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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.

Moby’s narcissistic exploitation is a perfect example of how the left owns the narrative in popular culture by not letting the facts get in the way of a fictionalized story. What’s worse about this Hollywood stunt is that Moby has asked everyone and anyone who breathes in unchecked popular culture via the Internet to participate in something that can be very dangerous.

Historically a hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance which participants fast as an act of protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others. The only feelings of guilt to be had should come from Moby for this shameless act of self-promotion in anticipation of his May 17th  album release.

The Guinness Book of Records lists the world record in hunger strike (without forced feeding) as 94 days. Reinforcing the growth of the state, runs contrary to what artist should be about, which is challenging conformity. But if what Moby wants to see more money taken from Americans and given to government then so be it. I challenge him to stand by this hunger strike and beat the Guinness Book of Records.

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:

Gross revenues and total ticket sales from concert tours were down considerably in 2010 as the faltering economy and a glut of overpriced shows shunned by fans cast doubt on the music industry’s last sure bet.

Pollstar year-end numbers show overall grosses for the top 50 tours worldwide fell 12 percent to $2.93 billion and ticket sales dropped 15 percent or about 7 million from 2009’s 45.3 million.

Estimates from the touring industry trade magazine show Bon Jovi pulled in more than $201 million worldwide to land 2010’s top tour. AC/DC was next ($177 million), followed by U2 ($160 million), Lady Gaga ($133 million) and Metallica ($110 million) rounded out the top five.

You can certainly blame the economy and over-pricing on lagging ticket sales, but four of the top five concert grossers represent groups that were in their prime decades ago. 

Did Napster cause this? The Internet? A lack of new talent? The nihilistic trend in popular music?

Thee will always be a music industry of some kind in America, but to put this in some kind of perspective, if what was happening today happened in 1985, the biggest arena stars would’ve been Bill Haley, The Monkees, Ray Charles, The 4 Seasons, Roy Orbison, Chubby Checker, Ricky Nelson, The Shirelles, and Connie Francis.

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:

At this point. The end of the occupation. The right of return of the Palestinian people. These are critical dividing lines in human rights. We have to be here. No American would put up with an Israeli-style occupation of their hometown for 53 days let alone 54 years. US tax dollars are funding violence against people of color inside the US borders and outside the US borders.

Gateway Pundit has much, much more.

Breitbart TV has this piece of jaw-dropping video.