R.E.M front man Michael Stipe has joined a chorus (heh) of other musicians in supporting President Obama’s efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Stipe also criticized the intelligence community for using his colleagues’ music as “torture tactics” on prisoners detained within the compound.
The band released a statement declaring, “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.”
I agree with Stipe. Listening to their 1994 effort Monster damn well makes my ears bleed.
The CIA defended its tactics on grounds of security, explaining that loud music or white noise was often used to prevent communication among detainees.
However, New York’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice disagrees, and adds that far from being a diversion, the music was a way to “humiliate, terrify, punish, disorient and deprive detainees of sleep”, in violation of international law.
Among the Company’s instruments of “terror”: the Meow Mix jingle, the Barney theme song, and an assortment of Sesame Street tunes.
Those heartless bastards.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
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4 comments:
Speaking as the mother of a 3YO, I take issue with your flippant dismissal of the Barney Song as instrument of torture. The horror! The horror!
I was thinking more on the lines of the Meow mix jingle.
I want chick-en
I want li-ver
Meow Mix, Meow Mix
Please dee-liv-er
Pure gold.
Just think of the poor bastards who will be tortured in the future by having to listen to non-stop monologues by Barak Obama and Keith Olberman.
No they got it right. Listening to "What's the Frequency Kenneth" over and over would send anyone around the bend.
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