Don't like Bush? Too bad.
The Dixie Chick's found out how hard it is to express a dissenting view point. Let's run down the chain of events:
- At a concert in London, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
- Word got out here (ah, globalization) and the shit hit the fan
- Texans freak out and radio stations start pulling them out of rotation
- Apologies fly
Freedom of Speech is a hard concept to grasp. It's not to be taken lightly. Understanding that everyone has the same freedom often escapes most people. Now while I don't think that their freedoms have been violated, I do feel that they have been brow beaten into taking the "party line" because they fear for their record sales. Now, you can say that if they are concerned more about record sales than expressing their views then they should shut the hell up and only say what their PR firms tells them to say. And sadly, you would probably be right.
Maybe if more people could travel outside of the U.S. and hear for themselves what the rest of the world is saying they might have a better idea of where the Dixie Chicks are coming from. Even if you decided to only to travel to countries that are supporting the Bush administration's war efforts, you would still find an incredibly strong anti-war sentiment in the population of those countries.
