This was passed on from a friend of mine and is supposed to be a statement
from Charlie Daniels. I simply say, "AMEN" !!!!! Mike

There are probably some of you folks out there who are wondering why we
didn't appear on the CMT country freedom concert for the Salvation Army to
benefit the victims of the September 11th attack on America. We were
announced and scheduled and had every intention of doing the show, until we
gave the CMT folks the lyrics to a new song I had written and wanted to
perform on the show.

After receiving the words they informed us that we could not do the song on
the show and when we asked them why they said that the show was a healing
type show and they were afraid that song would offend someone. I would
never do anything to hurt the show but I knew that they had the very epitome
of country stars and didn't particularly need us to sell tickets.

With this in mind, I decided to pull off the show for personal reasons,
which I would like to share with you. Let me preface my remarks by saying
that I respect CMT's right to not allow anything they don't agree with to go
out over their airwaves. And in all fairness, I guess they were taking the
sensibilities of the victim's families into account.

But I respectfully and vehemently disagree with their stand. First of all,
I don't feel that this is the time for healing. I feel that this is the
time to rub salt in the wounds and keep America focused on the job at hand.
We lost almost seven thousand people in the trade towers and pentagon and
we're worrying about offending somebody?

We have seven-month-old babies infected with anthrax and we're afraid we'll
hurt someone's feelings? Brave Americans forced a plane down in a field in
Pennsylvania and we're worried about ruffling someone's feathers? We're
sending our sons and daughters off to fight and perhaps die in a war we had
nothing to do with starting and we're concerned about insulting somebody?

I felt to give into this political correctness would be to turn my back on
the people who lost their lives on 9-11 and on the brave men and women who
defend this country. The title of the song is "This Ain't No Rag It's A
Flag", and I don't apologize for a word in it. I'll let you all decide for
yourselves:

This Ain't No Rag It's A Flag And We Don't Wear It On Our Heads
It's A Symbol Of The Land Where The Good Guys Live
Are You Listening To What I Said
You're A Coward And A Fool And You Broke All The Rules
And You Wounded Our American Pride
Now We're Coming With A Gun And We Know You're Gonna Run
But You Can't Find No Place To Hide
We're Gonna Hunt You Down Like A Mad Dog Hound
And Make You Pay For The Lives You Stole
We're All Through Talking And Messing Around
And Now It's Time To Rock And Roll
These Colors Don't Run And We're Speaking As One
When We Say United We Stand
If You Mess With One You Mess With Us All
Every Boy, Girl, Woman And Man
You've Been Acting Mighty Rash And Talking That Trash
But Let Me Give You Some Advice
You Can Crawl Back In Your Hole Like A Dirty Little Mole
But Now It's Time To Pay The Price
You Might Have Shot Us In The Back But Now You Have To Face
The Fact That The Big Boy's In The Game
The Lightning's Been Flashing And The Thunder's Been Crashing
And Now It's Gettin Ready To Rain

Chorus:
This Is The United States Of America
The Land Of The Brave And Free
We Believe In God, We Believe In Justice,
We Believe In Liberty

You've Been Pulling Our Chain, We Shoulda Done Something
About You A Long Time Ago
But Now The Flag's Flying High And The Fur's Gonna Fly
And Now The Whole World's Gonna Know
This Ain't No Rag It's A Flag Old Glory Red White And Blue
The Stars And Stripes And When It Comes To A Fight
We Can Do What We Have To Do
Our People Stand Proud The American Crowd Is Faithful And
Loyal And Tough We're As Good As The Best And Better Than
The Rest You're Gonna Find Out Soon Enough
When You Look Up In The Sky And You See The Eagle Fly
You'd Better Know He's Headed Your Way
This Ain't No Rag It's A Flag And It Stands For The USA

What Do You Think? God Bless America!! Charlie Daniels

JOHN