Good evening, we are Rage Against the Machine from Los Angeles, California

Been looking for a transcript or video of Zack’s speech on Saturday, essentially a response to accusations that he had called for the assassination of the President during a speech he gave at Coachella. Finally got a chance to view a few videos this morning as YouTube is blocked in the office. [Edit: Here is my rough attempt to transcribe the text of that speech. Thanks to brooklyntx for posting a link to the video.]

A couple of months ago, those fascist motherfuckers at the Fox News network attempted to pin (?) this band into a corner by suggesting that we said that the President should be assassinated. Nah, what we said was: that he should be brought to trial as a war criminal and hung and shot. That’s what we said. That’s what we said. And we won’t back away from the present (?), from the position cuz the real assassinator is Bush and Cheney and the whole administration for the lives they have destroyed here and in Iraq. They’re the ones.

And what they refuse to air, what they refuse to air which was far more provocative in my mind and in the mind of my bandmates is this: that this system has become so brutal and vicious and cruel that it needs to start wars and profit from the destruction around the world in order to survive as a world power. That’s what we said.

And we refuse not to stand up, we refuse to back down from that position not only for the poor kids who are being left out in the desert to die, but for the Iraqi youth, the Iraqi people, their families, and their friends, and their youth who are standing up and resisting the U.S. occupation everyday. And if we truly want to end this fucking miserable war, we have to stand up with the same force that the Iraqi youth are standing up with everyday and bring these motherfuckers to their knees. Wake up.

[8/3 update: corrected some remarks, source: Wikipedia]

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