how they fought in the 70's, how we lost, what I learned (please comment)

Originally posted by brokedown

It is our own damn fault !

We were the ones who voted with our dollar, not supporting the local merchant, going to the K-Mart, the Wal-mart.

If we remove TV advertising from the equation I could agree with the assessment,
but how was the local merchant going to compete with the electric nation wide speaker box.
If I'm not mistaken, I think broadcast frequencies were originally public property and were then
auctioned off to private companies. So the advertisers priced us out of our own bandwidth.
What is it now, a million dollars a minute to advertize on some shows.
Who can afford that?


David Grouchy

I'v been without a tv sine 2003 by design, I don't watch mindless crap, I don't get bombarded with advertisments, and dont have a diet of disinformation or propaganda. I get my news online, or through NPR, tempered with the knowledge that it is left leaning, I also have two short wave recievers, and am thinking of aquirind a Ham radio. I'm NOT bored. If I want to watch a movie, I do so online from one of six sites that I have found that stream all manner of programs for free. How many of you waste hours and hours in front of a tv? how much of your life are you willing to continue wasting? Change starts in your own mind, and emplementing priorities for your time. The world is changing fast, and deffinatly not for the better, you must be on guard always, with the ability to drop off the grid and become invisible. We all know that, but how many continue day in and day out to subscribe to the system. I'm 60, and I don't feel any loss of ....entertainment..... I feel empowered. And those who are vets, remember how gurrilla warfare works. When you as a citizen realize that you outnumber the beaurocracy and PTB, and military at over 5,000 to one, then you will find consolation and empowerment. They are realizing (the government) that they will loose containment quickly if anarchy comes, and are trying for a last ditch effort to neutralize us. Well their headline will read ...FAIL...

reply to post by davidgrouchy
I can design and or build anything. Even a couch. Keep looking. Quality workmanship is out there. But I agree with Grouchy. When I was a kid we would decry Japanese Junk. Then it was Taiwanese Crap and finally Chinese Chunk! Korea and the Philipines produced a bunch of garbage too, as did Mexico. And we all stayed away from it in droves. But the markets were saturated...by people in Govt. who had ties to and investments in all these crappy products and the K-Marts and WalMarts that provided them. They had the money to build a McDonalds on every corner and a WalMart right next door to Ma and Pas Hardware Emporium. Eventually they even took our jobs to their overseas salve laborers. They even built a town in China called USA! So they could say "Made in USA!" Why would they do that? Because people here STILL valued our own products, even with a tsunami of cheap plastic and poisonous crap washing up on our shores. There are millions of us now in America who would work for low wages, just to be able to have a job. But our govt. insists on Business As Usual. So, learn to work with your hands. I did. I can skin a coon and make a hat out of it. Or build a house. But I NEED HELP from others who have can-do attitudes as well.

Things are meant to be broken. Companies that make things that last too long will go out of business. If you become well known that "you have a very good, long lasting item" your business may be booming for a while but, after everyone starts purchasing your item, you can only sell to so many people that eventually business will start falling.
just like these guys....

Google Video Link

THE VIDEO FOR SOME REASON DOESN'T PLAY SO I GOT THIS LINK..
VIDEO IS ONLY ABOUT 20 SECONDS LONG.
VIDEO

Originally posted by OUTofSTEPwithTHEworld
Things are meant to be broken. Companies that make things that last too long will go out of business. If you become well known that "you have a very good, long lasting item" your business may be booming for a while but, after everyone starts purchasing your item, you can only sell to so many people that eventually business will start falling.

Longevity is in recuring revenue.
Things like rents, subscriptions, services.
But watch. Just as soon as everyone is signed up,
the stuff will stop breaking and it will get harder to upgrade.


David Grouchy

You hit the nail on the head my friend. We are so dependent on corporations to do things for us. And people think the reason the top 1% own most of the wealth is because of some Wall Street ponzi scheme. That may be a part of it, but the main reason is because the 99% give it to them. We buy from corporations that ship most of that money out of town, instead of making things for ourselves and buying from our neighbors to create TRUE local wealth.

Now the corporations aren't going to fix the problem. They exist to survive and profit at any cost. They have no care for people's quality of life whatsoever! As a matter of fact, it's gotten to the point that people are so brain washed from their propaganda, it's going to be very hard to reverse. It's become a vicious cycle.

Corporatism and planned obsolescence is not only bad for local economies, but also horrible for the environment. When you buy something new instead of repairing or upgrading it, you are consuming more and more and creating more and more waste. That's the definition of inefficiency! And because of the fact we live on a finite planet, it should be unacceptable!

All that being said, I see light at the end of the tunnel. Mainly from the recent emergence of open source hardware. This is fighting the mainstream system of patents and intellectual property.

One organization that I'm particularly interested in is Open Source Ecology. They've identified what they believe to be the 50 machines necessary to build a local village that is extremely self sufficient. They are in the process of developing these machines right now and they are really beginning to take off. Because they are using the idea of open source, it's not designed for obsolescence and people all around the globe will be able to replicate it and make these machines at a tiny fraction of the regular market price. And because the idea is to use as many local resources as possible, creating the village will be equally as inexpensive!

Their website is opensourceecology.org and here is the TED talk they gave a while back. However, they've really grown since Marcin, their founder, gave the talk.

www.youtube.com...

Wow. That four minute eleven second video is just
what's the word
spectacular.

Thanks.

David Grouchy




Oh here is the embedded version

Im not old enough to look back on the 70's and pretend i existed in such a time but i definitely understand what the OP is talking about.

Furniture, although a dull subject is actually a very very interesting part of the human psyche. In our house we have one of a kind furniture that has been made by some guy in a shack somewhere, made out of real wood and actually having a 100+ year life span. However i feel like i must be part of a minority, all my friends houses contain Ikea SH*T, made out of woodchip that wont last 20+ years, and its all mass produced.

The 1970's? I don't think so, what you (the OP) is describing is the 1940-1960!
I am a 'boomer' and grew up in the 1950's and 60's and do a lot of restoring of old cars, let me tell you the 1960's and 1970's had some of the worst engineered and produced cars ever! Sure, you could buy a new 1968 Dodge Dart with a 340 4-speed for less than $4000 but they had learned how to use as much plastic as possible, the paint looked terrible and a lot of the underside wasn't even painted!
Cars have defiantly gotten more expensive but they are built a heck of a lot better than a car built in the 60's and 70's!
For the most part is true today as it was when my dad told me years ago, "you get what you pay for!"

Yes. And many of these newer cars
can't even have their fuel filter changed
without being raised up on a lift and accessed from the bottom.

I remember my brother opening the hood of an old truck he kept running.
"That's what I like. An engine block, two wires, and a hose."
These days, aren't the cars more designed to come with a service contract.
I mean shade tree mechanics are all but extinct now.
By design.


David Grouchy

I'm not trying to be a downer about this.

I do see how the future can be better.

But I also find it paradoxical that in a world drowning in expression
The People are having difficulty getting their voice heard.


David Grouchy

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b58df7f0d7b5.png[/atsimg]

If the plan was to use up all the rest of the worlds' oil first
then the signal that we have pased peak oil is when we really
start ramping up production here in the United States. And guess what.


David Grouchy

reply to post by davidgrouchy


for furniture, go to a store that sells used furniture.
it's cheaper and will last a lifetime.

for tools, go to large flea markets, the old tools made for the farmers are made to last.
the rakes, etc sold in hardware stores and made in china are throw aways.

Originally posted by SpeachM1litant
At times I fantasise that the community on ATS should pack up, steal and Island and create our own country.

Really? You mean an island where the ATS members recognize their former slavery from government and corporate manipulation and corruption but agree under pain of deportation not to discuss any vegetable extracts deemed illegal by those same agents of corruption?

Cities = ok
Cars = ok
Cities + Cars = bad.


David Grouchy

American's are not lazy.
Most of us really enjoy working.
Why are so many of us having the life squeezed out of us?


David Grouchy

During the era of President Woodrow Wilson,
Middle class was defined as a family with one to three servants.
That is to say that the family made enough to keep a house,
and employ up to three other people to help keeping that house.
To be lower class, in those days, only meant that one couldn't afford servants.
That is to say that one could afford to pay at least one other person a yearly wage
high enough to live comfortably and maybe even go to college.

Whereas the article does a lot of talking about how this days, so-called, middle class
has to double, or triple up, on their roommates just to make the bills.

Take a famous example, the Wright Brothers.
Two humble, middle class men, who could afford to do their own experiments,
and had the free time to test and develop them.

Personally my feelings are that our owners think that they are doing us a favor
by weighing us down with meagre wages and mounting debt.
Why?
Cause, they reason to them selves, with free time we just make trouble.
So they are sparing us by keeping us too busy to live.


David Grouchy






Middle-Class Living Standard 1896
Monthly budget

$00075.00 "Food and lights"
$00029.00 Servants
$00042.00 Rent
$00012.00 Coal
$00004.00 Water
$00162.00 a month TOTAL
$3,500.00 a year Income

* This list was prepared by Professor Woodrow Wilson's wife, for a middle class salary of $3,500 a year

"Hstory of The United States, Since 1865
T. Harry Williams, Louisian State University
Richard N. Current, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Frank Friedel, Harvard University
(c) 1959
-page 272

What is the purpose of a city.
I think it's easier for them to fleece us,
if we are centralized all into one place.
But stuff like the graph above begs the question.
What is the purpose of a city again?


David Grouchy

Our cities grow and grow,
but what do they produce really.
None of them are producing space craft.
So what's the point of all this concentration.


David Grouchy

reply to post by davidgrouchy


in my humble opinion , one of the main differences between our generation of youth (people who are 15-25 right now or who feel like that age , don't wanna exclude anyone^^) and previous ones is the lack of genuine rebellious adolescent spirit . if you compare a hippie , a punk , a massive junglist or an oldskool-hiphopper to what's running around now in the music biz (of course there's still beautiful artists out there , they're just a lot harder to find because "they" want positive influential art to stay away from you) , the reasons for this generation's mindblowing apathy start unfolding themselves , right in front of your eyes ...