Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

Dad tells me that the Olympic athletes who did the black power salute suffered reprisals from it the rest of their lives, to this day (I got him the "What's my name, fool" book by Dave Zirin).

hmm, do you suppose just maybe anyone with the commitment and drive to perform at the level of an olympic athlete, and the political thoughtfulness and bravery to make a powerful public statement, could probably have done well at a great many jobs?

As a movement for a better world, we need to organizationally support those who take a stand.

Looks what happens when those who take a stand are able to weather the storm by themselves?

Barbara Streisand is a codeword for "evil liberal lunacy" in the minds of many who get their information about her from incessant evil lunatics on talk and sports radio and the broader right-wing spin machine.

But Brad Pitt, Woody Harrelson, Angelina Jolie, ... can't all be tarred with the same brush.

The Dixie Chicks took a concerted campaign, a media war against them, for apologizing to the Brits and the world for Bush. (They probably foolishly believed that singing about happily murdering someone had set the shock bar a bit higher than stating the obvious.)

But I'm not sure any shots have been fired at Tim McGraw and Faith Hill– and no wonder. If the Dixie Chicks won the war against them,

Streisand and the Dixie Chicks are people whose star power, talent, intelligence, luck, and what have you enabled them to say a few obvious truths that upset power in this country, and keep their professional lives without publicly swallowing their principles.

And let's be serious, they aren't leading a movement, and neither have they claimed to be. But a movement for justice and liberty has to adopt such people as members.

And in particular, we have to, as a movement, find ways to support those who may not come out unscathed, or even employed.

This effort has to start in media.

Journalists who take a stand against power are the most certain to be fired. And media is the most flexible home for anyone who speaks out. Sure, we have room for an expert commentator on nuclear power and exposing corruption in the agencies responsible for nuclear regulation.

We have to withdraw our monetary support from any media organization that supports, promotes, and distributes the work of such irredeemable shills for power as George Will, and put our money toward media outlets that are, in some fundamental way, under democratic control. These outlets need not be uncompromisingly radical, but they need to much less compromised than the establishment media.