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RMS Protest Song On Gitmo
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Apr 21, 2007 03:46 PM
from the serious-parody dept.
from the serious-parody dept.
An anonymous reader tipped us to a protest song RMS has written and recorded (while visiting Cuba) and is hosting on stallman.org. It's a sort of parody, although it's too serious really to be called that, in Spanish of the song "Guantanamera," in which a Gitmo prisoner talks about his experiences and mourns his fate. RMS wrote the lyrics in 2006 after learning what "Guantanamera" actually means. The lyrics are moving, and the recording, in Ogg, is competent — RMS sings well and he's got some amateur musicians from Cuba backing him up. Here are the lyrics and an English translation.
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Linux: Stallman Convinces Cuba to Switch to Open Source 582 comments
prostoalex writes "It's a big victory for Richard Stallman in North America, as Cuba decided to adopt open source software on the national level. Both Cuba and Venezuela are currently working on switching the entire government infrastructure to GNU/Linux operating system and applications, the Associated Press reports from Havana: 'Both governments say they are trying to wean state agencies from Microsoft's proprietary Windows to the open-source Linux operating system, which is developed by a global community of programmers who freely share their code.' The AP article doesn't mention the distro used for government workers, but says that the students are working on a Gentoo-based distro."
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Gee I'd like to listen (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah I know its RMS, so ideology wins over practicality. But I'd think AAC would be ok, and then it could be played with iTunes or whatever.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gee I'd like to listen (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gee I'd like to listen (Score:4, Insightful)
Approach A: The formats like MP3 are patent-encumbered, which threatens everyone's freedom to use and implement it. Furthermore, proprietary formats like WMA and AAC lock you in to a single vendor, and also enable mechanisms like DRM, which doesn't supposedly stands for "Digital Rights Management" but we call it "Digital Restrictions Management"
Approach B:Ogg's the format that a lot of games use now. It sounds about as good as mp3, but they don't have to pay for it like with mp3 -- yeah no kidding, it costs a lot to legally make an mp3 player. Anyway, winamp plays 'em.
The average joe on the street isn't going to give a damn about the ideology until the alternatives aren't a hassle.
Not THAT bad actually... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not THAT bad actually... (Score:4, Funny)
http://apmatthe.ws/random/RMS.swf [apmatthe.ws]
A related movie (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A related movie (Score:4, Insightful)
Compared to US government officials?
That depends if you consider "We deny everything", "No comment", and "I don't recall" to be dishonesty or some sort of "standard response form" that means nothing and therefore is neither honest or dishonest.
Irony Much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Irony Much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone else appreciate the irony of having a U.S. military prison in Cuba? Wait, maybe that's not irony...
Attention Castro haters: (Score:4, Insightful)
The song has NOTHING at all to do with Cuba, it's about Gitmo which, for all practical purposes, is 100% American.
He happened to write the song while in Cuba, so what? He could have written it in Argentina or Canada or China.
Now go back to your GI Joes, the grown-ups are talking.
You SHOULD be concerned about Guantanamo (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, that the US is hijacking foreigners in foreign countries, flying them to 3d-world countries to torture them and circumvent US laws.
Just one question: What would you say if
What would you then think of Germany as a country?
Thing is, the US is exactly behaving like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri [wikipedia.org]
Then imagine reading a german website where a lots of Germans would say: "Well capturing foreigners and holding them without trial is not such a bad thing. At least we're not torturing them... well at least not so brutal... and giving them food. And bibles."
Then figure what your opinion of Germany and the German ppl would be.
Re:Antics like this... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Antics like this... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, having grown up in an Eastern Block country where a symptom of the dictatorship we had was that we were allowed to go to the "West" only once in every four yours, I find this limit in the "Land of Free" totally hilarious (and, on the other hand, totally sad).
MOD UP! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Antics like this... (Score:5, Interesting)
A fully reasonable comparison. When my dad once went to the United States, he first thought that he had gotten on the wrong plane and landed in the Soviet Union (this was while the USSR still existed). Where else would you need to fill in a whole range of papers declaring this and that*, as well as tell the immigration officials where you intend to stay and so on.
*= To a foreigner, the US immigration papers look more than silly, they make a laugh of the entire US (first impressions, you know). You have to answer questions on whether you were ever a member of a communist organization, whether you are going to the US to commit terrorist acts, etc, etc. Do they really expect the communists or terrorists to answer Yes in any of these forms? How naive are those immigration officials really?
No offense, but it is insanely ridiculous.
Re:Antics like this... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Antics like this... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Antics like this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well there was a very famous case of a supposed terrorist being killed by a missile launched from a drone in kuwait or someplace. They guy was getting in a car and boom!. No need for messy trials or jails or nothing.
Then there was the case of the army admitting that many people were killed in afghanistan under US custody. The army coroner ruled the deaths murder.
Then there are the cases of the "disappeared" people. People the US announced that they had captured but nobody has seen since.
"o be fair, as to the 'torture chambers in gitmo', cite please? "
The US has admitted to conducting waterboarding, subjecting to extreme tempratures, sensory deprivation, "stress positions", and force feeding by tubes through the nose. These acts are considered to be torture by all international conventions and the US has admitted to using these methods on a regular basis. The US claims they are not torture but they are alone in that.
Correction to the above. Republicans claim these acts are not torture. Only republicans. Everybody else acknowledges that these are acts of torture.
"The Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations have been over gitmo with a fine-toothed comb, and no 'torture chambers' or anything even close exists at gitmo."
Nope. The red cross is not allowed unannounced visits and they are not allowed to interview detainees alone.
"As to any claims by the detainees, if *I* were a dedicated jihadist captured and sent to gitmo, if some do-gooder organization came asking, I'd wail and cry and gnash my teeth about all sorts of horrible conditions, daily torture, and my innocence, with the goal of creating as much trouble as I could for the hated unbelievers."
How convenient!. That's a really clever way to dismiss all claims of torture by everybody in every US prison everywhere in the world.
Anyway like I said the US itself has admitted comitting these acts, the armies own doctors have ruled the deaths murder. The only people who deny systematic torture by the US military and intelligence are republicans and let's face it how can anybody take anything any republican says at face value? People like you care more about your party then the constitution, morals, human rights, justice, fairness, law and order, or the country.
Keep denying that the US does not torture anybody. You and the rest of the 25% of the american public are a disgrace to humanity but it's important that we amplify your voices so that the rest of decent america knows people like you still exist. We can't get complacent. As long as people like you are around we must keep up our diligence.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's SOOOOOOOOOOOOO '80-ties! You must have misspelled Al-Queda!
Re:Antics like this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Antics like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh? If you don't approve of the Guantanamo detentions, it means you like communism?? What kind of bizarre logic is that?
Look, I don't approve of the Guantanamo detentions, or the war in Iraq. I also happen to think that Fidel Castro is a raging deluded asshole, yet I also think that the embargo on Cuba is embarrassingly stupid and should stop.
And I didn't see anything at that website that indicated that RMS had actually visited Cuba, but speaking of that, it's also bizarre that an American citizen cannot go wherever the hell he pleases whenever he pleases.
Re:Antics like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides the poor - or soon to be poor - who does an embargo hurt?
The opposing party/leaders. An embargo provides what every politician needs: something to blame everything on.
"It's not my fault your poor. It's the embargo"
"Not my fault we don't have enough fule. It's the embargo"
"The lack of electricity in Havana? The food shortages? All the American's fault"
"It's not that we have rules and policies that discourage actual progress. It's all those damn Americans"
As someone whoes talked to a lot of Cubans and knowing what conditions are like in that country (outside of the tourist areas) I have to wonder if Castro would have been overthrown a long time ago if the American government hadn't been jumping up and down with huge "Blame us for everything" sign on their foreheads.
Re:Antics like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
He should stick to what he's good at, writing software.
Next you're going to say country music singers should just shut up and sing.
It's bullshit. Being good at something does not take away your right to hold or express political views.
Re:Antics like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but being good at being attractive or a good singer does give you a larger stage than you would normally have to disseminate your ill-informed, embarrassing rantings, which your opinions usually are when you're a rich dilettante whose principle contribution to society was to make millions of people think, "that sounds neat" for thirty seconds.
Re:Antics like this... (Score:5, Informative)
There are several exceptions [state.gov] to the restrictions on travel to Cuba.
I would imagine that RMS went there for a conference on free software. This would fall under an exception which doesn't require special permission from the State Department.
Re:Antics like this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Antics like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the things that separate civilization from barbary is that we, generally, try to play fair -EVEN- with those people who would not extend the same courtesy to us.
Yeah, the human-rigths situation is (much) worse in Pakistan than it is USA, and on US-run detention-centres. That make you particularily proud ? Your ambition is to beat Pakistan, so aslong as you're ahead of them, you're a happy camper ?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, bitch and moan about how the
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How about a song for Castro's Victims? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would caution you to take these reports with a grain of salt unless there is some other hard evidence to support them. The same kind of stuff was coming out of Eastern Europe in the 1980s and much of it turned out to be a fabrication. Cuban "commies" were always on the mild end of the spectrum, when compared to, say, China, whom apparently we are supposed to measure with a wholly different measure because they make golf-balls for Wal-Mart.
So don't become a tool for some rabid Cuban exile land-owner who would play the world's smalles violin about human rights abuses in Cuba only to promptly abuse everyone in his path should he manage to get his paws back on the island.
This is precisely what happened in the Eastern Europe where the Solidarity used to broadcast "shocking" reports by rebellious reporters about how well off the top members of the socialist government were: "Two! count em! Two 4-room apartaments!! Outrage!!". Of course as soon as the "freedom loving capitalists" took over, some of the former historical palaces of the nobility which have been designated as museums became houses of some of the same ex-Solidarity members who bemoaned the wretched inequality of the "commies".
Buyer beware.
Re:I'm sorry... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes -- the reason they left (according to the GP) is that "they've had family members tortured and killed in some of the most horrif and brutal ways immaginable" (sic). So you're saying that, aside from the brutal torture and murder, Castro's a great guy? That's awesome.
Re:I'm sorry... (Score:5, Insightful)
Moving back into the political, if you were a non-American attempting to develop a well-rounded and nuanced perspective on American foreign policy, would you go and ask Iranians? Iraqis? Probably not. Not because these groups don't have valid complaints -- but rather because their bad experiences hamstring their ability to approach the issue of America's foreign policy in a rational way.
Similarly, the Palestinians would probably not be the right people to ask about Israel's right to exist. This is not because their complaints are unjustified, nor is to say that those should not be addressed -- but their feud with Israel makes them the least likely, in principle, to provide you with a nuanced perspective on the topic.
Armed with this understanding, the thing to realize about the Cuban American population in Florida and elsewhere is that, well, they hate Castro. Asking them what kind of a guy Castro is is about as productive as asking an internal party cadre in Cuba what kind of a guy Castro is -- the response is certain, before you even ask the question. Cuban Americans hate Castro -- that's why they left. They're not going to tell you about the good things he's done, because they want him out of power, and they see American pressure as a means to that end. Similarly, if you asked somebody high up in the Cuban Communist Party what they thought of him, they would certainly not mention anything about the bad things he's done -- they owe their livelihood to him, it is in their best interest that you see him as a good leader worthy of support.
This is the essence of propaganda, whatever end it pushes. You needn't lie; no one is perfect. Choose a side, and then selectively report only the good or only the bad, depending on which view you'd like your readership to take. If you listen to liberals, for example, Bush's tax-cuts were a "gift to the rich, at the expense of the poor" -- but in actuality, thanks to a (proven) economic phenomenon known as the Laffer curve [wikipedia.org], federal income has increased since the tax cuts, which should surprise no one who has studied economics. This is quietly ignored in the left-leaning press, who instead opt to play the percentages game and say that the middle class pays proportionally more of the tax burden than it used to, ignoring that everyone is paying less than they used to. In a similar vein, when you listen to Fox news, the completely unjustifiable Iraq war was justifiable because they had WMD, or Saddam was a bad guy, or whatever -- now, the right is careful not to invoke images of WMD because they know that it will hurt their image, which is already so tarnished that one wonders how much more damage can be done.
Selective reporting -- you should always be wary of it. My view, and I believe it nuanced, is that Castro has been a pretty brutal guy at times, and can in no way be considered a great leader by any honest definition of the term. But having said that, it is telling that the infant mortality rate in Cuba is the lowest in the Americas -- which, lest you gloss over it, includes the US and Canada. The literacy rate in Cuba is nearly 100%. People are poor, but they are not walking around on the street fearing for their lives, either, as in many places in Latin America, where kidnapping and drug cartel related deaths are a fact of life. It's not such an easy question to answer: well meaning but weak governments hav
Political Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
And who do you think is a good example of embracing freedom, if you were going to consider the USA, then consider the following points.
- Doesn't recognize the democratically elected palistinian government as being legitimate
- Recognize Pakistan's military dictatorship as legitimate.
- Places domestic travel bans on its citizens
- Limits travel to other countries (as mentioned above)
- Spies on its own people without probable cause, (echlon/carnivore/whatever its called now, RFID ? )
- Violates its own constitution (count the ways)
- No longer has a clear separation from the judicial system (sacking bush unfriendly judges)
- Highest imprisonment rate of any country per head of population
- The government of some states kill their own people (capital punishment)
Face it, "land of the free" is nothing more than a propaganda term.
RMS isnt superman... solving all the worlds problems is too much for one person, maybe he just wants to concentrates on software freedom, doesnt mean he shouldnt express his views on other types of freedom.
If you would expect RMS to keep silent about his views on political freedom, then can you honestly say you respect political freedom ?
Re:Political Freedom (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Political Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
But regarding regarding your point that "palestinians want a government dedicated to the destruction of israel" - here is a free history lesson:
The Israeli ppl have a govt that has already destroyed the country of Palestine. The land that is currently called Israel was taken from the Palestinians by force (i.e., what would be called barbaric terrorism nowadays). What do you want the Palestinians to do? Ask nicely for their homeland (which they did btw)? Is that what Americans would do if someone invades and occupies their land? What's good for the goose...
So, the next time you want to make a statement about the actions of the Palestinian terrorists, take some time to read the history of the region and the actions of all parties involved.
Re:Disgusting (Score:5, Interesting)
Stallman isn't supporting Castro, he's just shitting on Bush more. The fact that Cuba isn't the bastion of human rights doesn't reduce the severity of the United States - the most powerful single country in the world - having questionable human rights practices.
Stallman is always very careful about what he says in cases like this. Don't put words in his mouth, find out what he's actually said and respond to that.
Re: GTMO (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, wait. They're not entitled to fair trials, so we'll never know.
Re:Yes yes (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that the United States is playing international law games in order to facilitate the holding of prisoners indefinitely without trial is something that no US citizen should consider even slightly acceptable. The United States was founded on the ideal of freedom, and the founders thought that the issue of imprisonment without trial was so important that they dedicated an item to it in the Bill of Rights.
If other countries want to torture their prisoners that's bad. But for the United States to hold prisoners indefinitely in the name of defending the country - that makes a mockery of the very values that make the country worth defending at all.
Re:Score 1 for the Islamic extremists! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Score 1 for the Islamic extremists! (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, I don't know many people that support EEUU views on the Iran nuclear issue. Because they know that EEUU has been the only country in the story of humanity that has actually dropped nuclear bombs to innocent people. So their thinking goes like "uh, the only country that has dropped nuclear bombs into a city and feels proud of it now tries to look like he is trying to stop other countries from doing the same?"
And we know that EEUU has a long track of supporting dictatorships that supported capitalism and declaring the war to democracies that tried to turn into a socialist economy. South-america hates EEUU, and for very good reasons. So we just don't believe when EEUU says he's trying to fight terrorism and promote freedom - we know quite well EEUU doesn't bothers about democracy or dictatorship, he just cares about capitalism (which allows EEUU companies to enter those countries) and communism, nothing else. IOW, they only care about money, not about freedom and rights.
Re:Score 1 for the Islamic extremists! (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed you're right. The US has sabotaged its own good name and goodwill over and over again. And they just keep at it, over and over, again and again.
The most stunning example of this is how they gained sympathy all over the world after 9/11 and then somehow managed to squander it all in a few months, simply by showing an astonishingly bullying attitude rather than looking for co-operation regarding the Iraq war.
They had such amazing goodwill and sympathy, even in Islamic countries. Sadly, their propaganda machine refused to portray this goodwill, preferring to stir up conflict. But outside the US and its propaganda machine there was so much goodwill, it felt like some kind of world-wide friendship among nations was growing forth. So many past mistakes were being forgiven.
And yet somehow they managed to squander almost all of this in just a few months, by showing an amazingly bullying attitude and disdainfully neglecting all the persistent warnings about the chaos and surging terrorism that would unavoidably ensue if they went forth with their Iraq adventure.
*Sigh!* For a while it looked so promising!
I suppose their war industry didn't like that promising outlook.
Re:Score 1 for the Islamic extremists! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now the current, corrupt US administration is of course another story. They basically, callously and corruptly used the 11/9 incident as a means by which to profit their corporate partners and in turn themselves.
The utterly contemptible way in which they have traded human lives for profit, corrupted justice for greater corporate power and used two religions as nothing but a cynical exercise in political marketing, puts them beyond doubt, as the most corrupt and criminal administration in US history.
The worst possible mistake the Americans can now make, is to fail to prosecute the current administrations for the crimes they have self evidently committed, this failure would inevitably lead to even greater excesses by future administrations.
Re:Score 1 for the Islamic extremists! (Score:5, Insightful)
> And yet somehow they managed to squander almost all of this in just a few months, by showing an amazingly bullying attitude and disdainfully neglecting all the persistent warnings about the chaos and surging terrorism that would unavoidably ensue if they went forth with their Iraq adventure.
Living in the US and being one of the 25% of people interested in news and current events, I can guarantee you that the Iraq War, which began in March of 2003, took quite a bit longer than "a few months".
Your memory, however, is correct, much of the US' "international good-will" evaporated in a few months after 9/11, especially in Muslim and what used to be the "non-aligned" countries. After the US attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan. And to that, I give a giant middle finger to the self-serving hypocrites around the world expressing "sympathy" and withdrawing it after the US took appropriate action in its self-defense.
It's sad so many people lump in the justified war in Afghanistan with the unjustified war in Iraq.
Re:Score 1 for the Islamic extremists! (Score:4, Insightful)
It is also generally agreed that the Afghanistan war and its aftermath could have had very positive consequences, both in the struggle against terrorism and in the democratization of the region, whereas the Iraq war from the very outset promised only exploding terrorism, and would sabotage what could otherwise have been gained in Afghanistan regarding democracy in the region.
Here in Sweden the two wars are seen as very different, and in many ways diametrical opposites.
Re:Score 1 for the Islamic extremists! (Score:4, Interesting)
All six of them? After all, it's been over five years now.
"will come down on the side of Bush when they see unkempt hippie commies like RMS"
Ah yes, victim of the ol' Secret Constitutional Amendment that strips citizenship away from "unkempt hippie commies."
"we are at WAR after all."
With whom, exactly? Iran? North Korea? Cuba? And whether your answer is Afghanistan, Iraq, or Oceania this week, there's still the fact that the United States hasn't been at war with anybody since 1945.
"RMS should be put on trial for treason..."
It's nice to know you share your grasp of the federal constitution with your chosen president.
Re:i actually... (Score:5, Funny)