Musicians against music torture
Musicians and human rights group Reprieve launched a "silent protest" against the use of music for torture and interrogation. For example, the playlists at places like Guantanamo Bay and other US military prisons/bases has included such hot platters as Deicide's "Fuck Your God" and the theme song from Barney The Purple Dinosaur. Musicians like Trent Reznor want to stop the insanity. From Danger Room:
Chloe Davis, a researcher for Reprieve, told Danger Room the Zero dB campaign was planning to work with prominent musicians to lobby the incoming administration.Rockers To Press Obama on Music Torture
"It is really important that we seize the chance to alert Obama to this practice," she said. "... I think there will be people on the other side trying to catch Obama’s attention, saying we need to be tough. We’re trying to counter that message."
the latest
latest episodes
Couldn't Trent Reznor sue the military for copyright infringement? After all, "public performace" requires a different license than private listening...
Quick! Before the Baby Jesus fixes copyright law!
I think it's disgusting that the U.S government even thinks it's OK to torture prisoners. I saw a British docudrama called "Guatanamo" 2 years ago, it was one of the most powerful, touching films about the horros of Gitmo.
I hope Obama shuts down Gitmo ASAP!
Government exempts itself from adhering to copyrights and patents, especially for military applications.
c.f. sovereign immunity
My daughter should be in charge of torture of Cheney and Rumsfield. I would love to see them squirm after the ten thousandth playing of "Banana Phone"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5C6X9vOEkU&feature=related
Assuming nobody is arguing that playing annoying loud music at a subject is itself immoral, why would you want to take away a MILDLY uncomfortable tool: wouldn't the authorities just use *more* uncomfortable, and therefore immoral, methods
Seems counterproductive.
pduggie: torture is wrong.
Bahh...these musicians are just shocked to realize just how bad their music really is. You don't see Piano Man or Friends in Low Places being used to torture people.
Playing music at someone isn't "torture", nor is yelling at them or making them stand up for 2 hours.
Maybe these musicians should record a torture victim benefit song, which could itself eventually be used for torture ironically. More than a few people I know find the absence of background noise to be practically unbearable, akin to torture to hear them speak of it. I find that the fear of stillness and thus being compelled to listen to yourself think is a sad commentary on the state of modern man. Though perhaps not as sad as the compulsion to torture. Ugh.
I should like to entertain you, pduggie, that you might learn.
We should absolutely make sure Obama puts a stop to this! This is so much more important than the homeless or the economy! We should make sure he realizes what an important priority this is! The last thing we want is for people who hate America to have to listen to Barney sing! That's HORRIFIC!
/end sarcasm
/hopefully begin perspective
"Zooming out for a moment, interrogators in the War on Terror face a wrenching tension between treating captives humanely and extracting from them information required either to forestall an imminent attack or, more generally, to disrupt the terrorist infrastructure wishing us mortal harm. Thus, several commentators on the right and left have opined that certain coercive techniques are at times necessary but that we must keep off the slippery slope that descends into the same inhumanity in which our enemy indulges.
Sleep deprivation therefore presents a perfect wedge issue. On the one hand, preventing a suspect from sleeping lowers his inhibitions and makes him more likely to reveal damning information in exchange for the opportunity to resume sleeping. On the other hand, continuous, long-lasting denial of sleep can cause persistent psychological and brain damage while at the same time yielding inaccurate or hallucinatory confessions.
Several recent sleep studies have revealed fascinating findings about deprivation. British researchers discovered that lack of sleep can rival consumption of alcohol in debilitating judgment and impairing driving ability. According to the study, drivers who had been awake for 17-19 hours performed less skillfully than those with a blood alcohol content of .05 percent (the common standard for intoxication in most U.S. states is .08 percent).
Anyone getting by on little sleep can confirm the essence of this study: a certain drunkenness and lack of inhibition tends to overcome people suffering from lack of rest. And just like inebriation, sleep deprivation can often induce honest, unvarnished, and sometimes quite damaging statements that well-rested (or sober) people would assiduously avoid. Thus, at least at some level, keeping terror suspects awake and disoriented can be an effective way of coaxing hidden information from them.
Another aspect of sleep-deprivation compounds this tongue-loosening effect. According to some, captives denied sleep yearn for it so keenly that they will divulge just about anything in order to be permitted some winks. Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a widely-quoted passage of his book White Nights, recalled his captivity as a sleepless inmate in a KGB prison: "In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it."
However, other studies have highlighted the failure of sleep-deprived subjects to perform basic tasks at the same level as the well-rested, mainly because different portions of the brain are turned on and off. For instance, the temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex normally processes language-related tasks. But an experiment by scientists at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) reported in the journal Nature revealed that the temporal lobe was not activated in individuals denied sleep. This, too, meshes with real-world experience: the sleepless, like the drunk, tend to slur their speech.
Instead, the UCSD study showed, higher-than-normal activity in the parietal lobe of sleep-deprived subjects appeared to compensate for the shut-down of the temporal lobe. However, the parietal is an inadequate substitute for the temporal lobe with respect to language tasks, and the sleepless subjects performed worse than their rested counterparts on various tasks. Similar results obtained in mathematical tests, although, curiously, some sleep-deprived subjects bested their well-slept rivals in short-term memory tasks (possibly because the parietal lobe is generally associated with short-term memory).
Thus, the more sleep-deprived a suspect becomes, the less likely he is to communicate coherently or to perform other brain functions. Begin also wrote that too much sleep denial can yield inaccurate information. He "came across prisoners who signed what they were ordered to sign, only to get what the interrogator promised them. He did not promise them their liberty; he did not promise them food to sate themselves. He promised them -- if they signed -- uninterrupted sleep! And, having signed, there was nothing in the world that could move them to risk again such nights and such days."
Yet the demerits of intensive sleep-deprivation lie not only in the diminishing intelligence returns it produces but also in the serious long-term harm it can inflict on the subject. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institute of Health, has found that hallucinations can result from severe sleep-deprivation. Others have claimed that extended lack of sleep leads to psychosis.
Thus, extreme sleep-deprivation probably qualifies as something worse than a mere coercive method that leaves no lasting marks on detainees. In fact, some groups, such as Amnesty International, go so far as to deem what they call "prolonged sleep-deprivation" a violation of the Convention Against Torture. Strictly speaking, the practice probably falls under the rubric not of torture but of "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" under the Convention's Article 16."
Ah, good call, Zuzu. Didn't think about that, although now that you mention it, you're obviously correct.
Haven't you heard, Trent? The Air Force has it's own in-house torture band now. They don't need you any longer.
I was all set to say "In before ignorant, asinine torture apologia," but then I saw pduggie's posts.
Yes Pduggie, high decibel sounds totally don't inflict immense pain and agony oh wait, they do, and you're an idiot.
I thought this was going to be another post about Henrietta and Merna.
"It's a sin!"
"What's this about sin?"
"Beethoven didn't kill anyone! He just wrote music!"
"Are you referring to the background score?"
--- "A Clockwork Orange"
Re: #8 --- Although I do respect Billy Joel's musical talent, rock 'n' roll (& its current incarnations) just isn't my scene, and to me "Piano Man" is rather annoying and monotonous. (I think most of its fans just haven't heard enough good waltzes to have a basis for comparison.)
Also, that pop song about "see my relection" and "children get older; I'm getting older too" (the only lines I can make out, and I don't know who sings it or why) not only was rather tortuous the first time I heard it, it has additional connotations that actually cause me to stop doing any manual labor if the song is playing in the vicinity. Once I was assembling some furniture in a store where that song was played over & over. While it was playing, I heard a loud BANG! behind me. I turned around to see that a board had gotten pushed over and fallen down. As I squatted to pick it up, I noticed that the floor was slippery --- with my blood. The top edge of the board had shaved the skin off the backs of my ankles, nearly exposing my Achilles' tendons. To this day, I can't hear that darn song without feeling the pain (that hit me seconds later) again.
This site posts pictures and names of musicians and others protesting against the use of music in torture.
Zero dB [against music torture]
http://www.zerodb.org/
It's good! It's silent, in keeping with the theme.
The torture methods remind me of mind machines, which use coordinated light and sound to elicit relaxation and other benevolent mental states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_machine
It stands to reason that you could use the same setup to elicit panic and mental distress as well.
@19
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=W3cGxlZjMWU
The Barney theme is banned by the Geneva Convention outright, regardless of how it's used.
i can understand deicide and such being used for torture, what with the assault to your eardrums and sensibilities induced by the song subject matter. i also concur with the use of britney's lame ass songs. but barney? i love barney... immune to it through countless renditions by my kid.
well, not when it's blasted in full volume i guess.
At a job, have you ever been forced to endure someone's choice of commercial radio that you hate, day after day? That's torture.
While I'm tempted to side with most here and call it wrong simply because it is torture, I am also tempted to side with pduggie. With all of the horrible methods of torture employed by our military on a regular basis, doesn't "rockers against music torture" come off as just a bit innocuous to anyone else? Why not "rockers against waterboarding"? I daresay they could be throwing their weight against something of more consequence.
I propose a compromise: Turn the music down.
Torturing someone with annoyance and inflicting physical pain on their ear drums are not exactly difficult acts to separate.
stump,the tune don't matter. What does is they won't let you sleep. At all. They could turn down to a whisper and stab you with a sharp stick every time you close your eyes. Deafening with a tape loop at high volume is just a lazier way of torturing.
Silly soldiers. Everyone knows NIN tracks should only be used for torturing your *parents*
Seems like abortion... it's always better to avoid if possible, but there might be times where it's the best option.
bolamig, studies show conclusively that TORTURE DOES NOT WORK!
Yet again musicians find another ridiculous political statement to stand behind. We all know that water-boarding is by far the most commonly used and most useful. It get people to lie faster than anything. They don't even bother anymore now that the psychic commandoes are on the job
@8 Sleze
Piano Man.
Really? Like, "Piano Man" by Billy Joel? "Sing us a song, you're the piano man", THAT "Piano Man"? In a discussion about the use of music for torture, your counter example is "Piano Man", by Billy Joel? Trooly Rooly?
Please tell me I'm missing the irony, otherwise you are totally on record with that.
Hmmmm, is the point not that the music is being played at muslims who believe that hearing music is a sinful act that will condemn their souls - that's pretty intense psychological torture....