Is music "torture"? I guess some of it could be, depending on your
taste. Fox has a story posted (which I can't link to right now because
I'm posting via cellphone) that reports several "high-profile
musicians" are demanding that the federal government release the names
of the songs blasted at Gitmo.
Because the songs were played for hours these musicians say this
"practice amounted to torture."
Can we please get a clear definition of "torture"?
I'm just amazed at these people. Tom Morello of Rage Against the
Machine is quoted as saying "The fact that music I helped create was
used in crimes against humanity sickens me."
Reality check, please!
Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archive said, "The musicians
and the public have a right to know how an expression of popular
culture was transformed into an enhanced interrogaton technique."
Cue the Conway Twitty. I'll confess.
Amazing.
Update: Now that I'm back at a computer I'm going to add a couple of links for this story. Memeorandum, of course, has lots.
Jammie Wearing Fool covers it. ooooooooo the Meow Mix Song. God help us.
This is the original Fox post I was quoting and here is the Washington Post story that Fox quotes.
5 comments:
To be fair, the military has used a loudspeaker system called LRAD (Long Range Acoustical Device) which can emit sound "50 times greater than the human threshold for pain" at close range, causing permanent hearing damage.
Permanent hearing damage would be classified as torture, and is more harmful than waterboarding. Of course, I have no problem with waterboarding terrorists for information. They're terrorists.
The problem I have is when governments use it against their own people as the Pittsburgh PD did during the G20 protests last month.
http://www.tech-faq.com/long-range-acoustic-device.shtml
I may be young, and not know so much about politics, but I have to disagree with using music as a means of 'torture'.
True enough. It all goes to what one's definition of "torture" is.
We use words sometimes without all the context.
"I'm going to DIE if I don't get a pizza!" "Sitting in that man's class is pure torture!"
So, I think it depends on how one defines torture. This guy, hypothetically, is going to kill 3,000 people; how far is it okay to go to get information to stop it?
Tiny Tim would be torture for me. Actually anything played too loudly over bad speakers would be torture.
Sound itself is torture for someone who loves silence.
Listening to that kid rap in the Louisiana legislature was painful. "Halllleeee Beeerrrryyy. Halllleee Berrryyyy..."
I'm not absolutely sure that it should be defined as torture though...
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