In March 2003, after the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines told an audience in England that she was ashamed that George W. Bush was from her home state of Texas, you'd have thought, from the frothing reaction of the Usual GOP Bush Protectors, that she'd announced her engagement to Osama bin Laden.
Moreover Maines, showing a spine Democrats should study, refused to apologize or back down from her comment. As organized letter-writing and calling campaigns (can you say 'Rove'?) besieged country radio stations (most of them affiliated with Bush-friendly Clear Channel Radio), urging them to stop playing Dixie Chicks music, and the news showed shots of alleged former fans of the group destroying their CD's, many of the Republican brand smugly informed the public that, sure, Natalie Maines had her right to free speech but warned gleefully that, as the price for using it, she was going to have to 'suffer the consequences.' Even King Junior himself entered the fray, telling NBC in an interview in April 2003 that "Freedom is a two-way street," implying that those who might speak out against him would pay a price, perhaps even losing their livelihood.
(Strangely, those of us who have done more than glance at the Constitution never noticed that it said any suffering or price should be attached to exercising your right of free speech, especially losing your means of supporting yourself, but then the Rovian Bushistas can get very creative in their ugly smear campaigns.)
Various members of the punditocracy of the day predicted a quick and unseemly demise for the Chicks for committing the new post-9/11 crime of expressing your honest opinion. That prediction was belied by the packed concert halls that accompanied their American tour following the flap, with only a handful of sorry stragglers outside holding shabby anti-Chicks signs.
At any rate, fast forward to the present, where the Chicks are 'suffering the consequences' of opposing Bush by being the biggest-selling female group in history, with a number one album on both the Billboard charts and the Internet. (Tattlesnake wonders how many other popular musical artists who disliked Bush and the Iraq debacle but held their tongue back in 2003 are kicking themselves now?)
Only such a revered fount of establishment journalism such as Time could so misread the mood of the nation by having a cover photo of the band with the legend "Radical Chicks" splashed below them. Radical? In poll after poll, two-thirds of the nation agree with them on Bush and the Iraq War. That sounds more 'mainstream' than radical.
In an interview with Larry King May 31st, the Chicks still refused to buckle to the right-wing Bush Noise Machine, and they are more popular than ever, a lesson our feebly fainthearted Democrats in Washington might take to heart.
By the way, the first female U.S. president shouldn't be that politically-bendable Gumby doll Hillary, it should be Natalie Maines -- pretty, smart, takes no guff, and she can sing, too. And Randi Rhodes would be the perfect Veep for her.
Not that it's ever going to happen, but the Tattlesnake would enthusiastically join the 'Maines-stream' in 2008, especially with Randi as the anti-Cheney.
Besides, Natalie would be the first president who could sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at her own inauguration.
--------------------------------
Today's Quote: Vindication
"But now those harsh critics [of the Bush Administration] have been vindicated. And it turns out that many of the administration supporters can't handle the truth. They won't admit that they built a personality cult around a man who has proved almost pathetically unequal to the job. Nor will they admit that opponents of the Iraq war, whom they called traitors ..., have been proved right. So they have taken refuge in the belief that a vast conspiracy of America-haters in the media is hiding the good news from the public.
"Unlike the crazy conspiracy theories of the left -- which do exist, but are supported only by a tiny fringe -- the crazy conspiracy theories of the right are supported by important people: powerful politicians, television personalities with large audiences. And we can safely predict that these people will never concede that they were wrong. When the Iraq venture comes to a bad end, they won't blame those who led us into the quagmire; they'll claim that it was all the fault of the liberal media, which stabbed our troops in the back."
-- Paul Krugman, "Who's Crazy Now?" The New York Times, May 8, 2006. [Requires subscription.]
No comments:
Post a Comment