Chicks, Flags, and Protests

Keeper is huge Dixie Chicks fan. I try to stay away from country music because of the occasional bad grammar and worse puns that populate the lyrics. I mean, I’m far too sophisticated to be a fan of “Feelin’ Single and Drinkin’ Doubles,” “Queen of My Double-Wide Trailor” or “You Done the Wrong Woman Wrong.”

Still, Keeper’s the one who struck a match to my Book o’ Love, so I downloaded the movie “Shut Up and Sing” for him so he could enjoy watching the rise and fall and rise again of the Dixie Chicks, whose offhand remarks about President Bush ignited a firestorm of protest.

Here’s the gist of it: President Bush was leading us to war in Iraq, based on what we now know (and always suspected) were untruths, or if you prefer, lies. Onstage in London, Natalie Maines, the Dixie Chicks lead singer, said, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.”

The attack on the country group was as swift and unexpected as the invasion of Iraq itself. Practically overnight, their music was banned from airplay on country stations. In no time, there were bulldozers running over piles of their best-selling CDs and people were accusing them of treason.

Six years later, we are still at war, but for the most part, the anti-Dixie Chicks zealots have moved on to more important activities, like boycotting political candidates who don’t wear American flag pins.

The movie reminded me of an ugly time at my former job. I used to be the public communications manager for the City of Palo Alto, and was on the job when the planes hit the towers in New York on Sept. 11. As the city staff watched in horror along with the rest of the world, the future of our country was being rewritten on live TV.

It was an especially scary time for local government. We identified potential local targets, we ran emergency drills, we reminded residents to stock up on bottled water, batteries, and duct tape. No one knew when or where there would be another attack.

While we were busy making sure basic city services would continue in the event of an attack, Palo Alto residents were worried about looking patriotic.

The calls began just a few days after Sept. 11. Did we know where the resident could get an American flag? Pretty soon, a trickle of flag calls became a tsunami. Suppliers were out of flags and people were desperate to have them, as if Al Qaida would bypass every house adorned with the red-white-and-blue.

Soon the calls became ugly and demanding. Why were there no flags? Why wasn’t the city providing them to residents? Shame on us for being unpatriotic!
The business community began calling, panicked from a week of seeing retail activity drop to zero. They heard the city was providing flags. How could they get one?

Instead of arguing that it was not the government’s responsibility to provide every resident a flag along with street lights and traffic cops, the city searched for flags and money to buy them with. There were none to be found, the flag industry being the one business that was flourishing post-911.

The city had flag posters printed and walked door-to-door in the business districts, providing retailers with a flag image for their windows.

The local media dogpiled on us, claiming the failure to provide flags was just the latest example of general incompetence. The calls from residents grew increasingly personal. Like the Dixie Chicks would be later, city staffers were accused of being traitors. We were instructed by the higher-ups to be polite even when someone was screaming at us, “I pay your salary, you treasonous swine!”

When I heard the comments of the fans who turned against the Dixie Chicks for their fairly benign remark, I was thrown back into those dark days when people’s fear and confusion caused them to lash out at any convenient target — in this case, at city government employees.

Listen, our world is an uncertain place. We are all looking for someone to blame. But please, let’s try to keep things in perspective.

If you don’t like the Dixie Chicks’ politics, you don’t have to buy their records, but it’s not necessary to portray them as the devil. And if you want to fly an American flag, don’t yell at City Hall for not giving you one.

They’re busy down there, working to keep you safe.