RMS Protest Song On Gitmo

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.

Comments

Re:Antics like this...

[Valar]

I wonder what you are talking about. Contrary to popular belief, it is totally legal to visit Cuba (up to X times per year, [IIRC X is one]). There are also controls on how much currency you can bring with you, but to a certain extent, it is perfectly legal to vacation in Cuba (this is, in fact, common for citizens of Cuban descent).

Re:Gee I'd like to listen

[Phroon]

From the Xiph page:

Xiph QuickTime Components (XiphQT) is, in short, the solution for Mac and Windows users who want to use Xiph formats in any QuickTime-based application, e.g. playing Ogg Vorbis in iTunes or producing Ogg Theora with iMovie. It lets you do exactly what you want to do, play Ogg in iTunes.

Re:Antics like this...

[spiritraveller]

I wonder how he managed to visit Cuba without violating the federal law that prohibits US citizens from trading with our enemies.

There are several exceptions 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:How about a song for Castro's Victims?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a song for the thousands of victims tortured and killed under Castro's regime?

As soon as you record one, I'll be here to complain that you didn't also make a song about the millions of victims of the United Stated/North Korea/China/Great Britain/France/whatever. Let's face it: Nearly every country has blood on its hands and all countries, including industrialized ones, still violate various human rights. For example, human rights include a right to work, "just and favourable" conditions at work, a right to an "standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services" etc. and not only what's usually touted, free press, free speech and so on which are of course, also human rights.

Re:Gee I'd like to listen

[AaronW]

Ogg is a completely open format. Ogg is the encapsulation format used for vorbis audio. Ogg is fully documented in RFC 3533. Similarly, the Vorbis specification is also readily available. It is unencombered by patents and the source code to the reference libraries is available under a BSD-like license and is free to use in both commercial and open-source software. RFC's are about as official as you can get for an open standard.

Re:Antics like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seemingly ridiculous, indeed, save for one point: If ever they find you gave money to some "terrorist" group or were involved with some "communist" organization, they can deport you. Not because giving your money to some "terrorist" group or having "communist" friends is illegal (it may not be), but because you lied on your immigration forms, and entered the country thus on false pretenses. That's sufficient to deport you, without the hassle of formally accusing you of dubious crimes.

Re:Antics like this...

[LadyLucky]

The reason they put those questions on the form is so that should any of those things later turn out to be true (nazi war criminal, blah blah), they can kick you out of the country for lying on your immigration form.