Them Apples: Boum Boum CRTs

Below is what Americans were watching on their TVs when Cathode Ray Tube display devices were first being MASS introduced in the mid 1950s.  Technically, the first distribution was in the 1930s (boum, boum, below) - but there was an interruption (World War II, boum boum) during which sales of TVs in the USA and Europe stopped.  The TV mass market sales resumed in the late 1940s.   When in 1951 the "CBS Columbia" TV was priced at $499.95, people thought it controversial that white Italian American Frank Sinatra was singing a duet with black Ella Fitzgerald (Moolight In Vermont).

(the video of Moonlight in Vermont was removed by youtube... I liked the showing of interacial singing... but maybe this replacement 1951 video will stand in)...


If today the developed nations are saying that Africa and Asia is not as far advanced as the USA was in the 1930s, 40s, and 1950s... boum boumI beg to **** differ.  

If the developed nations are saying that, in hindsight, TVs and CRTs should not have been introduced into our nations, and we are trying to save Africa from our fate, then we need a single, simple, logical example of a TV "e-waste" disaster here in the USA.   Who was poisoned by the television?  Who died?  What is the USA equivalent of the "most toxic place on earth"?  And did the pollution generated by TVs in the 1950s outweigh the image of Ella singing with Frank on TV?  That would be the case for sacrificing internet in Africa to stop "digital dumps".

The entire case against reuse rests on false data - that 80% of the exports are NOT reused or repaired, but are primitively burned in witches brews and caldrons by black and yellow children.   Residue, yes... but 80%??   This is complete and utter malarky.    One would imagine a dump in the USA somewhere has resulted in someone in America being harmed since 1938.  The only Boum, Boum was in the sound system.



(Video time warp - 20 years earlier)

We are trying to save Africa from our own fate.. but no one took the time to write that "fate" down.   Were TVs being dumped in China and Africa back in the 1960s, and none has ever touched USA soil?   Immaculate exportation.  Story with no logic, surprise, has no truth.  But the false story is EVERYWHERE.  EVERYONE seems to believe it.

I have tended to hold the NGO BAN (Basel Action Network) at fault. However, it's just a small non-profit organization which found money and didn't put it down.  The OEMs have profit motives for planned obsolescence in hindsight, not promoting the reuse market.  The recyclers who believed the malarky made investments based on believing it and now have jobs to protect.  The software companies got their digs in with HIPAA and other mandates to destroy hard drives.  Everyone got a bite out of the export policy apple, except the importers.

That really just leaves the journalists.   Boston Globe, CBS 60 Minutes... lazy reporting.  And the trade press has profited from reporting on "controversial" exports, and is slow to defuse past "headlines".  If we have 2 studies that show 85% is reused, then the problem is recycling properly the 15% not reused, OR replacing 85% good loads with 100% good loads.  Instead, it's a racist nightmare of scaring people away from selling and donating, so that black internet cafe owners have to buy from the Sopranos.

Do you like Apples?  I have a number - 85% reuse.  How do you like them apples?

Obama's EPA has, unfortunately, bitten the apple of white guilt, and defines environmental "justice" through  boycotts of desperately willing brown buyers.    No numbers, but they have pictures, pictures of doe eyed children with single computers burning in a landfill.

The outcome:  a "prohibition" policy.  We pretend that Africa, Asia and Latin America are somehow behind the boum boum of OECD.    The USA shreds computers which could have been sold for billions of dollars, robbing the USA or income from retained value.  Egyptians, Libyans, Syrians, etc. are left to buy brand new Apple Tablets for 1/3 their annual per family income - supporting jobs in China.   It's as if, to buy a new car, you cannot trade it in without shredding your old car.   It doesn't increase car sales.  It will not increase internet and digital communication in the emerging markets / developing world either.
TV "magnifying lens" sold in 1950s

I  am going to die pretty soon.   I'm like an old magnifying lens, hoping to fight fire with fire.  Magnifying the light of truth into a blaze that undoes planned obsolescence in hindsight.

crackle.

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