Diatribune

I just watched the Dixie Chicks movie Shut Up & Sing. I did not follow the brouhaha that erupted following Natalie Maines' statement criticizing George Bush in 2003 because frankly I assumed that most good Texans were embarrassed and ashamed to be from the same state as Bush. I thought it was just one of those self-evident statements, (sky is blue, grass is green, ashamed of Bush.etc), that people would ignore and then move on to controversial matters. Issues like, should the United States ever invade a country because we believe that they might do us some unknown harm at some later date or would it be better to wait until we have concrete proof of an eminent attack seemed more immediate. So I was really surprised as I watched the film to see the level of hatred that was directed at the Chicks as the result of one innocuous statement. As  proud Texans in the great tradition of Lyndon Johnson we are ashamed that George Bush is our president and that we delivered him as a candidate in 2000. See what I mean, about self-evident? Somehow the Dixie chicks went to sleep in England after the show and woke up surrounded by neo-Nazi Neanderthals. I was astounded at the hostility directed at them by members of the media whose job is to protect free speech in America. Without a free press there is no free speech, yet here they were Pat Buchanan, Bill O' Reilly and others openly vilifying the Dixie Chicks on the air because one of them had the audacity to speak her mind about this president. Buchanan called them "stupid bimbos" on the air. This is the same Pat Buchanan who had this to say about the war just yesterday: 

Most Americans realize that our mistake was not just in how the occupation was botched by Paul Bremer – failure to stop the looting, disbanding the Iraqi army. The blunder was in attacking a nation that did not attack or threaten us, or any U.S. ally. 

What a stupid bimbo! So why is it OK for Pat Buchanan to criticize the president but not the Dixie Chicks? Many of the news commentators who were so critical of Natalie Maines are now blasting the Bush administrator relentlessly for the ineptitude they have shown in prosecuting this war. Yet none of them receive death threats. They don't have protesters standing outside their studios hurling obscenities at them. The only real difference now between Natalie Maines comments and most of the media pundits on the right who criticized her statement is that she got there first.  Yet for some reason all of these bandwagoneers have the right to free speech that was denied Natalie Maines with great vitriol by these same administration critics.

The Dixie Chicks movie should be a real eye opener for all Americans because we have lost our moral center. We are supposed to be a nation whose founding principle is the rule of law and the document which lays the foundation for that is our Constitution which this president said is just "a goddamned piece of paper". Given that statement and given the founding fathers intentions when they created this great nation, perhaps it is the president's patriotism we should be questioning. Real patriotic Americans stand up for the rights of others to express themselves even if we disagree with what they say. Real patriotic Americans respect and defend the Constitution of the United States all of its' tenants and would never refer to it as "a goddamned piece of paper". And most importantly real patriot Americans support our brave fighting men by insisting that our leaders protect them and not put them in harms way needlessly, not send them into battle without the training and equipment they need to complete their mission. So join with me as a truly patriotic American and stand up and cheer for the Dixie Chicks.

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