Perhaps I was a little harsh on Rage Against the Machine the other day.  As it turns out, they, along with David Gray, Massive Attack and other musicians, are still raging, this time against the use of music as torture.  The Zero dB campaign seeks to put an end to prisons using music as psychological torture in the “war on terror” by encouraging widespread condemnation of the practice and calling on governments and the U.N. to enforce the Convention Against Torture. The Guardian reports:

The list of bands whose music is used to torture prisoners in Guantanamo Bay reads like a grim roll call of American pop culture. Metallica, Britney Spears and even the Sesame Street theme tune have all been blasted into cells at Camp X-Ray, with the intention of traumatising and destabalising its inhabitants. But a new anti-torture initiative called Zero dB is hoping to bring an end to the technique by gathering the support of musicians whose songs are used in controversial interrogation techniques by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

The growing list of supporters include many other musicians and artists and is organized by the human rights organization Reprieve and the Musician’s Union.

takepart by signing the Zero dB petition to stop the use of music as torture, and visit the Take Action section for Standard Operating Procedure.

And check out this video

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If you weren’t already feeling good about President-Elect Barack Obama, the below video should change that.  If you were already feeling good about President-Elect Barack Obama than the video below should make you happier.

In the weeks before the election the economy became the main focus but it’s important to remember what else an Obama presidency could and should mean when it comes to torture, genocide, poverty and war:

takepart with Human Rights First and remember that we won the vote and now we have to make that change mean something!

And takepart with our social action for Standard Operating Procedure and learn how you can fight torture

Last week, after hearing that Errol Morris paid some of the subjects in his new documentary Standard Operating Procedure, The New York Times published an article about the integrity of paying interview subjects in documentary film. Even though the article does explore the complexity of the issue, it also seems to me that the article is fairly against Mr. Morris and his film - the last paragraph and line of the article is very telling:

My own position, he added, is that it shouldn’t be done.(David Paletz) [New York Times]

This article angered me quite a bit. Documentary subjects have been paid for years, in fact I was at an interview with Michael Apted 2 years ago where he admitted that he paid the folks in his 7-Up series. It was the same exact situation as the interview where Morris freely spoke of paying his subjects, the difference being that nobody in the press picked up the story. To decide to publish a story like this in direct connection to a film (instead of as a general study on the topic) immediately starts to discredit the film - and when you’re dealing with a controversial film and something that is a commonplace practice of documentary filmmaking, I can’t help but find the article to be irresponsible.

But enough of me, even though I’m being objective, I obviously write for the company that has helped to release SOP - so I’ll share some from other folks in the blogosphere:

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Errol Morris has said that:

Memory is an elastic affair. We remember selectively, just as we perceive selectively. We have to go back over perceived and remembered events, in order to figure out what happened, what really happened. My re-enactments focus our attention on some specific detail or object that helps us look beyond the surface of images to something hidden, something deeper” something that better captures what really happened. [New York Times]

This is the thought that stuck with me through most of his latest film Standard Operating Procedure. Not just in relation to his reenactments or “illustrations” but in regards to the photographs in general.

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On 60 Minutes last night Murat Kurnaz, an ex-terror detainee, spoke about the torture he received while in Kandahar and eventually Guantanamo. Kurnaz, a German citizen of Turkish descent, was traveling in Pakistan for religious reasons when he was picked up by police and handed over to the Americans.

The story comes roughly a month before the release of Errol Morris’ new film Standard Operating Procedure. I’ve written about the film a lot here on TakePart, both because it’s a Participant Productions film that I’m very proud of and also because I’m simply a huge Errol Morris fan. What’s especially exciting is that the film not only comes at a critical time in terms of the information it presents, but also that the film is getting a lot of praise, including winning the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

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Errol Morris is set to premiere his latest documentary, Standard Operating Procedure, at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival. Morris, best known for The Thin Blue Line, Mr. Death and 2003’s Academy Award Winning The Fog of War, is now taking on the abuse scandal at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. To tell the story Morris uses recovered footage, photographs and reenactments.

Morris, one of the true masters of documentary film, always does an amazing job telling a story without telling his audience what’s right and wrong. He simply tells you the facts, which often leave you in a murky gray area that’s anything but clear - much like life, especially when it comes to big political situations.

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