Larry - "Just proves folk music is political..."

Of course it does & of course it is / which I suppose is an argument against Joe Offer's Low Wall of Separation / but: I still think it (the Wall) is a good thing.

"...also, frankly the issue is not feelings being hurt, it is the hurt of 2500 pound bombs being droped on human beings." Yeah; try *21,000*-pound -- the one just tested in Florida. (Hm, Florida. I could go on with that one; but I doan' wannabe Tasteless, like the Dixie Chicks. :)

"...These are times that try the soul..." Nicely de-gendered, there. "...when their leadership undertakes to change the meaning of the US by a preemptive strike at a nation with which we are not at war." Yeah; I *HATE* that. When I Lean in Favor, that thought, above all, reproaches me. / But - times have changed; and not for the better, God knows. The Just War doctrines do pre-date the WMD era.

Also: legalistically, Saddam in fact struck first, when he invaded Kuwait; and he has never carried out all his agreed-to obligations under the international documents which left his fascist Ba'ath regime in power, on condition of his compliance, after that aggression had been repulsed.

"Oh, that Hirohito's people were as brave as the Dixie Chicks." Well -- yeah. You mean the Japanese Opposition. Actually, those who fought & died FOR the Emperor were, on the whole, pretty brave, weren't they? Not Good; but Brave. / But as for the Opposition -- well, while I think the Dixie Chicks are gutsy, at least economically, it IS still a wee bit safer to speak out against government policy here & now, than it was there & then. (Setting aside, of course, the thousands of US antiwar demonstrators who have recently been not only expelled from shopping malls by rent-a-cops for their T-shirt slogans, but also shot, burned & hanged by Ashcroft personally. Y'know.)