In Alternet there is a story about Sao Paulo, Brazil, banning all outdoor signage in the city.
Just imagine, Toronto, or whatever city or town or even countryside you live in, without billboards or signs (even on barns)advertising everything. Isn't there enough advertising on TV, in magazines and newspapers and blogs or websites?
When I travelled in Spain a number of years ago, the countryside was unmarked by the legion of billboards and signs that ruin the beauty of streets or buildings or views. The only one I remember seeing now and then was an artistic sign, just a totally black sign, with no words or designs, in the shape of a bull. It looked like art and not visual garbage like almost every sign and billboard you can think of.
I am going to write to politicians at all three levels by email to let them know about this additional way to go green by cutting out the visual pollution everywhere. A bonus is that part of being green is to stop being such rampant consumers of things we do not need. Without the signs everywhere, maybe we can act like people and not Pavlov's dogs.
Let us take back our cities and towns and countryside from the corporations so that we can live in a more simple and green and beautiful manner.
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I can't say that I know for sure what the positives and negatives of a non-advertising world would be, but for the love of God, I would like to find out.
Imagine a culture not manipulated into believing that the rat race (on a treadmill) was a necessity. Imagine a culture where kids didn't start developing desires for all sorts of shit from the age of five based on the advertising they see (created by advertisers engaging in "statutory theft" by manipulating the young to follow the advertiser's whim). Imagine a culture where we realized that we ALREADY have all that we need. We have food, shelter and clothing -- and maybe, just maybe, we have time to enjoy ourselves with family, with friends, with games, with intellectual pursuits, with creative social games, with reading, writing, speaking and debating. Imagine a world where we were not CONSTANTLY under stress to be slaves to some rich guy so that we can "get by". Imagine a world...
mnuez
www.mnuez.blogspot.com
P.S. If I'm not mistaken, any caveman magically transported to our world of plenty would be quite pleased with our cheap food, water and shelter and probably WOULD NOT feel the need to spend his every day slaving for others so that he could afford some more junk.
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