Week 5

9/30/2014

Describe three themes from the clip below. Use three quotes from A People's Primer (Crain) and find one online news article to augment your summary (themes) and analysis (connections between text and current events) of the clip below, The Story of Stuff.

Requirements for BLOG POSTS

You must write 250 words each post (due Thursday @ Midnight), Responses to two other students 50 words each (due Friday @ midnight)
Students must post during the week the blog is assigned or it will not be graded.

18 Comments

Alex Diaz

10/9/2014 08:53:16 am

Three major themes in the video that is posted for week 5 blog would be unconsciousness of productivity, devastation, and restoration. Unconsciousness is the first major theme because as she expanded the horizon of certain concepts or ideas it really made me question our economy. With the population on a steady rise, this means that production and consumption both increase. What I never fully bothered to question was how does this all reach me and what factors are added in. With deforestation, indigenous land destroyed, and mass land fill it all paints a more vivid picture of how exactly the economy works the way it does. Production or productivity fuels many natural resources to be exploited and creates indigenous lands/homes and large ecosystems to be destroyed. It shows how we get the low prices that we have, but how all the labor workers must pay in order for those low prices to reach me. The same people who are kicked out of there homes, go to work in a environment that unhealthy because of all the toxins and chemicals being used to make these goods. Once those toxins are put together we then purchase and take them home, which is a lose-lose for us and win-win for larger corporations. Media then creates the thought of wasting money or consuming more to make you happy, in reality it only makes you more depressed. All these devastating ideas, concepts, and facts aren't questioned as much as they should, but when they are it makes u realized how unconscious most people truly are. "... Spanish and others established colonies in lands they "discovered" in order to facilitate trade and extract resources" (Page 16, A Peoples Primer). This just shows how governments and large corporations with money can pretty much go anywhere and take what they want. "When people became sick or were injured, there were no safety measures in place that protected the worker, which meant they were expendable" (Page 89, A Peoples Primer). This shows how indigenous people flee there home land after being destroyed and look for any means of surviving even if it means it can hurt or even kill them. Large corporations allow them to work in these toxic factories for almost nothing. despite these facts there are individuals raising awareness and combating these injustices. "it wasn't until the 1860's when the National Labor Union was founded that the workers had an opportunity to bring his case to the politicians who could start to make legislative changes on his behalf" (Page 89, A peoples Primer). This quote shows that if people stand together than we can make changes to better our environments and communities. An example of this is 112 trucks carrying German humanitarians into UK to help many people. Many humanitarian aid groups work with people around the world who have either face natural or man made disasters.
http://rt.com/news/193976-german-aid-enters-ukraine/

Kim Shaw

10/10/2014 03:02:27 pm

I agree with the loose-loose for the consumer and the win-win for the large corporations. However the large corporations aren’t getting away free because they buy some of the same toxin exposed materials we buy. Unfortunately their families and friends aren’t slaving in the factories that are producing the products that they are making such great profits off.

sharon clark

10/13/2014 09:30:08 am

in total agreeance whenever you are dealing with a large corporation there are going to be competitors. espite not being human beings, corporations, as far as the law is concerned, are legal persons, and have many of the same rights and responsibilities as natural people do. Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state, and they can themselves be responsible for human rights violations.Corporations can be "dissolved" either by statutory operation, order of court, or voluntary action on the part of shareholder, back in the day you had to slave to get what you want and needed no matter what the cost so what makes it so different now.....?

Alex Diaz

10/14/2014 02:55:28 pm

For some strange reason I feel that the rich do buy certain appliances, but the way they are produced and made are much less toxic than ours. Im pretty sure that they know about all the toxins and don't wanna expose it to themselves, but on a daily basis they do encounter as much as filth as anyone else. I agree.

Juan Flores-Rodriguez

10/10/2014 03:59:15 pm

You’re absolutely right, rarely if ever does anyone stand in the checkout line thinking about all the people that were screwed so that they can buy that item. I also feel in order to fix this problem we can't wait or depend on other countries to change their labor laws to make corporations accountable, instead a structural change in this country needs to be made that swing the value we place on consumption. More than that, consumption is a global problem. We as humans are acting as parasites to this world and everything in it. There needs to be global regulation so that we as humans don't deplete our resources. As the largest consumers in this planet, America is the best place to start reducing consumption.

Kim Shaw

10/9/2014 04:27:20 pm

The three themes I choose from the video Story of Stuff is production, distribution and the golden arrow. We live in a society where we want the latest and the greatest, no one ever really thinks about what it takes to get it. The cost of production and distribution is more than money. We have factory workers that are exposed to very high level of toxins. “In trying to cut production cost, corporate employers would give their workers excessively long hours with unsafe work conditions and equipment.” (A People’s Primer pg. 89) A lot of the workers are women of child bearing age that don’t have an option as to where they can work. Which is turn produces extremely high levels of toxins in breast milk. Breast milk is the very best thing you can give to your baby, yet has one of the highest levels of toxins. What is the mother to do, not work, not breast feed or both? We have no idea of the amount of toxins we are exposed to. They are in our computer, mattress, pillows, breast milk etc. The toxins affect our brain. It makes you wonder why so many people are affect with cancer. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States and there are many different factors that affect the susceptibility to cancer such as family history, occupation, living conditions, and socioeconomic status. (http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/confronting-toxics/cancer-and-toxic-chemicals.html). When we look at distribution we think get us our stuff, but at what cost. No one ever thinks about the people are on the distribution line. How much are these people paid? How many hours do these people work? How old are these people? Do they medical insurance? How much do they pay for medical insurance? Are these people protected by a union? When there is not a union to regulate people are often treated unjustly. "When people became sick or were injured, there were no safety measures in place that protected the worker, which meant they were expendable" (A Peoples Primer pg. 89). These people are often under paid and are paying a high cost for medical insurance if they get any at all. All this so that we can pay the lowest price possible. If you think about it, it cost much more to make the things we are buying than what we are paying for it. We know all companies are in the business to make money so who is really paying for the low price. The people on the distribution line. The golden arrow made a lot of sense to me and I never really thought about it until I saw the video. Yes we are conditioned to get the newest everything, car, computer, iPhone, clothes, shoes etc. When you don’t you are often looked at as being out of style, old fashion, out dated, cheap etc. When we do this who gains? We become slaves to the economy and we don’t realize it. The big corporations who are running the show behind the scenes and making all the money. These big corporations are allowed right offs and tax breaks that the low income are not eligible for. (A People’s Primer pg. 91)

Sarah Salazar

10/10/2014 02:11:05 pm

I like when you said that we slaves to the economy without realizing it. I think I am one of those people. I like to shop, and look cute for the very reason that the book and this video state. It is a false facade of a high social status. However, I am anything but rich; I just like to be in style and in a way it makes me feel good for a short time. Like the lady in the video mentioned, fashion changes constantly, and it's not a coincidence. They do this so that people like me will go out to shop every season for shoes that at the end of the day serve one purpose, to protect my foot when I walk.

Dulce Fajardo

10/10/2014 06:04:43 pm

This really makes us thing that the cost of any job is more than it really appears. Even if people are aware of the hard work that is behind that $5 radio in the clip, sometimes they still end up shopping at Walmart, for example, because they as well work for long hours with a very low wage and have no remedy than to look for the lowest prices. It's horrible how contaminated everything is and how we are also contaminated, makes it scary to know that it could get even worse.

Sarah Salazar

10/10/2014 02:05:59 pm

Three themes in this video were the government not doing its job to protect us from unsafe and unfair corporate practices, the value that we, citizens, put in shopping, and overconsumption. The government’s role and the whole reason for their existence and having power is for protecting the citizens of their jurisdiction. This includes protecting us from corporations. In “ A People’s Primer,” Crystallee Crain writes about regulatory agencies. She states, “the role of regulatory agencies are meant to strengthen democracy and rotate the shift of power to balance the needs of the people with those in private and public power” (88). However, according to this video, regulatory agencies are not fulfilling their role because of the harms that producing materials cause us. Pollution and toxins are released to the air, people are abused in the production of goods, and resources are quickly being used up. The next theme in the video is that in the United States, we value consuming too much. According to “A People’s Primer” consumption is a social status indicator. “Social status became tied to purchasing material goods” (89). The video and the book show similar ideas. People buy and throw away and buy again in order to prove that they belong to a higher class. The last theme of this video is overconsumption. As stated before, consumption is the appearance of a high social and economic status. We are so obsessed of appearing to be rich and well off that we are draining our planet of its resources.

Kim Shaw

10/10/2014 02:53:41 pm

I agree most people want to look rich without even realizing and/or knowing the cost. Cost not in the since of money but, the cost to the people that produce these products and the cost to the planet. Most people has to has the newest gadget but never look at what is being done with the old one that just so happens to still work very well. Before watching this video I never thought twice what happens to the old cell phone, computers, televisions etc.

sharon clrk

10/13/2014 09:34:41 am

i agree with looking good and before you know it you began to dig back into your wallet and find out that is nothing else there trying to leave above your mean it happens to each and every civilian including me but i realize trying to fit in isn't always best.on the other hand cost comes in a different format our planet and how we waste so much until we run dry then what?

Juan Flores-Rodriguez

10/10/2014 03:39:24 pm

This video had so many different themes that you brought light to one that I didn't even think about, government's responsibility to protect its citizens. This is an interesting theme because it seems like protecting people always has challenges. If you give rights to some (in order to "protect them") then you take away rights from others. There is always a tilt in the balance of power whenever there is any kind of government intervention.

Dulce Fajardo

10/10/2014 06:12:32 pm

I agree that people are wanting to appear rich but the media embeds that obsession in the people over and over again so who's is it. Then again people are conscious enough and intelligent by default to know that all that consumption is causing the world to run out of resources. The government is in fact supposed to protect us, but they're really working with the corporations and it's not okay since it will continue to stay this way of both teaming up to get everything their way by keeping productivity flowing, and keeping media throwing junk at us on a daily basis.

Juan Flores-Rodriguez

10/10/2014 03:20:11 pm

In modern America the value of one’s self is measured by what you own. We as Americans do an amazing job of consuming, which shows by the numbers. Although the U.S. carries 5% of the global population, we consume 30% of the world’s resources and have already burned through about a third of the total resources available. This society is planned around consumerism and how quickly new things can be produced. This, according to Dr. Crain, is a shift that occurred when the U.S. traded its preindustrial, “being able to stake one’s status on whether or not your farm was coming in properly”, to a post-industrial consumerism mentality where “social status became tied to purchasing material goods and being well invested” (Crain 89) Why and how was it decided that consumption is what’s best for society?

This brings me to the first theme, the effects that media and society has on purposely perpetuating the notion of constant consumption. Technology is a prime example of perceived and planned obsolescence. The reason I say that is because just like the video pointed out, computers are outdated every few years, meaning a new one must be bought, and the old one must be trashed. A recent example of how quickly technology is outdated is through the cell phones we use. Although they’ve been around for over two decades, the rate at which they advance is exponential. Cell phone from the late 80s looked a lot like a cell from the late 90s. As we turned the millennia, every year cell phones are outdated and replaced with a new model. Whether it’s a flip phone, smart phone, or iPhone, it’s no surprise that the new phone you just bought a few months ago, needs to be replaced with a newer one coming out tomorrow.

Additionally, it could be said that for the most part, we as consumers don’t pay the full price of the items we consume. Everything from the exploitation of labor, the over extraction of resources that renders a land unsustainable is what is paid to sustain constant consumerism. Since corporations operate on a global scale, exploiting different global markets that are not available on US soil because of labor laws, is what needs to be done in order to offer optimal production, for maximum profit. By cutting labor cost, and paying bear minimum for the land and resources used, the price we pay are ridiculously low, which according to law of demand, in turn means that we are willing to buy more. Now, taking a step back, to ask in a hypothetical situation, a reasonable person, if they would be willing to pay $1 to save hundreds of people from death, everyone would do it. In practice though, time and time again, we’d rather save $1 then to stop the exploitation behind global consumerism. Why do we continue to do this?

This brings me to the next theme, the reason we continue to do this because the source is often obscured. What I mean is that although no one denies that we live in a global market, we’re often not told (or better, no one asks) about where the products we consume come from, or what had to be done in order to obtain them. The reason for non-full disclosure is because “in reality, most avenues of mass media [are] under government and corporate control… and the internet is no exception” (Crain 56). We only see what we’ve been meant to see, the rest is cloaked. It’s like when you clean a room by sweeping everything under the rug. Sure, it looks good, but in reality, that room is still filthy.

Dulce Fajardo

10/10/2014 05:56:46 pm

The Story of Stuff explains the "materials' economy" and what happens to the materials we buy, use, and dispose of. In the production phase the materials are made in factories where toxic materials are mixed in with natural materials, which all in all end up in making "contaminated products." The poor factory workers have to be the ones right in front of the action with their poor wages, poor schedules and poor health. But not only that, the toxics that the materials contain are all over the place in nearly every product. That toxicity is in peoples' homes and slowly absorbed by the body, even making breast milk toxic to a certain level. There is no guarantee of people being healthy if they are exposed to all this junk, "the ideal American life has often excluded the needs and desires of many groups of people," and it keeps excluding them because the ones exposed range from babies to the elderly. (A People's Primer p.15) The phase of distribution is designed all "contaminated junk" asap by keeping prices low, keeping the people buying and the inventory moving. They do this by also keeping wages low and avoiding health insurance as much as possible. "As time has progressed, the poverty cycle has gotten more complex, but continues to adversely affect people's lives." (A People' Primer p. 88) The external costs of making the products are affecting every aspect of its cycle. The natural resources are destroyed to make factories, then the factories equals loss of clean air creating asthma and cancer among its vicinities, and the workers selling the product all basically poor with no health coverage. So, in reality, we aren't paying what the product really cost, instead the people that work to get it to you are the ones paying as well as the environment. "Mass media, which has come to include the Internet, television, radio, cinema, recordings, mobile phones, and print has simply become a tool in the proliferation of falsehoods under the guise of educating the public." (A People's Primer p. 55) The people's identity has become that of being consumers. The people daily what a vast amount of advertisements pass in front of their eyes. People shop, shop, and shop and keep the materials flowing not knowing that only 1% of those materials will be kept for 6 months or more, while the other 99% only lasts for less than 6 months. It was designed after WWII for people to consume more by: planned obsolescence (materials designed for the dump) making them useless soon so that we'll buy more and perceived obsolescence (convincing us to throw away stuff that is perfectly useful) they do it by changing the way stuff looks and making products seem rapidly out-of-date. The media keeps playing a big role by throwing ads at us, making us unhappy with what we have. Our leisure time becomes either watching TV or shopping, having little time for anything else since the rest of the time is used up to work to buy the stuff we want. Like the clip says, since the 1950's the U.S. has gone uphill in consumer good production and consumption, but the way that production and consumption are carried is causing the people to pollute the environment, our bodies and our lives and the ones who have control over this but won't do a thing to change this cycle are the government and corporations. http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/mind-control-theories-and-techniques-used-by-mass-media/

sharon clark

10/13/2014 09:24:30 am

extraction is one of the themes and it states the key points that “we’re running out of resources”. I most definitely agree with this. The reason is simply due to fact that we’re using too much stuff that are not necessary. I am not surprise with few facts that's mentioned in the film such as 80% of the planet’s original forests are gone, losing 2000 trees a minute in Amazon.the other one is production which consist of “Toxics in, Toxics Out”. According to the film , we use energy to mix toxic chemicals in with the natural resources to make toxic contaminated products. These contaminated products such as computer peripherals contain BFRs which are very super toxic to our brains and eventually inside our women’s breast milk. I do think toxic in the CPU is flying around in the air for sure.last but least distribution states that externalizing the costs and that’s why we can keep the prices down ($4.99 for a radio)lol. Externalizing the costs which means the company use someone else money to pay the cost of a product. Example she is giving are people who paid with their loss of their natural resource, paid with the loss of their clean air, with increasing asthma and cancer rates, employees are forced to pay to cover their own health insurance. These people paid for the costs, It is not because of Mass-Production.t wasn't until the 1860's when the National Labor Union was founded that the workers had an opportunity to bring his case to the politicians who could start to make legislative changes on his behalf" (Page 89, A peoples Primer).
"As time has progressed, the poverty cycle has gotten more complex, but continues to adversely affect people's lives." (A People' Primer p. 88)Mass media, which has come to include the Internet, television, radio, cinema, recordings, mobile phones, and print has simply become a tool in the proliferation of falsehoods under the guise of educating the public." (A People's Primer p. 55)

Sorasak prasertsri

10/15/2014 10:20:19 am

The three themes from the video are the neglect of the government on the extraction of the natural resources, consumer right and the environmental awareness in our society. The definition of the role of government as we know from the past was "from the people, by the people and for the people." Is it still applicable in our political system today? I have some concern about that, course most majority of the global economy today are running by corporation. As we all know when the government is partnership with a big corporations their always be some political issues such corruption and consuming regulation. That people like us that would not be aware off all never have the right information or could I said "their never tells us anything."
From "A People's Prime Crain has stated " the role of government (regulator agency) are meant to strengthen democracy and balance the need of the people with those in private and public power" (88). However, as we seen from the video, I could say that the norm of regulator agency never exist. There many unlawful or issue that government overlook or neglect such as massive extraction global resource, consumer awareness and safety of environmental in society.
Second theme, the citizen of the United Stated have become more addictive to consumption goods or become more materialism society. Through the big corporation who operate on global economy scale and media have become a big major part of exploitation of goods to our society. Since the government allowed the corporation to gain their wealth without any restriction and support from media that hidden the true fact or misrepresent the product into our home. Do we really get what are we pay for or is it worth it and safety for us to consume.
Lastly, I do totally agree on the recycling, reducing pollution and toxin in the air, water and nourishing our mother resource. I am strongly believe each society should be more awareness to preserve a green society. This could prevent us from the deteriorate our resource (earth). Also, it could give our younger generation a healthy, prosperity society and a cleaner, greener world to live in.

Judy Sierra

10/15/2014 12:44:08 pm

Three themes from the clip of the Stuff video, are production, distribution and by watching T.V and shopping. Now a days we always want to have the latest electronics that are coming out, we buy stuff without even thinking of how much money we will be spending. The cost for production and distribution is a lot more than just money, it has to do with having power and control over everything. The government is not doing his job by protecting us, with all the power they have their just not doing their job right. With production we used a lot of energy, there are 100,000 synthetic chemicals used a day, a lot of toxic comes in and out. We even have toxic in our brains, in our pillows, mattresses, computers and from toxic companies that people work for. Women who are breast feeding their infants, their own milk is toxic and we though it was safe. Women and kids are working for big chemical companies with no other choice in order to provide for their families. Trying to cut production costs, would give their workers excessively long hours with unsafe work conditions and equipment (A People's Primer pg.89) Workers are under paid and are paying high cost for medical insurance if they have one. When people become sick or were injured, there were no safety measures in place that protected the worker, which meant that they were expendable (A People's Prime pg.89). When it comes to distribution they try to sale all their production as soon as possible at a low price and keep people buying more and more. By watching T.V. we always see the commercials of new electronics coming out, for example when the I-phone 6 came out there was a long as line outside of all apples stores, of people trying to purchase the new phone, because they wanted to be the first one to have it. People tent to consume and we consume a lot, U.S. citizens consume twice as much more. Mass media has always been controlled in some way, ideally it was meant to have unfettered distribution (A People's Primer pg.56). Citizens keep buying and buying again and again to prove that they belong to a higher class.

Week 5

Leave a Reply.

POSCI 1 Students

Archives

Categories

THE BEAUTY

OF BLACK

CREATION

ABOUT US

JOURNALS

SUBMISSIONS

Week 5

Leave a Reply.

POSCI 1 Students

Archives

Categories

THE BEAUTYOF BLACKCREATION

ABOUT USJOURNALS​​SUBMISSIONS

THE BEAUTY

OF BLACK

CREATION

ABOUT US

JOURNALS

SUBMISSIONS