Here is The Mighty Have Fallen's commentary on the Economy, Corporatocracy, Greed, and the Real Power of Money as a Social Phenomenon. Anita and I wrote the lyrics to this song with inspiration from the Occupy Wall Street movement. One day Anita was tripping out about the fact that bonds are essentially the sale and purchase of debt. But where exactly is this money? Where does the billions of dollars the US owes exist? I contend that, in a physical sense, it exists on hard drives. In a real sense, as in the way it affects lives, it can't be understood so easily. People don't eat because they can't afford it. People commit suicide over money. People get ulcers over money. People lose their homes over money. This money, these debts, do not exist in any physical way, but just as a social construct - a psychological game that we all participate in (and must participate in). This song is meant to point out the tenuous nature of billions of dollars of debt - the artificial existence of it - to point out that there is no stash of gold, we are getting ulcers over data stored on hard drives. People are suppressed, disempowered, manipulated, and ignored as a result of data stored on hard drives.
There has been a lot of buzz and clips posted on Facebook lately about Obama's "Prolonged Detention" plan for suspected terrorists. People are writing about it as though President Obama has introduced something radically new and terrifying to US legal system. While a lot of people have justified worries and criticisms, I think it's important to note that the changes Obama's making to the way we imprison suspected terrorists is miniscule. It leads me to ask: how is "prolonged detention" different from Bush's way of handling suspected terrorists?
The ONLY difference I can see is that "prolonged detention" will occur on US soil. This sounds radically different from Bush and Cheney, until we put it into perspective. Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay, where, according to Robert Gates, as many as one hundred people are currently being indefinitely held without a charge, many having been tortured. Obama, wanting to keep his promise, is in a position of freeing Guantanamo Bay prisoners or trying them in a court of law.
William Glaberson writes for the New York Times, "But some proponents of an indefinite detention system argue that Guantánamo’s remaining 240 detainees include cold-blooded jihadists and perhaps some so warped by their experience in custody that no president would be willing to free them. And among them, the proponents say, are some who cannot be tried, in part for lack of evidence or because of tainted evidence."
So Obama seems to be in a tough spot - he has prisoners held since the naming of the "War on Terror" that can't or won't be convicted if they were tried in a court. But there's a danger, possibly increased through the US's own poor treatment of such prisoners, that these people will be dangerous upon their release. What's the solution? Move Guantanamo Bay to the States.
Obama's plan for 'closing' Guantanamo Bay seems to me to be a plan to move Guantanamo Bay. The criticism brought against Obama's plan is well-founded and I agree with most of what I've read. The thing I wish to call attention to is that Obama is not making a radical change. We aren't going to start imprisoning people without trial, we are going to continue to imprison people without trial. They will just live in a different place and, according to Obama, there will be more oversight with regard to their detention.
If you think Obama's plan is radical and new, just consider these frightening stories from a book by Nancy Chang called "Silencing Political Dissent," published in 2002, nine years ago. Chang gives us the harsh reality of preventive detainment, and makes me think some of the detainees are being held without trial so that they won't bear witness to the war crimes carried out by the US over the last decade.
"The government's secrecy surrounding the preventive detention has not only concealed facts suggesting that the detentions are illegal; it has concealed the dangerous and punishing conditions imposed upon the detainees. As the stories of more and more detainees are made known, a gruesome picture has emerged. Untold numbers of detainees with no links to terrorism or records of violence, charged with no more than minor immigration violations, have been placed in solitary confinement for months at a stretch. They have been housed in small windowless cells under bright lights that remain on twenty-four hours a day. They have been deprived of reading materials and other diversions and have been given infrequent opportunities to shower and exercise. Upon leaving their cells, they have been subjected to strip searches and body cavity searches, and they have been placed in 'three-piece suits' consisting of leg restraints and a belly chain linked to a set of handcuffs. At the other extreme are detainees who have been housed in overcrowded pens with convicted murderers and other violent criminals.
"Reports of ethnic and religious epithets being hurled by prison guards and fellow inmates, along with false accusations of responsibility for the September 11 attacks, appear to be commonplace among September 11 detainees. Two Egyptians reported that the FBI agents who initially interrogated them repeatedly yelled and swore at them. In addition, a number of detainees have been injured at the hands of their prison guards. Syed Amjad Ali Jaffri, a plaintiff in Turkmen v. Ashcroft, complained that his face was slammed into walls and kicked by prison guards. His lower front teeth were loosened in the process, and although he was in extreme pain, he was not allowed to see a dentist. While prison guards stood by, a Pakistani man was reportedly beaten by fellow inmates shortly after a newspaper article was circulated in the prison stating that he was under investigation for terrorism. Osama Awadallah reported that during the three weeks he was kept in custody as a material witness, he was repeatedly abused, both physically and verbally, by prison guards. In one incident, he was grabbed by the hair while he was shackled and forced to face an American flag by a prison guard who told him, 'This is America.'
"In addition, a number of detainees have complained that they were not provided with necessary medical treatment. An Iranian man was reported to have suffered a stroke that went untreated for three months while he remained in solitary confinement. And Rafiq Butt, a fifty-five-year-old Pakistani restaurant worker, died of a heart attack in October 2001 while being detained in the Hudson County Correctional Center. Butt was reported to have been picked up based on a tip to the FBI from a pastor of a church near his home, and his only transgression was overstaying his visitor's visa. He had already agreed to leave the United States but had been prevented from doing so because he had not yet been cleared by the FBI. Butt's tragic end shows how preventive detention, secrecy, and acutely stressful conditions of confinement can be a deadly combination."
In conclusion, the critique of Obama's Preventive Detention plan needs to go further, into a critique of the "War on Terror," and a critique of the US government and the lengths they will go, in the name of "National Security," in denying human rights, the concept of 'innocent until proven guilty', and abusing Habeas Corpus. As the Occupy movement does so well, let's make this a critique of systemic problems, and not kid ourselves to think that Obama is acting out of turn.
I wholeheartedly disagree with Rachel Maddow that Obama proclaimed a "radical new claim of presidential power," although I also passionately agree with her critique of preventive detention. It's important, however, to see this as systemic and a logical outcome of the "War on Terror."
Here are some live performances from our last show at Red Rock, back in 2010. Now, of course, Anita and I are living far away from our band-mates, working on solo musical projects in our apartment, many of which having been posted onthisblog.
Here is a new song Anita and I worked on. I'm really happy with the three-part-harmony chorus. I wrote and recorded the music, and Anita pointed out that it seemed to lend itself to lyrics on indecision, which fits our life right now because so much is wide open - where will we live, what schools will accept us, what jobs will employ us... So, here's the result:
An exercise we did in class today was to prove Meat Loaf's song, "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" using Natural Deduction.
It's not hard to do, provided you understand three rules: Simplification, Conjunction, and Commutativity.
Simplification says that when two propositions are joined together with an "and," "but," or any conjoining operative, you can assert the first proposition by itself. So, for instance, if you have "Mike is hot and Mike is tall," you can use simplification to just assert "Mike is hot." Just as this phrase is absolutely true in the complex proposition that has two simple propositions, it is absolutely true by itself.
Conjunction says that if you have two simple distinct ideas: "Mike is hot" and "Mike is tall," you can put them together and say, simply, "Mike is hot and Mike is tall." They hold as much truth value separately as they do together.
The Commutativity merely means that, in certain cases, you can switch the order of certain propositions without changing their truth value. One example is "Mike is hot and Mike is tall" can be expressed as "Mike is tall and Mike is hot" without changing its truth value.
So, now we can prove Meat Loaf's wisdom to be valid:
And I would do anything for love
I’d run right into hell and back
I would do anything for love
I’ll never lie to you and that’s a fact, but I’ll never stop dreaming of you every night of my life -- Oh no -- no way --
Conclusion: I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.
We can symbolize it as follows, with the ~'s meaning 'not':
1. A
2. R
3. A
4. ~ L dot (and) ~ D / And the conclusion: A dot ~ D ("That" refers to "I'll never stop dreaming...")
So, using our rules...
5. ~ D dot ~ L (Commutative, line 4)
6. ~ D (Simplification, line 5)
7. A dot ~ D (Conjunction, lines 1 and 6)
And there you have it: Meat Loaf ain't lying when he says he'll do anything for love, with the exception of THAT!!!
Soundcloud is a very cool website service that allows you to post audio files and share them. We (The Mighty Have Fallen) have been using soundcloud for some time now, and these are our most popular tracks.
1. Grenade: over 1200 plays, it is our acoustic cover of the popular Bruno Mars tune.
The question that most concerns me here is, is Rick Astley consistent in his song, "Never Gonna Give You Up"? The way to prove that he is, is to start by assuming all his lyrics are true, and then see if there is any contradiction in holding them as all true simultaneously. Let's see (there is a little license taken here with the lyrics):
Statement #1: Never gonna give you up and never gonna let you down.
Statement #2: Never gonna both run around and desert you.
Statement #3: If I'm never gonna make you cry then I'm never gonna let you down.
Statement #4: Never gonna give you up nor hurt you.
For those of you who know symbolic logic, this would go as follows:
