A whole lot of alt-rock stars with activist consciences today endorsed Steve Novick's run for Senate in Oregon, to face Gordon Smith in the fall. Michael Stipe of REM, Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam and Krist Novoselic of Nirvana and now Flipper joined Portland based stars like Colin Meloy of the Decemberists, Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini and Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney in their letter of support for Steve. {pdf}:
We wanted to write you a short letter asking you to join us in supporting Steve Novick for the U.S. Senate. We know that we aren't the typical people you hear from about an upcoming election, but Steve is certainly not the typical candidate.
Steve is a principled progressive who will take on the tough challenges we face today.
The upcoming election offers us a real opportunity to turn the page on the failed policies of President Bush and bring progressive change to Washington D.C. Steve Novick could be a real leader for change in the Senate and we hope you'll join us in supporting him this election.
Sincerely,
Colin Meloy (The Decembrists)
Thomas Lauderdale (Pink Martini)
Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam)
Michael Stipe (REM)
Britt Daniel (Spoon)
Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie)
Krist Novoselic (Nirvana & Flipper)
Dave Dederer (Presidents of the United States)
Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney)
Rufus Wainwright
Here's part two of my interview with FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. In this clip, Copps discusses the Pearl Jam censorship incident in the context of net neutrality. He points out that without net neutrality protections, there is nothing stopping AT&T from engaging in political censorship over the internet at large, and that network companies are only on their 'best behavior' because of the large public debate over net neutrality.
A crew member who worked on a show webcast by AT&T confirmed that there was a policy in place to remove artists' political comments from shows before they were webcast.
"I can definitively say that at a previous event where AT&T was covering the show, the instructions were to shut it down if there was any swearing or if anybody starts getting political. Granted, they didn't say to shut down any Anti-Bush comments or anything specific to any point of view or party, but 'getting political' was mentioned."
This directly contradicts AT&T's earlier statements that the censorship of Pearl Jam was an accident.
Wired reporter Eliot Van Buskirk goes on to point out that AT&T Chief Randall L. Stephenson is also the Vice-Chairman of the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.
12/28/1999 Rep. Dennis Hastert ( R-IL) $500
10/26/2001 Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) $1,000
3/14/2002 Keep Our Majority PAC (run by fmr Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) $2,000
4/18/2002 Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) $1,000
10/11/2002 Keep Our Majority PAC (run by fmr Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL)) $1,000
6/2/2003 Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) $250
6/21/2003 Sen. Christopher S 'Kit' Bond (R-MO) $250
7/18/2003 President George W. Bush (R) $500
7/23/2003 President George W. Bush (R) $1,500
1/23/2004 Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) $500
3/17/2004 Rebecca Armendariz Klein, Republican candidate for Congress (TX) $250
5/3/2004 Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) $500
5/25/2004 Republican National Cmte $500
7/14/2004 Kirk Humphreys, Republican Candidate for Senate (OK primary), $250
7/28/2004 Republican National Cmte $2,500
8/4/2004 Rebecca Armendariz Klein, Republican candidate for Congress (TX) $250
10/22/2004 Republican National Cmte $1,000
11/29/2004 Rep. Joe Barton, (R-TX) $1,000
1/27/2005 Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) $500
7/17/2005 Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) $1,000
8/9/2005 Rep. Pete Sessions, (R-TX) $500
9/20/2005 Sen. George Allen (R) $500
10/20/2005 Keep Our Majority PAC (run by fmr Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) $1,000
11/9/2005 Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) $500
12/12/2005 Denise Bode, Republican candidate for Congress (OK) $1,000
3/31/2006 Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-NJ) $1,000
6/13/2006 Denise Bode, Republican candidate for Congress (OK) $1,000
7/27/2006 Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) $500
9/22/2006 National Republican Congressional Cmte $1,000
And here's one of his statements on net neutrality and AT&T's control of the internet.
SBC Chief Operating Officer Randall Stephenson was quoted in an industry newsletter saying, "We're going to control the video on our network. The content guys will have to make a deal with us." Stephenson's statement was widely interpreted to mean that his company intends to block on its broadband network the video content of any companies or producers who have not struck a deal with SBC.
