How tired are you of being lectured by celebrities to “go green”?

In the kind of in-your-face article that you can really only get from the British press, the Daily Mail publishes an article dubbing these celebrities “hippy-crites.” They single out several celebrities for the environmental hypocrisy with John Travolta getting a special mention for his solo trans-Atlantic travel in his 707. Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Madonna also merit special attention, but the list certainly doesn’t end with them either.

Especially in this day of instant information, it still shocks me when celebrities act like we can’t see that as they tell us to take shorter showers, use less toilet paper and make all sorts of other sacrifices in our lives; they’re living in houses many times larger than their family will ever need, jetting around the world on exotic vacations, and generally living lifestyles that make whatever sacrifices we make irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

As far as I’m concerned, they made the money and they’re entitled to whatever lifestyle they can afford. But they need to get off their high horses when it comes to telling me that I’m not doing enough to “save the environment.”

As Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit says, “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people telling me it is start acting like it.”

Tags: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Celebrity Politics, John Travolta, Madonna

Popularity: 65%

The Dixie Chicks and their film distributor are claiming they are being victimized in a transparent attempt to drum up publicity for a useless victimography that nobody really wants to see.

In yet another public display of stunning ignorance about the First Amendment, they seem to believe that they have a constitutional right to put their ads on networks that have no desire to be tied up in their attempt to influence the upcoming elections.

One more time for the Dixie Chicks and their adherents: you have a constitutional right to say whatever you want, and no one has ever tried to impinge on that right. However, you don’t have a constitutional - or any other kind of - right to demand that someone else provide you with a platform to do so.

NBC and the CW have viewerships comprised of both Republicans and Democrats, and neither network is in a position to make half of them mad by airing your ridiculous publicity stunt. They are perfectly within their rights to say “I don’t want anything to do with this mess,” and what objective person could really blame them?

The article also makes it clear that you never made a serious attempt to actually place the ads in the first place: it was all a transparent ploy to generate publicity by making false claims about censorship from the start. You did just enough to issue a press release, and for this little piece of prevarication I’m supposed to want to see your film? How pathetic must it be that telling baldface lies about it is the best thing you could come up with to market it? All it tells any sane, thinking person is that this film is pure pap that’s long on agenda and short on facts. Believe it or not, we’re not all as stupid as you thought we were when you dreamed up this little ploy…

But in the world according to the Dixie Chicks and their enablers, only they have the right to speak their mind while everyone else is forced to pony up the time and money so for them to jam their amateur politics down everyone else’s throat. As this little incident shows, in their world you don’t even have to disagree with them to get branded as some sort of corporate Nazi, all you have to do is to decide not to play along.

I guess you’d have to pony up a few bucks to watch their propaganda flick in order to find out what level of Hell from which you must have ascended if you actually have the nerve to call them out on their ignorance of both Geopolitics and Basic Civics 101.

Since I plan on skipping out on the victimography, I guess I’ll never know from which level I arose…If you’re gullible enough to fall for it and decide to watch this tripe, drop me a line. I’ll want to know, so I can put it on my resume.

Tags: Celebrity Politics, Dixie Chicks

Popularity: 4%

MTV2 aired a cartoon, “Where My Dogs At?,” which satirized Snoop Dogg parading around with women on leashes, and all of a sudden black “leaders” are all up in arms about it.

This isn’t new. Snoop Dogg, and rappers in general, have been criticized in many circles for their misogynistic and demeaning lyrics and behavior for years. There’s no real debate among objective observers that the lyrics and behavior are exactly that. The defense has always been that they’re “keeping it real” and that everyone other than blacks just doesn’t understand how it’s OK for them to treat and portray women that way. And for just as many years, these very same black “leaders” have been completely silent about it.

So Viacom airs an episode which satirizes this real-life behavior, and now it’s “misogynist, racist and crude”? Huh? Who are the racists here?

The answer is plainly obvious: it’s the “prominent African-Americans” who are the cowards and the racists here. They’re cowardly because they know that if they criticize Snoop Dogg, who is hugely popular - especially amongst younger rank-and-file blacks, they will alienate their own base and call to task a member of their own race - whether it’s Snoop Dogg or anyone else. But because they are also black, they are immune from criticism. So the “leaders” can’t do that: it would require actual moral conviction and courage. Neither of which they have.

So who do they pick? Viacom, because there’s a chance they can extort a “donation” or some sort of other concession from Viacom’s deep pockets to avoid being seen as racist. Instead of identifying and trying to solve a huge and growing problem within their own ethnic community, they level baseless charges against those of other races in order to perpetuate the politics and emotions of racial division from which they make their bread and butter. It’s this kind of baseless hate-mongering that encourages racial division and prejudice. To what end? To line the pockets of an elite few “prominent African-Americans” whose only real interest is exploiting race for profit and power.

Attention “prominent African-Americans”: if you have a problem with Snoop Dogg’s misogyny, take it up with him and rappers like him and leave Viacom out of it. Otherwise, you’re just blatantly playing the race card for your own enrichment, and I’m calling your bluff…

Tags: Celebrity Politics, Snoop Dogg

Popularity: 14%

For those who may not know or remember, Natalie Maines decided to score some cheap political points at a concert overseas a couple of years back by trash-talking President Bush from the stage. As country music is the heart of America’s “Red States,” their fans were furious and retaliated by boycotting their music and crushing their CDs under bulldozers.

The Dixie Chicks have their right to say whatever they want, but their fans have their right to have their say too. That’s the flip side of the First Amendment: people who disagree with you can’t be silenced either. The Chicks have never “gotten” that: Maines used the power and platform she had to make her views known, and the fans used the power and platform they had to make their opposing views known. It wasn’t (and isn’t) censorship or persecution, it’s freedom of speech: they just don’t like it when it’s someone else’s turn to talk.

These are the choices that ordinary folks like you and me have to face every day. Running your mouth at work can get you in trouble with the boss, so there are many times we have to bite our tongues and keep our opinions to ourselves rather than risk our employment. The Dixie Chicks are a reminder to all celebrities that they have bosses too: us.

Without us spending our hard-earned money on their concert tickets, CDs, and memorabilia they’d be playing for quarters at a bus stop. Occasionally, it’s good for celebrities to be reminded of that basic truth.

When you go out of your way to offend your fans, as Maines did, there are going to be consequences: especially when your very next move is to release a song which talks about how you’re “Not Ready to Make Nice.” The Dixie Chicks are now finding out the hard way that country music fans aren’t either: they’re having to cancel concerts all over the country.

They’re trying to put a positive spin on it by claiming that they’re replacing the U.S. concert dates with dates in Canada, but there’s a reason those venues weren’t on the schedule in the first place: they’re smaller and there’s less money to be made there. There’s really no way to put lipstick on this pig: their insistence on putting their politics before their music is costing them in a big way.

But the Dixie Chicks are just the most visible example of fan backlash against outspoken celebrities. I would wager that a significant portion of Hollywood’s box office woes are due to fans refusing to pay outrageous cinema prices to put money in the pockets of celebrities who insult their political views.

Because the country is fairly evenly split between opposing political views, celebrities who come out forcefully for one side or the other - especially when they do so in an insulting and demeaning way as the Dixie Chicks did - are bound to make at least half their fan base mad. And when the overwhelming majority of your fan base is on the opposite side of the political fence, you’re just asking for a major career nosedive: and the Dixie Chicks are getting just that.

You can call the Dixie Chicks brave for making a stand, but you’d be wrong: they were ignorant and foolish. If your buddy marched into his boss’ office, got up on his desk and proceeded to lecture him about the evils of capitalism and got fired for it, would you congratulate him on his principled stand or look at him like he was crazy for doing that at work? He can get drunk and pontificate on the evils of capitalism after work at the bar all he wants, but when he does it at work he’s going to have to expect there to be consequences…just ask the Dixie Chicks…

Tags: Celebrity Politics, Dixie Chicks

Popularity: 4%