Guardian on the Dixie Chicks story....Unbelievable.

[Pert_UK]

I CAN'T BELIEVE that the American Red Cross turned down a $1m donation from the Dixie Chicks because Bush is one of their patrons.

Does anyone know anything about this? If it's true it is sickening....

"The Dixie Chicks backlash hits us almost as soon as we touch down on American soil. Standing in line at Cincinnati airport, an immigration officer asks the purpose of our visit. When we tell him we're here to interview the Texan trio, he refrains from spitting on federal property. But you can hear the sound of phlegm gathering in the back of his throat. "They should string those girls up," he snarls.

Before we know it, we've been hauled off to have our bags searched and we miss our connecting flight to Memphis, where the Chicks are playing the following night. Welcome to America....

At several venues, demonstrations have been staged. In Little Rock, Arkansas, a few days earlier, a local radio station handed out anti-Chicks T-shirts. More ludicrously, the American Red Cross turned down the group's offer of a $1m donation from the tour proceeds because Bush is one of its patrons.

Barbara Boxer, a Democratic senator from California, likened the corporate radio ban to Nazi Germany and the McCarthyite witch-hunts of the 1950s and called it "a chilling message to people that they ought to shut up".

Full story:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1026475,00.html

I am stunned that this is happening in the Land of the Free....

P.