The New York Times recently published a long article about the history of torture and its legal problems over the last five years. Midway through is this:
The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding. (#)
Rock music. Put that in your iPod and smoke it. One has to wonder: what exactly is the soundtrack being used to torture the people in our secret prisons?
Kid Rock? Metallica? Eminem?
Sleep deprivation mandates a long playlist. I bet NIN would be great. Some of my favorite jams would totally kick as at making people break down in abject suffering. Dropkick Murphys? No Use for a Name? Anything with a beat, really, played in excess of safe listening volume at someone kept in a room to small to stand up in at 50 degrees with no food and no sleep, is sure to do the trick.
I think we ought to know what music they’re using.
It could be a great benefit CD. Rock for Torture, vol. 1! What about hip-hop? Gangsta rappers talk all about how hard they are, but come on. I mean any motherfucker can point a gun, right? But torture? Eat that, Kanye!
I think the artists ought to know. They might, I don’t know, react somehow. Bring the torture home a little bit. “Hey. I’m Trent Reznor, and this song is used to torture people. No seriously. In Poland.”
Interrogators from WWII are saying that they’re appalled. CIA experts are saying that persistent questioning by an informed expert is more effective than torture. Jeremiah, take the mic.
My people are fools;
They do not know God.
They are senseless children;
they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil;
they know not how to do good.
God damn it. Anything twists me out of shape it’s torture. Thanks, Gred, for saying it well: fuck Armageddon, this is hell.
