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Date Posted: 16:54:43 03/14/03 Fri
Author: Weird_Enigma
Author Host/IP: 209.252.119.23
Subject: Man led out of Albany, NY mall in handcuffs for "Give Peace a Chance" on T-Shirt

THE SKINNY MARK KEMP
Free speech is becoming a casualty of war

Funny things happen to ideas of free speech during wartime. Not funny "ha-ha," funny "yikes!"

Consider the latest "scandal" from George Michael, the '80s British pop star whose hits run from "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" to "I Want Your Sex."

Last week, the BBC refused to allow members of Michael's band to appear on the TV show "Top of the Pops" in T-shirts emblazoned with "No War -- Blair Out," referring to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

A BBC spokesman said the message violated the network's policy of impartiality, though it let Michael perform his version of folk singer Don McLean's early-'70s anti-war song "The Grave."

We've seen this kind of inconsistent speech-related paranoia since Sept. 11, when politicians and citizens began debating how much criticism should be leveled at our leaders during times of crisis.

But these very times have inspired some of our most passionate popular songs. Still, some folks seem to think protest is unpatriotic and musicians should stick to entertaining. Tell that to Woody Guthrie, the Depression-era protest singer who so loved his country he wrote the words "This land was made for you and me."

Surely, what happened on the BBC wouldn't happen here in the USA, though. Right?

Now consider private citizen Stephen Downs, 60. This month, he was handcuffed and led out of an Albany, N.Y., mall with his son after refusing to remove a T-shirt he'd just bought.

The message on his shirt? Borrowed from another British pop star, John Lennon, it said simply, "Give Peace a Chance."

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