Free The Dixies Chicks 3 || Invective is the New Normal

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I am not a fan, at all, of country music. The Dixie Chicks have always been “marketed” in the country music genre. They have transcended their own marketing label. Those girls can play some acoustic instruments, their musical skills drive their music well into the range of pure excellence. The lead singer was born to sing, a voice of power, passion and independence. These ladies make really great music. 

They were in fact among the most popular, best selling women musicians in history.

Then the lead singer, in the UK, said on stage that she was “embarrassed” that George Bush was from Texas, being a good Texas citizen herself. The audience applauded, as well they should.

The American right went bat shit crazy. Country music radio stopped playing their music, right-wing religious fanatics burned their cd’s….and within a few months their public careers were more or less destroyed.

No one stepped up for them at the time, that I recall.

Fast forward to twenty fourteen.

I do not have enough pages or time to detail the vile, fundamentally enraged and insane words spoken against US President Obama. I will not repeat any of them here. Every reader has heard them or read them.

Just this week, the invective left me feeling I should apply for combat, hazardous duty pay for listening to and reading the portfolio of the GOP and its supporters. It is dark and dirty work.

I think we need to bring back the Dixie Chicks. Apologize to them. Maybe they could then reward us by releasing a new CD. 

I miss the Dixie Chicks. I was irritated by their name and the publicity they got for the things they said when they first showed up in the national media, some years ago. But then I listened to one of their concerts. I was riveted by the deep exploration they were doing of emotion and life’s experience. They don’t do love songs, they do songs about passing through hell and coming out whole on the other side. And they do it with music executed with real mastery, elevating their instruments into vessels of transformation.

Why the Dixie Chicks are gone and Rush Limbaugh, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, FOX News and John Boeher are not only still standing, they are thriving and becoming quite wealthy. An insipid little man, one Mr. D’Souaza has actually made nearly fift million dollars in his books about how much of a socialist and Kenyan anti-colonialist Obama is….and he is just one minor example of the wealth and success spewing invective against women, veterans, minorities, gays, and the middle class….all have become suspects, takers, addicted to government handouts and blah, blah, blah…..

In my 65 years of life I have never seen anything like it. And these masters of invective are getting rich, getting elected, and writing policy that affects every American, everyday.

Writing about it, being offended by it; honestly it seems impotent. Invective is the new normal. Over the last year the World Journey of the Four Directions Unity Bundle itself was attacked and marked by a “new age” hate group in a fact free series of accusation and condemnations. It is comforting, in some measure, to realize that most reasonable people are not affected in their daily lives, in their choices and work, by hate speech. Reasonable people do not look to hate groups and trash-talking GOP actors for their information….yet the fact remains that this army of haters makes money and attracts supporters all over the world. They cannot be stopped. The internet has given them new power, new opportunities…and that will continue to be the case.

The question then become a challenge to spirit, to intellect, to daily expectations about what can a reasonable person actually do in the face of these dark clouds so integrated into public discourse.

We could bring back the Dixie Chicks. Somebody must know how to do that.

Turtle Heart

In the Cloud (not that one, the other one)