On the surface this shouldn't come as a surprise or be found objectionable by anybody who understands the country music radio audience. Based on reactions to their famous statement about the president I would expect that country music fans wouldn't want to hear them anyway, and I wouldn't expect a radio station to lose listeners (and revenue) by playing music or promoting a concert by a group their listeners find objectionable. Regardless of whether I like country music radio, I have to admit that country music radio execs are very effective at promoting their stations and avoiding mistakes that might cause them problems down the road.

But let's go below the surface for a moment and explore what the real issues behind this decision might be. Of course the trouble started in 2003 when the group's music was banned from several country music stations' playlists. Subsequently, Edison Media Research did a national survey of 12 radio stations' listeners across the nation, including Houston's megastation KILT, which revealed that only 19% of listeners think radio should avoid the Chicks altogether. 51% took offense at the famous comment but thought the Chicks should still be on radio, 15% agreed with the statement (was Manualblock included in this survey?:), and 15% were undecided.

The real underlying issue here isn't the actual refusal to accept ad money. It's the fact that a handful of public radio stations, which are many Americans' only source of news and opinions, have the power to block a group from even playing in America's 4th largest city, even though only 15% of their audience would support the decision. These stations, of course, are controlled by media giants with names like CBS, Clearaudio, etc. Scary!

Of course a political/economic conservative would respond that CBS and Clearaudio are private corporations, and they have to right to control their own programming and advertising. I agree, but only to a point. I can see where a media source would be justified in not accepting ad money for an event that most of their audience would find objectionable, such as a liberal station not running ads for a KKK rally. But it's differnt when a media source abuses their subatantial power by blocking the free speech of others in venues that are not owned by their stations. Whether you have the conservative or liberal brand on your forehead I hope you can see this is potentially as much a threat to you as it is to the other side.

Eliza, are you listening? Good topic for a new song!

It's kind of a tough one. Kinda hard to force people to not be manipulative. And it's an ironic sort of hypocracy, because to force people to not be manipulative is in itself extremely manipulative. That one is a tough one.

Many years ago America woke up one morning and discovered that a few "new aristocracy" millionaires with names like Rockefeller controlled the nation's economy through the monopolies they had built. They even had their own police forces to enforce their will, with no responsibility for anybody's civil rights. So we broke up the monopolies. Years later, when I began my career, there were 21 major oil companies operating in the US instead of just Standard Oil. When I retired 30 years later there were only three major players: Exxon/Mobil, Conoco/Phillips, and BP/Arco/Amoco. Somehow when these companies applied to the FTC for permission to merge, our politicians saw no potential problems. Ditto for the communications industry, retail goods, pahrmesuticals (need to check that spelling) etc.

The trend is clearly in the direction of large companies merging to form even larger and more powerful ones that are responsible only to the politicians they support and not to the public. BP presently serves as the poster child for irresponsible behavior, but only because they've had a run of bad luck. Wal Mart would be much worse if they handled hazardous materials as their core business.

The sad thing about this state of affairs is that people like me, registered Republicans, middle class middle-of-the-roaders leaning toward conservatism, are beginning to seriously question the viability of a free enterprise system controlled by mega corporations running unchecked in the economy. And to add to the frustration of our Republican adminsitration not addressing these important issues, Democratic politicians with their old worn out populist agenda don't seem to have a viable answer either.

The proposition that "[t]here has to be some kind of enforceable regulatory legislation designed to level the playing field" is just a terrible idea. Some government agency is going to require radio stations to play the Dixie Chicks? More likely, that power, if granted, would ultimately be used to require the dissemination of pro-, not anti-, administration messages. Foolish.

Mercifully, we got rid of the FCC "fairness doctrine" in the 1980s (thank you, Pres. Reagan). There are so many outlets for ideas and messages that there's no reason for government censorship on the "fairness doctrine" model. If radio stations won't play their songs, then they can go to cable tv, or the internet (start a blog and post a sample audio or video there, or post a video on You Tube), etc., etc., etc. Hell, they can go sing on a streetcorner.

In this regard, the title of this thread, "Dixie Chicks Censored", is exactly wrong. It's the remedy that is being proposed that would constitute censorship.