Lipton Foods Apologizes for Sponsoring the Dixie Chicks [Gold Medal Freep- 24hrs!!]

Unilever Foods North America ^ | March 14, 2003 | E-mail to FR ProtestOR

[ewing]

Email recieved this morning from Lipton to FR protestors: (re: Dixie Chicks Sponsorship Tour and Lipton Foods)

Thank you so much for writing!

We are writing in response to your comments regarding the Dixie Chicks 'Top of the World Tour.' We certainly apologize and are grateful you have chosen to share your thoughts.

As a manufacturer we feel it is a major responsibility to provide our friends and customers with the most creative and entertaining means of sponsorship possible.

We have a long history of presenting 'tasteful' advertising, promotional and sponsorship efforts to the public. We certainly do not wish to offend anyone. In developing our promotional efforts, Unilever and its agencies may not always anticpate all possible implications of a specific campaign.

We will certainly forward all of your comments to our marketing staff.

[Ditto]

Not you, but others on this thread have stated that the Dixie Chicks should be charged with Treason.

Well that's crap. Charged with gross stupidity maybe. As I said, they are going through their John Rocker moment. The chick wants to play politics to suck up to some Euro trash or Hollywierd winnies --- cool. Now she's fair game.

[PhilDragoo]

Sean Hannity played this Toby Keith on his radio show today after he declared it a Dixie-Chicks-Free-Zone and broke their CD:

Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American) by Toby Keith Lyrics

American Girls and American Guys
We'll always stand up and salute
We'll always recognize
When we see Old Glory Flying
There's a lot of men dead
So we can sleep in peace at night
When we lay down our head

My daddy served in the army
Where he lost his right eye
But he flew a flag out in our yard
Until the day that he died
He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me
To grow up and live happy
In the land of the free.

Now this nation that I love
Has fallen under attack
A mighty sucker punch came flyin' in
From somewhere in the back
Soon as we could see clearly
Through our big black eye
Man, we lit up your world
Like the 4th of July

Hey Uncle Sam
Put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin' her fist
And the eagle will fly
Man, it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom
Start ringin' her bell
And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue

Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass
It's the American way

Hey Uncle Sam
Put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin' her fist
And the eagle will fly
Man, it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom
Start ringin' her bell
And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue

[Station 51]

broke their CD:

He broke their CD after buying and giving Royalty money to the band?

Brilliant!

[jagrmeister]

I'm appreciative that they apologized. It's a start. For Unilever, a European company, to earn the trust of the American buying public, sponsoring a band which makes anti-american statements is not reassuring. They need to go further and release a statement saying unambigiously that they disagree with the statements of Maines and they do not wish to be associated with a band that spreads anti-americanism.

[km46]

Didn't the early protestors of European rule dump tea inot the Boston harbor? Ironic..

[wardaddy]

All free speech is "free" but not "equal".

This forum is not real big on equivocating in case you missed that.

[PhilDragoo]

broke their CD:

He broke their CD after buying and giving Royalty money to the band?

Brilliant!

Sean Hannity is second to Rush in radio and just behind O'Reilly on cable.

He didn't buy the CD, pay royalties or break the CD.

His technical people played a few bars and a sound effect of something breaking.

Actual monetary gain to the Vichy Chicks in Euros: zip.

[wardaddy]

Ditto!!, Ditto.

[strela]

So people should be free to express their constitutional right to voice their opinion as long as that opinion is approved by wardaddy?

I don't recall wardaddy saying that or even intimating that in his post.

Great, so what is going to happen when a Democrat is elected president and Freepers express their constitutional right to voice their opinion? Will we feel the heat or will wardaddy's rules then change?

Again, wardaddy made no such statement. Wardaddy is talking about a boycott by private individuals against the business interests of other private individuals, while you're somehow hearing him advocate government censorship.

On the other hand, you seem to be striving mightily to make some sort of bizarre point that the American people should be forced at gunpoint to run out to their local record store and buy Dixie Chicks albums because of "freedom of speech."

[Godebert]

" You are assuming they are buying Lipton in the first place. Again, in short time, most Americans will forget all about this. Only the type of Freeper who tries to get boycotts of everything under the sun will remember. Heck, Lipton is bound to find out/realize that most the calls or e-mails they got were from the same group of maybe 50 people calling/emailing multiple times."

FreeTally the OJ juror has spoken. All hail the all knowing voice of reason who declares on his homepage:

The prosecution did not prove to me, beyond a REASONABLE DOUBT, that O.J. Simpson was guilty of murdering his ex-wife and her lover.

You're pretty brilliant.....for a dope smoking liberaltarian .

[LiveFreeOrDie2001]

Just FReeped both of the e-mails.

Thanks Kay!

Keep FReeping everyone !

[Godebert]

Don't waste your time. FreeTally still thinks OJ Simpson is innocent.

[texas slim]

The Dixie Chicks and that stupid name have always been an embarrassment to the state of Texas. Maybe now we won't hear from them much longer. That crap that they do sure as hell ain't country! They have pulled the plug on a career that wasn't too well established in the first place. Hasta luego! Say bye now, y'all don't come back!

[gg188]

I'm sure all you tough guys hiding behind your computer monitros are more than willing to call Emily, Marty and Natalie hateful names to the faces of their husbands.

Uh, yeah...

Natalie's husband (left), Arnold Pasdar, or something like that, well-known Hollyweird trans-something.

[gg188]

That's an excellent idea: for all those who have purchased DC tickets for the "world tour", write your credit card company (you can do this on their web site, usually) and dispute the charge. My experience with my credit card companies is that they remove the disputed amount immediately and then put the burden on the vendor to prove it is a legitimate charge.

[wardaddy]

Thank You.

I'm a bit fuzzy after being bedridden with a runny nose ailment for the past 24 hours and can use all the help I can get.

My wife says I'm a big baby....she's right.

It's rather unusual that on this forum that a poster would lament liberals' getting a comeupannce on this occasion.

Myself, I was saddened a couple of months ago when Ms Maines went off on Toby Keith for Red White and Blue. I'm not much on PopCountry but I DID like their singing. The fact that she prefers to dig her own hole further is disconcerting.

[gg188]

"We are more Popular than Jesus Christ." People will forget and the Dixie Chicks will continue to make millions.

Not so sure about that. The vast majority of COUNTRY MUSIC fans are in those red states in the heartland that voted overwhelmingly for Bush. The vast majority of country music fans are "staright arrows" who approve of Bush, approve of our military, and disapprove of liberalism and what it has done to our nation. President Bush begins his day on his knees in prayer everyday; that pretty much describes the temper and tone of the lives of your average country music fan.

[IncPen]

C'mon... this is the kind of hyperbolic statement that we complain about when the liberals do it. This isn't even close to being treason, and calling is that is similar to spurious claims of "rape" after a verbal insult.

Nice try.

I have, particularly since the days of Clinton, had a special distaste for dissembling and parsing of meaning.

You'd do well to check your dictionary. Here's what one says:

Treason (n)

1: a crime that undermines the offender's government[syn: high treason, lese majesty] 2: disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior [syn: subversiveness, traitorousness] 3: an act of deliberate betrayal [syn: treachery, betrayal, perfidy]

Treason (n)

1. Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.2. A betrayal of trust or confidence.

Words have meaning.

Do you say that the Dixie Chicks' comments and their position, given while on foreign soil, mean to not aid and comfort the enemies of the US, or to disparage the President?

Are their comments meant to encourage our uniformed soldiers as they prepare for battle?

I'm intrigued by your position. Exactly what do you think the Dixie Chicks' purpose was?

[IncPen]

Those contracts usually have a preformance clause that says the contract is null and void if there is negative PR blowback on the sponsor for some stupid act or comment by the performers.

See my posts on this thread, #80 and #178...

[strela]

No prob. The very idea that somebody who takes umbrage at speech they find offensive is somehow practicing "censorship" just chaps my hide. (sniff)