Look, I like the Dixie Chicks - not loads and loads, just like a normal amount. But I got to admit, I wasn't too impressed with Miss Natalie Maines and her mouth. It was hard enough being an American in Europe at that time, and she didn't make it any easier to try to keep your head down and your mouth shut. Thanks for making it so that those of us who just weren't sure about the whole thing ended up looking like we were raving chicken hawks just cause I wouldn't criticise the war (well I wouldn't say anything about it).
Serr8d kind of captures the crux of it...
Mind you, I wouldn't have given a rat's patooie about what they said, if they had said it in Houston or Nashville, first, and not overseas a la Clinton and Fonda. "We're on the good side with y'all..." immediately puts anyone who disagrees with anti-war, anti-USA, and Bush Bashers on the "bad" side. Well, that puts them on my bad side.
You think the Dixie Chicks had it bad in the US - you should have seen what the Texas Expats thought of them. (I played some Dixie Chicks at a party and only when I explained that I hadn't paid for the music but had illegally downloaded it did everybody calm down.) But do I think the Dixie Chicks deserved what they got? Hell no. No, way. Nobody deserves death threats over a political statement. Especially not some musician in sequins and fringe. I mean aren't we all supposed to be patriotic if we defend liberty and free speech?
Anyway - NewsComa picks it up the real crux of the matter - it wasn't just the Dixie Chicks - it was the whole squashing of speech thing that seemed to be going on in America at the time.
I think historically for many liberals who did not like Bush and did not want this war, to see the complete annihilation by media and dismissal of the Dixie Chicks after Maines statement was somewhat terrifying. We were in a freaky time in this country, and there was the underlying message that you couldn’t really say anything. I know I went through this on a smaller level in northwest Tennessee. Unfortunately, due to my job, I became a nodder. I’d just listen, try to interject (be told I was unpatriotic) and go off licking my wounds. You beat a dog enough, that dog goes and just hides under the porch. As ashamed as I am to admit, I spent a lot of time under the porch in 2003 and 2004 looking at people’s ankles as they walked by. It’s not something I take pride in admitting. In the past 18 months, that has changed.
I remember thinking in those months that I was freer in Old Europe than I would have been in America. Hey, I'm glad it's feeling better in America. Frankly, it was a little freaky.
5 comments:
Ouch - ok, I'm a Vol fan as much as the next Tennessean, but the orange is painful to the eyes.
I would have loved to have been in Europe during those days.
Quite frankly, it was a terrible time.
What the Ditzy Chix failed to accept is the responsibility for the repercussions from what they said. They wanted to say their piece without reaction or criticism. Didn't happen. Free speech doesn't work just one way.
yes, yes... Free speech doesn't work one way - don't buy their albums?, fine - ban them from country radio?, fine in a sense (if we were still back in the days of independent radio rather than communication monoliths)
Death threats? No. If the reaction to speech you don't like is the threat of violence then it's not free speech.
The death threats were wrong, but IIRC it wasn't that bad over here at the time. All the people I recall arguing with about the war are still around, none worse for the wear. None carted off to GTMO. Others might disagree.
The Chicks have always been a little irreverent (I have two of their older CDs) but what bothered me was their bashing in a foreign country then summarily dumping their entire fan base when they didn't get the joke. Tawdry.
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