RMS Protest Song On Gitmo 500
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.
A related movie (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
i actually... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that I ever hated the guy, I only know what I read about him.
Maybe if Bush recorded a protest song in a foreign language I would find his zealot-ous rhetoric easier to swallow.
Regards.
P.S. Hey... My first troll-bait post!!! *shakes his own hand*
Re:Antics like this... (Score:1, Interesting)
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:Irony Much? (Score:3, Interesting)
It is difficult to believe that Cuba is worse than Saudi Arabia, a country that does not allow non business visits by any non-muslim. Uzbequistan is certainly much better than Cuba. The list of US client states that are a "paradise" compared to Cuba is long.
Iraq is also much better! If you don't get killed by the different kind of wackos you will be popped by some trigger happy "coalition" soldier. China is another fine example of free press.
With so many countries with free press, no wonder Cuba and Venezuela are at the bottom.
Re:How about a song for Castro's Victims? (Score:3, Interesting)
McCarthy victims [wikipedia.org]: "The number imprisoned is in the hundreds, and some ten or twelve thousand lost their jobs.[42] In many cases, simply being subpoenaed by HUAC or one of the other committees was sufficient cause to be fired.[43] (...) Suspected homosexuality was also a common cause for being targeted by McCarthyism. According to some scholars, this resulted in more persecutions than did alleged connection with Communism"
Reagan victims [wikipedia.org]: The Contra [wikipedia.org] part of the Iran-Contra affair was particularly ugly. It is easy to point fingers when one ignores that the very history of the United States is filled with prejudice, segregation and selective rights. It is easy to call themselves the "land of free" as long as you are not Native American [wikipedia.org] or Black [wikipedia.org] or Woman [wikipedia.org] or Communist [wikipedia.org] or Latin, or Arab or Muslim.
Every single event I portrait in the above links happened in the previous century, it is very likely that it has happened in your grandfathers and grandmothers lifetimes, it is not something that happened in the middle ages. United States endorsed (not to say practiced) torture (and still does), lynching, forced expropriation, outlawed a party (that was and still is legitimate all around in the rest of the so called "free world"), took away rights based only on the gender and color of the skin.
Now, because (and only because) economic interests from U.S. companies and citizens were hurt by Castro regime change such hatred is passed to you, american citizens, that are willing to forgive everything U.S. does and has done in the past but will never ever let go what Castro regime did. Hell, U.S. is even a declared partner of other (worse) dictatorships like Saudi Arabia [wikipedia.org], for instance, and I don't see the same level of outrage that people displays against Cuba.
Although I am all for a better world without unjust imprisonments, torture, state terrorism and all that, U.S. people should think carefully when criticizing because those in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones.
Re:How about a song for Castro's Victims? (Score:3, Interesting)
You're throwing up a 'deflector shield' in the form of counter-red-baiting. You should honestly be ashamed of yourself. Remember: the Kremlin archives were opened up to journalists for long enough during the initial period of post-Soviet Russia, and many of the accusations made by western anti-Communists were definitely proven.
Until there is freedom in Cuba, probably (sadly) long after Castro is dead, the full truth cannot be known.
But said independent Human Rights organizations (which also have something to say about abuses in the West) should be respected.
Don't be part of the latest batch of 'Useful Idiots.' You're better than that and history WILL document you for what you are, eventually.
Re:I'm sorry... (Score:1, Interesting)
The fact is, those people you've talked to left for a reason. Castro's government, for better or for worse, is very divisive. Many Cubans, if not most who live there, do approve of his leadership and he is beloved by a large percentage of his people. But there is also a sizable portion of Cubans who don't like him and an even larger number who have left Cuba for the same reason.
Keep in mind that almost all of the people you'd have the opportunity to talk with in Florida would fall into the latter category. My personal experience (from talking to actual Cuban residents, not Cuban emigres), is very different from yours.
What gets lost in all the rhetoric from those with an agenda (The US government and the Cuban community in Florida on one side, Castro and others on the other), is that this is an issue where the actual truth is likely to lie somewhere in the middle of the extreme viewpoints you're likely to encounter on each side. The same can be said about many governments these days, not least of all the US government. It's hypocritical of any US citizen to condemn a foreign government for torturing people without also condemning their own government.
You can believe what you want, and no doubt will dismiss everything said here, since you've not made any effort to find opinions beyond those readily available to you. But if you keep an open mind, you might find that the issue is more complicated than you think.
Re:How about a song for Castro's Victims? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty much. Keep in mind however that unlike Castro's, Bush's administration is on record speaking of applying torture and otherwise playing legal games with "meaning" of torture and the like. This by itself gives weight to the Guantanamo accusations.
Specifically it renders all testimony coming out of Guantanamo suspect and shifts the burden on proof of lack of duress during interrogations onto the Guantanamo officials.
Re:Antics like this... (Score:3, Interesting)
The US also has the largest *percentage* of it's population in prison of any country in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison#Prison_popula
I wonder if Chinas' lower reported numbers of prisoners might have anything to do with the fact they tend to simply shoot a large percentage of those other countries would otherwise jail, and that they probably don't report those in various political 're-education' camps as 'prisoners' as such? Besides, China would never lie about how many they imprison, in any case.
The U.S. justice system is quite screwed up, no doubt. Still, given a choice, if I had to go to prison, I still think I'd much rather get sent to Gitmo, nevermind a normal U.S. prison, as opposed to a Chinese prison. That is, if my family didn't simply end up with a bill for a bullet as many Chinese families have.
Remember kids, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Cheers!
Strat
Re:This guy keeps on getting lamer and lamer (Score:3, Interesting)
Because China or Cuba are NOT democratic countries. It's silly to write songs saying that they're dictatorships - everybody knows that already.
EEUU however is SUPOSED TO BE a democratic. EEUU is supposed to be the symbol of freedom and democracies in the world. IMO guantanamo it's WORSE than any other dictatorship. Dictatorships are supposed to torture people, EEUU is NOT
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: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: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:Antics like this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, you can travel to Mexico or Canada and then get on another plane to Cuba, but it is still technically illegal, and you will be fined or jailed if you come back with a Cuban stamp without proper authorization. Most Americans get around this by asking the Cuban authorities not to stamp their passports, and they almost always oblige.
Just like it's technically illegal to import Cuban cigars into the country (and the vast majority are poorly constructed fakes from the DOminican Republic), but they're easy to get if you know who to do business with in Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, or the UAE. If you're particularly worried about getting caught, they'll even unband the cigars and ship the boxes and bands separately so that Customs has no reason or right to seize them.
Re:Political Freedom (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Score 1 for the Islamic extremists! (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course some part of the blame does fall on others. Very close to half the US voters did choose Bush. And what's probably worse, a huge part of the US population buys and sponsors media that publish patriotic propaganda—stuff that isn't really patriotic because it sabotages the true interests of the US.
But can you really blame the American public for being swayed by the propaganda? After all the propagandists are extremely skillful.
Arguably you can't even blame the propagandists. I'm sure many of them do what they sincerely believe is best.
It's a terrible mess!
In any case, the real responsibility lies with the Administration and the propagandists. When people criticize the actions of the US, I don't think you should ever assume that they're criticizing the American people. The distinction is very clear. People can take a very dim view of the actions of your Administration, and still love and respect and admire the US in many ways. I'm one example of a person who feels this way.
In fact one reason why I'm so critical is that I would expect better, and therefore I'm sorely disappointed.
Re:I'm sorry... (Score:1, Interesting)
I said that Cubans, both living in Cuba or emigrated elsewhere, are very divided when it comes to Castro. I never said said anything to excuse any torture that he may have ordered. But the fact that you're getting your information from sources which are profoundly anti-Castro means that you're not getting the whole story. There are a lot of Cubans that love him. Many of his policies have made Cuba a better place to live for people who would be profoundly poor under a capitalist system which would no doubt relegate Cuba to 3rd-world status. For example, the Cuban medical system has a huge number of highly competent doctors who've attended medical schools all over the world. Their medical system probably out-performs that in every 3rd-world country, and is probably even superior to that which is offered in the United States to those without health insurance.
None of this excuses any supposed atrocities he may have committed, but it does give many Cuban citizens cause to believe that their lives are better under Castro than they would be under some capitalist system. Yes, it's a dictatorship that imposes harsh penalties upon those who criticize him and those who attempt to undermine that dictatorship. But that's only a small part of the population that lives in Cuba whereas it's a sizable part of the group that has left Cuba. As such, the fact that you've gotten your opinions based on those of people who've left Cuba means that you're not getting the whole story.
To put another way, Saddam Hussein was one of the more brutal dictators the world has seen in recent history and, by almost all accounts, far more brutal than Castro has ever been. Yet how many Iraqis have had their lives ruined by the process of removing him from power. Despite all the evil he perpetrated, he undeniably kept ethnic conflict from getting out of control.
In much the same way, Castro's rule has made life better for some Cubans, and they love him for it. Like it or not, there is more than one viewpoint on Castro and not everyone believes he's the monster that you believe him to be.
Guantanamo Prisoners are not POW's? (Score:3, Interesting)
If I were in combat I would want the enemy to know that if he surrenders, he will not be treated as prisoners have been in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. I would want the enemy to surrender willingly, not fight to the death to avoid the fate of an American gulag.
Re:This guy keeps on getting lamer and lamer (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm Dutch. I can travel most parts of the globe, no visa required and no rules against it, and most countries are actually not unhappy to see me coming.
Hanging on to my passport, 's all I'm saying.