[Video: rage against the machine vs fox news]
“A couple of months ago, those fascist motherfuckers at the Fox News Network attempted to pin this band into a corner by suggesting that we said that the president should be assassinated. Nah, what we said was that he should be brought to trial as war criminal and hung and shot. THAT’S what we said. And we don’t back away from the position because the real assassinator is Bush and Cheney and
the whole administration for the lives they have destroyed here and in Iraq.
They’re the ones. And what they refused to air which was far more provocative in my mind and in the minds of my bandmates is this: this system has become so brutal and vicious and cruel that it needs to start wars and profit from the destruction around the world in order to survive as a world power.
THAT’s what we said. And we refuse not to stand up, we refuse to back down from that position not only for the poor kids who are being left out in the desert to die, but for the Iraqi youth, the Iraqi people, their families and their friends, and their youth who are standing up and resisting the US occupation every day.
And if we truly want to end this fucking miserable war, we have to stand up with the same force that the Iraqi youth are standing up with every day, and bring these motherfuckers to their knees. Wake up.” –Zack de la Rocha, Rage Against The Machine [via LIVELEAK]
RELATED: “I put on Evil Empire [the other day] and the shoe still fits, stomping out of the speakers like a Hendrixian bull in the Columbine china shop of Clinton’s America. When Evil Empire came out in 1996, it just sounded like shrill sloganeering to me. After all, our guy was in the White House. He may have had a little of the devil in him, but it was the devil we knew. Sure there were injustices great and small, but we had peace, prosperity, Stereolab and the Internet stocks that were gonna make us all independently wealthy.
All of us.
That was, as Karl Rove likes to say, a pre-9/11 mentality. Listening to Evil Empire now, it sounds to me like rumbling war drums foretelling the great clash of civilizations. I feel the rage. I hate
rap-rock as much as you, but really, it’s come to this: The sky is actually falling.
Mister, we could use a band like Rage Against the Machine again. A band that scares the shit out of the powers that be. A band that pounds lies into dust with its bare hands. A fist that slams on the table and rattles the chess pieces. A band that brings huddled masses into the streets. A band that must be stopped. And no, I’m not just talking about Audioslave.” [PW]
The PMRC Protest
At a 1993 Lollapalooza appearance in Philadelphia, the band stood onstage naked for 15 minutes with duct tape on their mouths and the letters PMRC painted on their chests in protest against censorship by the Parents Music Resource Center.[53] The only sound emitted was audio feedback from Morello and Commerford’s guitars. Regarding this event, Wilk said “The first ten minutes they were going nuts, but after ten minutes they were 
getting pissed.”[54] The band later played a free show for disappointed fans.[54]
“Want me to be perfectly frank? The size of my penis — that’s what was going through my mind in Philadelphia. It looked like I’d just stepped out of the ocean. I swear to God, it’s bigger than that. So I was thinking: I wish I’d worn boxer shorts before instead of briefs, because briefs kinda like constrict me. I took them off and it was this … half-roll of nickels.” — Tim Commerford, RATM Bassist
“I was thinking about how the wind felt underneath my scrotum, what the people in the front were thinking, and all the cameras flashing and what they were going to be thinking as they developed their film. Actually, doing that was no big deal. It didn’t freak me out. That’s how we all came into the world. It’s a liberating thing.” — Brad Wilk, RATM Drummer