America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom youโve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesnโt belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you donโt care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.
Tom MorelloThere's a unique component of music that is different from, the written pamphlet or a speech. There's something, when you get the right combination of rhythm, melody and the right lyrical couplet, that feels like truth in the reptilian brain. There's something hardwired in our D.N.A.. And when you get a large group of people singing together in solidarity, it's something that, in my experience, and I've played countless demonstrations and protests through the years, it's something that can really help a struggle.
Tom MorelloPoverty is not an accident of, sort of, an economic spreadsheet. Poverty is a crime. There are criminals involved. And those criminals walk the streets as free men. What my music is about, and what - this from the riots in the streets of Greece and Spain to the people's uprisings in Egypt and Libya and Madison is about is holding those people accountable, those who are responsible for subverting the entire global economy and causing so much misery and then laughing about it with their, you know, clinking their champagne glasses on their yachts.
Tom Morello