Mohandas Gandhi was imprisoned in 1922, 1930, 1933 and 1942. He went on a hunger strike. But because of Gandhi’s stature around the world, British authorities were loath to allow him to die in their custody.

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Potti Sriramulu was an Indian revolutionary. He became famous for undertaking a fast-unto-death for achieving the Andhra State and losing his life in the process. His sacrifice became instrumental in the linguistic re-organization of states. In the early 20th century suffragettes frequently endured hunger strikes in British prisons. In October 1920, Irish Republicans Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, died on a hunger strike in Brixton prison. In 2008 six Tibetan hunger strikers, mostly monks, were taken to hospital by police when they reached a critical situation from their hunger strike over Chinese occupation.

Now in 2011 the musician Moby, who makes sounds come out of a Mac, got together with MoveOn.org to help him with the release of his new album Destroyed by staging a fast and releasing the album’s first video.

Moby’s dishonest and capitalistic reason for this publicity stunt/fast, (juicing in his New York City loft) is that Republicans had to craft a spending budget because the Democrats refused to do their job last year during an election season. He doesn’t like the outcome, and has CD’s to sell.

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USA Today:

In the 52 weeks ending Jan. 2, album sales fell 13% to 326.2 million units, and digital track sales managed only a 1% gain, to 1.17 billion. That hefty consumption of downloads helped offset overall music losses, which fell only 2.4%. 

Piracy, vanishing record shops and decreasing shelf space in big-box stores continue to depress album sales, and the digital boom has been flattening. Only 13 albums sold more than 1 million copies in 2010, down from 22 in 2009. 

Labels remain optimistic about digital’s future. More than one-fourth of albums sold last year were downloads. 

What boomed in 2010? Vinyl. The throwback format grew 13%, with The Beatles‘ Abbey Road leading the charge. Consumers bought more vinyl albums in 2010 than any other year in SoundScan history. Fans bought 71% of vinyl albums in independent record stores.

Read the full article here, and then combine that news with this news: (more…)

This is no youthful indiscretion, this is 2003. Will the ObamaMedia be able to ignore a Czar associated with lyrics like this:

The American way manufactured by white folk in office, by these rich men here to mock us. The United States; a piece of stolen land led by right-wing, war-hungry, oil thirsty… And when it’s all said and done still can’t [garbled] the wrong place cause they got people of color playing servant to do that shit for them; mother fuckers ready to wipe out soft targets on territories harboring terrorists?

Tragedy.

The true terrorists are made in the U.S.

Truther/Czar Jones himself at the 4:20 mark: (more…)