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Tom Morello: “Rhythm is the Rebel”
By Joe Uehlein - Labor Network for Sustainability - February 2022
“Over the course of 20 albums and three decades I’ve walked the tightrope of rock and race.”
Tom Morello has also walked the tightrope of rock and politics, rock and labor, and now rock and climate change. Inspired by Joe Strummer and the music of the Clash — wearing a Clash t-shirt with “the future is unwritten” over the heart — Tom has set out to make his mark in creating a future where everyone prospers, and the planet thrives. His advice to activists: “Dream big and don’t settle. Aim for the world you really want without compromise or apology. Find the courage, and help others find theirs, to forge a more humane, just, and peaceful planet.”
With support from Tom, his son Roman and pre-teen Nandi Bushell recently wrote and recorded the song The Children Will Rise Up laying out the urgency of reversing global warming and halting climate change. Nandi Bushell said of the song: “I am not a scientist. I am an 11-year-old girl who understands the simple meaning of science, and while I’m not old enough to vote, I can bring awareness to this problem.”
Watch this powerful music/info video — and watch till the end!
Tom is well known for his support of working people and their unions, for example, the West Coast grocery workers strike (UFCW), Wisconsin public employees, and the Tell Us The Truth Tour (AFL-CIO and Common Cause), just to name a few. Tom released a new music video, HOLD THE LINE, last October, when so many workers were on strike around the country:
It carries a powerful message of the importance of supporting strikers. And it includes a link to the AFL-CIO’s “strike map.”
The future, Tom Morello tells us, is yet to be written. But will it be coopted? Tom says, “When they co-opt the movement, don’t trip, just hold the line!”
Joe Uehlein is President of Labor Network for Sustainability and member of American Federation of Musicians since 1966.
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