Having just experienced the chilling effects of the suppression of my First Amendment rights in a public area here in Los Angeles yesterday, this strikes a particularly nauseous chord with me.
So it's against the law to dedicate a song to someone? Whether Rondstadt was working or not... do you think this behavior would have been equally fair for Rondstadt if she had dedicated a song to President Bush and declared HIM a great patriot? I hear other celebrities "on the job" praising Bush all the time, mostly backwards ass country fuck singers at their concerts and they are not lambasted for expressing their opinions "on the job." What's the difference exactly?
This is the kind of behavior that was exhibited by Germans who hated Jews in Hitler's Germany. It's not anti-semetic, but fascist just the same.
Here's what I read.
This is why the majority of people who are not supportive of the President DON'T speak up... because of this kind of bullying and fascist behavior.
(Is the only solution to demand that entertainers supportive of President Bush be just as summarily dismissed or fired if they express their political opinions "on the job"?In a related article regarding Ben Cohen's 12-foot-tall effigy of President Bush with fake flames shooting out of the pants, White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said most people in America support Bush's policies, and that the president supports free speech.
"The president welcomes the fact that we live in a democracy and that people in this country are free to make their own opinions known," Lisaius said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Pants%20on%20FireRAW
US singer Linda Ronstadt kicked out of casino for praising Michael Moore
Tue Jul 20, 3:33 PM ET Add U.S. National - AFP to My Yahoo!
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - US singer Linda Ronstadt was booed off the stage and kicked out of a Las Vegas casino after praising polemical filmmaker Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," the casino said.
The management of Las Vegas Aladdin Casino and Resort evicted the famed crooner from the premises after members of the audience reacted furiously to her praise of Moore, whose film bashes US President George W. Bush (news - web sites), during a concert on Saturday night.
The incident marked the latest backlash against liberal US entertainers who criticise Bush and follows comedienne's Whoopi Goldberg's sacking last week by a diet products company following her raunchy rant at the conservative president at a Democratic fundraising concert.
"She was removed from the hotel towards the end of the concert," a hotel official who declined to be identified told AFP of Ronstadt's unceremonious departure from the Aladdin.
"The company decided to remove her from the property after she dedicated a song to Michael Moore. This angered our guests who spilled their drinks and demanded their money back," the official said.
The liberal Ronstadt, 58, a 10-time Grammy Award-winner and an icon of the politically-agitated 1970s, praised Moore as a "great American patriot" who "is spreading the truth."
She also dedicated the song "Desperado" to Moore and urged the audience to go and see "Fahrenheit 9/11," which mercilessly slams Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq (news - web sites) and his handling of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
According to local media, members of the 4,500-strong audience stormed out of the concert hall, tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air.
(kind of reminds me of images of stormtroopers in German beerhalls via 1935 RAW)Hotel president Bill Timmins then ordered security guards to escort Ronstadt off the premise, even denying her access to her suite.
Moore reacted furiously to the hotel and casino's decision in an open letter to Timmins on the filmmaker's website.
("What country do you live in?," Moore asked in the letter. "Last time I checked, Las Vegas is still in the United States. And in the United States, we have something called 'The First Amendment'" which guarantees the right to free speech.
"For you to throw Linda Ronstadt off the premises because she dared to say a few words in support of me and my film, is simply stupid and Un-American," Moore continued.
"What about the other half of the crowd at the Aladdin who, according to the Las Vegas Sun, cheered her when she made her remarks? Did you throw them out, too?," Moore said.A statement from the casino in the desert gambling hub said Ronstadt was booted out because she had been engaged to entertain the audience, not to express her political views.
"The Aladdin Resort and Casino does not condone the comments made by Linda Ronstadt at her performance at the hotel Saturday," the hotel said.
"Ms Ronstadt was hired to entertain the guests of the Aladdin, not to espouse her political views. In an effort to defuse the situation, Linda Ronstadt was asked to leave the property immediately following her performance," it said.
A spokeswoman, Tyri Squyres, however told AFP that the "intention" of the hotel "was not partisan or political."
The outspoken Ronstadt, who has long supported the Democratic Party, has been dedicating "Desperado" to Moore at each of her performances in recent weeks.
She told the Las Vegas Review Journal before Saturday's explosive concert that she was appalled at the Republican Bush administration's invasion of Iraq.
"I don't understand this country sometimes and I really fear for it," she told the paper last week.
The government is making everybody in the world hate us, including the people that used to be our friends."
Ronstadt also foresaw her split from the Aladdin, where she had previous squabbles related to shows.
"I keep hoping that if I'm annoying enough to them, they won't hire me back," she said.