shut up & sing

Last night I watched the documentary, Shut Up & Sing about the Dixie Chicks and the controversy they stirred when lead singer Natalie Manes said something in a London concert against George Bush and the invasion of Iraq on the eves of war. The audience cheered huge, but before long, the controversy their comment caused back at home was insane. Country radio stations stopped playing their music - and at the time they were the best-selling female band of all time - and yet the radio stations and media fury led to an essential boycott on the Dixie Chicks. The radio stations themselves set up trash cans outside their offices, encouraging people to come drop off their CDs and smash them to bits. Then, Natalie Manes even received a legitimate death threat from someone the FBI had a file on, for her concert in Dallas. They used metal detectors at the concert, had FBI and other security, but they went out there and sang.

This is all I have to say about this: I am not a big country music fan. I loved their song Landslide but had never bought their CD, but AFTER this controversy went down, I had great respect for them. I first saw the song "Not Ready to Make Nice" at the Grammy Awards, and that was when I knew I had to buy the album. Their singing of that song at that awards show was so powerful, and emotional, and I wanted to get this album. And I absolutely love it, as do my kids. I love several songs on it. They rock! Here's to Free Speech, and that our country might wake up to the ridiculousness of attacking people for speaking their minds, even when it goes against the most commonly accepted belief of the day. When they made their remark, the President's ratings were at an all time high. Three years after they made their remark, his ratings had dropped way down, and now, 5 years later they remain at all time lows for a President. Not only that, since then governmental and interagency committees and reports have revealed so much evidence has that Bush, Rumsfeld etc made faulty claims regarding intelligence about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction and that they may have even known they were faulty, yet went ahead with the invasion, hoodwinking the American public. The sad thing is, I was one of many who put their faith in Bush at that time. I won't say I was a big Bush fan, but I trusted that our President of our country would make wise decisions. I definitely was let way down.

And speaking of President how about that Obama! No matter what you think of him, what a truly historic time in our country. I'm so happy to have seen such a historic race, and such an incredible outcome! As I've blogged here before, I saw Michelle Obama speak, and have read Barack Obama's book, Dreams of My Father and loved it and wrote that despite some people saying they didn't think he could get elected, I believed he could. Like Caroline Kennedy said, I believe Obama can inspire and unite our nation in a way no President has since JFK. Godspeed!

At any rate, this DVD was great. I watched it with Savannah and she liked it too. Here's their Myspace page for Shut Up & Sing about free speech: http://www.myspace.com/shutupandsing and here's the Youtube video for their song, Not ready to Make Nice at the Grammys.