Stop the Music...and the Torture

Sam Stein's report that musicians are signing on to a Freedom of Information request for documents relating to the use of music as a torture tool at Gitmo leaves two questions unanswered.

First, why do human-rights campaigners fall for the misdirection inherent in the focus on Guantanamo Bay?  Yes, Gitmo has become the internationally-recognized brand name for torture, American-style; but, as always, it's wise to look at the magician's other hand.  In this case, that would be Bagram, the feared US Air Force base in Afghanistan where at least two of the recipients of our hospitality died under circumstances not resembling room service.  Focusing on the closing of Gitmo merely invites the US government to move any detainees still in need of further such care to Bagram, which is in a similarly lawless situation, if not more so--since the Supreme Court's habeas corpus decision may or may not apply.  If you want the United States to get out of the business of being Cheney Tortureco Worldwide, the focus should be on closing down all the shadow facilities where this behavior prevails.

Second, if the musicians really want to get at the government on the use of music for torture, why not get ASCAP and BMI on the case?  Where are the royalties for the semi-public (over PA systems) use of their songs?

 

Follow Harry Shearer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/letwits

Comments

[Sub Libertate Quietum]

"Second, if the musicians really want to get at the government on the use of music for torture, why not get ASCAP and BMI on the case? Where are the royalties for the semi-public (over PA systems) use of their songs?"

Brilliant suggestion.

Even if the musicians didn't win their case (the "house" never loses), the publicity would hopefully open a few more eyes.

[antispin]

Colin Powell was given the option of curtaining Guernica tapestry at the UN, but George Bush voluntarily subjected himself to an oil on canvas by W.H.D. Koerner called "A Charge to Keep." There you have it: profiles in cowardice and courage. The prisoners would do well to keep their chins up and listen closely to that nuanced base line in "Reckless Life."

All snarking aside, I'm disgusted by Bagram and the cowardly avarice of the US military "detention" apparatus. Thanks to Mr. Shearer for calling it out.

[antispin]

It's a bass line. Not to be confused with a military base. I've never listened to Guns and Roses, AFAIK, just pulled Reckless Life off their discography. So I figured I may as well look at the lyrics. God awful. That would be painful. We can hope the detainees don't know English.

On a holiday, a permanent vacation
I'm living on a cigarette with wine
I'm never alone 'cause I've got myself
Yes, I imitate myself all of the time
From: http://www.musicbabylon.com

Oh, Allah...have mercy.

[bweiss]

This is interesting in that the musicians I believe have a royalties issue perhaps behind all this. If the Feds used their music for official functions of the Federal Government then in the same way the record companies once tried to sue the Girl Scouts for singing copyright materials, and many other such lawsuits, potentially these musicians are now owed for the use of their materials.

[PrairieView]

Obama should stop the torture of prisoners held around the world by the US government.

[Stuart]

The most recent Nobel Peace laureate should understand that the award came his way largely because of the mere promise of the United States returning to a position of moral leadership.

That much was obvious, given that nominations were due days after inauguration.

Hopefully the Nobel Peace Prize will serve its purpose and remind its recipient of his own words: "Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations."

[cascot]

Oh please...The point for the Noble Peace Prize is still the ACCOMPLISHMENTS of the individual(s). Changing the rules, as this board did, detracts from the validity of the Prize. Oh yeah...they already did that with Gore and Carter! If they REALLY wanted to reward someone who's on record for bring peace and cannot be disputed, Reagan would have certainly deserved it. Oh wait...he'a a Republican!! As was Abe Lincoln(Civil War), Nixon(no matter that he later screwed up)for bring an end to the Vietnam War...I could go on...

[JL-Sosa]

Absolutely right, why should Al Gore get the peace prize for trying to alert the world about impending doom, I mean come on, Henry Kissinger and Yassir Arafat are just the type who deserve that prize, not dummies like Gore!

Regan also TOTALLY deserves it! That Iran Contra thing and Trickle Down Reaganomics certainly helped bring peace to the world in much the same way as the other two I named.

[Bienville]

I absolutely agree. Abraham Lincoln should definitely get a Nobel Peace Prize. Let's petition the committee at once!

[twofish]

Nixon, right -- after dragging out the Vietnam war and expanding it to Cambodia to help win the 1972 election. How many more people killed and countryside devastated? They're still having deformed babies there from our Agent Orange spraying. Yeah, give it to Nixon.

Of course, they did give it to Kissinger (and Le Duc Tho) for ending that war. As someone (David Steinberg?) said, irony died the day they gave Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize.

Be that as it may, it's their prize, not yours. They often give it to people they want to encourage, not just to finished projects. Remember the women who were working to get landmines removed and banned? Well, there are still a lot of them in the world, and they're not banned (thanks largely to us). But they're on the right path, and that's why they got the prize.

You're just going to have to get over the fact that most of the world does not view Reagan as the demigod the American right does.

[bettyx1138]

What's on Dick Cheney's iPod?

[Bubba-G]

Mostly filled with Hank Williams Jr. and Ted Nugent songs, I would imagine.....

[Bienville]

To use the word "song" to describe of the sounds produced by Ted Nugent is to exaggerate.

[RepugsOut08]

It just occured to me how ironic it is, that we're discussing unauthorized use of music to accompany torture and murder, on the 40th anniversary of one of it's most nefarious criminal examples.
I wonder what Charlie would say about those leaders who authorized torture to the tune of unlicensed music, that, in it's original intent, was only meant to entertain?
Would he see the irony? Do we?
End the torture, wherever it's taking place, NOW!

[mmonarch]

I was stopped at stop light the other day. The car next to me had their window open (mine was closed). I could hear their music. It was blaring. It was torturous. I want to sue the artiste for creating that music.

There are parents all over this country that are tortured by crappy music every day - the sound and the cost of it.

Play Lawrence Welk at any db level. That is torture.

[andycan]

This torture is not a joke. Cheney and company should be brought in front of a human rights tribunal for
all their victims. What was done contravnes the US constitution and the UN human rights declaration of 1948.

[cascot]

You don't know what torture is...this wasn't torture, just a little discomfort!!! Liberals keep whining and getting hysterical over this in order to attack a GOP President. See my previous posts of Commander Day's torture experience. Now THAT'S torture...

[Bienville]

We all know what torture is. It is coercion through pain and deprivation. It is illegal.

I have a glass of water on my desk. It is wet. It is no less wet because an ocean is also wet.

Just so, sleep deprivation is torture. It is no less so because Colonel's Day's experience is also torture.

[cascot]

Part 2--Continuation of Day's account of what REAL torture is:

They continued day-night torture to get me to confess to a non-existent
part in the escape. This went on for at least 3 days. On my knees...
fan belting...cut open my scrotum with fan belt stroke. opened up
both knee holes again. My fanny looked like hamburger...I could not
lie on my back.

They tortured me into admitting that I was in on the escape...and
that my 2 room-mates knew about it.

The next day I denied the lie.

They commenced torturing me again with 3- 6- or 9 strokes of
the fan belt every day from about July 11 or 12rh..to 14 October
1969. I continued to refuse to lie about my roommates again.

Now, the point of this is that our make-believe
president has declared to the world that we (U.S..) are a bunch of
torturers...Thus it will be OK to torture us next time when they
catch us...because that is what the U.S. does.

Our make-believe president is a know nothing fool who thinks
that pouring a little water on some one's face, or hanging a pair of
women's pants over an Arabs head is TORTURE. He is a meathead.

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

Re: "pouring a little water": the US has a long history of prosecuting "enemy" and our own soldiers for water torture.

[cascot]

Please give me your evidence...

[Seattle34]

The US has never prosecuted anyone for just waterboarding, however. it's always been part of a longer laundry list of offenses, including beating with sticks and burning with cigarettes.

[RepugsOut08]

So it's only really torture if it involves an American victim, and we have to have a "contest" as to which form of torture is/was more painful.
You barely rate responding to, and our president might be "make-believe" in your tortured view of this nation's responsibility to uphold the rule of law, but he's very real in the realm of physical reality the rest of us occupy.
Your Republican president and his administration dragged this nation into the abyss of immorality concerning torture, and the new administration is dragging it's feet on prosececuting these criminals.
There, is that bipartisan enough for you?

[cascot]

Whomever you listen to, you are buying their definition of torture hook, line, and sinker. My post of Commander Day's torture has NOTHING to do with whether he is an American or not. The point, you so easily overlooked, was that his experience is a good example of what torture really looks like. Just because some one tells you it is torture doesn't make it so. Doing their research on this subject, and being free thinkers, is something that Dems are not doing. They are in lock-step with the prez, his czars, and most Dems in the Congress. And yes, I am a registered Republican, but I can disagree with my Republican president, GOP congressmen, etc. I am not in lock-step with anyone. I listen to both sides, CNN and FoxNEWS,(MSNBC doesn't count-they are ridiculous), read the Huff reports, Politico.com, etc. Then I decide my opinion...

[cascot]

THIS IS WHAT TORTURE IS:

Medal of Honor recipient Bud Day Speaks of Torture


I got shot down over N Vietnam in 1967, a Sqdn. Commander.
After I returned in 1973...I published 2 books that dealt a lot
with "real torture" in Hanoi ... Our make believe president is
branding our country as a bunch of torturers when he has
no idea what torture is.

As for me, put thru a mock execution because I would not respond...
pistol whipped on the head...same event.. Couple of days later...
hung by my feet all day. I escaped and a couple of weeks later, I got

shot and recaptured. Shot was OK...what happened afterwards was not.

They marched me to Vinh...put me in the rope trick, trick...almost
pulled my arms out of the sockets. Beat me on the head with a
little wooden rod until my eyes were swelled shut, and my unshot,
unbroken hand a pulp.

Next day hung me by the arms...rebroke my right wrist...wiped
out the nerves in my arms that control the hands...rolled my fingers
up into a ball. Only left the slightest movement of my L forefinger.
So I started answering with some incredible lies.

Sent me to Hanoi strapped to a barrel of gas in the back of a truck.

Several more kneeling events. I could see my knee bone thru
kneeling holes.

I

.

[mmonarch]

wait, and your point is this whole music thing is what?....please explain. are you comparing loud music to what that man you describe went through? or saying these musicians should just shut it? trying to find you point her. Serious. Not jerking you around.

and this comment, "Our make-believe president is a know nothing fool who thinks
that pouring a little water on some one's face, or hanging a pair of
women's pants over an Arabs head is TORTURE. He is a meathead."

to which president do you refer? There is no date on this article. Please elucidate. Thanks

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

Tell it to the (at least) two people whom the CIA tortured to death in Bagram. Death, as in, not here no mo.

[cascot]

Please give me evidence of this...

[revhatchell]

mr shearer,

the location is as unimportant as the method.

since we are a democracy, we bear responsibility for the leaders we choose. we will always be a part of "cheney tortureco worldwide", until justice is served.

the worst part of 9/11 was not the destruction we witnessed, it was what we became.

good guys don't torture. we won't be the good guys again until justice is served.

[davidly]

As if ASCAP could be less transparent in their methods of compiling data:

MEMBER INVOICE
You have 0 performances surveyed this quarter.
You have 0 secret performances surveyed this quarter.

[JFD8]

Musicians say they are now tinged
By scandal and they've come unhinged;
At Gitmo, songs blare,
Yet captors don't care
That copyrights have been infringed.

News Short n' Sweet by JFD8
http://twitter.com/JFD8

[garak99]

Torture - I would have played Toby Keith and had the detainees rap themselves in a US Flag. The US owes royalties to the Artist. It's Napster all over.