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shatoga
Joined: 23 Nov 2002
Posts: 1291
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Profiles in Courage
 Tue May 27, 2003 11:30 pm
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For those very few of US who respect what America once stood for.
http://www.liberty1.org/constitu.htm
THE CONSTITUTION OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Article. V.
Amendments to this Constitution,...shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution,
Article. VI.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; ..., shall be the supreme Law of the Land
BILL OF RIGHTS
Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech,...
Every office in america includes the same oath; to:
" preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Victims of a Republican Plot
The Dixie Chicks Cross the Road http://www.counterpunch.org/dixie05172003.html
By The Editors of Rock and Rap Confidential
May 17, 2003
Last year, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks
contemptuously dismissed Toby Keith's popular
pro-war song "Courtesy of the Red, White, and
Blue," saying it was "ignorant and it makes
country music sound ignorant." No boycott
was called. In fact, not a word was said.
So there's no reason to interpret the hostile
response that followed Maines's anti-war comments
as the spontaneous reaction of an outraged country
audience. In fact, the attack on the Dixie Chicks
was a political maneuver no less calculated
than the Watergate break-in.
According to a story from americannewsreel.com
sent to RRC by former Reprise president Howie Klein,
"Phone calls originating from Republican Party
headquarters in Washington went out to country
stations, urging them to remove the Chicks
from their playlists.
The 'alternative concert' (to the Dixie Chicks'
tour opener) is actually the work of the South Carolina
Republican Party and party officials are helping promote
the concert.We received a call from 'Gallagher's Army,'
urging us to support the alternative concert. Caller
ID backtraced the call to South Carolina GOP
headquarters."
Chain radio stations were quick to dump the Chicks
because their parent companies (Clear Channel, Viacom,
et al) have pressing business in the nation's capitol and
they want help from the Republican Party.
The Dixie Chicks Top of the World tour was set to
begin in Greenville, South Carolina, on May 1. The state
legislature had passed a resolution condemning the group.
Lipton Tea, their corporate tour sponsor, scrapped most
of its endorsement deal with the Chicks, saying that
it's "wrong" to be for peace.
In the wake of the many death threats against the
three young women in the group, bomb dogs searched
the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville before the show.
Lon Helton, country music editor of Radio & Records,
claimed that country fans are all right-wing, saying "Country
music is for people who live in between the Hudson and the
Hollywood sign and they have a different view."
If all country fans opposed Natalie Maines's plea for
peace, that raised the question: Would anyone show up
at the Dixie Chicks' shows? Would the group back away
from its beliefs in a desperate attempt to save
its career?
Before the concert in Greenville, the arena sound system
played "Everybody Wants to Save the World," "Our Lips Are
Sealed" by the Go-Gos, "Band on the Run" by Wings, and
Tammy Wynette's "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad."
There were only a few empty seats and the crowd was
doing the wave even before the show began. As soon as it
did, there was what the LA Times's Geoff Boucher described
as "a landslide of fan love."
After the third song, Natalie Maines, clad in a tank top
emblazoned with "Dare to Be Free," offered the crowd a
chance to boo. "If there were any boos, they couldn't be heard
over the huge applause," reported the Greenville News. Nor was
there any booing during the performance of Patty Griffin's "Truth
No. 2" ("You don't like the sound of the truth coming out of my
mouth") when a video was shown onstage that highlighted
the civil rights movement, Gandhi, Malcolm X, and women's
rights, along with footage of people stomping on records by
the Beatles, Sinead O'Connor, and the Dixie Chicks.
The Chicks got the same enthusiastic response everywhere
they went on the first Southern leg of their tour. Sometimes there
would be one protestor standing outside with a pro-Bush sign,
sometimes none.
The reception given the Dixie Chicks below the Mason-Dixon
line doesn't change the reality that there is a powerful and
dangerous streak of jingoism in America, one that has its
strongest roots in the South.
But the Dixie Chicks have proven that there are two sides
to that story. Even more than their music and their courage,
that may turn out to be their greatest gift of all.
Rock and Rap Confidential, edited by Dave Marsh and
Lee Ballinger, is the nation's best newsletter on music and
politics. RRC will send a free sample issue to all CounterPunchers.
Send your request to: Rockrap@aol.com
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shatoga
Joined: 23 Nov 2002
Posts: 1291
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Tue May 27, 2003 11:50 pm
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quote:
Originally posted by shatoga:
Victims of a Republican Plot
The Dixie Chicks Cross the Road
....In fact, the attack on the Dixie Chicks
was a political maneuver no less calculated
than the Watergate break-in.
Chain radio stations were quick to dump the Chicks
because their parent companies (Clear Channel, Viacom,
et al) have pressing business in the nation's capitol and
they want help from the Republican Party.
Clear Channel Has Ties to Bush
Paul Krugman: Behind pro-war protests, a company with ties to Bush Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Channels of influence
NEW YORK By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as anti-war rallies, but they have certainly been vehement.
One of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized President George W. Bush: A crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a tractor smash Dixie Chicks CDs, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with 20th-century history it seemed eerily reminiscent of ... But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here.
Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry - with close links to the Bush administration.
The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, a radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from its playlists. Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the United States have, however, been organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, a behemoth based in Texas that controls more than 1,200 stations and increasingly dominates the airwaves.
The company says the demonstrations, which go under the name Rally for America, reflect the initiative of individual stations. But this is unlikely: According to Eric Boehlert, who has written revelatory articles about Clear Channel in the online magazine Salon, the company is notorious - and widely hated - for its iron-fisted centralized control.
Until now, complaints about Clear Channel have focused on its business practices. Critics say it uses its power to squeeze recording companies and artists and contributes to the growing blandness of broadcast music. But now the company appears to be using its clout to help one side in a political dispute that deeply divides the United States.
Why would a media company insert itself into politics this way? It could simply be a matter of personal conviction on the part of management. But there are also good reasons for Clear Channel - which became a giant only in the last few years, after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed many restrictions on media ownership - to curry favor with the governing party.
On one side, Clear Channel is feeling some heat: It is being sued over allegations that it threatens to curtail the airplay of artists who don't tour with its concert division, and there are even some politicians who want to roll back the deregulation that made the company's growth possible. On the other side, the Federal Communications Commission is considering further deregulation that would allow Clear Channel to expand even further, particularly into television.
Or perhaps the quid pro quo is more narrowly focused. Experienced Bushologists let out a collective "Aha!" when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush. The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks. When Bush was governor of Texas, Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Co., called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Bush a multimillionaire.
There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy. As Jonathan Chait has written in The New Republic, in the Bush administration "government and business have melded into one big 'us.'" On almost every aspect of domestic policy, business interests rule: "Scores of midlevel appointees ... now oversee industries for which they once worked." We should have realized that this is a two-way street: If politicians are busy doing favors for businesses that support them, why shouldn't we expect businesses to reciprocate by doing favors for those politicians - by, for example, organizing "grass roots" rallies on their behalf?
What makes it all possible, of course, is the absence of effective watchdogs. In the Clinton years the merest hint of impropriety quickly blew up into a huge scandal; these days, the scandalmongers are more likely to go after journalists who raise questions. Anyway, don't you know there's a war on?
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Copyright (c) 2003 The International Herald Tribune http://www.refuseandresist.org/war/article.php?aid=660
***
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/medi-a17.shtml
Over the past several years, Clear Channel has consistently sought to use its dominance of the radio medium to promote the political ideology of the right wing of the Republican Party. In the midterm congressional elections of 2002, two Clear Channel stations in Jackson, Mississippi attracted attention when they decided to pull advertisements run by Democratic candidates that were critical of Congressman Chip Pickering, a Republican.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, executives at Clear Channel sent a memo to their local stations consisting of a list of songs deemed “questionable” for future use. Included in the list were John Lennon’s “Imagine,” all songs by the popular band Rage Against the Machine, peace songs by Bruce Springsteen and others. More recently, Clear Channel stations have played a central role in the McCarthyite witch-hunt against the country music group, the Dixie Chicks. The radio chain has removed the group’s songs from its play list because a member of the band made public comments critical of Bush.
*** http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29375-2003Mar25.html
" ... a major donor to the Republicans and has contributed a ... Democrats.During the last two years, Clear Channel gave about $175,000 to Republican Party causes ... "
www.recordingartistscoalition.com/latimes_013003.html
It takes a lot of courage to stand up and speak the truth in Amarika today.
During the Clinton Administration, this same monolithic media criticized the President every day, hundreds of mouths speaking the same words with the same voice.
Not many people would willingly answer the question:
"Would you have had the courage to speak out against Hitler, even if it meant loss of your job, your family and possibly your life?"
with a resounding "Yes!"
The Dixie Chicks have risked all for Freedom of Speech,
and put their trust in the US Constitution.
do they not know the forces of darkness arrayed against them?
Or do they care more about our sacred Constitution than about the temporary occupant of the White House?
Where were their critics during the Clinton years?
Screaming out the other sides of their hypocritical mouths!
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