...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Monday, August 28, 2006
      ( 8:36 AM )
 
Nashville Talks Sings Back

I just heard on the Thom Hartmann show this morning (if you don't listen to Thom, you are missing one of the best progressive voices on the radio) about the Music Row Democrats. These are Country Music professionals - writers, singers, producers - who have just had enough. They have formed a PAC to raise money to publicize how progressive values are more in line with what most Americans hold true in their hearts. Redefining democrats is what they are trying to do. So despite the stranglehold their industry has on progressive ideas, they have stepped out at the risk to their own careers to take a stand.

I generally don't listen to country music anymore because of the likes of Toby Keith and his ilk. I went to Texas A&M for a few years of my varried undergraduate career and so was indeed exposed in the most obvious way to country music. I think it is a genre that contains a lot of talent and heart. And I can see why the "middle" of America relates with it. But when it closes the doors to ideas other than the loyalist drivel that comes from Toby-ites, then it loses its soul. When even Merle Haggard isn't gettting play because he thinks the government should fix America before it screws up the whole world, then something is wrong.

So if you're proud to call yourself a Dixie Chicks fan even if you never listened to country music in your life, then maybe downlowding a few soon-to-be-hits from the Music Row Dems and sharing them around might be a new way to open up conversation that will lead to some more progressive conversions in your circle of influence.

Besides - if we're taking the country back, we might as well take country music with it.

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