Politics, politics, always politics

I thought “The Story of Stuff” was well done, very powerful and brought up some very important points.
But that the debate surrounding it has, once again, taken a political turn.

I liked Steve Cohen’s article but there are a few things he says that bothered me. First, he mentions that the movie exposes problems without giving answer. But I thought it did give answers. It tells the audience, in the last 3 minutes or so, a list of things that can be done to work towards making our system circular instead of linear. Annie Leonard doesn’t go too much into details but I think she does so on purpose so that the audience can asks itself the question: “well then what can I do?” It’s for people to innovative and come up with original solutions. Solutions that have not yet been proposed.
Secondly he writes, "our survival depends on our ingenuity and our ability to develop and manage technological fixes" but as the video points out, more than a technological problem, there is an inherent problem in the socio-political system that shapes it. The people controlling the system are creating barriers to progress: problems of consumerism and obsolescence must be tackled first and foremost. If we just change technology half the problem still remains
He does make a good point though when he says that the lives of people in third world countries depend on the sustaining of our current consumption . But the idea exposed in the movie is not that all industries should be eradicated but that they must be replaced. So where jobs will disappear, new, less harmful jobs will form. "The answer to the “story of stuff” is not to shut down the economy, but change the way it operates."

As for the second article, the Heritage Foundation is a pro-capitalism conservative think tank, so even thought their answer shocked me at first, now that I think about it, it doesn’t surprise me at all. The author spends more time criticizing Annie Leonard’s political affiliation than the facts exposed in her movie. About the perceived obsolescence passage, the Heritage Foundation writes, "so when they don’t ask for new shoes this summer, it is because they have been scared into this extreme liberal way of thinking." For one thing, this point is ridiculous. I, myself, have a very strong memory of refusing to go to school when I was 7 or 8 years old because I had forgotten my new, trendy jacket at school and so had to wear my old one. And for another, politics and this “extreme liberal way of thinking” is not the point of the movie. The point of the movie is to open peoples’ eyes on what’s going on in the world and why we’re faced with a problem.

Of course the video is taking a political stance by saying companies should shrink and governments should be of the people and for the people but the idea its getting at is real. We are trashing the planet. Whether you are a conservative or a liberal, the state of the earth remains and something needs to be done.

p.s. it does disappoint me that Annie Leonard's 50% figure is wrong but, for one, the figure is probably not 20% either, but rather somewhere in between.. and for two, that's a 5 second mistake in a 20 minute movie. Not a Big Deal, just a good tool for people that want to discredit her.