[Leica] Moon landing - where were you?

[chris at chriscrawfordphoto.com (Christopher Crawford)]

Jayanand,

I have spent a considerable portion of my life studying the history of the 
Soviet Union. I have no illusions about what life was like there. Compared 
to the US, life was hard and the people there had little in the way of 
material possessions. Worse than that, they had no political freedom. That 
said, damn near every household in Soviet Russia owned a television from the 
1960s onward. This is because the Soviet government made a special effort to 
make sure that TVs were produced in large numbers and sold cheap to ensure 
that everyone had one. They didn't do it out of the kindness of their 
hearts; the Communists saw TV as an excellent propaganda tool. Propaganda is 
only effective if it is accessible, so they put the effort into making TV 
accessible.

India has never been a dictatorship of the sort that Communist countries 
are, so the propaganda value of TV didn't matter to India's government. Your 
story about 25 year waits for a Vespa is similar to the  way automobiles 
were sold to Russian workers in the USSR. I don't think anyone waited 25 
years for one; but waits of 10-15 years were not unheard of, and the cars 
were small, crappy, unreliable junk that cost a lot of money. Few Russians 
tried to buy one.

I knew, as a historian who has studied the USSR, why TVs were commonplace in 
the Soviet Union. I don't know as much about your country and asked a simple 
question because I was curious. There was no need to insult me, or the 
American people. The really stupid people don't ask questions at all because 
they have no intellectual curiosity.



-- 
Chris Crawford
Fine Art Photography
Fort Wayne, Indiana
260-437-8990

http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com  My portfolio

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798
Like My Work on Facebook


?On 7/22/19, 11:53 PM, "LUG on behalf of Jayanand Govindaraj via LUG" 
<lug-bounces+chris=chriscrawfordphoto.com at leica-users.org on behalf of 
lug at leica-users.org> wrote:

    TV was a luxury that the masses did not deserve, according to the
    Government in those days. The waiting queue for a Vespa scooter in those
    days was 25 years - you paid an advance, then waited 25 years for the
    delivery to come. None of you Americans have the faintest clue on what
    living in a socialist economy is like, with centrally planned economic
    policies, and licenses to manufacture anything, even a pencil, leading to
    shortages of everything starting from food, and rampant corruption
    everywhere to obtain the semi monopolistic licenses.  You have this 
woolly
    picture of a Socialist Workers Paradise, which is utter nonsense. I know
    the delicious thought of pick pocketing the capitalist rich to obtain
    freebies for oneself is alluring, but it just does not work. Another 
class
    of exploiters will just take their place. In truth, to quote (I think)
    Orwell of Koestler, "Socialism feels like paradise till you reach there".
    
    I would think a rereading of Animal Farm and The God That Failed should 
be
    in order.
    
    Cheers
    Jayanand
    
    On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 8:39 AM Christopher Crawford <
    chris at chriscrawfordphoto.com> wrote:
    
    > How did socialism keep people from having TV in India? There were a 
lot of
    > countries far more socialist than India that had television long before
    > 1982 (The Soviet Union, for example).
    >
    >
    > --
    > Chris Crawford
    > Fine Art Photography
    > Fort Wayne, Indiana
    > 260-437-8990
    >
    > http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com  My portfolio
    >
    > http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798
    > Like My Work on Facebook
    >
    >
    > ?On 7/22/19, 10:05 PM, "LUG on behalf of Jayanand Govindaraj via LUG"
    > <lug-bounces+chris=chriscrawfordphoto.com at leica-users.org on behalf 
of
    > lug at leica-users.org> wrote:
    >
    >     I was in college at that time. We were still in the clutches of 
full
    > fledged Fabian Socialist hell in those days in India, so there was no 
TV
    > service at all in the country (which made a pan India entrance, 
gingerly,
    > though only in urban areas in 1982, for the Asian Games). I remember
    > hearing it on radio, followed by the photographs in LIFE magazine which
    > followed soon after.
    >
    >     Cheers
    >     Jayanand
    >
    >     Sent from my iPad
    >
    >     > On 23-Jul-2019, at 07:24, Peter Klein via LUG <lug at 
leica-users.org>
    > wrote:
    >     >
    >     > In July 1969, I was working at a summer camp in rural
    > Massachusetts.  The night of July 20, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz 
Aldrin
    > landed on the moon, we counselors were invited up to the camp 
director's
    > house to watch the moon walk. The adults were all out for the night, 
so we
    > had a critical mass of unsupervised 15-22 year-olds. With predicable
    > results.  Many of the assembled used the opportunity to tell raunchy 
jokes,
    > smoke cigarettes, and if they had a willing partner, make out (*). I
    > remember being irritated that it was hard to understand what the 
astronauts
    > were saying. I was absolutely enthralled by the moon landing, 
space-nerd
    > that I was (and still am).
    >     >
    >     > At one point, I remember wondering if we could ever look at the 
moon
    > the same way again.  Would the sight of the moon still be romantic, now
    > that people had walked on it?   Walking back to my cabin later, I got 
my
    > answer.  The full moon was just as romantic as ever, maybe more so. 
And I
    > so wished that I had a girlfriend to make out with under it.   :-)  
That
    > would have to wait a couple of years.
    >     >
    >     > --Peter
    >     >
    >     > (*) For people for whom English is not your first language, 
"making
    > out" is mid-century slang for hugging, kissing, petting, etc., as long 
as
    > the "etc." didn't go beyond a certain point.
    >     >
    >     >
    >     >
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