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I’ll be honest, I used to like Disturbed, but looking back I have no idea why. I’m not the kind of guy to denounce the music I liked when I was younger because it’s no longer cool, it’s simply that it really, really sucks. But after a hiatus, Disturbed have returned with a new track and, well, if you’ve ever heard a Disturbed song before you’ll know exactly what it sounds like. I want to say nobody was asking for this, but then I remember just how insanely popular Disturbed were for most of the 2000s.

But yeah, I don’t really feel like I need to describe the song in any way, it sounds like every other Disturbed song. And I don’t think I need to explain why I hate this song, it kind of speaks for itself. So instead I’m going to take some time to shamelessly rant about just how much I hate David “ALL-CAPS” Draiman.

At first glance it seems like there’s very little to hate about Draiman, at least as a person (as a musician, once again the song above speaks for itself). Disturbed as a band have always been very anti-war and very pro-peace, two things I can easily get behind, even if they’re somewhat vague and nonspecific with their politics. Furthermore, Draiman has done a great job in the past calling out anti-Semites and who can’t get behind that (besides bigots of course).

But looking further into these two things is where it all falls apart. I disagreed strongly with Draiman when, about two years ago, he called Roger Waters anti-Semitic for including the Star of David on an inflatable pig during his live performances of The Wall. Now, obviously I can see why this would be offensive to a Jewish person, and Waters has in the past said things that, while definitely not anti-Semitic, were terribly poorly worded. But his complaints failed to contexualise things at all. The same segment featured symbols from many major religions. Waters was not attacking Judaism, so much as he was attacking all religion.

But I had no real problem with this until I saw Draiman supporting “MetalGate,” a hilariously poor attempt a spinoff of GamerGate, the self-righteous anti-“social justice warrior” group known for harassing women and caring deeply about ethics. Draiman said, “MY THOUGHTS RE: ‪#‎MetalGate ARE THE SAME AS WITH ‪#‎GamerGate. I AM AGAINST CENSORSHIP…PERIOD. ‪#‎SJW’S…SHOULD MIND THEIR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS. WE’LL WRITE WHAT WE WANT, DO WHAT WE WANT, PLAY WHAT WE WANT, WHENEVER WE WANT, AND WE DON’T NEED YOUR PERMISSION TO DO SO. WE LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY. DEAL WITH IT.” Emphasis his.

Now, ignoring the fact that these “SJW’s” are for the most part people criticising the more problematic parts of the game industry, not calling for censorship, it struck me as awfully hypocritical on Draiman’s part. How dare he claim to be against censorship when he had earlier said, “I therefore urge all of my followers… and to demand that the Star of David be stricken from the flying pig.” Especially as he failed to take into account the context of Waters’ art.

Draiman’s alignment with GamerGate led to me paying a lot more attention to his Twitter account, and that’s when I noticed my main problem with him. For somebody who calls for peace, David Draiman sure does love torture. Looking through his Twitter and Facebook accounts there are many posts supporting the torture of individuals by the CIA, despite the fact that these horrific, inhumane actions have been proven not to work. Not that that would bother Draiman, as judging by other tweets and status updates, he salivates at the idea of using torture against people. Now, even if these are bad people, personally I’m horrified at the idea. I’m strongly against torture, and Draiman strikes me as a pretty horrific guy for deriving pleasure from the thought.

So, um, there’s the new Disturbed track. Hope you liked it.