Rage Against The Machine Gives Impromptu Performance For Protestors

The only post I've made about police violence on the blog was when Amy Goodman of the national show Democracy Now got busted. I haven't posted about the preemptive police raids on protesters meeting places or Starhawks bus before the RNC even started. I suggest if you want to read whats really happening go to Starhawks homepage. She has been blogging the Demos.

From Crooks and Liars

After police banned them from playing a political rally in Minnesota yesterday, Rage Against the Machine whipped out the loudspeaker and went a cappella.

The band’s original plan was to play an impromptu gig at left-wing rally Ripple Effect. Sadly, the police had other ideas, leaving Zack de la Rocha to address some angry fans.

“Rage Against the Machine is a band that has never, ever advocated violence,” he, er, rages. “We’ve always advocated a direct opposition to unjust wars like the one started by John McCain and the Republicans and Bush and all of them.”

He continues: “Why the F@#% are these cops so afraid of us? Are they afraid of us?”

I showed this video to our C&L team and BillW could not say enough how much he loved it. It’s terrible to me that the larger story of how the police have acted — or have been directed to act — has gone mostly unreported in the traditional media, becaue it really does exemplify the tenuous grasp on basic civil rights that most Republicans seem to possess.