In March 2003, 12 words changed the course of one of the most popular bands in country music. “We’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas,” the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, said during a concert.
The firestorm of controversy that followed revealed to the world how effectively, even in America, the narrow-minded militancy of a small but vocal minority can stifle the right to speak freely.
In a display that would have made the National Socialist Movement proud, these bellicose citizens belittled, and then bulldozed, the CDs of the band. Radio stations dropped the Dixie Chicks from their play lists, supposedly in response to the public discontent.
Leading the charge to ban the Dixie Chicks were Clear Channel and Cumulus Radio corporations, which control around 1,500 radio stations across the country. Though the management claimed they dropped the Dixie Chicks in response to public demand, a closer examination reveals that wasn’t the case at all.
Sen. John McCain called the CEOs on their bluff during congressional hearings over media consolidation as he grilled Cumulus CEO Lewis Dickey.
“We’re a confederation of 270 individual stations,” Dickey said in an attempt to convince the congressional committee that the decision to drop the Dixie Chicks was made by each individual radio station.
“You made a decision from corporate headquarters that was binding on your DJs,” McCain scolded “and just prior to that you say that you’re an independent radio station. That’s a total contradiction.”
It turns out the decision to ban the group came not in response to telephone calls from angry listeners, but from corporate headquarters, from CEOs who owed somebody a few favors.
Who is that somebody? Before you can understand the favors that were due, you have to understand a little more about media consolidation.
At the same time the Dixie Chicks made their statement, the Bush controlled Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was debating whether to relax the ownership limits of America’s radio stations, television stations and newspapers.
Raising the limits would mean that companies like Clear Channel and Cumulus could continue to grow, gobbling up smaller independent radio stations through mergers and acquisitions. In other words, it meant huge profits for companies like Clear Channel and Cumulus.
Is a radio conglomerate, already fat from the profits given by Bush’s cuts on dividend and capital gains taxes, going to play the songs of a group that is critical of the administration? Or are they going to toe the administration line and blacklist the Dixie Chicks so they can reap the rewards of higher ownership caps.
If corporations like Clear Channel and Cumulus can blacklist a musical group for political and monetary reasons, what prevents those corporations from censoring other things they (or the people they owe favors to) don’t like? Why not censor the news too?
Maybe that’s why the cable news outlets (all of which are owned by mega corporations) spend so much time covering car jackings and sex crimes. No point in showing interviews from Iraqi civilians or U.S. soldiers struggling to survive another day. Hell, that would be un-American.
The administration isn’t done calling in its favors either. The Dixie Chicks, whose most recent album debuted at number one on the Billboard music charts despite being blacklisted, are releasing a documentary called “Shut Up and Sing.”
The documentary, which opens in theaters on Nov. 10, details the group’s experiences following Maine’s comments. However, many television networks have decided the public shouldn’t see the movie, and are refusing to air ads for “Shut Up and Sing.’
Sounds to me like another favor got called in. If corporate America can censor a musical group that easily, what else are they willing to censor? That kind of influence should scare everyone.
The Dixie Chicks, who have first hand experience in dealing with that kind of fear, think that’s a good enough reason for people to see the movie. “Media consolidation scares me more than anything.And I don’t blame the average person for not knowing exactly what is going on, and for believing what is on their television station,” Maines said during a recent interview.
If anything the documentary should give people the opportunity to compare those who believe in the right to speak freely while laying no claim to the mantle of patriotism, with those that strive to deny the freedom of speech and pretend to be patriots.
You can learn more about the Dixie Chick documentary at their MySpace Web site:
http://www.myspace.com/shutupandsing.

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