"These are callow, foolish women who deserve to be slapped around."

Bill O'Reilly, recently ousted from Fox News
for sexual harassment, on the Dixie Chicks

I seldom have time to watch documentaries. Reading is much more efficient and there are 8 French drama films on DVD I still need to catch up with. Since I bought a copy of _Shut Up and Sing_, a documentary about the Dixie Chicks and their controversies during the second Iraqi war, for a friend in prison, I gave that a try. The lead singer Natalie Maines famously said she was ashamed that George W. Bush came from her home state of Texas in a concert, and that caused the all-female group to be blacklisted in the country music radio scene and magnets for death threats in 2003.

The film by Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck is a fairly standard, slightly left-leaning affair. It deals much less with the disproportionate attacks on the Texas pop/country-music group than I thought it would. Instead, the three singers -- who they were, how they reacted to the controversies, how they prepared and positioned their follow-up album and concert tour -- are the focus.

Natalie Maines, the lead singer, was not in the original band. She transformed the Dixie Chicks in her brash, larger-than-life persona. Despite the fact that the two sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire clearly expressed concern
that the fallout would ruin their careers (they had been musicians all their lives), they did not place the blame on Maines. The filmmakers did not explore this dynamics in any depth.

I hardly listen to pop music these days. The most fascinating thing about the film, 10 years after its release, is how much it reveals about the U.S. in the 21st century. Protestors called the group "weapons of mass destruction" (of course real WMD programs were never found in Iraq). This reminds me just how fundamentally misogynic this country remains. Military enemies have always been
demonized in war times, but the specific targeting of women, only, in our own country as enemies and scapegoats -- Lynndie England, Valerie Plame, and Natalie Maines -- was quite a revelation; it may also be a unique American phenomenon. Continental Europe is being roiled by the rise of right-wing populism and nationalism, but at least some of these leaders are women (Marine Le Pen, Theresa May). Having a female president is simply unthinkable in the US of A. The last presidential election seemed a perverse exercise in testing the limits of American women's tolerance of the status quo. The answer comes through loud and clear -- there is absolutely no limit, no floor, to their collective willingness to remain second-class citizens.

The widespread black-out of the Dixie Chicks' songs in country-music country also sheds lights on the recent riots on college campuses against right-wing speakers. Hopefully those rioting students can learn more about tolerance
and free speech from our recent history.

There is little doubt that the media and the press exist in a liberal bubble. They seem to think national politics are decided by youtube videos starring Saturday Night Life performers. No wonder there are substantial complaints that celebrities should tread lightly on politics. One wonders, however, why
no one tells right-wing celebrities to be quiet. Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Rush's qualification for political commentary seems to consist of draft dodging, hatred mongering, and college-flunking; clearly they are the ones
who should shut up. At least the Dixie Chicks paid lip service to tolerance.

When the film was made the long term effect of the Iraq war was not clear.
10 years later, the verdict of history is unmistakable. The 2003 U.S.
invasion of Iraq has turned into a disaster on the order of Vietnam, with
no end in sight. (A big assist goes to President Obama and his spineless non-response to Syrian use of chemical weapons, which opened the door to massive Russian intervention.) The 5 million Syrian refugees are not
only a humanitarian catastrophe; they will become inviting recruiting candidates for future incarnations of ISIS. The anti-Dixie Chicks
supporters of the war turn out to be profoundly callow, foolish people
who really deserve to be slapped around.

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