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Is Dixie Chicks protest a conspiracy?
The Cincinnati Enquirer ^
| Tuesday, March 18, 2003
| John Kiesewetter
Posted on 03/20/2003 7:07:54 AM PST by Jabba the Nutt
Are the Dixie Chicks victims of a right-wing conspiracy?
That's what their manager, Simon Renshaw, has told country music stations being pressured to drop the Chicks' music after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized President Bush last week.
In an e-mail to stations distributed by Sony Music, their label, Renshaw says the protest has been orchestrated by the Free Republic (www.freerepublic.com) , a Web site "for independent, grassroots conservative, " according to founder Jim Robinson of Fresno, Calif. The Web site also alleges that recent anti-war protests are "communist-organized demonstrations."
"Your company is being targeted by a radical right-wing online forum," Renshaw says in the e-mail. "You are being `Freeped,' which is the code word for an organized e-mail/telephone effort attempting to solicit a desired response."
On March 10, Maines told a London audience: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
Four days later, the Lubbock native apologized by saying, "I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect."
Country music stations in Dallas-Fort Worth and Kansas City have been deluged with e-mails and calls demanding that the Dixie Chicks be dropped from the airwaves.
Complaints didn't arrive at WUBE-FM (105.1) until Monday. Only one person called Thursday when the B105 morning show read the story, says Tim Closson, operations manager.
"We broke the story on Thursday, and got very little reaction to it. We mentioned it again on Friday, and only got a few calls," he says.
The Chicks remain on B105. Closson says he "seriously considered indefinitely pulling all Dixie Chicks music... (but) our decision came down to one thing: We believe in the constitution. We believe in the freedom of speech."
At Middletown's WPFB-FM (105.9),the Dixie Chicks were dropped Monday for the week by Mark Evar, operations director.
"They're telling us that the minute the Dixie Chicks come on, they're going to change the station - and we don't want to lose any listeners," Evar says.
The Chicks' manager, in his e-mail, says the group's Web site "was totally overrun (Sunday) and had to be closed down, and our publicist's servers and telephone system failed under the weight of the calls.
"This is an extremely active and well-organized group. As always the `squeaky wheel gets the grease' and these weasels know how to squeak," Renshaw says.
Renshaw apparently used the word "weasel" because the Free Republic Web site uses that term.
Says the Free Republic home page: "As war with Iraq becomes imminent, more and more of the `useful idiot' leftist weasels are crawling out of the woodwork. So-called `anti-war' protests are popping up in cities all across the nation.
"We will not allow these communist organized demonstrations (to) go unanswered. Patriotic Americans are countering these terrorist supporting leftists wherever and whenever they pop up."
E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: conspiracy; dixiechicks; freerepublic
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To: Jabba the Nutt
Is Dixie Chicks protest a conspiracy?Yes, and it better work...
To: Jabba the Nutt
Suggesting this means all of the Americans all over the entire USA and the radio stations are unable to think for themselves. This is crazy. The manager is attempting to sway attention away from Miss Natalie and her really dumb comments and onto something else. No, this is about Natalie ... NOT a website.
122
posted on
03/20/2003 4:05:43 PM PST
by
zeaal
To: AnAmericanMother; Celtjew Libertarian
Thanks for the correction, AmericanMother - now - can you give me the German for "poing," "shiny," and "nifty?"
123
posted on
03/20/2003 5:00:42 PM PST
by
Tennessee_Bob
(Dieses sieht wie ein Job nach Nothosen aus!)
To: demosthenes the elder
Worship the comic.
124
posted on
03/20/2003 5:03:05 PM PST
by
Tennessee_Bob
(Dieses sieht wie ein Job nach Nothosen aus!)
To: Tennessee_Bob
125
posted on
03/20/2003 5:04:17 PM PST
by
Joe 6-pack
((worse than a Florida sinkhole....))
To: jawstenn1
You know, it boggles the mind when you consider the amount of planning, the number of right wing team members who must execute every detail of the plan at just the right moment....getting Saddam to not cooperate with the UN stooges, getting France to, well act like France, then getting Bush to ignore a cowardly UN...go to war...all so the Dixie Chicks could catch some heat from the VRWC.....AMAZING ISN'T IT!!!!!
To: Lil'freeper
>>Will somebody get this guy a tinfoil hat?
I just send him instructions.
Dear Sir:
Just read your conspiracy editorial. Do you really think that a widespread boycott, enacted in the open, of a celebrity who makes a wildly unpopular statement regarding a popular President in a time of war, represents a "conspiracy"?
If so, I commend you to Websters and this web site:
http://www.zapatopi.net/afdb Sincerely,
[FP]
127
posted on
03/20/2003 5:30:39 PM PST
by
FreedomPoster
(This Space Intentionally Blank)
To: Sam Cree
actually thats the idea. Thats why they don't understand FR or even Rush limbaugh. Rush has always said he just was repeating what many people already felt.
FR is just allowing us to cut the middleman out and share our opinions. The Vichey Chix and the Managers/handlers are just trying to put the geanie in the bottle under the delusion the LISTENERS will follow blindly. They may get radio stations to keep playing, but this will not translate into cd sales, and hopefully future ticket sales.
Has ticketmaster said SPECIFICALLY there will be no refunds of Dixie Chix tickets despite protests...
To: Jabba the Nutt
To DC manager Renshaw: (gross-out alert for the squeamish)
Right-wing conspiracy? Hmmm...Okay, genius, I'll be blunt. Maybe it'll get through that leftie head of yours.
I believe in freedom and capitalism. I believe in TINY government and the freedom of people to be rewarded for their own industry. I do NOT believe in having leftist weasels take people's income and distribute it because they feel guilty for being affluent/white/wealthy/whatever. If you're a leftie and you feel so darned guilty, go see a priest. And if that offends you, tough. Religions exist, and living people believe in them. I'm of the opinion that God exists too. If the idea of an omniscient being knowing EVERYTHING you think and do scares you, then you have a guilty conscience. Maybe you SHOULD see a priest after all...
When I hear famous, visible people spout off leftist nonsense, it makes me sick. The day I listen to the Dixie Chicks will be the day I slit my own throat. Seeing them make such statements makes me want to vomit. It's not secret, clandestine, conspiratory vomit; it's smelly, stinky, projectile vomit that makes you want to cover your nose and run. I (we) protest because we oppose what you people are TRYING TO DO TO OUR COUNTRY, and I at least despise you for doing it.
I will ALWAYS oppose Marxism.
I will ALWAYS oppose Communism.
I will ALWAYS oppose touchy-feely redistribution of wealth.
I will ALWAYS oppose Political Correctness (i.e. facism of the Left).
If you push such agendas, you can expect those of us who oppose your viewpoint to REFUSE to support you in any way. I suggest you either get the Dixie Chicks to start singing music that your urbanite friends like, or get your trendy allies to start liking country (yeah, right).
To: Jabba the Nutt
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2003/3/19/101319 Newsmax has got the same story:
'Blixie Chicks' Blame Conservative Web Site
A manager for the Country and Western group the Dixie Chicks is blaming the ongoing firestorm of negative reaction to anti-Bush comments by lead singer Natalie Maines last week on a vast right-wing cyber-conspiracy.
Dixie Chicks' manager Simon Renshaw has told radio stations currently boycotting the group's music that the uproar has been ginned up by the Web site FreeRepublic.com, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported Tuesday.
FreeRepublic has nicknamed the group "The Blixie Chicks," after Saddam-friendly U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix. Several posters to the cyber-forum have urged visitors to contact radio stations about the controversy.
"Your company is being targeted by a radical right-wing online forum," Renshaw complained in an e-mail distributed to radio stations by the Dixie Chicks' label, Sony Music. "You are being 'Freeped,' which is the code word for an organized e-mail/telephone effort attempting to solicit a desired response," he explained.
On March 10, lead Dixie Chick Maines told a London audience: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
After her remarks were reported, nationwide protests erupted in the U.S., with angry fans reportedly destroying their collections of Dixie Chicks CDs.
After four days Maines issued a semi-apology, saying her initial remarks had been "disrespectful."
"I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect," she added.
But Maines' statement did little to assuage angry Country and Western music fans, who are predominantly conservative and pro-Bush.
To: Registered; kristinn; Angelwood; tgslTakoma
Damn you Registered, you work fast!! :)
The DC Chapter sends on its thanks for your help. I LOVE this graphic at post 125.
Freep the Hans Blixie Chicks.
To: FreedomPoster
You, sir, are such a good person. So helpful and polite! ;)
To: Tennessee_Bob
hmmmmm . . . let me consult my extensive but peculiar German library - back issues of
die erstaunliche Spinne (that's Spiderman) and
Deutsches Mad - . . . hmmmmmm . . .
"poing" is onomatopoeia (and exactly the sort of thing you find in Don Martin cartoons - I have a cartoon called "Die Grosse Frosch-Story" (the Big Frog Story) in which that very word occurs for the operation of a frog's tongue in pursuit of a fly . . .
"shiny" - would be "klar" or "hell" or "blank" (like shoes) if simply shiny, or "strahlend" or "glänzend" if it shines like a star or a candle.
For "nifty" I turn to my faithful dictionary of German slang - we can say "toll" which literally means "crazy" but has turned into a superlative for almost anything, or "klasse" ("classy"), "super", "prima" ("first"), or (my personal favorite) "elefantös" ("elephantish")
133
posted on
03/20/2003 7:17:52 PM PST
by
AnAmericanMother
(. . . das Mädchen für alles . . . . :-D)
To: tacticalogic
" think in this case Vast Right Wing Consensus might be more accurate"
Good stuff.
To: Jabba the Nutt
"Your company is being targeted by a radical right-wing online forum," Renshaw says in the e-mail. "You are being `Freeped,' which is the code word for an organized e-mail/telephone effort attempting to solicit a desired response." They are using their celebrity status to promote their political agenda, so why complain when politics impact on their careers?
To: Jabba the Nutt
VAST RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY!
136
posted on
03/20/2003 7:38:11 PM PST
by
PhilDragoo
(Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
To: Lil'freeper
Unfortunately, I got a bounced/email full message back.
137
posted on
03/20/2003 7:47:56 PM PST
by
FreedomPoster
(This Space Intentionally Blank)
To: FreedomPoster
*sigh* some people just won't be helped. You tried though!
To: demosthenes the elder
LOL Nah, nothing that kewl. It's a web-published comic strip. www.sluggy.com.
Yours in Truth,
139
posted on
03/21/2003 6:15:07 AM PST
by
Buggman
(Stephen King has forgotten the face of his Father)
To: Tennessee_Bob
the evil Bun Bun commands me to worship the comic... and get out of his spot, or he'll shank me.
140
posted on
03/21/2003 7:43:40 PM PST
by
demosthenes the elder
(scum will never cease to be scum - why must that be explained to anyone?)
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