Was wondering if they deliberately got their ads “banned” by NBC as a publicity stunt for their movie… I wanted to see if they added something to the ads that would guarantee the ban.

Guess I have to still wonder.

Puritan, I agree with almost all you say but this I have to take exception to. America is ours, we paid for it in life’s and money.

…well, what I wrote was partly poetic (as in Hallmark Card) and partly practical.

It’s a matter of duty: if someone was going to swindle you, and you would go without eating for a few days, it’d suck. If someone were to swindle you and your KIDS were then to go without eating for a few days, it’d be different.

Approaching this situation with that in mind, profligate politics isn’t spending YOUR political capital, but rather that of those who’re relying on you, who haven’t a say in what happens today. If more folks thought that way, and weren’t all caught up in their own destinies, our own granfathers and great-grandfathers, for instance, might’ve done a little better between 1861 and 1865 as far as rushing off to enforce their own narrow interests and interpretations of the Constitution.

We, as Americans, ape American corporate culture, which rarely seems to look beyond the next quarterly board meeting. If we looked on things as Japanese corporations were once rumored to do (i.e., take the long view), we might find that we’re less prone to stumbling.

We need, as well, to learn from our grandfathers fully as much as we build for our grandchildren, so’s not to repeat their mistakes. History goes in cycles…then again, kids today can’t know that, as the teaching of history seems to’ve taken a back-seat to diversity training, training with obsolete computers and the fashion parade which is the public school.

…NONE of this has anything to do with the Dixie B*tches, but I like to take any opportunity to issue fog and fume. It makes me seem to know what I’m talking about.

Both of these forms of censorship are reprehensible.

…call it that if it makes your tummy warm, Connie, but a more accurate term would be “enforcement of broadcast standards”.

I know that we live in an age of childish expectation, where we are all taught that if we’re thwarted in getting the ice cream, ponies, ballet slippers or trading cards we hanker after it’s the work of a grand, evil, greedy conspiracy of villains, cowards and plutocrats. We all want what we want, and want it NOW!

To use a word you yourself introduced into this discussion, it doesn’t quite work like that in the adult world. Some folks have standards. Networks are entrusted with the public airwaves and are REQUIRED to have standards, although the largely get to set them themselves. They’re also required to dust ‘em off from time to time by enforcing them.

BacaDog is absolutely right. Anything which would drive people away from NBC would make shareholders antsy, and the management of NBC hold their seats, if I’m not mistaken, at the pleasure of shareholders. Would you like to lose, or even risk, your gig as a fat-cat broadcasting solon in the interests of airing a rude commercial from a snotty, snippy bunch of uppity redneck-esses? I wouldn’t!

I’ve seen that commercial. It is reprehensible. If you want to talk about unfairness, how unfair is it for them to string Natalie calling Mr. Bush a dumb whatever after he opines on camera that they shouldn’t gripe about their treatment at the hands of fans. You make a movie, you can make it say what you want and make yourself look anyway you want to look.

When you step off the porch and nip at the big dogs, don’t be surprised if they show you their teeth. If you enter the arena with political speech, don’t be surprised if you get burned.

It’s naive in the extreme to believe that folks HAVE to listen to you. It’s called freedom of SPEECH for a reason. You can speak. Nobody’s compelled to listen…or buy your products…or see your commercials for those products…or to take what you say seriously. That part of the equation is covered by “freedoms” as well.

It is GREAT! People telling them to move to France, trash cans full of thier CD’s, Bush telling them to stop whining. Then at the end a banner comes across their faces and the voice over says “SHUT UP AND SING”. I’m telling you, I was out of my chair cheering. YES!!!!

We all want what’s best for America, I hope…it ain’t ours, after all. It belongs to our grandkids

Puritan, I agree with almost all you say but this I have to take exception to. America is ours, we paid for it in life’s and money. We elect the leaders and decide the direction we wish our Country to pursue. We nurture our freedoms and guard our Constitution with our honor. It will belong to the grandchildren when it becomes their turn to take over the duties and responsibility we have preserved for them as did our grandparents for us.

I repeat: criticism isn’t oppression. If it is, then I want reparations, and I’ll take ‘em from the recording industry, which, the way I see it, owes me big for all the crap I’ve purchased over the years anyway….

having their commercial banned from network TV while simultaneously hand-wringing about Hot Air being dumped off YouTube is a bit hypocritical. Both of these forms of censorship are reprehensible.

Constantine on October 27, 2006 at 11:29 PM

I know this topic has been beaten to death, but I just gotta add my two cents worth…

Personally, I think NBC and UTube both have the right to air what they want. UTube obviously has a political bent and they are fairly up front about it. If they choose to delete or “censor” certain posts, well, they can. They’re a commercial enterprise and if they choose to upset a particular segment of their market, they can.

Likewise, NBC is a commercial enterprise, publicly traded at that, and their executive management has a fiduciary duty to their stockholders. Nothing will piss-off a shareholder faster than losing value. Because NBC uses the public airwaves, they are restrained from airing certain kinds of programming by the FCC, but other than that they can air, or not air what they want.

Like Utube, NBC has made a decision to “delete” the commercial. It’s probably a good management decision in order to not piss off a large segment of their market and suffer the usual letters to advertisers and other neat “free market” stuff.

It’s a tired argument that somehow the Bush administration has control over the entire broadcast and cable business and can dictate what shows and what does not. If Constatine, GregH or anyone else from the left can provide one iota of proof that this is happening, well, me and I think, most of the HotAir bunch here would be the first in line to Bush’s doorstep. Until there is proof, it’s just a nutjob conspiracy theory.

Bottom line…..businesses like NBC, Utube and the Dixie Chicks make decisions every day about how to effect the public’s perception of their brand…….sometimes they get it right, and sometimes, like the Chicks, they don’t.

If that is so, I wonder why my two comments haven’t appeared yet? Could they be moderating comments now and restricting others freedom of speech?

Will wait and see.

Steve earle is actually a tougher choice. His first three albums (CDs, whatever) were great pieces of music. “Johnny Come Lately” was a great bit of music that revolved around a political issue. Contrasting his Grandad coming home after WWII, with the subject’s coming home after Vietnam. Great stuff. “Devil’s Right Hand” was not really a gun control song, as much as a rewrite of JR Cash’s “Don’t take your guns to town”. The Mountain was an awesome bit of music partnered with The Del Mcoury Band. Pro-Union, anti Big Boss, I didn’t care. it was great music. Ellis Unit One is still one of the best anti-capital punishment songs ever written. I disagree with the mindset, but I love the song.

Then he started with his Cindy Sheehan lovin’, John Walker Lindh excusing crap that comes out nowadays. His need to show his political stripes overwhelmed and infected his music, and the results just blow. I don’t buy his music because of his politics, but because his politics soured his music. The Dixie Chicks? I don’t know why I feel different about them, maybe it was the in your face attitude, but no more, no more will I ever buy one of their CDs. Earle could win me back by writing better songs. The Chicks are gone forever.

What I’ve loved about this debacle from the very start is just how perfectly our constitutional system of democracy and our free market economy has functioned.

Professor Blather is exactly correct. This is free enterprise capitalism at work. In this economic system, above all else, a vendor of a good or service (in this case, country music) MUST understand its customers. If you do not understand your customers, you go out-of-business. It’s that simple. It happens all the time. Every day. There are plenty of people here that lost their business because they did not understand their customers. Some of these people were better looking than the Dixie Chicks. Some of these people were more talented than the Dixie Chicks. Some of these people had more drive and ambition that the Dixie Chicks. And as near as I can tell, nearly all of these people that went out-of-business were WAY smarter that the Dixie Chicks. Going out-of-business has absolutely NOTHING to do with free speech. In this case, it has everything to do with stupidity. Furthermore, this entire episode is COMPLETELY ordinary, commonplace, and totally unremarkable. The Dixie Chicks can make all the movies that they want (until their funding evaporates I suppose), but I can not understand why ANYONE is even talking about this. It is intuitively obvious to most casual observer. Proof is left as an exercise to the student.

Face facts: Lee Greenwood still gets paid for appearances, and most folks want to hear “God Bless The USA”, which I’m sure goes right up Cindy Sheehan’s nose. I’m sure that Hugo Chavez doesn’t own a copy. Still, he’s gettin’ paid. Charlie Daniels is fat and gettin’ fatter singing stuff like “It Ain’t No Rag, It’s A Flag”. He’s even sellin’ a CD of his oldies and some newer stuff at “Crackerbarrel” restaurants, and I’m sure that all the folks who go in there for the meatloaf special aren’t big fans of Rove and Rummy.

And, as if that isn’t enough, Hank Jr. has NEVER left anyone in doubt about his politics (“I Got Rights”, “Country Boy Will Survive” and it’s sequel, “America Will Survive”).

That isn’t to mention heifers like Ronstadt and Bette Midler, Don Henley, who can get really political on stage; and bands like Green Day and Rage Against the Machine (have I got that name right?) whose songs themselves are political. THey’re all still getting paid, last I looked.

So, there’ll always be a market for Natalie and the sisters, if not the lucrative, always-faithful country fans they seem now to have thrown away. Maybe they should’ve taken a page from Gretchen Wilson’s book: remember your roots. Gretchen’s doing very well, seems to enjoy herself…and I myself like her stuff a WHOLE lot better than that stuff from the Dixie Hens.

…then there’s Big & Rich, who some sections of the country market can’t even figure out. They don’t look to’ve missed a meal lately.

…so, Natalie, et. al., can rest assured that they’ve hoodwinked the gullible into seeing their flick…now their big worry is getting Weinstein to pay up….

May America– and the grandkids– survive at least that long.

…aren’t you overstating your case just a little bit…just pure hyperbole….

“Mr. Bush is leading the nation to wrack and ruin…if he isn’t checked, we’ll all be killed in our sleep by angry, dissed A-rabs, the air and water will all be poisoned, cats will begin mating with dogs, the French won’t speak to us anymore…let’s sit on the floor and sing sad songs of the death of kings and chubby little ersatz country singers….”

Clinton didn’t destroy things. Nixon didn’t destroy things. FDR didn’t destroy things. Franklin Pierce didn’t destroy things. I think that the nation that can survive the stubborn foolishness of James Earl Carter Jr. can withstand the ravages of George W. Bush.

It’s just like folks who say that they’re cutting funding to a pet project when, in fact, funding is growing, just not fast enough to suit partisans. In this case, folks have their pet projects, wanting to turn the rudder of the ship of state, and they’re miffed that they’re getting what they want when they want it (NOW!), in the color they ordered (red, usually), and with a smile.

Speaking of chubby faux-country singers (you’re not country just because you’ve got a banjo in the band) and their movies (which *was* mentioned in amongst all the other verbiage), when is someone going to raise a hue and cry over that “Death of a President” movie? Isn’t that a bit over the top.

…so, that’s two things to save money by not seeing: the Dixie B*tches movie and “Death of a President”. That leaves more time for “Blue Collar” and “Trick My Truck” reruns on CMT.

Dixie Chicks: I caught you on one interview, saying that the demise of your careers was at the hands of a “rightwing machine”. I was a big fan of yours, until the UK incident…and have to tell you I never got my memo from The Machine. And neither has anyone I know. Your understanding of this whole thing is SO warped and fuzzy. You have a right to say anything you want – I support your right. But your in a SALES business, and you don’t have the right to force people to buy what you’re selling. If you offend your buyers, they stop buying. Simple as that. This is not censorship, it’s bad business sense on your part. I’m truly sorry that I don’t want to listen to your music anymore. You’re very talented women. But you can’t insult me (for supporting my President or my Military) and expect me to continue to buy your material. There was no vast conspiracy to destroy you girls…just a whole Hell of a lot of people you insulted who stopped buying/listening to you because you insulted them. Please stop fooling yourselves, and realize that your opinions are valid, just insulting to many of us. When someone said, “shut up and sing” they were actually saying, “please sing and entertain us, without insulting us. Your politics have nothing to do with your music – or at least didn’t. Go back to that.”

No, Puritan, I actually study what’s been happening in the country for the last 6 years. It helps me make distinctions between lying about a blowjob vs. lying about a war, budget surplus vs. record deficit, and what “human rights” really mean… you know, grownup stuff.

Constantine on October 27, 2006 at 9:40 PM

Hey Honora, can you do something about your cohort?

Way to go, Chicks!

…OK, Con…

*holds up an a pippin* This is an apple.

*holds up a Florida navel* This is an orange.

See the difference? Smell. Give ‘em a lick….

…now…

*holds up a can of shinola* …OK, stick with me on this one….

Puritan1648 on October 27, 2006 at 11:49 PM

Sweet baby Jesus and all the orphans, Puritan! You just became my new hero!

God bless America, kids. God bless America. It’s working better than we give it credit for sometimes.

Professor Blather on October 27, 2006 at 7:41 PM

Thank you, Professor, thank you, thank you. I needed that badly. After watching that clip of the Dixie Idiots and reading some of the breathtakingly self-deluded comments at that ThinkProgress link, I was ready to start spitting nails. Your comment put things back in perspective and helped me calm down. I thank you, and my blood pressure thanks you.