Grammy for best dissent

Patriotic dissent and free speech won big at the 49th annual Grammy Awards last Sunday.\nFour years after the Dixie Chicks were vilified, threatened and shunned for exercising basic freedoms, their voices -- both musical and political -- were finally honored with five Grammy awards.\nAt a concert in London on March 10, 2003, days before the Iraq invasion, the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, said, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." That's when all hell broke loose for the country music stars.\nRadio stations stopped playing their songs due to listener protests. Their No. 1 single at the time plummeted off the charts. Country music stations hosted "parties" for former fans to throw away Dixie Chicks albums and concert tickets. Others crushed and burned their CDs. The group received hate mail and death threats for their "unpatriotic" views. \n"Free speech" had a hefty price tag for the Dixie Chicks.\nMaines and her fellow Chicks could have backed down, backtracked, and "made nice" for the sake of their careers (or their safeties). They could've pandered to more conservative country music listeners. Or they might have been terrorized into silence.\n"Shut up and sing!" threatened one hateful letter. So continue to sing they did. But their political voices grew stronger as well.\nShortly after the London incident, Maines said she felt the president was ignoring public opinion in the United States and alienating the community with the war in Iraq. "My comments were made in frustration, and one of the privileges of being an American is you are free to voice your own point of view," she explained in a statement on her Web site.\nTheir Grammy winning album, "Taking the Long Way," kept their critical voice alive. They made no apologies for speaking out against the war and the government, despite pressure to conform. Maines has added, "Am I sorry that I asked questions and that I just don't follow? No." Nor should she be.\nBut maybe our country should be sorry and ashamed that the Dixie Chicks were attacked in the first place. Or as Maines sings in "Not ready to make nice," "It's a sad, sad story that a mother will teach her daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger."\nIt seems "patriotic" Americans who attacked the Dixie Chicks posed a bigger threat to freedom than the pesky "terrorists" around the world. What does that say about us?\nThe country music world is still unforgiving. The defiant album was snubbed at Country Music Association Awards. But fortunately the Grammy Awards opted for a celebration of dissent and political freedoms.\nUpon receiving one of her Grammy Awards, Maines said, "I think people are using their freedom of speech tonight with all these awards." Using freedom of speech to reward a group that refused to shy away from controversy and have that right repressed. Seems like a better choice than silencing dissent.\nBravo, Dixie Chicks