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1) Buy directly from the artist at a show. I've been doing this more and more lately, but I live in Toronto and there's no shortage of excellent live music.

2) Download directly from the artists website. This is still a fairly new option. The Offspring and Rage Against The Machine are both on the right track, buyt not quite there. Harvey Danger, on the other hadn, have it figured out. I've never listened to them much before, but I downloaded the new album (after sending them a donation, I want them to succeed in their attempt to bypass the labels!) and I love it!

Mind you, neither of these options will score you the latest-greatest Ricky Martin or Britney Spears albums, but I suppose it's a resonable sacrifice :P

Under treaties like NAFTA, a company can challenge the laws of a member country, claiming that the said member country is not allowing their product to be sold within the same environment that they enjoy within their own country. I wonder if something like this *did* happen how long would it take for microsoft to buy their way into a political fight to get the australian government to do what microsoft wants.

Open your mind to corporate interest RATM
Best site on the internet homestarrunner, specifically strongbad email

Read more here!

I suggest you check out their site. Check out their timeline link... a few notable highlights: "09/11/1993: Rage headline sold-out Anti-Nazi League benefit, Brixton Academy, London, England. 10/14/1993: Rage begin headlining US tour with "Rock For Choice" benefit at The Palladium, Hollywood, California. 04/28/1994: Rage organize a benefit concert "For The Freedom Of Leonard Peltier.... A check for $75,235.91 is later presented to the Leonard Peltier Defense Fund." Just a small sampling. The rest of the links contain other activism information, all of it good.

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If we know the bill number of the bloated pile of legeslation that this amendment was attached to then we can see who sponsored the amendment and voted for this bill. You can villify congress as a whole all you want, but until the names of these corrupt congressmen who are beholden to the national assocaition broadcasters are made public and they are exposed business will continue as usual in washington dc.

It has to start somewhere It has to start sometime What better place than here What better time than now
-Gurilla Radio by Rage Against The Machine

Knowledge is power, got some books - go read em, wisdom is ignorance, stupidity - I call freedom! - Paul Westerberg

What we're dangerously short of in this country is people who believe strongly about things who can keep from making themselves appear the fool.
[snip]
It was because when they finally asked him a question he didn't have a good answer for, his reaction was to tell his heartbreaking story of his failure to integrate with normal society and his spiritual rebirth in the desert badlands. He sounded like a complete kook. People walked out. I was one of them. What's heartbreaking is that the people who really care about an issue somehow can't keep their pants on in public, most of them at least.

f1r57 p057! :-/

Seriously though, I agree with what you're saying, but I'd like to make a counterpoint.

By now you've probably heard the music of Rage Against The Machine. They have become totally mainstream, even though their causes would be considered by most people to be on the fringe. They shout their messages on the radio and TV all the time. Nobody calls them paranoid, but I think anyone else who said the things they say probably would be.

I've been trying to figure out why they get lots of airtime while other people get funny looks for saying less.

I've come to the conclusion that the average american doesn't actually listen to the message. They like the sound and the rebelious image but don't really hear the message behind the lyrics.

So here we have a group of people with a "radical" political message who haven't made fools of themselves. Everyone hears them yet it seems to me that they can still only really preach to the choir.

If the mainstream public thought Rage was paranoid, they'd at least understand the message behind all that shouting.

So I think it's really a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't sort of situation. You can appear crazy and have people understand that you're saying something different, or look sane and have people think it's business as usual.

Either way people will hear and believe whatever least disrupts their view of the world.

I, for one, am very disturbed by the fact that most of the clothes I'm wearing were most likely made by underpriviledged workers, not only in third-world countries, but also here in the US. When the people have a very limited choice, when all they've been given are what they don't want, it's not necessarily their fault if they use it. It is their fault if they don't do anything about it.

I'm just afraid that the overly sensational US media is going to focus on the 20 or 30 idiots who made serious trouble, while the other 40-50K people there behaved themselves. The tension in this country has been growing at a very visible rate in the last few years and I think this is just one of the first (mostly) good outwards signs of it.

Being a (young) 20-something myself, most of the people I know (an interesting mix, seeing as I have both leftist or libertarian friends yet go to a very conservative school) are frustrated and angry about the state of politics in this country. The average person no longer has a voice, and large corporations and government institutions are working hard to make sure we have even less of a voice. Restrictions on encryption, anyone? More wiretapping capabilities built into our hardware and software? The "right" of the NSA and FBI to circumvent due process and keep people under surveillence without a warrant?

The WTO (good article here in pdf) has a track record of leveragaing their power to tromp the soverign laws of independent countries in order to make more money (article here). Powerful representatives from the US and large corporations convince small, developing nations that they need the latest whiz-bang-all-in-one products to even survive in the new world. These representatives then provide tasty soundbites wherein they ask for free trade and villify the protestors for not allowing their poor, starving country to get the best TVs out there (yes, bad example, but you get the point). It's for reasons like this that when I have kids they will never ever have Gerber baby food.

And for everyone who's been saying "Hippie, go home", RTFA (articles) before you make yourself look stupid. Thousands of people from all different walks of life are protesting this, not just a few "burnt-out acid-dropping hippies who crawled out of the woodwork", as much as you'd like to believe that. Middle-aged people who know this is a Bad Thing (TM) are right next to youth who feel they want to make a difference and are motivated to do so. Prominent figures have lent their voices to causes such as this, and the difference is starting to be felt. Previous generations had The Who, The Clash and U2 to send out the call for arms and action against the oppresive elements of their times. Today, groups like Rage Against The Machine are sending out the call to action and education to the youth of today. Do you think it's an accident their album debuted at #1 and is currently the #2 selling album in the world?? I don't think anything short of physical action on this scale (meaning large peaceful yet committed protest groups) are going to bring about the change we need.

Educate yourself. Let yourself get angry. And then do something constructive and meaningful to channel that anger. My 100% support to the protesters in Seattle. Not to mention somewhat reluctant thanks to the police out there for not allowing a re-creation of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago to occur.

-jdm