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Tuesday, April 22, 2003
posted by gbarto at 8:56 AM:
The Chron's Jane Ganahl demonstrated yesterday the kind of article for which we've come to count upon that newspaper. In it she declares of Pearl Jam:A few fans left the concert in a huff, and some are even calling for a boycott of the band's records. Here's a news bulletin for them, and I'll try not to use big words: Pearl Jam is a band with radical politics. If this bothers you, don't go to their bloody concerts.She may or may not have noticed that not going to their concerts is exactly what those with an aversion to Pearl Jam's radical politics had chosen to do, if only ex post facto. Ganahl also says,
[The first repercussions] fell on the Dixie Chicks -- not exactly known for their radical outspokenness -- when Natalie Maines said she was embarrassed to be from the same state as Dubya. The response was the country music equivalent of "Farenheit 451": Their CDs were crushed by tractors in various cities.Perhaps Ms. Ganahl failed to read the book, else she would remember that the burning of books came after seizure by the government and was part of a campaign by the government to destroy documents that raised questions about its view of the world. The Dixie Chicks were the "victims" of people who paid their own money to destroy their own CDs. No one is being hauled away for listening to the Dixie Chicks, the President is not leading hate rallies or any of the other dystopic tropes.
Ganahl closes in saying,
The good news is that the war is winding down. Will free speech start to flourish again along with Iraq? It's too soon to tell. In the meantime, I'm calling my favorite record company rep to pitch this compilation [that she described earlier in the column]. It's sure to sell.I don't think that free speech has exactly fallen apart. If people use their liberty to say unpleasant things about what people have done with their right to free expression, it may offend the liberal sensibilities of Ganahl, but they have a right to express themselves that way all the same.
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