-Mike
---- From http://www.cmt.com/news/feat/dchicks.031403.jhtml:
One major market programmer removed the Chicks from his station's playlist but changed his mind after considering why Americans have fought previous wars. In a letter to listeners posted on the KFKF/Kansas City Web site, program director Dale Carter wrote, "Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are over there fighting for our rights -- and one of those is our Constitutional right to express an /unpopular/ opinion. The longer this has gone on, the more I had visions of censorship and McCarthyism. Two wrongs don't make a right. I agree with the 80 percent of you who abhor what Natalie said in London. On the other hand, I believe in the Constitution."
At 04:14 PM 3/15/2003 -0500, Pablo Bose wrote:
It's not so cut and dry as a consumer sovereignty (ie "choose to listen or tune out") issue. I would certainly agree with Ian that there seems to be a witch hunt going on in the popular media at least, one that simply doesn't jive either with long-standing traditions of vigorous dissent within the US polity or with a significant element of the population of the US today. For every person who seems to want to unquestioningly follow the little general to Armageddon, there seem to be a lot of others who question the motives and rationales behind this rush to war. What I have seen however, is a marked lack of such voices on the mainstream American media. Much more in the independent and certainly a hell of a lot more coverage in Canadian and European presses. But on the CNN or Fox War channels, which have been hyping "a showdown" and an "ultimatum" with Iraq for months now, the waiting, as Tom Petty once said, really must be the hardest part. Woe betide you if you utter a discouraging word, else you'll get lectured, as Susan Sarandon found out when harangued by Connie Chung for "betraying our troops" or the French (apparently the American ass-kissing Alliance now wants to officially change the name to "Freedom Canadians" and "freedom kissing"). The point isn't whether or not the Dixie Chicks are being oppressed, but that dissent is still very much discouraged by both the state and the mainstream media in the US.
Pablo
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Pablo Shiladitya Bose Research Coordinator, Ethics of Development-Induced Displacement Project Research Associate, Centre for Refugee Studies Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of Environmental Studies York University, Toronto, Canada Tel: (416) 736-2100 ext. 20559
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