concerts

A couple of updates! First, I had some bad data, so I’ve revised the poster for the January 27th show at B-Side Music. Nothing critical has changed, but if you’re downloading/forwarding/posting, please re-download the latest. (Revised PDF here, big-ass JPEG here, more here, Facebook event here.)

Second: the Portland show has a Facebook event page! But only on Facebook. And it’s invitation-only, so please tell me if you’re on Facebook and you want invited!

Third: I still want more house concerts! If you’re willing to host one, please please contact me! I’ve also been applying to festivals and stuff; if you have a good venue, tell them you want me to play there. Then tell me and I’ll conveniently apply. It’ll be perfect!

Fourth:

it snowed a little

so instead of going out, I made

buttons.

These aren’t merch; you can’t buy these. You have to host a show, or bring someone other than yourself to a show, or something like that. Then you can get one. BUT NOT BEFORE! It’s a plan, see. I planned it. Muah ha ha.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby

Mr. Obama signs executive order to close Gitmo, but...

Mr. Obama got a lot of press for signing an executive order to close the detention and torture facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Sadly, there are already replacement facilities in other locations, such as the special detention facility at Bagram - further away and out of sight - and the worst-kept secret in Somalia, the US/Somali torture-and-interrogation facility in Mogadishu.

I present three related articles.

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free
By Jonathan Turley, Published: January 13
The Washington Post

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state.

...

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

[Extrajudicial] Assassination of U.S. citizens ...

Indefinite detention

Arbitrary justice

Warrantless searches

Secret evidence

War crimes

Secret court

Immunity from judicial review

Continual monitoring of citizens

Extraordinary renditions

Here are two particular accounts of some of the innocent people Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney arbitrarily imprisoned and tortured for many years. Mr. Obama's administration fought their release, and has worked diligently and without fail to protect their torturers. There are known to be hundreds of such cases at Gitmo alone, and that is only one such facility.

Notes From a Guantánamo Survivor
By MURAT KURNAZ
Published: January 7, 2012

I LEFT Guantánamo Bay much as I had arrived almost five years earlier — shackled hand-to-waist, waist-to-ankles, and ankles to a bolt on the airplane floor. My ears and eyes were goggled, my head hooded, and even though I was the only detainee on the flight this time, I was drugged and guarded by at least 10 soldiers. This time though, my jumpsuit was American denim rather than Guantánamo orange. I later learned that my C-17 military flight from Guantánamo to Ramstein Air Base in my home country, Germany, cost more than $1 million.

When we landed, the American officers unshackled me before they handed me over to a delegation of German officials. The American officer offered to re-shackle my wrists with a fresh, plastic pair. But the commanding German officer strongly refused: “He has committed no crime; here, he is a free man.”

I was not a strong secondary school student in Bremen, but I remember learning that after World War II, the Americans insisted on a trial for war criminals at Nuremberg, and that event helped turn Germany into a democratic country. Strange, I thought, as I stood on the tarmac watching the Germans teach the Americans a basic lesson about the rule of law. ...

---

My Guantánamo Nightmare
By LAKHDAR BOUMEDIENE
Published: January 7, 2012
Nice, France

ON Wednesday, America’s detention camp at Guantánamo Bay will have been open for 10 years. For seven of them, I was held there without explanation or charge. During that time my daughters grew up without me. They were toddlers when I was imprisoned, and were never allowed to visit or speak to me by phone. Most of their letters were returned as “undeliverable,” and the few that I received were so thoroughly and thoughtlessly censored that their messages of love and support were lost.

Some American politicians say that people at Guantánamo are terrorists, but I have never been a terrorist. Had I been brought before a court when I was seized, my children’s lives would not have been torn apart, and my family would not have been thrown into poverty. It was only after the United States Supreme Court ordered the government to defend its actions before a federal judge that I was finally able to clear my name and be with them again.

...

The fact that the United States had made a mistake was clear from the beginning. Bosnia’s highest court investigated the American claim, found that there was no evidence against me and ordered my release. But instead, the moment I was released American agents seized me and the five others. We were tied up like animals and flown to Guantánamo, the American naval base in Cuba. I arrived on Jan. 20, 2002.

I still had faith in American justice. I believed my captors would quickly realize their mistake and let me go. But when I would not give the interrogators the answers they wanted — how could I, when I had done nothing wrong? — they became more and more brutal. I was kept awake for many days straight. I was forced to remain in painful positions for hours at a time. These are things I do not want to write about; I want only to forget.

I went on a hunger strike for two years because no one would tell me why I was being imprisoned. Twice each day my captors would shove a tube up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach so they could pour food into me. It was excruciating, but I was innocent and so I kept up my protest.

[...]