profile

Mr. Clinton knows that we have no guarantees of anything we will find when the War on Terror liberates Iraq.

I spit water all over my monitor when I read this. Curse you, McCallough!

The War on Israel's Historic Enemies has got to win some sort of prize for its rapid-fire context changes. First it's about crushing the Taliban, then al-Qaeda, then fighting global terrorism, then destroying a potential terrorist sponsor, then destroying an evil dictator, then on to liberating Iraq at gunpoint... that's six in less than a year and a half. What other major global event has changed faces faster than that?

Faust

2003-03-29 02:49 | User Profile

**Traveling Soldier By Bruce Robison

Two days past eighteen He was waiting for the bus in his army greens Sat down in a booth, in a cafe there Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair He's a little shy but she give him a smile So he said would you mind sittin' down for a while And talking to me I'm feeling a little low She said I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go So they went down and they sat on the pier He said I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care I got no one to send a letter to Would you mind if I sent one back here to you

CHORUS:

I - I cried Never gonna hold the hand of another guy Too young for him they told her Waitin' for the love of the travelin' soldier Our love will never end Waitin' for the soldier to come back again Never more to be alone when the letter says My soldier's coming home

Well the letters came from an army camp In California then Vietnam He told her of his heart It might be love and all of the things he was so scared of He said when it's gettin' kinda rough over here I think of that day sittin' down at the pier And I close my eyes and see your pretty smile Don't worry but I won't be able to write for a while

CHORUS

One Friday night at a football game The Lord's Prayer said and the anthem sang A man said folks would you bow your head For the list of local Vietnam dead Crying all alone under the stands Was the piccolo player in the marching band And one name read and nobody really cared But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair

CHORUS

url: [url=http://www.sin-wagon.com/ts.htm]http://www.sin-wagon.com/ts.htm[/url]**

Skeptic

2003-03-29 03:20 | User Profile

For what it's worth, the Dixie Chicks album remained in the #1 position on Billboard's country music chart this week.

Angler

2003-03-29 05:00 | User Profile

Originally posted by Skeptic@Mar 28 2003, 21:20 ** For what it's worth, the Dixie Chicks album remained in the #1 position on Billboard's country music chart this week. **

That's worth a lot. While I'm not a country music fan, I'm glad to hear that they aren't suffering too much on account of their willingness to speak out.

Franco

2003-03-29 06:34 | User Profile

Oh! Those Dixie Chicks aren't Kosher For Passover [tm]! How dare they crit the War That Jews Built!

Oh!! I'm calling my rabbi -- Hymie Goldfarbwitznikbaumsteinfeld. He'll fix those moral, decent Dixie Chicks but good!!!

John Crichton

2003-04-08 06:06 | User Profile

Just did my bit for the anti-war movement and bought the Dixie Chick's album "Home". I must say they do have some talent I always thought of them as a trio of female Garth Brooks but those gals can sing. Now if they would just stop begging forgiveness for telling the truth about the chimp-n-chief I would be a happy camper. B)

Robbie

2003-04-09 03:47 | User Profile

They really shouldn't be "begging for forgiveness", but I would be very unhappy if they committed that dreadful goy act known as "apologizing". I hope they don't secretly look at the bad press they get at FR (among other rags).

Texas Dissident

2003-04-09 14:53 | User Profile

Originally posted by rban@Apr 9 2003, 05:09 ** They would probably make a fine mate for a newly minted Hindu, and are a great target for conversion. **

Shelve your Western plans, Bengali. :dung:

'Cause life is hard enough when you belong here. ( ;) to xmetalhead)

Actually, all are married except for Natalie Mains (sp?), the lead singer. The recently pregnant one is married to Charlie Robison, who is the brother of great Texas singer-songwriter Bruce Robison, who wrote and recorded a few years back the DC's latest hit "Traveling Soldier." Bruce is married to cute Kelly Willis, another outstanding talent that hails from Texas.

MadScienceType

2003-04-09 18:34 | User Profile

[in best Homer voice] Mmmmmmm, Kelly Willis...

Sad to see her waste her talent on hawking Geos, though...

Manifest Destiny

2003-04-11 19:00 | User Profile

Has the so-called "boycott" affected the Dixie Chicks much at all then? If it hasn't, I am glad.

:rock:

xmetalhead

2003-04-11 20:27 | User Profile

Originally posted by Texas Dissident@Apr 9 2003, 09:53 ** 'Cause life is hard enough when you belong here.    (  ;) to xmetalhead)

**

Tex, our resident Bengali just might look cute in platforms! ;)

Avalanche

2003-05-11 20:31 | User Profile

WSWS : News & Analysis : North America

Colorado disc jockeys suspended for protesting Dixie Chicks’ ban By Joanne Laurier 9 May 2003

As part of the ongoing vendetta against the country music group Dixie Chicks, two disc jockeys were suspended from a Colorado Springs, Colorado radio station for locking themselves in the studio while they took listener requests for the band’s music. DJs Dave Moore and Jeff Singer were suspended May 5 for violating a boycott imposed by the management of KKCS 102 FM. The ban has been in place since group member Natalie Maines made a comment hostile to George W. Bush at a March concert in London just prior to the US invasion of Iraq.

The station’s General Manager, Jerry Grant, declared in a media release justifying the reprisals against Moore and Singer that the Dixie Chicks were censored because the station had to be sensitive to its listening audience in a city with five military bases. He claimed that listeners wanted the music pulled until last week, when “the tide began to turn” in favor of the proscribed group.

Grant’s memo described the controversial event: “Monday morning, Singer and Moore, our morning co-hosts, took it upon themselves to lock the studio doors so that no one could enter, and commenced to play the Dixie Chicks back to back, continuously for six hours, from 6:15am until noon. Just prior to noon, I called the studio to tell them that they had two choices, either keep playing the Chicks as they were doing, and they would have no jobs when they came out, or come out of the studio by noon and they would have a couple days suspension. They chose the latter.”

Grant told a local newspaper that the DJs “made it clear that they support the president of the United States. They support wholeheartedly the troops, the military. But they also support the right of free speech.”

Banning the group’s music from the station’s playlist was a difficult decision, said Grant, “because how can you ignore the hottest group in country music?” He answered the rhetorical remark by emphasizing in his press release that “Colorado Springs is a military city.” The independent station does not belong to any of the radio conglomerates, such as Clear Channel Communications, that were instrumental in organizing and continuing the witch-hunt against the Dixie Chicks.

The local television news reported that KKCS has been receiving hundreds of phone calls, with 75 percent of the callers favoring playing the band’s music. “We’ve been getting hundreds of phone calls, both pro and con,” said Grant, “It has not been a fun couple of days.”

“The result of Monday’s action is that we received another overwhelming response from our listeners to play the Dixie Chicks, which we have begun to do today,” concluded the station’s press release.

That the nationwide campaign against the Dixie Chicks—involving radio censorship of their musi,c CD burnings and death threats against group members—is anything but a spontaneous popular response to Maines’ anti-Bush utterance is once again confirmed by the Colorado Springs episode. The fact that a town with numerous military bases was the scene of an extraordinary protest in support of the group reveals much about the state of popular opinion, including perhaps within the military.

When the Dixie Chicks kicked off their sold-out, 59-show, “Top of the World” tour on May 1, the opening concerts witnessed tens of thousands in attendance and only a handful of protesters. This disappointed the US media, which had predicted mass hostility to the group.

At the first concert in Greenville, South Carolina, Maines, sporting a “Dare to be Free” T-shirt, addressed the 15,000-strong audience: “If you’re here to boo, we welcome that. We’re going to give you 15 seconds to do that.” The fans opted to cheer instead. Greenville police reported that less than 10 demonstrators gathered outside the arena. An alternative “patriotic” concert organized by right-wing talk-radio host Mike Gallagher the same night had a small attendance relative to that of the all-female band.

The Associated Press reported that a lone protester stood outside the Orlando, Florida concert.

Knoxville, Tennessee, the fifth stop on the tour, had only 20 refunds on more than 18,000 tickets sold. A protest of about 100 people was organized by talk-radio host Tony Basilio, who broadcast his show live at the protest site outside the concert venue.

Instrumental in the efforts to censor the Dixie Chicks has been the media conglomerate Clear Channel, a company with close ties to the Bush administration. The campaign also involves the extreme-right FreeRepublic.com web site and Cox Radio and Cumulus Broadcasting, two large radio broadcasters who dominate the country music radio scene. The CD-smashing rally in Louisiana by a 33,000-pound tractor was orchestrated by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, which has just recently lifted its ban against the group’s music. The so-called ‘grassroots’ uproar against the trio is in fact a highly orchestrated phenomenon.

According to a report in Launch, Yahoo’s music service, all three group members have 24-hour personal protection. Said spokeswoman Emily Robison: “I feel our safety is a huge, important issue right now. We officially have a posse now because we have to have security people with us at all times, and this has gotten to a point where enough is enough, you know! When you feel like your own safety is an issue, I think people [anti-group protesters] have to step back.”

Recording artist Bruce Springsteen has come out in support of the Dixie Chicks. In a message on his official web site, Springsteen opined:

“The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they’re terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American.

“The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about—namely freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create freedom in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home.

“I don’t know what happens next, but I do want to add my voice to those who think that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to boot. I send them my support.”

= = = = = = = ABC News Primetime interview: Country music group holds its own against right-wing attack By Kate Randall 29 April 2003

ABC News’s Primetime interview with the country music group the Dixie Chicks on April 24 was one of the more grotesque examples of the US media’s attempt to intimidate political dissent and distort public opinion. Entitled “Landslide: the Dixie Chicks,” the program set out to vastly exaggerate the right-wing backlash against a comment made by a member of the group, Natalie Maines, at a March 10 concert in London, nine days before the US-led attack on Iraq. Maines said, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”

All in all, the Dixie Chicks held up well against the crude attempts by interviewer Diane Sawyer to browbeat them and convince them, as well as the viewing audience, that the vast majority of Americans consider any opposition to President Bush and the Iraq war tantamount to treason.

The band’s three members demonstrated a considerable degree of integrity and resilience, defending their right to question and criticize the government and express their opinions. Sawyer failed to get the definitive “mea culpa” she was desperately seeking from Maines. This was not for lack of trying on the part of Primetime’s producers.

The program opened with scenes of the war with a voice-over from an enraged country music fan on a talk-radio program saying: “I think they should send Natalie to Iraq, strap her to a bomb and just drop her over Baghdad.” This clip was repeated later, along with images of country music fans and their young children stomping on Dixie Chicks CDs and riding over them with trackers.

Sawyer described Maines’ comments as “a 15-word sentence” that “would become political nitroglycerine and blow apart [the Dixie Chicks’] lives.” She began the interview by asking Maines: “Do you feel awful about saying that about the president of the United States?”

Sawyer said she found Maines’ statements even more incomprehensible because they were made at a time when “70 percent of Americans were clear that it was time to go to war.” Sawyer did not reveal the source of her claim of overwhelming popular support for the war, but she was presumably referring to opinion polls conducted by the media at the time. These polls were carefully rigged to produce the desired results, but even on their own terms, they revealed a popular mood far different from the unambiguous war fever suggested by Sawyer—a fact of which she is well aware.

Aside from her gross distortion of social and political reality in America, Sawyer’s posture was remarkable for its combination of slavish conformism and ignorance. Like the vast majority of her peers among the lavishly paid media performers, Sawyer lacks any democratic sensibility. The notion that one could or should oppose the “commander-in-chief” was utterly foreign to her limited thought processes.

Maines answered Sawyer by explaining that she made her comments “out of frustration.” She continued: “At the moment, on the eve of war, I had a lot of questions that I felt were unanswered.” She added, “I personally felt like, why tomorrow? Why can’t we find the chemical weapons first? Why tomorrow?” While saying she had spoken off the cuff and regretted the tone of her remark, Maines defended her right to express her opinion and question government policy: “I ask questions. That’s smart, to find out the facts.”

Sawyer, however, was aghast. “There are people,” she said, “who were shocked that someone would stand on a stage and attack the commander in chief.” Maines replied that she had been upset over Bush’s attitude towards the protesters who were demonstrating en masse against the war at that point. She objected to Bush’s dismissal of millions of protesters as a “focus group,” commenting that she would have liked to have heard him say: “I appreciate that these are compassionate citizens of the United States.”

Group member Martie Maguire added: “I really felt like there was a lack of compassion every time I heard Bush speak about this.” She also said she disagreed with Bush’s repeated statements to the effect that “you are either with us or against us.”

In other words, like tens of millions of other Americans, these talented musicians were appalled by the combination of arrogance, inhumanity and stupidity that are the trademarks of the man who occupies the White House, by dint of a stolen election.

In response to Sawyer’s incessant push for an apology, Maines replied that she might have phrased her comments differently if she had given them more thought. She said: “Am I sorry that I said that? Yes. Am I sorry that I spoke out? No. Am I sorry that I ask questions and don’t just follow? No.”

Maguire read a quote from Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, which supports the right of critics of the government to speak out: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” Sawyer had no comment.

Natalie Maines took issue with those who said she should not criticize government policy because US soldiers had sacrificed their lives to defend the right to free speech. She said, “People say people have died to give me this right. I think, yeah, they didn’t die for me not to use it.”

ABC then interviewed soldiers in Iraq on their attitude toward the Dixie Chicks’ statement. Even here they failed to illicit hostility to the musicians. While one or two soldiers expressed disagreement with Maine’s statements, most said the group had a right to its opinions and added that they would not stay away if the band was asked to the perform for the troops. Sawyer reported, not surprisingly, that the US military had no plans to invite the Dixie Chicks to entertain the troops.

Group member Emily Robison expressed her shock and anxiety over threats by right-wing opponents against the band members and their families. These have included death threats and warnings of violence against their property. The group has been forced to beef up security for its concerts, using metal detectors and taking other precautions.

Robison also said it was despicable for these elements to use young children to protest against her fellow band-member’s remarks. “I can’t believe people would bring their children to a bulldozing—to bulldoze art,” she said.

Despite ABC’s attempt to portray the backlash against the Dixie Chicks as representative of an American population enthusiastic about the Bush administration and its war policy, the boycott campaign is anything but a “grassroots” response. It is rather a carefully orchestrated campaign spearheaded by the extreme-right FreeRepublic.com web site and Cox Radio and Cumulus Broadcasting, two large country music radio broadcasters that control as much as a third of US country stations.

Clear Channel, the radio conglomerate that owns more than 1,200 local radio stations nationwide, dominating 60 percent of the rock radio market, has also played a central role in the McCarthyite witch-hunt against the Dixie Chicks, aimed at destroying their careers and placing their lives in danger from threats of violence. Following the group’s anti-Bush statement, Clear Channel removed their songs from its play list. Clear Channel has close ties to the Bush administration. L. Lowry Mays, the company’s chairman, is a Texan with long-standing financial and political ties to the Bush family and Republican Party. [See “The ties that bind: Media giant headed by Bush cronies promotes Iraq war”]

Incidents such as the tractor-bulldozing of the group’s CDs were given sensationalist coverage by the media in an attempt to portray the backlash as a widespread phenomenon. The vast majority of Dixie Chicks fans, however, are unmoved by the right-wing campaign. As the Primetime segment noted, the group begins a 59-show tour this Thursday, May 1, with virtually all of the arena venues sold out. Their album “Home” has sold 6 million copies and is a strong number three on the country music charts.

The attitudes of the band’s members—and the sentiment expressed in Maines’ statement—are representative of a broad section of the American population, which is largely politically uneducated, through no fault of its own, but generally holds left-liberal, progressive and humane views. Millions are repulsed by Bush and identify with the Dixie Chicks’ mistrust of government policy. This appears to be true even among country music listeners, a relatively larger percentage of whom live in more rural regions where support for Bush is proportionately higher than in the country as a whole.

Sawyer and the Primetime producers attempted, on the one hand, to portray the Dixie Chicks as spiraling toward disaster as a result of Maines’ statement, while, on the other, noting facts that pointed to their continued popularity with the general public. They made no attempt to explain this obvious contradiction.

At the program’s conclusion, Sawyer made one last effort to elicit a groveling apology, asking if Maines wished to be “forgiven” for her anti-Bush statement. Maines responded: “Forgive us? What am I trying to say here ... accept us. Don’t forgive us for who we are.”

Asked if she would have anything to say to the president if he were listening, she replied, “Your show’s not long enough.” = = = = = = = Right-wing campaign against US country music group By David Walsh 22 March 2003

An anti-Bush comment by a member of the three-woman Dixie Chicks has spurred ultra-right elements in the US to launch a witch-hunting campaign against the popular country music group.

Natalie Maines, a member of the group and a native of Texas, told the audience at a recent concert in London, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” Within days a drive was under way to demand that country music radio stations no longer play the Dixie Chicks’ music. Numerous stations immediately caved in to the pressure. The music director of WBBN-FM in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, for example, told the press, “We’ve put them to rest for now. I don’t really want to call it a ban. We’re choosing not to play them.”

Kix 96 (WXFL-FM) in Savannah, Georgia followed suit. Disc jockey Bill West told a reporter that the station took the group off the playlist because Maines’s comments were “unpatriotic.” A local television station cited the comments of one “enraged fan,” the owner of a golf course, who was organizing a bonfire to burn the Chicks’ music.

A few hundred protesters near Bossier City, Louisiana, used a 33,000-pound tractor March 17 to crush Dixie Chicks CDs and other items. The protesters referred to themselves as backers of President Bush and Barksdale Air Force Base. One of the demonstrators, cited by the press, was a retired chief master sergeant who served 30 years in the Air Force.

No doubt there are politically backward elements genuinely aroused by Maines’s comments, but the entire affair has the smell of a right-wing provocation. Indeed, when a reporter in Hattiesburg, Kevin Walters, went out and interviewed people on the street he found a different story. Walters noted, “Around Hattiesburg the mood of listeners and music buffs seemed to favor, if not exactly Maines, then her right to voice her opinion.”

A Rock Hill, South Carolina station, 107 FM, joined the boycott as well. However, a local newspaper reported, “The controversy is having little impact at area stores, managers say. ‘I haven’t heard one customer mention it,’ said Mark Hamlin, assistant store manager at Wal-Mart. ‘It’s just like normal.’”

Some country music stations managed to resist the pressure. The management of KNCI in Sacramento, California called the demand for a “total ban” of the Dixie Chicks “un-American.... She, as an American, certainly has the right to express her opinion.”

Simon Renshaw, the Dixie Chicks’ manager, charged in an email to radio stations distributed by Sony Music that the group was the victim of a political witch-hunt, organized by the extreme right FreeRepublic.com. He wrote to the stations, “Your company is being targeted by a radical right-wing online forum. You are being ‘Freeped,’ which is the codeword for an organized e-mail/telephone effort attempting to solicit a desired response.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer was the only major newspaper to carry Renshaw’s comments, in which he charged that the protest over Maines’s comments was being manipulated. He told the radio stations, “This is an extremely active and well-organized group. As always the ‘squeaky wheel gets the grease’ and these weasels know how to squeak.”

Confirming the stage-managed character of the protest, the Enquirer noted that “Complaints didn’t arrive at WUBE (105.1) until Monday [after the right-wing campaign began]. Only one person called Thursday when the B105 morning show read the story, says Tim Closson, operations manager. ‘We broke the story on Thursday, and got very little reaction to it. We mentioned it again on Friday, and only got a few calls,’ he says. The Chicks remain on B105. Closson says he ‘seriously considered indefinitely pulling all Dixie Chicks music ... (but) our decision came down to one thing. We believe in the Constitution. We believe in the freedom of speech.’”

To the role of the extreme right one must add the part played by the corporate giants, whose owners either agree with the neo-fascist elements or cave in to them. Rolling Stone magazine’s web site carried a story March 19 noting that the so-called boycott of the Dixie Chicks was overblown. The piece cited the comments of radio consultant Jaye Albright, who called the controversy “a tempest in a teapot,” adding, “Out of some 2,100 country stations in America, maybe five or six boycotted the Chicks, and most of them only for a day or two as a publicity stunt.... It was very underwhelming, almost laughable.”

In a telephone conversation Albright elaborated, indicating that “call-out” research (random telephone surveys used to gauge listener reaction to particular songs) in “the very markets in which stations are backing off from playing the Dixie Chicks’ music, shows that the group is number one and number two” in popularity. Albright reported that 15-20 percent of those surveyed were “upset” about Maines’s comments and supported the boycott of the group’s music, nearly 10 percent agreed outright with her comments and another 60-70 percent “can separate her music from her politics,” in other words, opposed a ban. The consultant opposed the boycott as an infringement of free speech, calling it “un-American and stupid” and “ironic, considering that the action in Iraq is called Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

Albright added, however, that the controversy was no longer a “tempest in a teapot,” now that Cox Radio and Cumulus Broadcasting, two large owners of country music stations, had instructed their outlets to drop the Dixie Chicks’ music. As many as 30 percent or more of country stations might now ban the group’s music. Cumulus, which owns 50 such stations, issued a statement: “Cumulus Broadcasting has decided to temporarily pull all music by the Dixie Chicks on all of its stations across the country until deemed proper by upper management. This decision was made in respect to The President of the United States, Country Music and Country Radio, Country Music Fans and the State of Texas.”

There is virtually no protest heard anywhere in the media or the recording industry against this blatant act of corporate censorship.

Faust

2003-05-15 01:45 | User Profile

Well I glad so far that the Neocon goon have for the most part failed to hurt the Dixie Chicks.