The Story Of Stuff, Reprise And Expansion

Almost two years ago, I blogged about a short online video by Annie Leonard called, 'The Story of Stuff'. It's basically a catchy little video about how eeeeevil America and capitalism are, how America and capitalism are destroying the world, and how scared you should be of what America and capitalism are doing all around you. It was created by far Left radicals for the purposes of indoctrinating people into anti-American and anti-capitalist positions and policies. If you haven't seen that post, I would highly encourage you to take a spin through the video and my rebuttal.

To my knowledge, mine was only the second extensive rebuttal that had been posted online at the time, and though fairly clumsy in places (I was still pretty new to blogging back then), I think it was a pretty decent piece of work. Apparently, a lot of people agreed, because that post has been one of the most -- if not the most -- frequently read posts on this entire blog, and I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from it.

In recent months, I've seen yet another spike of activity on that post. Here's why:

In case you weren’t reading the New York Times front page today, we wanted to point you to an especially disturbing story. The Times wrote about The Story of Stuff, “a 20-minute video about the effects of human consumption, [which] has become a sleeper hit in classrooms across the nation.” What classrooms? Very likely the school your child attends, since over 7,000 American schools or churches have ordered the DVD.

The Story of Stuff highlights the very extreme left’s Greenpeace view of America. Essentially it tells the story of how America is not a nation to be proud of, and in fact, your child should be ashamed for living in it. For example: after implying that the radios for sale in Radio Shack are assembled by 15 year olds in Mexico, and by purchasing one, you contribute to the exploitation of the third world and the eventual end of the Earth, the film’s creator and narrator Annie Leonard says:

So MY country’s response to this limitation is simply to go take somebody else’s. THIS is the third world. Which SOME would say, is another word for our stuff that somehow got on somebody else’s land. So what does that look like? The same thing, trashing the place. (capitalized emphasis ours)

Surely no child would immediately buy the notion that wanting toys or a radio at Radio Shack is contributing to the end of the Earth, do they? The New York Times reports:

“And many children who watch it take it to heart: riding in the car one day with his parents in Tacoma, Wash., Rafael de la Torre Batker, 9, was worried about whether it would be bad for the planet if he got a new set of Legos.”

Seven thousand schools or churches! That's a lot of indoctrination! So, it is even more important than ever that we as intelligent, thinking people understand the arguments put forward by liberal Leftists like Leonard & Co., and equip ourselves with the ability to blow them away.

Your own intelligence gives you a terrific start on doing that; my post gives you some more great information. I'd also like to post a video series from How the World Works that does an excellent job of critiquing 'The Story of Stuff':

Outstanding stuff!

This is not an inconsequential thing, if nothing else for the fact that thousands of kids in school are being forced to watch this piece of propaganda. The arguments Leonard spews are the corrosive acid that is eating away the foundation of the very things that made this country so prosperous and successful, and it is critically important that you sit down with your kids to watch this video and go over these rebuttals. Do it whether they have seen this video in school or not. If you equip them with the truth and the courage to think critically, the brainwashing will not stick.

Spend some time on this, and do it with your kids. Yes, it is that important.

There's my two cents.