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As versus fascism with
Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt
1. government control and power over the individual and
2. forced wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the tiny minority of the wealthy?
Our current system in the US allows the robber barons to steal from the poor and middle class with one hand in the private sector and to use the tax system to steal from the poor and middle class with the other. The only things preventing a complete breakdown are easy credit and the illusion of the potential of upward mobility. However, the excessive cost of post-high school education has stripped away much of the latter (combined with the peculiar hostility towards education of the masses held by the current head of education in the US).
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03-16-2019 01:57 PM
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That last paragraph is incredibly dishonest communist drivel. Copy and paste. Goose step.
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Hi Lobke, Originally Posted by Lobke
Hi everyone,
I am working on a school assignment related to sustainably and ethically produced guitars.
I wonder what you guys are thinking about when talking about this topic. What do you think is or isn't sustainable or ethical about guitar production? How can this process be improved? Thoughts about other musical instruments are welcome too
If you're still following this thread, an interesting article just came up on my Facebook feed from the Fretboard Journal. It's a profile piece on Pisgah Banjos, a relatively young company that is building instruments that combine traditional craftsmanship with local and sustainable woods and materials.
Here's the link: Bench Press: Pisgah Banjos | Fretboard Journal
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In NYC, Rick Kelly at Carmine Street Guitars builds guitars from all kinds of reclaimed woods. He's well known for his Telecasters built from pine salvaged from old buildings like the famous Bowery Hotel.
He just put up on Instagram a Tele made with 200 year old chestnut wood.
Last edited by David B; 03-16-2019 at 03:56 PM.
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Prisma Guitars are best known for their guitars built with used skateboards. The woods are pressed to make colourful laminates. Really fun looking. They are serious quality instruments too.
OUR STORY – Prisma Guitars
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I try not to approach this sort of thing with the expectation of engaging in debate and winning converts, or on the other hand venting my spleen, although I understand the latter urge.
I would say this though as an interesting thing I have observed. Socialism itself has a much broader popular meaning now esp. but not only in the US to mean basically any government funded universal social programmes like universal healthcare, free college (i.e. funded through taxation) and so on.
This is not socialism in the formal sense. It is perfectly possible for a country to be pretty right wing - far right even - and maintain very good universal public healthcare and education for citizens. For instance, Nigel Farage's pro-Brexit anti-immigration party UKIP promised more money for the NHS in the last election.
Interesting, huh? Apparently it does Steve Bannon's head in,. European nationalist/populist right parties just don't want to be Republicans. Even Trump himself made pro-ACA noises on campaign. (Personally, I get the impression Trump is pushing policy a lot less than people think.)
So the idea of calling these programs socialist seems odd. In fact in the UK the NHS might have been the greatest achievement of a socialist party (the Labour party) it's basically a national religion. No-one speaks ill of the NHS. The very worse the right can say about the NHS is that it's stretched and overburdened and not fit for purpose, but NO ONE attacks it on ideological terms like they do in the states.
That might be very hard to understand for an American, but I think it's a fundamental difference in outlook.
To be honest in this country everyone's so cheesed off at the state of the privatised trains - endless industrial disputes, overcrowded trains, overpriced tickets, failing infrastructure and what is clearly a messy attempt to simulate a market in what is a natural monopoly - that there's majority support for re-nationalisation. And no one calls that 'socialism.' They call it 'why can the train not get me to work on time FFS.'
But the REALLY interesting thing is the left is doing it too. AOC obviously calls herself a socialist when in fact she credibly could call herself, well, a Roosevelt democrat. Sanders, too, probably. It's blatantly obvious they are harking back that tradition in the name of the New Green Deal. In fact their policies on taxation
Now I can understand the right with the ultimate aim of pushing towards policy goals might want to rebrand social democracy as 'socialism' because especially in the US the word has negative connotations. That's standard stuff.
The left doing it - well I think that's to do with making things cool again. Roosevelt Democrat sounds kinda dull. Socialist is probably a bit ... naughty, esp. of your parents been telling you it's bad.
Anyway, I don't take anyone's discussion of socialism on the web seriously. They usually like it vague to shore up a bad faith argument, or don't know what they are talking about. You could say the same thing about the term 'capitalism' of course.
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Cool! Originally Posted by David B
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Where are you Lobomov? It doesn't come up on your description. Originally Posted by Lobomov
Health care .. now to education.
Dunno how it is in the UK, but here the only thing preventing you in obtaining a college degree is basically if you do good in school. Your high school grades determine what education you can get accepted for. Some majors like medicine you need stellar grades for, while others like science and economics are fairly unpopular and thus open for all more or less. College is funded by taxation and the only expense for the student are the books in the curriculum.
On top of that you get a small montly salary of 925$ to keep you afloat the next 5 years while you study. Whether you make do with that, get a job in the evenings/weekends or borrow money on top of that is up to you. But as long as you graduate your courses the money is there for you. Again paid by taxation.
This is religion like the health care thing and no one is questioning this either.
Currently the Social Democrats are in opposition and we have a right wing government.
The US view of taxation as being pure evil is very hard for us to grasp .. our system is not perfect and comes with it's own set of problems, but ....
Some s**t about the UK no-one really cares about
In the UK it's becoming more like the American model. When I went to college (bloody hell I'm giving away my great age) it was still free to attend and I actually got a small grant from the government to help pay my expenses. By the time I left fees had just come in. There were demos and sit-ins protesting the roll out. Come to think of it those paying fees for the frist time would also have been the first of millenials.
Fees have increased but they are generally similiar be the institution Oxford or a local ex polytechnic. There's no competition between uni's in terms of rpice, and no distinction between private and public universities as there is in the US. I think in general there are always forces in the UK seeking more similarity to the US.
The joke is - and this is politics that destroyed the Liberal Democrats as a political force in the UK BTW - is that these changes might have been envisaged by Thatcher but not actually enacted until the Blair Labour government. Blair's third way twist on all this was extending students existing uniquely specific and forgiving form of credit - student loans - that basically acted as a graduate tax with a cut off at the year of institution. In the years since, the system has been eroded into a more conventional form of credit. Still pretty good compared to commercial credit, but not bounded by the same consumer protections. It's a funny one.
Labour actually succeeded in getting more people into higher education because they say it as an engine of social mobility, because, for them (mostly boomers) it really was. Another area where correlation is confused with causation. F**king social scientists.
In practice everyone now has a degree to work in a bookshop, and Oxford/Cambridge graduates etc are a separate class.
The Ballad of Nick Clegg
Anyway 10 years ago Nick Clegg of the Liberal Dems was the new big deal in the politics of young people, promising a new type of politics not bounded by ideology (a little bit Classical Liberal/Libertarian, a little bit Social Democrat, geddit?), he promised that he would do away with tuition fees.
He didn't win any elections, but got into power in coalition with the Tories, and due to necessary compromises was unable to enact this policy which I think had been made in good faith on the basis that the Lib Dems had actually won the election. Which they hadn't.
Didn't matter. He was basically destroyed along with his - long historied - party as a political force.
Really fair, I think, I like Clegg and I think he managed to get some IMO good policies enacted such as lifting many of the poorest out of tax completely - basically anything that coalition did that was actually positive (the Tories took credit for them anyway), but it shows how important this point is to people.
Needless to say Jeremy Corbyn is promising free higher education. If there are more people studying is it possible? I think an essentially moral wealth tax on the very richest (above £10m or something) would cover it, but I'm unsure of the actual workings of such a tax. Gordon Brown struggled with taxation of the wealthy, and he is a much cleverer man than most.
Sounds like your country is highly selective Lobomov, which helps with affordability. But affordability through taxation is ... culturally relative. I know for instance the wealthiest Swedes pay little or no tax, it's just that ordinary Swedes are willing to pay more.Last edited by christianm77; 03-16-2019 at 05:25 PM.
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sustainabl Use only recycled parts as much as possable. Ethical Dot use materials that are Damaging to the environment. that would mostly apply to the Finish
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@Lobke: Originally Posted by Lobke
Hi everyone,
I am working on a school assignment related to sustainably and ethically produced guitars.
I wonder what you guys are thinking about when talking about this topic. What do you think is or isn't sustainable or ethical about guitar production? How can this process be improved? Thoughts about other musical instruments are welcome too
After 8 days and three pages of comments on your school assignment topic, what are your thoughts thus far??
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Fake News! Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt
Jazzstdnt, your default to "communist" betrays you. You may not want to agree with it but it is the situation that any sober appraisal of America must realize. Recognizing that capitalism has been distorted beyond reason and sanity, and that the influence of money on politics has distorted and imperiled democracy, is not "communist" any more than recognizing the law of gravity is "communist.
The same thing applies to maintaining conscientious stewardship of Earth and its resources- especially for the good of future generations, which in the context of this thread refers to the sustainability and ethics of producing guitars.
BTW, if you think that my paragraph was "copy and paste," then find the source. And "goose step" usually refers to Nazis, not communists (although both used it). The Nazis were right wing nationalist conservatives who decided to blame all their troubles on minorities, driven by the delusions and aggression of a leader many found charismatic. The communists, on the other hand, built a wall.
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Good call! This was the first guy I thought of but could not remember his name. There might have been an article in fretboard journal about this luthier. Reclaimed materials are great resources. Originally Posted by David B
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Antifa talking points is what I am referring to by copy and paste. It's child's play to deconstruct your arguments about current America and the future that your side pines away for, but I will refrain. Some time back we agreed to put a kibosh on political blathering, but then this thread and its topic came along and the inevitable occurred. Originally Posted by Cunamara
Out.Last edited by Jazzstdnt; 03-17-2019 at 01:50 PM.
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Just to get slightly back on topic I'd like to say that sustainable forestry isn't about hugging trees. It's about cutting them down to make some money, and being able to do so beyond the next few decades.
The Ebony Project is also about economic development in Africa. Taylor Guits has made a serious investment in modernizing an ebony sawmill. The new machinery provides better production, less waste and much better safety. Safety means better production through less down-time. Production stops when there's an accident, and experienced workers have to be replaced while they recover. In many cases this is a lot harder than it sounds and costs money for training.
I made a living playing the guitar for 20 years, and by working with wood for 30 after that. It's plain to see where my interest in work-place safety comes from. I have touched the shiny spinning disc once or twice but have been lucky enough not to have done serious damage, thanks in large part to the safety measures implemented by my employers.
There's also a Koa Project in Hawaii. Maybe there will be a Rosewood Project in Brazil. It just takes a special kind of capitalism to make it happen.
I'll tell you what I think is truly un-ethical: a plastic Maccaferri !! :)
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Being an ugly post-colonial post-communist euro alien, I have recently bought a guitar with a top made of european spruce... and it sounds great !
This tonewood is even sold by certain websites e.g. :
European Spruce - TONEWOOD - Maderas Barber
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Not sure all the three pages of comments will all be useful for the OP. Originally Posted by Gitfiddler
....
Does anybody recycle their strings ?
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Sorry about that, I was off my tits on Night Nurse. Originally Posted by Lobomov
Thx for the UK history lesson
It's not so much that the Swedish tax system isn't progressive, it's more that the super wealthy don't pay much tax. When you can pay top dollar for 'wealth management' experts your underpaid government tax official is always going to be disadvantaged.
Sorry to bring up Sweden with a Dane BTW haha
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Yeah, TBH I grew up under Thatcher with left wing parents, and despite going on Ban the Bomb Marches and supporting the miners etc, like everyone of my generation I remember the '80s as a golden age, full of awesome things like Transformers and VCRs. Cos I was a kid. Originally Posted by thelostboss
You know when Blair got into power for a couple of years it was like a cloud had lifted. Finally we had people in power who at least on our side. I remain net positive towards the Blair years domestically. They weren't just blue Tories, and although Iraq's carnage is IMO unforgivable, and there's a lot of other bad stuff, they did a lot of really good stuff.
Now the Blarites are just a waste of space. They don't realise the world has changed fundamentally, and it was Blair's charisma that sold that project in the first place.
From what you said, I can't imagine you've been a big fan of Australian politics over the past couple of decades... .
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Hemp guitars would solve all problems. Grow it. Build it. Play it. Smoke it. Rinse and repeat eternally....Godin's looking into it...cherry/hemp laminate...
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