Fresh from the controversy that surrounded their set at Coachella, rap-metal legends Rage Against The Machine played another astonishing set at T In The Park on Saturday (July 12th).
The reformed metal legends drew criticism from the American media after frontman Zack De La Rocha paraphrased a Noam Chomsky quote on the Nuremburg principle and suggested that George Bush should be executed as a war criminal. To clear his position, De La Rocha argued at T In The Park that “George Bush should be put on trial for war crimes and then hung as a war criminal”.
The frontman is no stranger to onstage rants, and has defended those claims on numerous occasions. The singer’s wider argument is just as potent, and for the benefit of hindsight ran as follows:
“Last year, at our first back in April, at the Coachella music festival, I said a few words on the stage and the next day Rupert Murdoch and the Fox Network ran a story the whole of the next day saying that I said President Bush should be assassinated. What need was there, for a network like that to put a band in the corner for trying to stand up for the truth? What we said was, or what I said that night was, that George Bush should be put on trial for war crimes and then hung as a war criminal. That’s what we said.
But they ran it all day long and it got me thinking about one thing and that was: what are they so fucking afraid of? For real, what are they so scared of? I’m not so sure that I’m what they’re afraid of. You know what? They’re afraid of you. They’re afraid that if they continue to murder endlessly without reason in Iraq that you’ll go down to the US embassy in Iraq and burn the motherfucker to the ground. They’re afraid that in protest you’ll stop buying all American products – that’s what they’re afraid of. But it’s easy to take potshots at some half enlightened, half ape like George Bush. It’s another thing to awake the consciousness that this is a war system, and unless we break that down, on behalf of every generation, unless we break that down we will always see war. So wake up.”
