Ed Sheeran CAVES To Zionists – Kicks Macklemore Off Tour For Chanting "Free Palestine"
The Jimmy Dore Show
Guest hosts Garland Nixon and Kit Cabello critique Ed Sheeran's decision to remove Macklemore from his tour after the rapper shouted 'Free P
Key takeaways
- Macklemore was removed due to pressure from Robert Kraft and other stadium owners threatening venue access.
- The hosts argue that silencing pro-Palestine speech sets a dangerous precedent for artistic freedom.
Main topics
- Censorship of political speech
- Billionaire influence on entertainment
Notable quotes
"If those words were more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect where those people stood and where I stood."
Conclusion
The hosts conclude that the removal of Macklemore exemplifies how powe
Transcript preview
Speaker 3 (0:02) Hey, come see me September 18th, 19th in Rosemount, Illinois with Max Blumenthal. Also September 20th with Max Blumenthal in Chicago, Illinois. October 10th, new live celebrity panel show with video in Los Angeles and Ventura Boulevard at the Starlight Cabaret. That's October 10th. And then we'll see you in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Cincinnati. That's in November. And I'll be giving a speech September 12th in New York, New York at the Turning the Tide 9-11 event. Go to JimmyDore.com for a link for tickets. Speaker 5 (0:54) My name's Garland Nixon. I'm hanging out with Kit Cabella. Kit Cabella is the guy in charge of Heartland's Media. He's the editor. He's the owner. He's all of the above. Heartland's Media is great. And we are both sitting in for Jimmy Dore and, of course, Kurt, because Kurt's hilarious. I really enjoy hanging out with Kurt. Kurt Speaker 2 (1:12) and Speaker 5 (1:12) with Kurt. There Speaker 2 (1:12) you go. Speaker 5 (1:13) Yeah, so we're sitting in for him today. And for our next segment, poor old Macklemore. Macklemore. Speaker 5 (1:23) The Israeli-American Council has launched a petition urging Ed Sheeran and his management to drop Macklemore from the remaining dates of his tour after the rapper used his opening set at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium to call for a free Palestine. Speaker 2 (1:41) Okay. Nothing wrong there. Speaker 5 (1:43) All righty. Nothing Speaker 2 (1:44) wrong there. He's using his free speech. I wonder how many people got up and left. Yeah, let's take a look. A big Speaker 4 (1:50) part of the reason why I wanted to do... this tour in the first place and so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very dear and dear to my heart. Free Palestine. Whoa! Speaker 2 (2:14) Hold on. I said free Speaker 4 (2:17) Palestine. Speaker 3 (2:20) Wait a minute. Wait Speaker 4 (2:23) one minute. Speaker 2 (2:37) Wait a Speaker 5 (2:37) minute. Speaker 2 (2:38) Well, well, well. What do you know? There's something wrong here. How come the audience just get up and leave? How come they didn't leave like they left the comedian at the Laugh Factory? I didn't hear anybody say, okay, bye. No, I didn't hear anybody do that either. It's almost as if people are agreeing with that and staying there and not leaving. Gee, what went wrong? What do you know Speaker 5 (2:57) about that? Well, that's a violation, a moral violation that cannot go unpunished. Macklemore says pressure from Patriots owner Robert Kraft led to him being booted from Ed Sheeran's tour. Think about this. And why is it always some billionaire oligarch is at the business end of this stuff? Macklemore says he was dropped as an opener from Ed Sheeran's stadium tour after New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft threatened to block him from performing at Gillette Stadium and rallied other stadium owners to do the same. effectively forcing Sheeran to choose between keeping Macklemore on the tour and losing access to multiple venues. The Seattle rapper detailed his removal from the tour in a lengthy statement posted to Instagram on Monday, shortly after Rolling Stone broke the news. In the statement, Macklemore also recounted, His conversation with Sheeran, who said he was in an effed up position, but ultimately chose to maintain an apolitical stance. How is it apolitical? It's not really apolitical. But now let me say this. I understand the person who's doing whatever it is they're doing. When somebody says, you know what we tell you, you're not going to make a dime. Macklemore last Monday in the middle of all media attention surrounding Pink and what I said at MetLife, Ed told me that Kraft, Robert Kraft called him. We were scheduled to play Gillette Stadium later that month, which is owned by the Kraft Group. Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium. Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum. If Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be able to play in our venues. Ed was in an effed up position. He knew it. His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it had never been before. He told me that the words free Palestine and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with. I told him that if those words were more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect where those people stood and where I stood. But he couldn't get it get past his public facing. I don't take sides. What I said, we're going to find out, this is Macklemore's in his own words. He's putting it out there himself. What I said at MetLife, I've been saying on stages around the world for almost three years. So why is it an issue now? Because now I'm sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, in some of the biggest stadiums in America. At a certain level of exposure, free Palestine becomes too much of a risk. If I kept doing the shows, saying Free Palestine with Ed implicitly supporting it, the crowd getting loud and showing undeniable support for Palestinian liberation, what artists might speak out next? The stage becomes resistance. Maybe that's why this time it's so important to silence me. McLemore's remarks were condemned by the Israeli-American Council, which released a petition demanding that Sheeran drop McLemore from the remainder of his tour. The issue is not whether McLemore has the right to hold political reviews, the petition reads. The question Speaker 3 (6:02) is where the line should be drawn when an opening act uses a global concert platform to advance a one-sided political Speaker 5 (6:09) agenda. Both Pink and Boy George also criticized McLemore on their respective social media. counts let me ask you this one-sided i i mean no so what political view isn't one-sided you say you're a republican you say you're a democrat you say you're a libertarian you say you're a socialist or a communist you say you're whatever you are uh you that's quote one-sided there's nothing wrong there's nothing even abnormal about a one-sided political oh wait a minute it wasn't their side you Speaker 2 (6:44) know here's the thing when you start censoring art When you start censoring artists, you know, it's again, it's another way to add in more censorship and suppression on free thought. Now, again, you know, if you're easily offended by the words of Free Palestine. Fine. Where's your counter argument? OK, you're allowed to do that in this country. You're allowed to have free speech. But I don't recall, again, all the times you again, Malcolm is is probably a very well successful, famous artist. I don't see him losing millions and millions and millions of fans because of his comments, because he's been consistent about it. He has a right to say it. Now, in turn, there's a thing called the First Amendment while it still exists in this country. theoretically he's allowed to do so he's allowed to do these kind of things but when you have now corporations and big time owners now threatening the silence and suppressments telling him that that mission is becoming very frightening to him it's become it's becoming frightening to them because they're losing the narrative and what is the narrative what have we seen since october 7th well Gaza being turned into a moonscape, women and children dying, women and children starving, the whole entire area being destroyed, Trump promising to build a Riviera of the Middle East, and then in turn the war going into Syria, Lebanon, Iran. So you can understand why maybe people are cheerful of the idea or is that support of the idea of ending these wars, freeing Palestine, ending this nightmare. I mean, what is so – what's offensive? I mean, look. I don't like seeing kids getting blown up, and yet we saw it on TikTok. I don't like seeing mothers crying over the remains of their child. We saw that on X. I don't like the fact of seeing first aid workers. Remember the World Central Kitchen aid workers? You know what they did that was so offensive? I guess they went from point A to point B delivering food, and as they're driving back in their marked vehicles on an approved convoy line, they were still blown up. What about all the journalists that died? You know, I mean, I think it's kind of important to point out that people have died. You know, people died during wars. It's a thing. And, you know, maybe not a lot of people like seeing innocent civilians getting torn to shreds, seeing fathers look at the graves of their children and their wife and their family members. Maybe I think it's important to see that this is a war that needs to end and that, you know, Malcolm is using his power, his influence to bring awareness. to a nightmare situation that is still ongoing and continuous. So he has his right to exercise his First Amendment. He has his right as an artist to give his perspective and point of view because he is, after all, an artist. And when you start having people with money and influence trying to censor art, don't worry, it's going to come to you. Now, you might not like the words that he says. Fine. That's your right to do so. But he has every right to bring that to attention. And the fact that you have other artists saying, well, how dare you say this and you should be kicked off. Don't worry, it'll happen to you. One day you'll step out of line and it'll happen to you. And then there's no one left to speak for you. So. Speaker 5 (9:46) Well, think Speaker 2 (9:46) about Speaker 5 (9:47) this. And this is a great example of how America works today. OK, you've got Macklemore. Let's go on either side of Macklemore. On one side of Macklemore, you've got a stadium with 80,000 screaming fans in agreement. Yay, free Palestine. And they want to hear Speaker 2 (10:02) Macklemore. They like his music. Yay, let's sing along Speaker 5 (10:04) with Macklemore. They're singing and dancing. They're enjoying the music. And they wanted to hear him say free Palestine. So you got 80,000 screaming fans at every one of these stadiums. Hundreds and hundreds, probably millions of people are going to go see his tour and they're going to scream, yay, when he says free Palestine. That's on one side. On the other side, you got five or six billionaires that own the stadiums saying, nope. we're offended well wait a minute we've got millions of fans who want to see this artist love the artist this is america today millions of everyday schlubs like me who saved their many of them you know look these are young people times are hard for Speaker 2 (10:45) young people Speaker 5 (10:45) They can't afford barely to pay. They don't have health care. They can't afford their own place. They got to live at home with their parents. They can't barely afford to make their bills, much less to pay their college loans, right? So they're struggling. They put together a few beans to go see a concert on a weekend, and Speaker 3 (11:09) they want to hear the guy singing songs and say Free Palestine. I think that's reasonable. Speaker 5 (11:15) This is what they want. The masses want this. A tiny group of billionaires who have their fingers on the power, you know, on their hands on the levers of power say, I don't care how much you millions of people want this. I don't care how much you agree. We're offended. And the only thing that matters is ever is a handful of billionaires offended while the masses. who are struggling and barely can afford a ticket, don't get to see it. Speaker 2 (11:46) I agree. And more importantly, too, after watching the amount of people getting so easily triggered by the word free Palestine, I mean, again, it is his right to speak that. And I want to also acknowledge that Chad is absolutely correct. It's been going on more since October 7th. It's been going on 75 years what's happening in Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank. So I want to acknowledge a chat on that. But what I'm saying that since October 7th of 2023, not only. Have we been witnessing the full intensification? But talk about the reversal on how people, Americans, have been viewing Israel now. The only person who's ruined Israel's image has been the actions and policies of that said military on the women and children and other areas of Gaza. I mean, what can be rebuilt in Gaza at this point? when it's been bombed when we've seen all the horrific imagery from there so the thing is everyone has a right to an opinion and a perspective and a point of view all right and there really needs now to be a true talk about what it means to be an artist in this country if you're worried about being censored and suppressed and also more importantly again too uh people you know spend their hard-earned money to go to whatever shows they can so if not more is not there and these venues notice a massive decline in people attending. I just want to let everyone know, no matter where you stand on the political spectrum, if they could do that to him, they're going to do it to your other favorite artists once they get out of line. So what? Follow the script, follow the orders, make everything bland. You might as well replace every musician, actor, actress with an AI program. But oh wait, that's already going to happen and it's going to be the same corporate slop. So you want that or do you want somebody who's going to be thinking differently and actually challenge you? make you view another perspective. You don't have to like it, but it is their right to speak how they feel and to do whatever music or pictures or movies or TV shows or direct whatever they want to make. That artist needs to be respected. And see, the thing is, this is our fight as well because when you have all these big venue owners saying, well, you can't say this and you can't do that, well, then why go to these venues? Speaker 5 (13:59) Exactly. That's right. Why give them your money? Exactly. So that's where we are. And everyone, you know what's happening. You know the story. So however you may choose to address it is up to you. But actually, we do have let's do this. We got one or two more slides on this and we'll touch base on them. Speaker 5 (14:19) Mel, he told me the words free Palestine and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with. Ed Sheeran choosing to prioritize the hurt feelings of neurotic rich Zionists over advocacy for the downtrodden and freedom of expression for artists shows exactly what kind of man he is, which is too bad because for a second there, he was looking pretty awesome. Robert Kraft, Prim Thacker says, Robert