My Post on the Dixie Chicks' Flick's JOKE of a Blog

[...]Now, to answer your dumb question; YES, I believe in Free Speech. The Dixie Chicks expressed their free speech. Members of Free Republic.com (such as myself), the film’s apparent villain and the target of a laughable and feeble smear campaign by a Dixie Chicks’ media flack, express our free speech. The former fans of the Chicks expressed their free speech. Laura Ingraham expressed her free speech when she created the phrase “Shut Up & Sing.” Toby Keith expressed his free speech about Natalie Maines. And Natalie Maines further expressed her right to free speech with her “F.U.T.K.” shirt.

But the question is not relevant. The fall of the Dixie Chicks has nothing to do with repression of free speech, it has to do with the consequences of expressing it. There is no Constitutional guarantee that your free speech won’t come back to haunt you.

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that neither in Barbara Kopple’s film nor in the sure-to-be fawning appearance on Oprah will there be any discussion of another popular singer who expressed her free speech — someone named Anita Bryant. Bryant, a former beauty queen, pop singer (”Paper Roses”) and TV performer in the 1950s and ’60s was in the ’70s mainly known for her commercials for the Florida Orange Juice Commission. A very [devout] Christian, she spoke out on a pressing social and political issue just like the Dixie Chicks did; she led a movement to repeal a gay rights ordinance in her home of Dade County, Florida, which allowed homosexuals to be hired as school teachers. Her fight was successful, but it made her radioactive. Her Bible-based condemnation of homosexuality (tempered by her love for those who suffered from it, she said) set off a boycott of Florida Orange Juice and a shunning of her throughout the entertainment industry. Popular performers of that era such as Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, and Jane Fonda publicly slammed her. Eventually, she lost her job as Florida Juice’s pitchwoman, and she was essentially abandoned by everyone who made her a star. She has since filed for bankruptcy twice.

The Dixie Chicks have not suffered a sliver of what Anita Bryant has for expressing her right to free speech. Even though the Chicks are kaput as a force in country music, they still have sold over a million CDs of Taking the Long Way. They still sell well on iTunes. While the buying public has spoken and their tour was considerably shortened, they didn’t have to cancel their entire tour, whereas Bryant will never draw a broad audience ever again. And the Chicks’ story will be told in theaters later this week. I would advise the ladies not to hold their breaths until a filmmaker of Kopple’s caliber tries to rehabilitate Bryant’s career by making her out to be a victim of censorship. We all should be so lucky as the Chicks have been should any of us piss off a majority of the people that are responsible for our successes (aka “rednecks.”)

One of the many reasons why America is the best country in the world is because Ms. Maines can call the President of the United States a name like “dumb f*ck” in a motion picture and not have to worry about being rounded up by people loyal to him for punishment, as has happened to those running afoul of Saddam Hussein. I guarantee that for making Bush look like a fool on celluloid, Ms. Kopple will not end up shot and stabbed as was Dutch fillmmaker Theo Van Gogh, whose criticism of Islam’s treatment of women got him brutally assassinated in broad daylight by an unrepentent Islamofascist.

This country doesn’t owe the Dixie Chicks a thing besides the freedom to shoot themselves in the foot. There are no penalties for reasonable self-expression here — you’ve just got to be smart enough to perceive the sometimes unpleasant results of going out of your way to step on people’s toes. If you’re ready to pay the cost to say something ~~brave~~ unpopular, go for it! Sacrifice about 80% of your album sales. Be prepared to refund the few who buy tickets to your formerly sold-out shows. Unfortunately, you all have instead chosen to whine about being criticized for it endlessly.

I found the official blog for the Dixie Chicks' documentary through an ad on Power Line, and couldn't resist a peek. I expected it to be stocked with leftist posts, but found something completely different: With only a few exceptions, every single post (more often than not only a few lines long and filled with spelling errors) was written by one indefatigable user, "The Hostess With the Mostest," who created comments at all hours of the day and night.

It appears that since the first couple of days of the blog, all references to "The Hostess" as the source of the hundreds of often vile posts has been replaced by "Anonymous Blogger." I don't know for a certainty if that is because something went awry with the creation of the blog or because the creators wanted to cover up an attempt to create phony web buzz. In any event, my comment as posted above was prefaced by the following:

A quick review of this page and previous pages will show that the majority of the dozens if not hundreds of posts on this blog (I am not going to count them) were written by one person. That person identifies herself (?) as “The Hostess With The Mostest.” “The Hostess” has taken just about every side on the Chicks and Bush and free speech, sometimes adding spontaneous racist, profane, and poorly-spelled rants.
So who is this loser, and why does she/he/it have nothing better to do than create idiotic, contradictory opinions? I am guessing “The Hostess” works for the promotion department plugging the film, and wants to create buzz for it, but doesn’t realize that when she/he/it posts new messages, they are all plainly identified as coming from the same login.
OOPS! BUSTED!

It appears that since the first couple of days of the blog, all references to "The Hostess" as the source of the hundreds of often vile posts has been replaced by "Anonymous Blogger."

Yep, interesting since you cannot anonymously post to the blog. You have to register.

But now there's someone spamming it with posts about CFR and the North American Union and taking away from the Dixie Chick bashing.

Here is my post on their site: Boo Hoo America Hates You (and whose fault is that?)

I'm sure the movie will do at least as well as the US tour did. The Dixie Twits still don't get it, you can say what you want and the people who pay your rent can say you are no longer worth their time, which is exactly what happened. Blame freepers, neocons, rednecks, NBC, anybody but the person in the mirror for your problems and keep thinking that as you slide downward into the abyss of irellevancy.

Also, have you seen the list of sites in their "neighborhood?"

AMERICAblog
Crooks and Liars
Daily Kos
Democratic Underground
Dixie Chicks Main Site
Eschaton
Gawker
Little Green Footballs
MyDD
Political Wire
Powerline
Quoted In The News
Red State
Right Wing News
Rockzilla
If anyone wants to register for their site and doesn't want their email address spammed by left wing nutcases pm me for a gmail invite. Give them the gmail address and every once in a while you can go back and do a mass delete, no muss no fuss.

After four days, someone responded to my post. Get a load of this:

Wow. Talk about repression. Honey, maybe you should think about taking something for that ego. There is no such thing as REASONABLE free speech. Yes there are consequences to what we say, but that is why we are give then FREEDOM to say it. If it were supposed to be REASONABLE free speech that is what The Constitution would say! The only reason anyone has had to defend their own opinion is because your God of a President took it upon himself to get his feelings hurt. Had he not gotten all butt hurt because of someone practicing the RIGHT they were given at birth there would be no need for blogs such as this.
You can justify his actions and his choices all you want to. In the end it boils down to this: There were no weapons of mass destruction, there is no reason for our brother, mothers, sisters, sons, daughters, and fathers to be in that god forsaken place. Sadaam has been caught, Osama is in hiding, and yet there we stay losing more and more troops every single second. How can you see that as a justifiable price? Let us see you and George W. out in those battlefields and then we can talk. Until you pick up a standard issue and live through a year tour in Iraq…shut your mouth and go sit back and relax in your penthouse apartment. Paid for by the GWB regime of course. Jerk.

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STIX NIX DIX CHIX FLICK