Stand up, sing out, fight fight fight

The morphing of the Dixie Chicks into bright young symbols of righteous rebellion brings to mind the famous line by their Texas big sister Ann Richards about how "the rooster crows but the hen delivers."

Ooh, yeah. Deliver they did. Five Grammy statues to put on their mantels plus a new fan base that includes people who never cared much for country music, but sure appreciate these singers' lyrics.

Three young fighters in high heels, proud smiles and pretty dresses, who were once called traitors and Saddam's sluts (those being only a few the media could print) waved their music awards and lifted the restrictions on free speech.

Were Al Gore to score as big and take home an Oscar tonight for a documentary that made Americans think hard about polar bears and pollution, the thought police might well have to shut up and fume.

What a difference a disastrous war makes.

Just as the attack on Iraq began, lead singer and Texan Natalie Maines told a London audience she was ashamed President Bush was from her home state. She said she didn't want the world to think that every American was gung-ho for war.

This was considered an unpatriotic act in many minds back then. But four years later, dissent appears to be healthy again. Artistic expression is a fine thing. Marching for your beliefs feels better than walking in lockstep. War protesters now get front-page access by the same media that declared their cause dead after 9/11.

Pretty soon the only enemy of french fries will be Lipitor.

Some people have been standing the whole time. Women in Black have quietly continued their vigil on town corners around the world before and throughout the Iraq war.

Rep. Barbara Lee from Oakland was the only member of Congress to vote against authorizing the president to use force right after 9/11. Rep. Lynn Woolsey from Petaluma called for withdrawal from Iraq in 2005. The two have outlasted their detractors, including a tepid media that often dismissed them like some uncredentialed protesters.

Along with Rep. Maxine Waters, another unabashed war critic, they've proposed the Bring Our Troops Home and Sovereignty of Iraq Restoration Act of 2007, to set a six-month time frame for withdrawal of U.S. military forces, to bring stability to Iraq and to fund the VA health care system.

Call them the Dixie Chicks of the Hill.

More Mother Courage came from the late Molly Ivins, whose parting words to America were to get into the streets and bang pots and pans and stop this war. Add, too, the relentless broadcast journalist Amy Goodman and her army of "creative resisters."

As long as the war has gone on, there have been opposing voices for which making nice was never an option.

It must feel good to finally be in the majority, for public opinion to have moved to your side.

Now it's OK to question, criticize, stand on the corner and wave a protest sign and a flag. The anti-Bush commentary can stay on the refrigerator even when the conservative side of the family comes for dinner.

The Dixie Chicks survived death threats and boycotts by right-wing radio stations. They ended up being included in Time Magazine's Top 100 influential people last year. Bill O'Reilly doesn't like them, but Joan Baez thinks they're wonderful.

Before they became outcasts, they were considered mainstream. Now they're back to being mainstream. They didn't change their tune. The country did.

If this keeps up, Cindy Sheehan may one day walk in the front door of the White House. Although probably not for a couple of years.