Zack de la Rocha Quotations

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 they they have open minds.

I think every revolutionary act is an act of love. Every song that I've written, it is because of my desire to use music as a way to empower and re-humanize people who are living in a dehumanizing setting. The song is in order to better the human condition.

There are many Sheriff Arpaios. People who have taken to local city, county, and state governments across the county the idea that immigrants are the problem. That immigrants are to blame.

Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona legislature have created an environment in Arizona where performing is no longer a neutral act. They have created an environment where they can convert the normal commercial interaction between artists and their fans into the means to apply this racist law.

If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face.

Brothers and sisters, our democracy has been hijacked. Brothers and sisters, all electoral freedoms in this country are over so long as it's controlled by corporations. Brothers and sisters, we are not going to allow these streets to be taken over by the Democrats or the Republicans. Because it's all of us who have built this city, and we can tear it down unless they give us what we need.

It has to start somewhere, it has to start sometime, what better place than here? What better time than now?

A friend of ours said if the same laws were applied to U.S. Presidents as were applied to the Nazis after WWII, that every single one of them, every last rich white one of them, from Truman on would be hung to death and shot. And this current administration is no exception. They should be hung and tried and shot as war criminals.

When ignorance reigns, life is lost

Who controls the past now controls the future Who controls the present now controls the past Who controls the past now controls the future Who controls the present now?

Yes I know my enemies. They're the teachers who taught me to fight me, compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite, all of which are American dreams.

Your anger is a gift.

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.

I think animals should be free. There's so much other food out there that doesn't have to involve you in that cycle of pain and death.

The classroom's the last room to get the truth.

Without just cause of reason, without legal or moral justification, and without a thread of proof that Iraq directly threatens the security of the United States, the Bush administration has headed to war...

One God, one market, one truth, one consumer

'Cause I'll rip the mic, rip the stage, rip the system I was born to rage against 'em

Is all the world jails and churches?

Inside me, I think that an animal goes through a lot of pain in the whole cycle of death in the slaughterhouse; just living to be killed. That whole situation is really messed up for animals, growing up in those little cooped-up pens. I just don't think its worth eating that animal. I think animals should be free. There's so much other food out there that doesn't have to involve you in that cycle of pain and death.

Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses.

So now I'm rollin' down Rodeo wit a shotgun, These people ain't seen a brown skin man, Since their grandparents bought one

Fools follow rules when the set commands you.

They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em