Lubbock Should Be Ashamed of the Way It’s Treated Natalie Maines

I've broached this subject before, but it's the anniversary of Natalie Maines speaking out against President Bush. She was, in effect, actually speaking out against the war in Iraq, which at this point pretty much everybody agrees was a bad idea. That was TWELVE (12) years ago last Tuesday, March 10.

It would be one thing if everyone gave the office of the President the proper respect, but it's completely another when I see the same people who were critical of Natalie say much worse things about the current president EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The strongest word she used in reference to President Bush was "embarrassed." That's all. With our current president, I've heard every horrible thing possible, including racial slurs. Where's the rage and the bans now?

Lubbock traded away what could have be an incredible opportunity from being in the reflected Dixie Chicks spotlight for the chance to hate on Maines. You have no idea what her influence could have brought us and what her influence has cost us. Thankfully, she's less vengeful and vindictive than her hometown.

Even more embarrassing is the holier than thou, hypocritical, backward-ass country folks who claim to embrace god, guns and country, yet can't even grant her some Christian forgiveness. That forgiveness should have started right here at home a long time ago. But it's not Natalie Maines who needs to be forgiven; Lubbock itself needs to be asked to be forgiven for throwing one of its best and brightest - a member of a family legacy of Lubbock musicians - under the bus.

I don't know a single person who would send a kid of theirs into exile for 12 years, but that's what's been done here.

Guess what? Natalie Maines doesn't need Lubbock. She doesn't need small minds, busybodies and judgmental jerks. She's doing just fine putting Lubbock in her rearview mirror. Until this town makes nice with Natalie, she's an example to every single person who grows up here that thinking and having an opinion is a bad thing.

Over a decade has passed. That's an entire career for many country artists. The fact is, there's a pretty big chance that the Dixie Chicks music would have faded away by now even if it had never been banned. Still, folks carry a grudge and most don't even know why.

As rockers, it's easy for us to write this off as "not our business," but something is wrong when it's so much easier to hate somebody than to make amends. I don't expect that this feud will go away until many years from now when someone will approach her grown grandkids about putting together a memorial.

It is a complete shame that it won't happen in our lifetimes.

Watch Wes' followup video below