Well if thats the case, its been going on since the Constitution was founded. Maybe they need to sneak in a ammendment making it unconstutional for Americans who fail to patronize entertainers, business people ect.., financially that you disagree with. Kinda like making the consumers prisoners of purchasing products from people they don't care for anymore. How would you penalize Americans for this? Prison, jail.. the chair?
Ahh... so calling everyone "Clinton Haters", "morons" and "McCarthy lovers" is ok, but you can't stand it when someone calls you a "Bolshevik"? Boo hoo. Don't call someone names because they disagree with you and then get so infuriated "that your eyes rolled to the back of your head" when they do the same to you. I know what this country is about, you can say what you like and so can I without persicution. Just because we disagree doesn't mean that you should resort to name calling. Ooops, sorry I missed that easy one... You so clearly pointed out that you meant England. Guess if I picked up a paper I would have gotten that one... (note to self, pay Chronicle bill...) Yes the English people may be against this war now, will they still be when Saddam attacks our troops with chemical weapons, or we find vast underground stores of WMD's? Will you? Do the facts matter or are you so blindly against anything Bush does that you can't see the facts? Do you have a point with this? I already posted that: Why don't you get your numbers straight before you shoot off your mouth, will ya? Hey all you "Moronic Clinton-hating McCarthy loving" people of the BBS, please don't blacklist Batman because he is a french commie....
I could care less what the Ditsy Chix say. Now they must take the heat for what one mindless ditz said.
Poor little Sonny, First, get YOUR facts straight before you post numbers. Check the Zogby thread. Your numbers on American support are hollow without a broad coalition or UN approval. In fact, hollow's too kind a word. They're flat wrong. Second, you needn't have read the Chronicle to find out I was talking about England -- you could have just read this thread. Hell, you could have just read the last page of the thread before I posted. I was responding directly to people giving them **** about saying what they said in England. Third, name calling's name calling. Whatever. I do it, yes. I call people morons when I just can't believe how ridiculous they're being. But I don't call them commies or Nazis or whatever. The thing that bugs me more than anything about post-9/11 America is this stupid UN-AMERICAN idea that anyone who criticizes the government is somehow unpatriotic when criticism of the government is what God damned invented America. Were the American Revolutionaries anything like you, America wouldn't exist. "Clinton hater" by the way is not an insult. I'm a proud Clinton hater and a proud Bush hater too. You are not exposing me here. Fourth, if a war with Iraq exposes a serious, urgent threat to American security, I will not change my tune. I will say "lucky guess." If US intelligence had the evidence they swore up and down they had, they would have shared it at least with top level officials within our ally countries, instead of fabricating evidence and reaching at straws. I am so freaking sick of hearing how the UN is waiting too long to support a military strike. The US promised evidence and never delivered it. And then they had the gall to say the allies were waiting too long to support them. I repeat my assertion that people who are furious with the Dixie Chicks for registering dissent would have loved McCarthy. It is a perfectly logical assumption. He was a famous blacklister and those among you who support blacklisting the DC's have earned the comparison. I'd love to know where you got the idea that anything I've ever posted on this board even brushed up against communism. You might as well have just called me a ***. It makes about the same amount of sense. But I don't expect you to understand that.
Getting closer... leave out the insults, people will actually take you seriously. With respect to the original topic, I think the DCs have made great music and have great voices. I have one of their CDs. But due to their recent statements, I don't think that I will ever purchase another cd from them, and I will definitely have bias towards their music. That is my right. I have the right to boycott their music. Is boycotting or protesting wrong? Does that make me a McCarthyist(sp?)? Many people/companies have been protested/boycotted because of their views/actions. I really don't wish them any real harm, they just pissed me off and I am sure that most people will forgive them eventually, I don't know if I will. What is wrong with me giving them sh*t? Isn't that my right just as much as it is for her to give Bush sh*t? As far as intelligence sharing goes - why does the Britian and Australian govt's support us now? What did we show them? Why share anything with France/etc. if they say that regardless they will support NO action on Iraq? Current Gallups Polls: 66% favor Bush ultimatum to Saddam if he doesn't leave. 68% believe that US did all it could diplomatically. http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr030318.asp
Sonny, I couldn't care less whether or not people take me seriously on a BBS, but I apologize for the insults. It is certainly your right to stop buying their music. It is also the right of radio stations to stop playing it. It is absolutely not the same thing to be mad at them for what they said as it was for them to be mad at Bush. When people are mad at the DC's, they are mad at celebrities for expressing an opinion (incidentally an opinion which is shared by the majority of the free world right now, but more on that later). When people are mad at Bush it is for making decisions which I'll grant are difficult but which also have life and death results. The DC's have no such power, nor are they trying to enact legislation or start (or even necessarily stop) wars. They are merely Americans excercising freedom of speech. Disagree with them, stop buying their music, whatever, but when people become furious with American citizens simply for speaking their minds, even agreeing they should be banned from the airwaves for expressing an opinion against an elected official, they walk a path dangerously close to McCarthyism. Post 9/11 America. God bless John Ashcroft. As for the Gallup poll, I wonder how closely you read it. First off, you made the assertion (or someone did and that's what I was responding to) that 2/3 of Americans backed the war BEFORE this poll was published. You (or whoever it was) were referring to a poll which also said only half supported the action without UN support or a broad coalition. Second, support always goes up when a war is inevitable whether the American public wants or agrees with the war or not. It's that misguided patriotism again. If you look closely at this poll you'll find that only 44% think it's a good idea. The other 21% are taking Bush's word for it. They're agreeing to think the best of him even though they don't agree with the war. I can only assume, as in past conflicts, they are doing this to rally around the troops. That doesn't mean they think Bush is right. More on that poll: The numbers change according to predictions of American casualties. Strangely, this poll lists ambiguous terms such as "moderate," "low" and "high" casualties. We all have our own opinions as to what would merit a "moderate" rating. In the Zogby poll I posted, which used approximate numbers rather than tabula rasa terms like 'moderate', support drops drastically if American casualties are in the hundreds or if Iraqi civilian casualties are in the thousands. These casualty numbers are consistent with the first Gulf War and we didn't go house to house back then trying to find Saddam. Also in the Zogby poll, support plummets if American casualties top 1,000. Spin always reigns supreme in these matters, especially with all the complications of this war, most especially lack of international support. You can pick out a number and shout it from the rooftops, but on closer inspection you'll find that the nation is confused and closely divided on this issue. My take, and the take of many, many educated people on this, is that that is due to the fact that Bush has failed in explaining to the American people and to the international community why we have to have this war right now. Again, less than half of Americans from the poll you posted feel the war is necessary. The ones that make up the rest of the 2/3 you cited are giving him the benefit of the doubt. As for the international community, for all the France bashing, there is only one country in the world outside of the US in which a majority of the people support this war. And that is Israel. Not Brittain, not Australia, not Canada, not Mexico, not any Arab nation and not any other nation in the WORLD. The US (by a very thin hair) and Israel. In Brittain, one of Tony Blair's top aides resigned in protest today and three more of the top members of his government have threatened to do the same. When the cabinet member announced his resignation in Parliament he was cheered loudly. We do not have concensus at home. We are split down the middle. But there is concensus in the international community. And that concensus is that Bush and the United States are wrong to attack Iraq right now. It blows my mind that an American telling an audience of English fans that she agrees with them is cause for such outrage. Of course, it also blows my mind that I'm called a commie for defending their freedom of speech, but whatever. That's all.
BJ - now I understand what you are saying, thank you. I wouldn't have minded, and she wouldn't have gotten the attention/flack, if she would have just said that she agrees with the British people on their view of the upcoming war. Instead she made a personal insult against our President during a time of war. I consider that unpatriotic, not her views. I don't consider you a commie, as long as you don't consider me some mccarthyistic pyscho.
Analogous to protesting War when War is what gave protesting morons their right to protest...Go figare!
There is no way to penalize Americans for this under the Constitution, nor do I think there should be, I just don't think it's right to financially hurt someone because they have a different opinion than you, especially when that opinion, at its base, is not hurtful in nature (i.e. not racist, etc.). However, I do understand that it's people's right to do that, just like it's my right to call them idiots, which I think they are.
financially hurt someone? RM95...by that logic I've been financially hurting the dixie chicks for years!!! someone is saying, "hey...i don't want to buy their cd's anymore." that's no different than saying, "you know what...Denny's allegedly had some real racist policies..I think I'll take my business to IHOP instead." sure it financially hurts the folks at Denny's, right down to the waitresses that lose their jobs as stores are closed down. but in a free market system, those extraneous things are important...and it's why companies spend millions of dollars on public relations...and why individuals in the public spotlight hire pr consultants.
So, you'd have no problem if you were applying for a job, someone didn't want to hire you because they heard about your pro-life stance? Free market at work, woohoo!!
first...there's not much i could say about that...i'm not ENTITLED to that job. and quite frankly, if they wouldn't hire me for that, i wouldn't wanna work there to begin with. second..and most important...this isn't about not getting a job. i'm not offering a job for the dixie chicks to apply for. they already have a job...they have a contract with a recording studio. they have no guarantees of record sales, though. and part of their whole package which is up for sale is how they present themselves. they didn't make these statements in the confines of their own home hanging out with friends...they made them at a concert...on stage...in front of their fans...directly to their fans. they are big girls and they can live with the consequences of how that affects their fans' perception of them. when you make political statements on stage, you have to know there is a possiblity some of your fans might disagree...and they might think differently about you afterward. she MADE THIS part of her product when she got on stage and used it as a pulpit for her ideas. she has EVERY right in the world to do it...but she can't be so stupid as to think it won't affect her fans' perception of her. clearly it has. and again, this is why these people pay thousands of dollars to PR consultants and agents.
Whatever, I believe what I believe. While everyone has a right to do with it, I'll still always disagree with it.
I'll say it once, I'll say it again, if good public opinion can bring celebrities money, then bad public opinion can take it away. To you, an entertainer's personal life/opinion has no bearing on your enjoyment of the good or service they provide. I agree with that for the most part. If a Sean Penn movie comes out that I thinks look good, then I'll probably go see it, because I typically like his movies and his acting. But, to me, it almost seems a little arrogant to imply that it's wrong for someone who can't look past their personal dislike for the entertainers when deciding whether or not to give them their hard-earned money.
OK, what if someone found out about Max's pro-life leanings, and they protested in front of his office, causing him to lose business?
Nobody is protesting. They're just not buying their music. And they only 'found out' about the Dixie Chunk's views because SHE BROADCASTED IT. She WANTED people to know her opinion. MadMax isn't forcing his views on anybody.
Uh, you don't think that boycotting their music is a form of protesting? To me, they're getting boycotted and protested against because of <B>what</B> they said, not because they were "forcing" their views on anybody. I don't hear anyone boycotting that country music song that's for the war, do you?
