history lesson please ...

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Sunset magazine, November 1967, p. 151.

Anyone have any idea what this was about?

Comments

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

How incredibly vague is this? What on earth was being proposed?

[gildedcentury.livejournal.com]

All I can tell is it seems to be using sarcasm. But to what end?
TO WHAT END?

[cynica.livejournal.com]

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/opinion/columns/frank/article_48c11e9c-f50f-11df-b52b-001cc4c002e0.html

Starting about 1968, the federal government started imposing new guidelines on manufacturers of cigarettes to tell them what they could and could not sell. The justification was obvious — to save people’s lives — but the effect was to reduce choices for consumers.


Same thing with cars. You can no longer buy a car without seatbelts. You can no longer buy a car without a catalytic converter. To a large extent, you can no longer buy a car that is cheap. That is because, the American auto industry is regulated to the point where to it is impossible to even include automobiles when talking about the “free market.” Virtually every aspect of the production and design of passenger cars is regulated by the federal government, leading to increased costs and in some cases increased death (for instance, lightweight cars meet federally imposed fuel-economy standards, but are demonstrably less safe).

Once you start to think about all the ways that the federal government has imposed itself into our lives since 1968, it becomes obvious that the Magazine Publishers Association lamentably failed in their campaign to rouse the public.

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

oh for God's sake...the damned tobacco lobby again. What a surprise...NOT.

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

"... the Magazine Publishers Association lamentably failed in their campaign to rouse the public."

Probably because the public didn't have a clue what they were talking about. This ad was probably as cryptic then as it is today.

Also, are you my dad, because, wow, all of this sound really familiar! :D

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

I suspect that since the ad was sponsored by the magazine publishers, their main concern was the reduction of advertising that would result from fewer brands of cigarette on the market.

Now, here in the UK, there is a total ban on cigarette advertising in newspapers, magazines, and on TV and radio. The campaign didn't work.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

Actually, part of the crackdown was a limitation on advertising around that time. At first it was just television (and maybe radio). Print ads were still allowed, but they had to include big warning language. Billboards for cigarettes were still around into at least the 1980s as well.

So yeah, as far as the Magazine Publishers Association goes, it was probably about reduced revenue from tobacco advertising.

The funny thing to me about this ad is that Sunset is a regional lifestyle magazine for the West Coast with a generally progressive slant. Veiled threats of socialism would not be considered especially damning by a lot of that magazine's liberal readership.

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of this commercial (http://www.youtube.com/v/hWi7JI55G-c?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0) about how harrrrrrrrrrrrd it is to feed your family when the government wants to raise taxes on (expensive but nutrition-free) sugared soft drinks. The ad is from a group styling itself "Americans Against Food Taxes" -- really an astroturf organization of retailers and soft-drink companies including Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Canada Dry, Nehi Bottling Group, Dr Pepper-Snapple Group, Yum! Brands, and 7-Eleven, Inc.