All of you must have heard about the Dixie Chicks criticizing President Bush. All of you must have heard about Radio Stations in the U.S. boycotting Dixie Chicks en masse. (This isn't happening here, they are still playing at the Staples I'm at now)
The Dixie Chicks say that they were expressing freedom of speech. So also say the Radio stations, they are outraged and they won't play them.
Reminds me of days when Nixon had his little 'black list' of songs he wanted to ban radio stations from playing...fortunately Bush isn't so sinister...yet this time around the radio stations are...did Bush ever comment on what the Dixie Chicks said?
On the lighter side: Reminds me of the time on 'Futurama'...(not to advertise)...where he is running for 'President of Earth'...and hes on stage singing "White Rabbit"...as his way of synching with the hippies... Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote: fortunately Bush isn't so sinister
I dunno about that; Department of Homeland Security has a rather Orwellian tone to it.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
I think Bush said he didn't care what they said, because "they can say whatever they want." But he also said that he hasn't seen much of the anti-war public being jumped on or attacked or repressed. Which is complete BS, because we have seen all through the course of the war that people that are anti-war are ripped apart by people on the pro-war side.
Posted by Cartmaniac (Member # 256) on :
"So also say the Radio stations..."
Freedom of censorship.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
You'll also notice that no public library owns a copy of every book in existence.
That's the difference between the right to speak, which exists, and the right to be heard, which does not.
A radio station is not obliged to play any artist's songs.
Just as a consumer is not obliged to buy their album or listen to them on the radio. Or listen to a station that plays them.
Just as a publisher is not obligated to publish an author's work (even one under contract,) as long as they get paid.
Just as not every story whose movie rights are bought by Hollywood actually gets made into a film.
Some poor deluded fools think they have the right to dissent, but nobody else has the right to dissent with their dissent.
The radio station was fully within their right sto suspend someone for violating policy, just as any other organization would do to any other employee.
Whether or not you agree with the policy is between you and the radio station. You don't have to listen to them either, you know.
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
Problem is that thanks to Republican relaxing rules on regulating media and what companies can own what broadcast and pring media where, if a Clear Channel decides to stop playing something then it won't get heard at all in places.
And it might not get picked up by the news station which is also owned by the big monopoly.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Then you can buy the album.
Y'know, I have 18 channels programmed into the radio of my car, and only 2 are Clearchannel stations. I don't think, with the proliferation of radio stations (11,915 of them [in 1998]), that your ability to hear what you want to hear at some point is in any danger except in the most remote areas.
Although come to think of it, I NEVER hear Tori Amos on the radio since I left college (and it's attendant station) behind. And there's absolutely no boycott against her. Or Weird Al, for that matter.
Posted by Cartmaniac (Member # 256) on :
Of course, when almost every corporate-owned radio station shares the political views and values of the corporate-controlled administration...
The irony is extra bitter because said stations are contributing to the same practice they sooo radically oppose.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
quote:almost every corporate-owned radio station shares the political views and values of the corporate-controlled administration...
except the NPR, the college campus stations, etc etc etc... I love these rampant generalizations with positively no coroborrating data...
This parrot is deceased! It has ceased to be!
Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto.
Posted by Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
I support wholeheartedly a stoppage of Dixie Chicks music over the radio, but not for the aforementioned reasons.
I mean, the little one? I want to kick her in her neck, or something. She sounds like what those saws sounds like when people play them like an instrument. All warbly and sawlike.
Posted by Cartmaniac (Member # 256) on :
And of those thousands of college & other stations, how many have NATIONAL coverage?
That's the whole point, the *freedom* to hear what you want to hear, which people in remote areas do NOT have.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I can't even listen to my college's radio station on the internet. Thanks muchly, Congress.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
quote:FREEDOM to hear what you want to hear.
The what?
This is one of those freedoms delineated in "the freedom to make up freedoms," isn't it?
Like the freedom to throw pies at public figures and the freedom to dance in the middle of the Interstate during rush hour?
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
That's "prance", First, I tink you got it all hindwards.
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
Come on Rob, that's not what we're talking about here and you know it.
The subject is a band critizing a bad president and then the corporate owned media jumping all over them and refusing to play that band's music.
The airwaves belong to the people of the United States. The government, in a sense leases them out if certain conditions are met. The government can pull the licence of a broadcaster for not meeting those criteria and lease them to someone else.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
1. That's legal.
2. What you're bitching about is not, nor has it ever been, one of those 'conditions,' As radio stations have been and should be free to choose their format based on whatever criteria THEY choose, as long as it does not violate the aforementioned conditions. There's a station in my town that advertises "absolutely NO rap." They have the 'right not to play rap.'
3. I take issue with "corporate media" as it discounts the many non-corporate stations which also took part. It insinuates a conspiracy without any corroboratory evidence... like the old "we invented a 200-mpg engine which runs on water, but 'THE OIL COMPANIES' suppressed it" Urban Legend.
Oh, I should point out that I heard The Dixie Chicks' version of "Landslide" on the radio a couple of days ago. It's certainly not dropped off the airwaves as the conspiracy theorists among us would like to claim. I wouldn't hear any of their other songs, as I don't listen to Country stations, (which, surprisingly, censor all music that isn't country music -- amazing!) as is my right.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
For another perspective.
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
1. No one is denying the legality of the situation, although there may be some regulatory issues.
2. You know this how? I trust you've read FCC regulations before you posted such. If radio stations and their owners colluded to prevent airplay, that would be a reason. I'm not suggesting they did, but clearly are conditions regulations which might fit this situation.
Chosing a format, Rock and Roll, Jazz, Pop, etc., is not the same as baning an artist for manking a political statement.
3. I might suggest that stations that partook of such banning might very well be owned in whole or in part by large corporations. Or such stations might be involved in talks to be pruchased by large corporations.
It's a difficult argument for you to make that our everyday lives are not being affected by large corporations more so now than they have ever been in the past. What I argue for is that the vast majority of the population wake up and realize that they are being sold down the corporate river and stand up and do something about it.
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
quote:wake up and realize that they are being sold down the corporate river and stand up and do something about it.
We don't have to buy a Dixie Chick album, do we?
This my shock you Rob but I agree with you on this one. They made the statement, other people made another statement, it is all free speech.
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
No, you don't.
Chances are that you would have even more choice though had there not been so many huge corporate merges in recent years.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Chosing a format, Rock and Roll, Jazz, Pop, etc., is not the same as baning an artist for manking a political statement.
I'm curious: can you be sure that the Dixie Chicks haven't been played as much for the specific reason that the broadcasters or their superiors don't like what they've said? 'Cause based on what I've seen, at least, it seems equally likely that they haven't been played as much because people are angry at them and don't want to hear their music. Stations won't play what people don't want to hear, after all, because it costs them ratings and thus advertising money. Of course, I'm not paying all that much attention to the situation, seeing as hating country music is a hobby of mine and all, but it's a thought.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
It's a possibility, but it would appear that while many people are calling in blasting the Dixie Chicks, I've heard that they've had at least some equal support on the other side. The only difference is that the callers to radio stations are usually part of the younger generation who pays more attention to music than the older ones who support the Dixie Chicks.
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
1) Around here, if you don't support Bush 100% you will be fired, you will be listed, and you are up shit-creek without a raft.
2) EVERY radio station around here, both the Clear Channel and Inter-Com stations are so pro-war its sad beyond mortal understanding. They only field calls from pro-war jingoistic conquering-everyone-and-rule-the-world-is-the-american-destiny crowd.
3)I'm living proof of the dangers of corporate greed. Company I used to work for merged, merged and merged again into a huge conglomerate called PACTIV. PACTIV's only goal is to flood the market with crap products. They desire to be #1 in sales volume, not quality or customer satisfaction. (They make HEFTY, SYSCO, and WALMART brand styrofoam plates, bags and food handling products... along with another 900 different brands...) To these ends, they have elimanted all forms of safety traning, machine repair and fired anyone with any kind of process knowhow.
4) That 200-mpg water-powered car? Exists. It was supressed by Big Oil. Same with battery powered cars, hybrid cars and any other non-petrol powered engine design.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
That 200-mpg water-powered car? Exists.
You have evidence, I presume?
same with battery powered cars, hybrid cars and any other non-petrol powered engine design.
Um... we HAVE battery powered and hybrid cars. They suck, for the most part, so nobody buys 'em, but they're hardly suppressed by the oil industry. I mean, do you really want to drive a car that weighs 1,700 pounds, can barely hold two people and a terrier, and can get blown into the next lane in a heavy crosswind?
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
The basic technology for battery and hybrid technology cars has existed since the early 1980s. It was burried by the Big Oil... Simply because each one of them 75MPG cars on the road means less gas sold.
As that tech matures, we'll see it start cutting into the Big Oil profits.
200MPG water-powered cars? The technology split hydrogen and oxygen from water and burned it in an engine. Suppressed by Big Oil circa 1973. No R&D was done on it since then.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
There's still an independent research group diddling with it in Arizona. I'll try to dig up their name...
My big bitch is wave-generated electricity. Current estimates are that if we anchored an array of about a hundred square miles of generator buoys somewhere in the South Pacific (where no one ever goes because there ain't no islands), with our third- or fourth-generation machinery, they would supply the world's current energy demand about five times over. Bet no one heard any mention of that while we were in Afghanistan fighting to liberate Enron's pipeline...
--Jonah
Posted by Cartmaniac (Member # 256) on :
...Or about covering the Sahara desert with solar collectors, which would provide enough energy for Europe and Africa combined. Then there's the Australian Outback, the Gobi and Tarim deserts in China, the vast arid region that stretches from the Arabian peninsula to India...
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Hmm. Something tells me that the Aborigines, and other desert nomads won't be too pleased to find huge patches of solar panels popping up in thier territory.
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
quote:Originally posted by Da_bang80: Hmm. Something tells me that the Aborigines, and other desert nomads won't be too pleased to find huge patches of solar panels popping up in thier territory.
Like all indigenous people, they wont count.
Posted by Phoenix (Member # 966) on :
quote:Originally posted by Cartmaniac: ...Or about covering the Sahara desert with solar collectors, which would provide enough energy for Europe and Africa combined. Then there's the Australian Outback, the Gobi and Tarim deserts in China, the vast arid region that stretches from the Arabian peninsula to India...
I think I prefer the ocean wave power idea. It would be too easy for some crackpot dictator to seize those collectors and threaten the world. Whereas with the ocean idea the US could just protect them with their enormous fleet.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Tidal power. Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Hey, Dixie Chicks fans, remember, if worse comes to worst, you can always do what you probably do anyway...
Swipe it off the net.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
YES! I was reading this thread thinking "Loyality issues? Can we be any more 1955? What we need thrown into the mix is some IP controversy." Now, after two or three pages, someone needs to claim that open source code aids terrorists. When you use Mozilla you're browsing with Osama!
Unwarranted musical taste-related insult: I doubt your average Dixie Chicks fan can even spell MP3, much less listen to one.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
This post is brought to you by terrorism....I mean Mozilla Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Oh dear.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
I must be a member of Al Qaeda then.
Posted by Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
I have downloaded enough MST3K episodes from KaZaa to give little Ahmed a dynamite belt. You know, those ones that look like a string of hot dogs around the midsection?
Yeah, if I were a suicide bomber, I'd go that route. What's better than opening your jacket to reveal a cluster of dynamite? I bet that waitress Kelly would notice me now, wouldn't she? WOULDN'T YOU NOW, DON'T YOU SEE!?! I LOVE YOU!!?! IF WE CAN'T BE TOGETHER, NO ONE CAN HAVE YOU! BITCH!
Anyway, downloading things from the internet is all grey. Like, I cannot buy Mike Nelsoney goodness in stores. I am not buddies with the Bader-Meinhoff gang. See?
Posted by Cartmaniac (Member # 256) on :
Linus is, like, Osama! Every time I compile a kernel, and his name flashes by ominously, my mistrust of him grows. He invades our cyberspace, and we fall back. He assimilates entire computer systems, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn HEAH! This far no farther!
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