Death to Dixie

Chicks, that is.

The BBC reports that the Dixie Chicks have received death threats after lead singer Natalie Maines' slagged George W. Bush and war in Iraq. The gals will be yapping about the whole thing tonight on ABC's Primetime.

Meanwhile, "Tim C.," the shadowy proprietor of Famous Idiot, a site that mocks "anti-American celebrities," said that he has been targeted with death threats. He told Fox & Friends, that of half of the 1,000 emails he gets a day are hate mail and some have included death threats.

Newsmax--a media outlet that rivals ABC's Primetime for legitimacy--reports that similar gestures have been made against another Web site, Hollywood Halfwits.

This sort of feudin' may require redrawing the red and blue maps from Election 2000. It seems the real dividing line in America is your stance on who you send death threats to.

Comments

[JosiahQ]

According to MSNBC, the Chicks will be appearing nude on the cover of Entertainment weekly for the May 3rd issue with "tatoos" all over their bodies saying "traitor" "free speach" and stuff like that.

[Anonymous]

dumb rich girl who says stupid shit, yeah she is a real rosa parks!

[michele]

The EW cover is already on line.

Nice airbrush job.

[set]

Eh, I think this is kind of the birth pangs of a more civil society. People are going to be dumb for a while, before they actually begin to figure out how to debate without resorting to calling each other names or threatening to beat them up.

[Lonewacko]

In six months of blogging, including relentlessly attempting to recontextualize Janeane Garofalo's famous quote about flag burning, I have not yet received one death threat. Neither have I received even an email Thank You from Ms. Garofalo herself. Perhaps I should take more pictures of the Sc|ent*l*gy Santa or of peace protesters with Sc|ent*l*gy signs in the background, maybe that will get me a snake in the mail or something.

[tim]

"Eh, I think this is kind of the birth pangs of a more civil society. People are going to be dumb for a while, before they actually begin to figure out how to debate without resorting to calling each other names or threatening to beat them up."

This is a good point. Our own era of pabulum-puking doesn't stack up so poorly against the grand old days of disputation between civilized men (back when Bill Buckley could call Gore Vidal a faggot without missing a sip of his brandy), when you consider that there are orders of magnitude more people making their opinions known these days.

[michele]

In two years of blogging, I've received about 100 death threats.

So far no one has followed through. Maybe they're busy learning how to debate.

[Kevin Carson]

Right on, Ken. I agree with what Maines originally said. Her frantic hemming, hawing and backpedaling, however, show her to be a coward. Just once I'd like to see somebody take a wildly unpopular stand, and then answer the howls of outrage with "Yeah, that's what I said, and what I meant, by God!" instead of "Er, um, what I really meant was...."

All the backpedalling didn't do her any good anyway. The professionally outraged can't be appeased once they smell blood. All Maines did was show weakness, and make the feeding frenzy that much more intense.

I'm not too keen on stupid people taking the right stand for the wrong reason, anyway. "I agree with everything you say, but I'll fight to the death to stop you from saying it."

[Steve]

Geez. Any chance we can act like adults instead of freakin' 3-year-olds?

[Steve]

Oh yeah...rivalling "Primetime for legitimacy" doesn't sound like such a great thing.

[quaker120]

It seems that somebody has carried out a "death threat" (DDOS) on the Famous Idiot web site...

[Grant Gould]

Whatever happened to just up and killing celebs without the threats? Has the American citizenry has lost its taste for pre-emption?

[Sven]

Censorhip... Is that some kind of sanction on yuppies?

[Anonymous]

It seems that somebody has carried out a "death threat" (DDOS) on the Famous Idiot web site...

maybe they were just the victim of a "hit & run" LOL 😀 what a bunch of lamers!

[tim]

I wish I could claim to be the "Tim C." mentioned here, but I tend toward the view that celebrities are essential for our freedoms.

[Ken]

Here's what's obnoxious about what Natalie Maines did, she said those things just to pander to an audience. She never would have said that in the US. She's not a hero for free speech, she's a coward, she should say what she said in Texas next time if she's so brave. She should just stick to standard concert pandering such as "London's the most banjo pickinest bumpkin-jumparooest city in the whole world" or something equally stupid and non-inflammatory.

[eric]

anyone who has written a mildly provocative letter to the editor has received death threats. This is just a way to emphasize how courageous they are.

[Tommy_Grand]

I agree. Every celeb, near-celeb, and pseudo-celeb receives death threats. College newspaper cartoonists get death threats every semester. Mickey Mouse receives death threats. Conclusion: Death threats are non-news; mention/discussion of them is usually nothing more than an attempt to garner sympathy. Psychos abound. We all received a death threat in 2001.

[The Prophet]

I think death threats are just the coin of the realm now....where in the past you might right someone with whom you disagree and tell them "sir, I disagree with you in the strongest possible terms" now you just threaten to kill thim. I have a website where I write articles and general social commentary....I have received at least a half dozen death threats all for the same article. It was a critical review of Harry Connick, Jr's "Star Turtle" CD and a scathing account of an interview he did with a men's magazine (POV). In the interview Connick comes off like a real prick and poses in a black mesh t-shirt like he was Glen Danzig. You can't believe the hate mail I've received for that article, including death threats. Not that I really lose sleep about the Harry Connick fan club trying to do me in, but it's amazing that you can get death threats for even the most innocuous of opinions....

[Kevin Carson]

At least I have the balls to write my own name under my comments. And oddly enough, it seems to be the neocons themselves who keep playing the Jewish card. Kind of like the way Jesse Jackson screams "racism" every time someone criticizes him. Pretty good way to stop an argument in its tracks.

So are YOU saying that all neocons are Jews? Haven't you heard of Bill Bennet, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Scoop Jackson, Michael Novak, etc.? There's a major strand of Straussian Catholicism in there, and a lot of WASPy Cold War Liberals who couldn't stomach McGovern.

[Anonymous]

Kevin,
Maybe she should've said this:

" I hope, before this is over, that the Iraqi experience
bites Bush in the ass so bad that the new "Vietnam syndrome" lasts for a
century and makes the old one look like a momentary attack of cold feet."

Yes wishing for millions killed. Hoping for another Vietman. That is your whole position in a nutshell - millions killed so you can have the satisfaction of gloating over the hated (jewish) neocons. No wonder you anti-war bozos are considered jokes.