And this ain’t no fooling around. Word is that musicians are up in arms about their music being used to “torture” detainees at Gitmo.
A coalition of top musicians, including R.E.M. and Pearl Jam, want to know if their music was used by the U.S. military as part of controversial interrogation methods at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The artists have endorsed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, which were filed Thursday morning, asking the U.S. government to declassify documents that would reveal which artists’ work was used on detainees at U.S. prison facilities and military detention centers, including the one at Guantanamo Bay.
No doubt Hillary Rosen and the parasites of the RIAA are interested too. Napster got nothing on the Pentagon’s use of unlicensed music.
But the controversy is real. Anyone who has lived next to an apartment full of college kids can empathize at the de-humanizing exposure to music. This goes double if it they are the disaffected suburbo-anarchists.
Tom Morello, whose musical talent stands in inverse proportion to his self-important activism is outraged against the machine.
Artists have joined on to political campaigns before, but this is slightly different. We know for a fact that the music of Rage Against the Machine (Tom’s band) and Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor) was used at Guantanamo – music played at near ear-splitting volumes for hours on end – to torture detainees. As you might expect, they are not happy about it. Here’s what Tom had to say:
Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured – from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts – playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums. Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me – we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.
Any validity to his statements is lost by the fact that he tirelessly pisses off Philadelphians by standing with convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These musician have always stood for love, justice and all the other fuzzy sentiments that come cheaply to well-insulated artistic types.
“We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice. To now learn that some of our friends’ music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge is horrific,” the American rock band R.E.M. said in a statement posted on CloseGitmoNow.org. “It’s anti-American, period.”
Oh well, considering that these folks are still active now, it’s Obama’s problem now.
UPDATE: More from Big Hollywood.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 8:38 pm and is filed under Bedwetting Leftists, Entertainment.
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October 23rd, 2009 at 12:14 am
Trust me, Pearl Jam would rather Khalid Sheik Mohammed be singing “Alive” than the soldier charged with guarding him and Tom Morello would like to do for the Soviet anthem what Jimi Hendrix did for our’s.
Is this the guy that you take your military advice from?
Now this guy – this guy I’d seek out when starting a commission to look into homeless musicians or the great trashcan dining.
Perhaps if I were to direct a remake of “Philadelphia” and recast the original Tom Hanks character.
It’s the end of the world as they know it yet I somehow feel fine.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:45 am
I loved this:
“The Meow mix cat food jingle, the Barney theme song and an assortment of Sesame Street tunes also were played into detainees’ cells.”
They could hire my kids to annoy the hell out of detainees.
If these musicians could see how these detainees beat their women back home, or how they punished people whose beards were too long…pain and torture is part of their creed.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:49 am
I wish they’d throw Stipe in Gitmo and make him listen to nothing but a mix of Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney speeches and the US National Anthem over and over and over.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
“We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice. To now learn that some of our friends’ music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge is horrific,” the American rock band R.E.M. said in a statement posted on CloseGitmoNow.org. “It’s anti-American, period.” And so are you, Twinkle Toes!
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
All I can say is you have got to be kidding.
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:57 pm
To think that my entire music collection seems to be comprised of a bunch of whiny little bitches…
Sigh.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Artists should learn their seventh grade education makes them unfit to speak about much.
First, they have no right to tell people they can’t listen to their music — including the military. If you pay the royalty, you have the right.
Second, even with their pea-brains, they should realize what a bunch of whiny little bitches they sound like. Nigel, you’re right.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Hey “Entertainers”, here’s a newsflash. If somebody buys your record (c/d whatever form) they can play it as many times as they like for whomever they want. They OWN that copy and if they choose to play it for their dog, their aunt or their captive detainees, it ain’t no fu&king business of yours. You were PAID.
So shut up and sing.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Dear CIA,
If you need music to support your endeavors to extract information from known terrorists by all means please use mine. I highly recommend these songs:
1) Had A Bad Feeling (Living The Music)
Granny Goes To Church (Kill House Blues Band Album)
2) Planet Zoo (Living The Music)
3) Funkified Elephants (Living The Music)
4) Welcome To Hollywood (Living The Music)
5) Sri Lanka (Live At The Sweetwater)
6) SEAL House Rockin (Nature of the Beast)
7) She Lied, I Cried, She Died (Kill House Blues Band Album)
9) Route 666 (Kill House Blues Band Album)
All The Beast
Curtis Paul Campbell & The Eclectic Beast Band
http://www.eclecticbeastband.com
http://www.cdbaby.com/all/curtcampbell