Wank-Metal Guitarist Boycotts Taco Bell



Tom Morello, the six-string conscience of the band that put the bomb in bombast, Audioslave, is organizing a boycott of Taco Bell.

From MTV.com :

Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello will take a few hours off from his day job on Friday (March 5) to hit the Taco Bell — and he won't be ordering a MexiMelt.

Morello, accompanied by Coup rapper/political activist Boots Riley and scores of political activists and farmers, will congregate outside Taco Bell's Irvine, California, national headquarters to protest the organization's relationship with suppliers who allegedly mistreat farm workers. They will also encourage the public to boycott the Bell.

"The farm workers in Immokalee, Florida, who pick the food for Taco Bell get paid starvation wages, while Taco Bell is getting rich off the backs of these impoverished farmers," Morello said. "You and I shouldn't have to violate someone else's human rights just because we want to eat a Chalupa."

"As Cesar Chavez [the Mexican civil rights leader who founded the United Farm Workers in the 1950s] said, 'When the man who feeds the world by toiling in the fields is himself deprived of the basic rights of feeding, sheltering and caring for his own family, the whole community of man is sick,' " Morello said.

Laurie Schalow, a spokesperson for Taco Bell, said the Coalition of Immokalee Farm Workers has asked the food chain to pay an extra penny per pound for tomatoes, and for the extra money to be passed on to the farmers. However, she noted that even if the company were to implement such a policy, there's no way to ensure the additional money would end up in the hands of farm workers.

"We can't control how much farm workers get paid because they're employed by growers," she said. "Instead of expending all this energy against Taco Bell, they should take this up with the Florida Department of Labor or the federal government."



This sounds like a worthy enough cause, but if Morello were really concerned about human rights, he'd stop polluting the universe with unlistenable recordings featuring the vocals of Chris Cornell. The community of man has suffered enough.

Posted: Thu - March 4, 2004 at 06:07 PM      

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