Jordan O'Connor
February 12, 2007

Shut Up and Sing

A year or so ago, if you had told me the Dixie Chicks were a wild, militant, lesbian, thrash metal band from Seattle I would have said, I’ve never been to Seattle – but my sister has. But now I know who they are because I saw the documentary ‘Shut-up and Sing.”

I haven’t bought their CD, yet, but I must say I really liked the documentary. Firstly, I loved the honesty and openness the subjects gave to the film. In any film, it is all too easy to succumb to the temptations to alter ones performance, in an attempt to control how people see you. This film shows an honesty that is essential and missing in our time, particularly in the Media and Pop culture. Whether we are talking about the deceit and negation of democratic practices for the purpose of limiting liberty and freedom, while obtaining malevolent objectives, or the out-and-out obstruction of power, ensuring the goals of the few may be obtained while the desires and wants of the many are ignored, in either case, we are often too quick to accept destructive views to maintain our lethargic state, and we are all too keen to rewrite our motives for acting in such deceitful ways.

So, why do I – some “who cares, whatever” bassist from Canada – now turn to the Dixie Chicks for inspiration?

Everyday we are bombarded with information. And there is no guarantee that this information is in our best interest, in fact, we might be exposed to information that has a specific agenda, hence a “special interest.” All as people give us the image they want to convey to us of themselves, their beliefs, objectives and so on.

Imagine you are walking down the street and you find a suitcase of money – 1 million dollars. Then, just after you close the case, someone asks you “what you have there?” Do you disclose what you have, risking them wanting to share, or perhaps even take it your just reward? Or do you come up with some innocuous answer, intended to dismiss their curiosity and encourage their leaving? You have a specific interest: for the other person to quietly fuck off – a million little interests.

Now of course you and I are on the same page – we would tell the person that we found… $20. I mean we all have to do our part to making this an honorable world.

The obvious point is, there is bias everywhere and as such we are not always getting the full picture because it is not always in the “special” interest of people to give us the full picture.

In the documentary “Shut-up and Sing” one of the Dixie Chicks says, at a concert, something along the lines of, they are ashamed that George Bush Jr. is from their state. This unleashes a shit storm (which is a very specific kind of storm) in the US, particularly in the southern states and particularly on Country radio, which I don’t listen to because as if seeing a redneck isn’t enough, you can even hear that a person is a redneck over the radio waves, which is some kind of something… I guess.

“Anyway, so I am chewing some cud and listening to the radio and I noticed that the Dixie Chicks song just ended. So I shot myself in the foot, road my horse out yonder and died.”

This brings up another point. At some point the real cowboys, the ones who aren’t oil men driving $85 000 pristine looking trucks with GPS units, with recreational ranches, the ones who care about the environment because they actually work it - because they are real ranchers! - are going to flip-out, on all those poser ranchers. If you ask me, this is definitely a movie Clint Eastwood should direct – he can call it “The Return of the Real Men… and Women.” It can end with the “Oil Boy” rancher reaching for his shinny gun with the costume handle and the real cowboy can reach for is ol’ colt saying “go ahead, make my Day.” The Dixie Chicks can do the soundtrack!

The point is, this is fucked. The Dixie Chicks say what they say because they are free from tyranny everywhere and then they get railed against… and now I’m talking about it. This is crazy! I’m a jazz musician for Christ sakes!

Listen, since we have left “freedom everywhere” behind, then the only reason for invading Iraq was Oil. The “Oil” ranchers want oil… to ranch (?) Anyway, it isn’t for freedom, it isn’t for stability in the Middle East… that’s ludicrous, it is for a strategic recourse that is essential to US interests, not specifically for their use, but to maintain a controlling share of it internationally. Controlling essential resources is the way to control the world. And to anyone in opposition to this they yelled - Shut-up and sing!

Now… in the defense of world domination

There is no doubt that oil is an essential resource, one that is the key to the maintenance and development of any industrial society, thus the desire to control said resource is a good call. So… good one there - for sure. But in the broader sense of “love thy neighbor”, this can’t be a good fit?

There was a point in the movie where they showed a reply by Bush about the Dixie Chicks predicament, (when they were banned and so on) saying that they are free to say what they want but shouldn’t whine about it if people don’t like it. Which is a very strong point (?) Yesterday Bush went on the air to announce that he is changing strategy and committing more troops to the Iraq War; or I think they call it an action or conflict… or barnburner? So, Dixie Chicks, you could learn something from this man, he doesn’t whine about people not agreeing with him or even liking him, he just goes right ahead with what he wants to do. It’s pretty amazing actually. It also means, I guess, that there is more accountability to being in a country band then the oval office (?)

But there is a serious side to this. The Dixie Chicks were pulled from hundreds of radio stations by decree from ownership. This means that hundreds of markets, thousands of cities and towns, millions of people, no longer heard the Dixie Chicks on the radio because they exercised the 1st amendment.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights. It prohibits the federal legislature from making laws that establish a state religion or prefer a certain religion (the "Establishment Clause"), prohibit free exercise of religion (the "Free Exercise Clause"), infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to assemble peaceably, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Whoops…

Here’s the crazy thing about insanity – it doesn’t crazy to the insane person.

The question is, why are these freedoms important? Well, frankly, they are not. These freedoms do, or do not, have meaning based on us, our actions; what we do and say in our day-to-day lives. In other words: you have the freedoms you can exercise, and if you can’t, or don’t, exercise your rights and freedoms, than you don’t have them, no matter what or where they are written. When people, easily and willingly, hand over their rights to follow someone into battle and persecute those in opposition to the war itself, we are in, what I am now calling, a “freedom deficit.” The tragedy of 911 was turned into a war of hubris. And we are all affected. No one will come out of this a winner. Like any tragedy, everyone losses. 

Freedom is about sitting at the front of the bus… no matter what may happen.

Freedom is alive. It is the exercising of rights, rights that are collectively recognized. We have the right to a trial, we have the right to speak freely we have the right to… etc. If we shorten the list, saying: you have the “right” to say what you want, but if people persecute you, you shouldn’t whine about it, that’s no different than saying, sure women are allowed into the work force, but if nobody wants to hire them then that’s just the way it is – they shouldn’t whine about it; sure blacks should have equal rights, but if someone doesn’t want blacks in their place of business than black people shouldn’t whine about it. Sure Jews, sure Muslims… and on it goes, are allowed to do X but if people don’t like them than they shouldn’t whine about it. When the president of a free country says that someone has the right to exercise free speech, but if persecuted for doing so shouldn’t whine about being persecuted, this is, to be clear, INSANE! Who defends the people if not the leader?

Can you imagine telling Malcolm X to just not whine about freedom? I’d like to be a fly on the wall for that one.

If I lie about the money in the suite case, if we hate the wild militant lesbian thrash metal band from Seattle because they exercise their right to speak freely, if we diminish the capacity of minority groups to be heard (as we are doing here in Canada under the Harper government) if we ignore the damage we are doing to the environment, if we become so corrupted as to believe that exercising our will over others is the same as exercising our rights, than we have surrendered the freedoms for which people now and before, fight, and so many dream. In such a circumstance we have lost; yet alone in a room, we celebrate our victory.

We have thrown a rope to a drowning man, setting fire to the side we hold. It makes no sense.

Everyday we are told to shut-up and sing, in some way - at work, at home. We are told to carry on and just shut-up! The only thing we have to comfort ourselves is our cynicism and detachment because the only thing we have – our voice – we are afraid to use. So we cut our larynx and retreat to the bottle, the gym, to the TV to sex, religion and all the rest of it.  But neither, nor the like, is freedom… even if it is all that we have to exercise. 

… “The United States has not lifted its restrictions on Maher Arar, even though the Canadian government apologized to him (Maher Arar) on Friday and offered him a $10.5 million compensation package.”

'We remain convinced that Mr. Arar's presence on the watch list is appropriate.'
-U.S. State Department

Ahhh sweet Freedom…

What the fuck are we fighting for?

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