MooPig Site Review :: "...Skyboxification of American life,” and it is troubling. ..."

Reviewed by Pat Darnell | May 26, 2012 | Bryan TX

Are Consumers Truly Free to Make Choices in the Market, or are they oppressed, manipulated, deviously twisted, constrained and held down?
[Picture LINK]
This Column Is Not Sponsored by Anyone - NYTimes.com:
EXCERPT  |  " ... When the umpire calls the runner safe at home plate, a corporate logo appears on the television screen, and the play-by-play announcer must say, ‘Safe at home. Safe and secure. New York Life.’ ” (Thomas L. Friedman. May 12, 2012. HERE ).... "
'via Blog this'

This looks like a fun book to read. We might download it to our Kindle Fire.

" ... And while I knew that retired baseball players sell their autographs for $15 a pop, I had no idea that Pete Rose, who was banished from baseball for life for betting, has a Web site that, Sandel writes, “sells memorabilia related to his banishment. For $299, plus shipping and handling, you can buy a baseball autographed by Rose and inscribed with an apology: ‘I’m sorry I bet on baseball.’ For $500, Rose will send you an autographed copy of the document banishing him from the game.” (ibid.)... " 

The author says the end of the cold war caused us to celebrate by becoming a "market society." The results of that we are seeing today.

" ... he argues, when America’s victory was interpreted as a victory for unfettered markets, thus propelling the notion that markets are the primary instruments for achieving the public good. (ibid.) ..."

Compared to the 1960's our market society looks like a class war. The corporate sponsors look like the Bureau Chiefs of China sitting in skyboxes at the corporate named stadiums "even at college games — that cost tens of thousands of dollars a season, and hoi polloi sit out in the rain."

Arguments for the 'common good' are difficult to make in a commercialized society. Manipulation of demographic groups is thinly disguised as a struggle between 'haves' and 'have nots.' How can Democracy survive in this type of "market society, skyboxification of American life,... and it is troubling...." decline? The author would hope that sanity could rise above this trend. But we at MooPig know that bombast often wins in our 'market' society.

[Picture LINK] (Looks like one of mine -- but found it in my perusing.)
_____________________________Reference
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/friedman-this-column-is-not-sponsored-by-anyone.html?src=me&ref=general
http://accesstoinfo.blogspot.com/2010/08/market-society.html
http://kozinets.net/archives/90