Shut Up And Sing!

Just before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks had the unmitigated gall & temerity to say she was ashamed 'the president' was from the same state she was. The mindless outrage of the Bush rednecks and the regressive controlled media controlled was immediate and hysterical. In this case it went far beyond the pale and culminated in an organized campaign to silence and punish the group as ‘traitors’. Following an organized campaign, 70% of US radio stations refused to play their records, their albums were collected and publicly trashed or burned. In fact, the events were frighteningly and eerily reminiscent of Nazi book burnings in the ‘thirties. Unbelievable.

Even though the Dixie Chicks had performed and published the most popular country music songs in history, Redneck rants seemed to appear everywhere country music was played. Web sites controlled by secret, incognito entities orchestrated a vociferous campaign to financially ruin the group for having the actual audacity to exercise their freedom to speak. There were even death threats.

Even that Godly Gasbag the very Reverend Jerry Falwell got into the act, calling the group "French hens" who "said unacceptable things about their president"

Even after the girls tried sincerely to defuse and mitigate the controversy, to the point of making a public apology and explanation for the original comment, their attackers only increased their fury. The result should have been predictable. THESE WOMEN GOT MAD!

It is now evident the regressives miscalculated on the courage of the Dixie Chicks, and particularly Ms. Maines. The group proceeded to ignore the attacks - they really had no choice if they wanted to keep their careers - and continued their work, moving away from the country music venue. Consequently, they recently made a clean sweep of the 2007 Grammy awards, winning all 5 of the top awards. Very sweet validation of their talents by anyone’s measure - though their detractors are quick to claim ‘Hollywood’ was bound to favor them! That they are having heartburn over the Dixie Chicks’ success couldn’t be more clear.

But, that’s not all. The group also made a full length documentary movie of the episode, now being offered to the public. Ads were prepared, with certain media refusing to run the ads! NBC for example - that’s as in ‘National Broadcasting Corporation’ - claiming to be all in favor of ‘free speech’ refused to run ads for the movie, saying in writing that it `cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush.'"

Now, NBC is attempting to ‘spin’ their blacklisting of the group by claiming they were only in the ‘opening discussions of confidential negotiations’ when the Chicks went public with the refusal to run the ads. Yeah, right.

The entire string of events was such blatant hypocrisy to me that I immediately ordered my own copy of the movie which I have now received and watched. My comment is “WOW! These women have iron guts! And, any one of the three has ten times the balls of George W. Bush our current ‘War President’. If you want to see an enlightening and uplifting movie - don’t miss this one!