Tom Morello Blames England Riots on 'Poverty' and Billionaire 'Profit Motive'

With this week's rioting in England, we sought out the opinion of the rock world's foremost expert on civil unrest: Tom Morello. The Rage Against the Machine guitarist is about to embark on a three-date "Justice Tour" as the Nightwatchman, the solo moniker under which he's releasing his third solo album, 'World Wide Rebel Songs,' on Aug. 30.

The short trek will feature Rise Against's Tim McIlraith and the MC5's Wayne Kramer and benefit the Nation Institute, which supports independent media. Naturally, Morello had some strong opinions on the destruction that started in a working-class area of London.

"I don't think you can disassociate what's going on in the UK with the global unrest we've seen over the course of the last year, from the Arab Spring to the huge riots and demonstrations on the streets of Greece and Spain as a result of the austerity measures to our own, the 100,000 people that were out on the street 10 days in a row on the streets of Wisconsin over the union struggles," Morello tells Spinner. "In each of these cases the people rioting, demonstrating, uprising are the poor and working class, and I think that when people have a bright future of educational opportunities and job opportunities and a sound economic forecast for themselves, they don't riot in the streets.

"When people are staring into the abyss of poverty, desperation, a bleak outlook, that's a powder keg ready to blow -- and it's blowing. This doesn't come as any surprise. These austerity measures are not causing billionaires to turn their yachts in. They are, however, causing the people in Tottenham and Madrid and Athens to look towards a future where they have absolutely no hope and how they express themselves, you're seeing."

Morello also acknowledges that not every rioter, such as those who burned down the Sony factory, are politically motivated and why people are angry with them. "Of course, I understand," he says. "I totally understand that. It's interesting that we're so indoctrinated not to be angry at the mechanism that causes poverty to begin with.

"The underlying causes are the tectonic plates that are shifting right now. The earth is not in the hands of the people who deserve to run it. As long as the profit motive is paramount, you're going to continue to see social unrest and environmental disaster."

Watch the Nightwatchman's 'Until the End'