"Keep your mouth shut" is the antithesis of the concept of free speech.
Well Fuck the fuck that.
For the record the audience loved the comment. It's the fascists an ocean away who want to dictate what somebody else is allowed to say about their own state that present a problem to democracy.
Again, the coming war was already the elephant in the room (at the concert in London). Up to three million people had just come out in winter to protest the idea in London alone. It was the daily buzz at the time.
Everybody in London knew it, everybody in London was aware that it was being mongered by a President who ostentatiously identifies with Texas, and everybody in the venue knew they were watching a music performer who also ostentatiously identify with Texas.
Therefore Maines addressed the obvious association, to disassociate it, and stand up for her state. And the audience, again, approved uproariously. So what "other people think" is exactly what she was reassuring.
Are you just too dense to see that?
Merle Haggard had it exactly right. So did Vince Gill. Know who else disagrees with you?
George W. Bush.
"The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say ... they shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out ... I want to do what I think is right for the American people, and if some singers or Hollywood stars feel like speaking out, that's fine. That's the great thing about America." -- interview with Tom Brokaw, April 23
What you should be asking is how come the music/media industry took it upon itself to reach all the way out to London, to a comment made to that audience, and bring it back here all dolled up in witch clothes, because it didn't help sell the invasion they were in the profit-grabbing business of selling. What you should be asking is how come radio stations that are part of that megacorporation were firing their DJs for playing DC records. What you should be asking is what the hell is wrong with a world that puts death threats on a girl for assuring an audience ----- FIVE THOUSAND MILES AWAY ----- that they agree with that audience and are not warmongers like their Texan President.
Natalie Maines and that London audience already knew then, that invading a country without reason was a bad idea. The whole world knew it. And by now even we know it. And they were right.
