Zack de la Rocha

From BillionQuotes

Zack de la Rocha (1970 - )

American former lead singer of Rage Against the Machine

• "It is important for me, as a popular artist, to make clear to the governments of the United States and Mexico that despite the strategy of fear and intimidation to foreigners, despite their weapons, despite their immigration laws and military reserves, they will never be able to isolate the Zapatista communities from the people in the United States."

• "We were witnesses to that. We saw how the soldiers burned and razed the fields, threw the children out of schools, and turned the schools into barracks... And each time we became more familiar with the Zapatistas form of organization, communal work and cooperation. And I realized that the motives behind the militarization were to break down the community, to keep the people from organizing in an autonomous manner in order to overcome poverty and isolation."

• "I'm in this band to give volume to various struggles throughout the world. To me, the tension in this band is a minimal sacrifice."

• "One of the great things about young people is that they do question, that they do care deeply about justice, and that they have open minds."

• "If today I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers and that of the... present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare, unhesitatingly set that child's feet in the path of my forefathers. I would raise him to be an Indian!"

• "You can't ignore what some bands have done. I know that from my own experience, from the way my life was changed by 'Fuck Armageddon, This Is Hell' by Bad Religion. I know our record will be in a bin next to Lionel Richie--but so are John Coltrane, KRS-1 and Boogie Down Productions, and Public Enemy."

• "Lies, sanctions, and cruise missiles have never created a free and just society. Only everyday people can do that, which is why I'm joining the millions worldwide who have stood up to oppose the Bush administration's attempt to expand the US empire at the expense of human rights at home and abroad. In this spirit, I'm releasing this song for anyone who is willing to listen. I hope it not only makes us think, but also inspires us to act and raise our voices."

• "He has the nerve to call us violent when last year there were 80,000 cases of police brutality filed against departments all over the country this sheriff pig is poppin' off, poppin'off about how we're violent. Well, shit, he belongs to the most violent gang in US history." [Referring to a Sheriff who tried to get a concert banned]

• "This next song goes out to those who still believe that there is an american dream. And still believe that within that dream there is something called freedom. It is time to fucking wake up, and begin to truely think for ourselves, and find new sources of information... otherwise - things like what's happening in the persian gulf with continue. They will be able to make decisions for you, unless you fucking wake up, and take that vail of complacence from your eyes, and fucking begin to remove the bullet from your head." [Said before performing Bullet in the Head]

• "We've got to regain knowledge again, and we've got to regain an understanding again, of who we are. Not just those chosen to fuel systems, but individuals who have the power to criticize and analyze, and attack injustice when it becomes prevalent and apparent in front of our faces like it is in ours right now. We've been all put to sleep. Put to sleep to a system. A system that continues to perpetrate ignorance amongst our spirit and amongst our minds. One that wants you not to act. A system that would rather see all of you at that bar drinking beer filling your minds being put to sleep with beer or with drugs rather than acting against it and fighting a system which has been perpetrating imperialist lies and other fucking bullshit for five hundred years. So fuckin drink up or fuckin wake up. Your part of the solution or your part of the fuckin problem. I am sick and tired of my own complacence in my life and I know I'm fuckin sick of yours. So wake up and stop fuckin sleeping. Wake Up."

Lyrics

• Anger is a gift
• See through the news and the views that twist reality
• Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
• See right through the red, white and blue disguise
• A jail cell is freedom from the pain in my home
• If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face
• No escape from the mass mind rape. Play it again jack and then rewind the tape
• Yes I know my enemies. They're the teachers who taught me to fight me, compromise, conformity, assimilation, ignorance, all of which are American dreams.
• They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em
• Fuck you I won't do what you tell me
• I'll rip the mic, rip the stage, rip the system. I was born to rage against 'em
• The D.E.F.I.A.N.C.E Mind of a revolutionary.
• What? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy
• You know they went after King when he spoke out on Vietnam. He turned the power to the have-nots. And then came the shot
• You know they murdered X and tried to blame it on Islam. He turned the power to the have-nots. And then came the shot
• Rep the stutter step then bomb a left upon the fascists
• When ignorance reigns, life is lost
• The structure is set ya never change it with a ballot pull
• It's my life for their life so call it a free trade
• NAFTA comin' with the new disaster
• 'Cause I'm cell locked in the doctrines of the right. Enslaved by dogma, talk about my birthrights
• Aw, power to tha people, 'Cause the bosses right to live is mine to die
• So now I'm rollin' down Rodeo wit a shotgun, These people ain't seen a brown skin man, Since their grandparents bought one
• Made the masses of mastadons a path to trample the fascists on.
• His thoughts like a hundred moths, trapped in a lampshade.
• Every official that comes in, cripples us, leaves us maimed, silent and tame, and with our flesh and bones he builds his homes.
• let the riot be the rhyme of the unheard
• you see the powerful got nervous, cause he refused to be their servant, and he spit truths, that burnt like black churches [from Voice of the Voiceless, a tribute song to Mumia Abu Jamal]
• More for Gore, or the son of a drug lord? None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord [on the 2000 US Presidential Election]
• A mass of promises
  

Begin to rupture

Like the pockets

Of the new world kings

Like swollen stomachs

In Appalachia

It's the priests that fuck you

As they whisper holy things

A mass of tears have transformed to stones now

Sharpened on suffering

And woven into slings

Hope lies in the rubble of this rich fortress

Taking today what tomorrow never brings

• The camera's eye on choice disguised
  

Was it cast for the mass who burn and toil?

Or for the vultures who thirst for blood and oil?

• It has to start somewhere, it has to start somehow, what better place then here? What better time then now?
• With this mic device
  

I spit nonfiction

Who got tha power

This be my question

Tha mass of the few

In this torn nation?

The priest, the book, or the congregation?

The politricks who rob and hold down your zone?

Or those who give tha thieves tha key to their homes?

The pig who's free to murder one, shucklak [sound of pump action shotgun]

Or survivors who make a move and murder one back?
pt:Zack de la Rocha