Reaction to "Stuff" Debate

It must be said: I love to argue. Even weirder, I love watching arguments; thus, seeing the uproar of Annie Leonard's video "The Story of Stuff" could not have made me happier. The Heritage Foundation, for example, showed their discontent toward the New York Times article profiling the 20-minute movie immediately - "in case you weren't reading the New York Times front page today, we wanted to point to you to an especially disturbing story." This conservative think-tank went on to spew that Leonard's message was, "the story of how America is not a nation to be proud of." The rest of the article, essentially, bad-mouthed Leonard and her "un-American ways". With this, I find a major contradiciton.

Leonard could not do anything more American than make the exact video she made. Sure, not everyone will agree with every fact, detail and proposal she made (including myself), but can we truly say that she is "un-American"? To me, making a strong statement for something you believe will only make this country better is not just American, but patriotic. It is apparent that Leonard believes strongly that her ideas will only make this country better, which is a great thing to add to the public discourse. Her leftist argument is well posed, and the right did not treat her patriotic remarks with the respect it deserved and merely started a smear campaign against her. I condemn the Heritage Foundation for simply attacking her instead of making a smart rebuttal, especially since they missed an excellent opportunity to add to the public discourse in this very important topic - which, in my opinion, is the main function of the media.

In this sense, I applaud the effort Steve Cohen. He, like the Heritage Foundation, did not accept Leonard's presentation, but he rebutted academically, with wit, and with actual counter proposals. For example, he says, "The world economy is so tightly interconnected that even the slight reduction in American consumption now underway has already increased misery here and around the world." This is completely different from Leonard's message, but he counteracts her argument with one of his own, instead of just putting her down without any academic backing. Also, he gives legitimacy to her film when he says, in the article that he is disagreeing with, "I urge you to take twenty minutes and watch it." (I added italics for emphasis) This is precisely the kind of debate this issue deserves, and this kind of discourse can only do more good than harm. Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation's blog is nothing more than a smear campaign and barely fit enough for toilet reading.

Hopefully, this kind of debate will receive more opponents like Cohen and Leonard - they can be leaders for their respective sides and lead the country down a path that can help make this country good again. Together, they are what it is to have freedom of speech in this country, and people like the Heritage Foundation abuse it to no end.