The email form for NBC is located at http://www.nbc.com/mail.html
To: Aaron Klink
From: Kenny Moore--Rock Out Censorship
I am writing to send you the account of a very distubing bit
of censorship involving Rage Against The Machine. Rock Out
Censorship does not have its WWW page ready yet, so we are sending this
letter out to all
of the Rage Against The Machine pages we have bookmarked.
We would very
much appreciate it if you could post the contents of the
letter below for
fans of RATM to see. Also, if you could help us out by
acquiring the
e-mail addresses of those responsible at NBC and Saturday
Night Live, we
could probably bury them with protest E-mails. On our
current flyer that
we are passing out at the shows, we only have the snail mail
address and
the phone number, but for the web, E-mail addresses would
obviously work
the best. Look for the debut of our comprehensive
anti-censorship site
in the next month or two.
In case you are unfamiliar with our organization, I can
briefly sum up
our efforts as being an entirely grass-roots effort among
dedicated music
fans to educate and organize the music community into a
powerful
anti-censorship force. We publish a newspaper called "THE
ROC"--the
voice of Rock Out Censorship and set up anti-censorship
information
booths at major concert events throughout the United States.
In the
past, we have set up our booths at shows with the approval
of acts such
as Guns 'N' Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, Aerosmith, White Zombie,
Pantera,
Slayer, Queensryche, Santana, Stone Temple Pilots, Lynyrd
Skynyrd, Ice-T,
David Bowie, and many, many others too numerous to mention.
Anyway here is the text of the flyer. Feel free to reply
at
([email protected]) if you have any additional questions or
if you are
able to acquire the NBC and/or SNL e-mail addresses.
Thanks,
Kenny Moore
Florida State Representative
Rock Out Censorship
How many of you were left wondering why Rage
Against The Machine
performed only one song when they appeared on Saturday Night
Live on
April 13th? We hope that many of you, once you know about
what went down
behind the scene, will join us and never watch the show
again, and to
express your opinions in writing or by phone to Saturday
Night Live and
NBC executives.
As many of you know, the show was hosted that night by
ex-Republican
presidential candidate, and billionaire Steve Forbes.
According to RATM
guitarist Tom Morello, "RATM wanted to stand in sharp
juxtaposition to a
billionaire telling jokes and promoting his flat tax...by
making our own
statement."
To make that statement, RATM hung two upside-down Amerikkkan
flags from
their amps. Seconds before they took the stage to perform
"Bulls on
Parade", SNL and NBC sent stagehands in to pull the flags
down. The
inverted flags, says Morello, represented "our contention
that American
democracy is inverted when what passes for democracy is an
electoral
choice between two representatives of the privileged class.
America's
freedom of expression is inverted when you're free to say
anything you
want to say until it upsets a corporate sponsor. Finally,
this was our
way of expressing our opinion of the show's host, Steve
Forbes."
RATM first attempted to hang the flags during a pre-telecast
rehearsal on
Thursday, SNL's producers "demanded that we take the flags
down," says
Morello. "They said the sponsors would be upset, and that
because Steve
Forbes was on, they had to run a 'tighter' show." SNL also
told the band
it would mute objectionable lyrics in "Bullet In The Head"
(which was
supposed to be RATM's second song). SNL even insisted that
the song be
bleeped in the studio because Forbes had friends and family
there.
On show night, following the first performance, and the
flags being torn
down, RATM were approached by SNL and NBC officials and
ordered to
immediately leave the building. Upon hearing this, RATM
bassist Tim Bob
reportedly stormed Forbes' dressing room, throwing shreds
from one of the
torn down flags.
"SNL censored Rage, period. They could not have sucked up
to the
billionaire more," said Morello. "The thing that's ironic
is SNL is
supposedly this cutting edge show, but they proved they're
bootlickers to
their corporate masters when it comes down to it. They're
cowards. It
should come to no surprise that GE, which owns NBC, would
find 'Bullet'
particularly offensive. GE is a major manufacturer of US
planes used to
commit war crimes in the Gulf War, and bombs from those jets
destroyed
hydroelectric dams which killed thousands of civilians in
Iraq." Morello
noted that members of the Saturday Night Live cast and crew,
whom he
declined to name, "expressed solidarity with our actions,
and a sense of
shame that their show had censored the performance.
Because NBC is not a department of the U.S. Government, they
were within
their rights to run their show as they see fit by censoring
Rage Against
The Machine's performance. However, we as intelligent
viewers and
citizens have the right to choose what shows we watch and
make our
opinions known about how shows are being run. When SNL made
the decision
to censor RATM, they did so because they were worried what
the sponsors
of the show would think. They did not take into
consideration what the
progressive minded fans of RATM would think of their
decision, or even
what fans of their supposedly irreverent brand of comedy
would think of
their decision. This is a slap in the face to all of us.
If it were not
for the fans and viewers of the show, there would not be a
show there for
the corporations to sponsor. Therefore, it is incumbent
upon us to send
a strong message to the suits at NBC that we as viewers will
not tolerate
programming decisions such as these. It is the nature of
the television
industry that if the viewers are there, the corporate
advertisers will
come. If some of the corporate suits get their feathers
ruffled over
some controversy, but the ratings are still there, other
sponsors will be
lining up to advertise with a popular show. However, if a
show takes a
noticeable nose-dive in the ratings, ALL the sponsors will
be abandoning
ship. To assist in sending the message to NBC that we will
not tolerate
their decisions to censor artist's free expression, we urge
everyone to
write or call NBC Viewer Services and express your "RAGE" at
this blatant
act of censorship. Send your message to: NBC-TV, 30
Rockefeller Plaza,
ATTN: Viewer Services, New York, NY 10020. Phone: (212)
644-2333.
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