Rage Against the Machine Words


from Mumia Abu-Jamal on Death Row Jan 15, 1997

To the rocking rebels of Rage Against the Machine and their many fans,

I thank you for taking the time and more importantly, taking the risk, of speaking out on my behalf, on Leonard Peltier's behalf, and on the behalf of others caged in Babylon's dungeons for their political beliefs or politically inspired actions.

Ona Move!

They say that music soothes the savage beast, but your rhythms, polyrhythms, lyrics and guitar licks do not soothe; they stir, they agitate, they enlighten and inform. That is why your music is a target of so many of Babylon's troops. I have found my work, my word-music as expressed in "Live From Death Row" and more recently my new book, "Death Blossoms" targeted by the forces of the very Sate that dares bray its allegiance to the principle of freedom of speech.

Let our works jointly shatter the white-out of this system's state and corporate media--long live "Live From Death Row", long live "Death Blossoms" and long live the right to write, and your right to read.

Similarly, my brothers and sisters, rebels and revolutionaries of the legendary MOVE organization have been hunted, bombed, beaten, and caged--caged for a century!--for daring to speak truth to power. Even as these words are written, nine courageous MOVE men and women enter their eighteenth year in state dungeons, prisoners of a political order, damned for the crime of being MOVE members.

Let your songs resonate to such a crescendo that these walls of Jericho can crumble and fall. For it is right to rebel, and revolution is the only solution. I, we, thank you for your musical resistance.

Ona Move!

Long Live John Africa!

Free MOVE 9 and all political prisoners

Down with this rotten ass-system

Mumia Abu-Jamal


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