[Sosfbay-discuss] "The Gospel of Consumerism"

[Cheryl Poniatowski]

With the advent of peak fossil fuel, peak fossil fertilizer, and 6.5 
billion people all vying for living space while world leaders embark on 
wars of empire, we in the industrialized countries are about to get a 
crash course in the fine art of manual labor.

Consumerism has met its match... scarcity.

Tian Harter wrote:
> I remember talking about automation with the head of the EE Department
> at Bradley when I was one of his students. He said "back in the '60s
> (when he was an engineering student), we knew automation was going to
> change things. We just never dreamed it was going to dump all the
> leisure time on people that didn't want it." I think about that 
> sometimes when I see a homeless who could obviously do some dumb job.
> Surely s/he could at least sell tickets for CalTrain. How hard is that?
>
> I spent most of the day up in San Mateo at the Maker Fair. That was a 
> great event! So much creativity going into so many grass roots projects.
> Everybody there at least got entertainment value from many grassroots 
> projects that no sane employer would invest a single dollar in. There
> were even a few that are trying to reshape the marketplace to
> make it more human than dollar centered. An example: tradeafavor.com .
> But that's a digression.
>
> Anyhow, on the way up I talked briefly with a guy that was singing the
> blues because all the station attendants between San Jose and San 
> Francisco had been laid off. I pointed out that ticket machines are 
> cheaper. I called them "slave labor". He said that was "exactly right."
> Mountain View never had a station attendant. I always had to buy my 
> ticket from the conductor. It was kind of fun. Now I just show the guy
> my ticket. If I don't, he writes me a $200ish ticket or just kicks me 
> off the train if he is feeling generous and has already made his quota.
> I always get my ticket. It's cheaper that way, and I don't have to 
> feel terrorized by the sight of a conductor.
>
> The Conspiracy Theorist in me is thinking "GWB has probably never
> bought a CalTrain ticket from a vending machine." It would be nice if 
> he was the only one, but I doubt that is the case. There is a lot of
> entertainment value to be had in watching all the little stories that
> happen as the train pulls into, unloads people getting off, loads people
> getting on, and leaves the station. Sometimes I wonder if there is some
> way to give our world a special little magic that starts with buying a
> ticket to ride the trains around here... Certainly the riders are as
> nice a crowd as could be found among random strangers out there. The 
> ride is often enjoyable.
>
> Tian
>
> Wes Rolley wrote:
>> Gerry Gras wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> It's about the implications for democracy of shorter vs.
>>> longer work week.
>>>
>>> It's long ...
>>>
>>>
>>>      http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/03/8686/
>> Well, among those things we could do with a shorter work week is to 
>> read things like this instead of waiting until we retire like I did.
>>
>> Then, we might start actually writing stuff.... like I did.  
>> Consumerism has been a subject of my last two Morgan Hill Times 
>> columns. 
>> http://www.morganhilltimes.com/opinion/241276-more-than-shopping-to-make-a-successful-downtown 
>>
>> and
>> http://www.morganhilltimes.com/opinion/240153-consumerism-will-permanently-damage-our-planet 
>>
>>
>> When we moved back from Japan in 1993, I had to make some major 
>> changes in the property.  "Digger" pines were too big and too 
>> fire-dangerously close to the house and had to go.  Eventually, they 
>> were replaced by apple, apricot, cherry, loquat,  persimmon, plum, 
>> pluot and citrus (oranges, Meyer lemons, kumquats, grapefruit, pomelo).
>> Every tree that went into the ground meant that a rock had to come 
>> out, or so it seemed.  At the time, I piled a wall just outside my 
>> office window, running the width of the house.  It is more like a two 
>> level terrace, each about two feet high allowing a planting on the 
>> lower level and with rosemary growing along the top level.
>> Well, as Frost wrote "Something there is that does not love a wall."  
>> Eventually, it is starting to go and I am rebuilding it with mortar, 
>> as I don't think that my body can take rebuilding it again in another 
>> 10 years.
>>
>> By the time I had built the wall in the fist place I had developed an 
>> eye for finding just the rock that I need to fill a particular 
>> place.  Now, laying it up with mortar, everything changes slightly 
>> and the practiced eye that I used years ago is out of practice. I 
>> takes me longer and if I mix too much mortar, it dries out before I 
>> can use it.
>>
>> It is along way of saying that there are a number of skills that one 
>> needs to live these days and they are being forgotten, lost by the 
>> passage of time.  While laying up a portion of the wall yesterday, I 
>> remembers a mystery that I had enjoyed reading several years ago.  It 
>> is "No Colder Place" by S. J. Rozan and the main PI character has to 
>> recall and re-use bricklaying skills from an earlier lifetime just as 
>> I am doing now..  A mystery might not be everyone's choice for 
>> reading, but the sections that describe brick laying and the learned 
>> skills involved ring true in my mind.  (Author Rozan was an architect 
>> so this is familiar territory.).
>>
>> Tian wrote of his search for good shoes and a cobbler who could make 
>> them. If we are not to be the consummate consumer then there are 
>> other skills that we will of necessity learn.  Even mixing mortar is 
>> a skill.
>>
>>
>