The event to which I am referring is the radio/clock we keep in the can so we can listen to music while we shit and shower. Makes sense, I know, I don't get why more people don't do it. I mean c'mon, shitting is great and all, but it can get boring just sitting there for like fifteen minutes. It's nice to have some background music, especially if you've got a messy hellion on your hands. So yeah, there's music in there, and I was taking a dump. Since it's almost always country playing, usually I'll switch the station beforehand. This time for whatever reason, I forgot to do so. Probably because they were just talking and not playing music, so it didn't register. It's what was said, not sung, that caught my attention. The disc jockey for this station was informing the listeners of the lineup in the next twenty minutes or so, and made the following statement (or thereabouts, my memory only works so well):

'This station supports freedom of speech, so how about next up we play some Dixie Chicks? Blah blah something about Kenny Chesney.'

Now this one statement made me do a double-take. I perked up my ears and mentally replayed what he said over in my head, confirming that he did indeed say what he said.

'This station supports freedom of speech, so we'll play the Dixie Chicks.'

At first I wasn't really angry. Why would I be? It's great that some people and organizations tell the overzealous censorship assholes to go fuck themselves, I'm all for that. Then I got into thinking further about it, and what do you know? I got incredibly pissed off. Not at the station, no, why would I be? No no, it's the fucking world again, the crusade of stupid fucking people that have once again forced their opinions down my throats all the while thinking they're doing me a favour. Am I going to go into a tirade about it? Hell yeah. Fasten your linguistic seatbelts, kiddies, and let's put this bitch into high gear.

I'm not going to go into the whole story with you, as it's long and tedious, so rather I will point you in the direction of someone who can. The Wikipedia article, as is Wikipedia's custom, summarizes the entire thing beautifully. Go there if you need a refresher on the political controversy that apparently surrounds the Dixie Chicks even now.

The important part is that the lead singer, Natalie Maines, was quoted as saying the following:

This is seemingly nothing too alarming, at least not by today's standards. Nowadays even Bush supporters make fun of what a fucking idiot Bush is. Like baseball, apple pie, and feeling bad for black people, it's become something of a national zeitgeist. However, this quote was taken from a performance done in March of 2003. For those of you with poor history skills, this was right around the time of the Iraq invasion and occupation. A time when the nation was highly divided by the 'to war or not to war' rift caused in most part by the September 11 incident. In short, this was not a good time to declare something that could even remotely be taken as 'unpatriotic.' Oh, and before you go sending me messages correcting my phrasing on any of the above (ie. referring to the shit that went down on September 11 as an 'incident'), I didn't choose what I wrote at random. Iraq WAS invaded and occupied, so don't go giving me a timeline stating something completely irrelevant and unimportant that proves 'occupation didn't officially begin until blah blah fuckedy blah' because as I said before, it's irrelevant and I don't care. The fact is that it happened, plain and simple.

I remember when the shit was fresh news. I remember the protests, the boycotts, the demonstration involving a pile of Dixie Chicks albums getting crushed by a bulldozer (way to make a statement, by the way. Fucking brain donor protesters). I remember it all just as I'm sure all of you do too. I also remember this entire thing fading into media obscurity where it belongs. This shit is five years old this month. So why the fuck am I still hearing about it? The only logical reason I can see for this radio station to make even a passing remark about the shit that went down with the Dixie Chicks five fucking years ago is that somewhere and for whatever reason, someone is still bitching about it. I guessed that somewhere in the States there were still at least a few rogue stations that flat out refused to play the Chicks, and what do you know? One quick Google search proves me right. The Dixie Chicks are still today being actively boycotted for an offhand remark made about a dumbass president. A comment made five years ago. A comment that, might I add, is expressed by millions of Americans every day without persecution for saying so. That being said, what the fuck?

I've made it perfectly clear that the Dixie Chicks music itself sucks all kinds of ass. I fucking hate every single song of theirs I've ever heard, and I've been subjected to far too many of them to even attempt to make a list. Their music is irrelevant, at least in this rant, so that's beside the point. The point is that Maines exercised her supposed god-given right to free speech that all Americans are blissfully entitled to, and the group was strung up by their ovaries for it. For expressing an opinion that a well-sized portion of the United States shared, they were blacklisted and boycotted and all kinds of other media-frenzied fun. And for what? Not liking the president?

The part of this that really gets me angry though is the method by which the Dixie Chicks were deemed 'unfit for listening.' It was of course a bunch of dried out twats with nothing better to do than complain about something unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Hell, I deemed this story unimportant about ten minutes after I heard it. The fact that the Dixie Chicks were banned from stations and their CDs were banned from stores simply because a bunch of people didn't like what they had to say is the real reason I'm pissed. I may be a little rusty on my American history (I'm Canadian, cut me slack), but let me see if I've got this right:

a) Maines made a statement. She has freedom of speech, and her statement did no harm to others (other than piss off the Bush crazies).

b) The Dixie Chicks suffered financial loss, irrefutable damage to their reputation, and were discriminated against all the way leading up to today. They have been having a harder time finding record companies to promote them, and this isn't helped by the fact that all across the country radio stations are flat out refusing to play Dixie Chick tracks out of fear of being boycotted themselves for supporting these 'homegrown terrorists.'

Am I saying that the Dixie Chicks are to be pitied? Seeing as they're still rich as fuck and none of the nimrods who sent hate mail had the balls to act on their death threats, I'd say no. Really, I don't so much give a fuck about the Dixie Chicks 'emotional trauma' or whatever the fuck you want to call it so much as I am livid, fucking livid, that the opinions of a bunch of ass-fisting fagwad flag-wavers opinions were allowed to infringe upon the liberties and freedoms of these three women. Maines said something offensive in a monologue between songs at some concert in London? Fine. Get pissed off about it, fundies, go ahead and complain to the newspapers about this atrocity. Soccer moms, go right fucking ahead and refuse to buy the new Dixie Chicks album. You were offended, it's your choice whether to continue listening to them or not. What ISN'T your choice is whether I get to listen to them or not.

How dare you ban their music from public radio. How dare you bitch incessantly until the radio stations stopped playing this harmless music. You don't like the Dixie Chicks anymore? Like I said before, don't buy their albums. You want to listen to your favourite country music station without hearing the Dixie Chicks because you hate them now? Try changing the station when one of their songs come on, and then change it back a few minutes later when the song is sure to be over. Or play a CD. Or hell, turn the fucking radio off and relish the silence. What, that's too much work? Turning a fucking dial is too much work? Of course it is! So these lazy ass pricks decide to call the stations and bitch about the Dixie Chicks being unpatriotic, disgusting, shamefully outspoken, and so on, until the stations get pissed off by all the twats calling in to complain that they give in and stop playing it. Another sweet victory for the righteous!

The only thing these stupid drooling fucks proved by getting the Chicks banned from public radio is that they themselves are unpatriotic in that they openly oppose a fellow American's right to speak freely without persecution. Last I checked, personal opinion has no place over freedom of speech. These fucking morons made the assumption that every single person listening to the same radio station was in complete agreement that the Dixie Chicks had to go when the reality of it is that a shitload of listeners couldn't give less than half a toilet bowl's worth of cornlogs what the Dixie Chicks say outside their music because - get this - they listen to the Dixie Chicks because they like the music. The majority of listeners don't care what an artist is like offstage because it's irrelevant. If Luciano Pavarotti snorted coke between songs, who gives a fuck? The fact is he was fucking good at what he did. If you don't approve of his coke addiction, don't listen to his music. Hell, go so far as to refuse to listen to all opera, you've got the right to do so and no one denies that. The second you attempt to ban Pavarotti from performing in public venues simply because he has a coke addiction is the very second I tell you to both step off and fuck off. He wants to fuck his life over with a shitty addiction? Let him. Just as it's your right to hate whatever you want to, it's his right to fuck himself over. Listeners like me couldn't care less if he breaks out the blow before every show because I listen to his music for the enjoyment I get from it. If he isn't harming anyone, let him be. Not that he ever used coke. At least, I don't think he did. Then again, what the fuck do I know? My point is, the same can be said for the Dixie Chicks. Not the part about the illegal substances, the other part.

You don't want your kids listening to some country music group for speaking their mind in what is supposed to be a free country? Fine, don't let them. Stop listening to the station, don't buy the albums. It's that simple. You have the right to dictate what you and your family listen to. The fact that you assume you have the right to dictate what I listen to makes you a pompous hypocritical fuck. You don't have the right to ban them from public radio, you stupid bitching shithead. How dare you even think that the fact that you took offense to something some music artist said gives you license to have them shunned and shunted from the public eye. Bitch, fuck you.

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