Christmas is killing the planet

This is my own conclusion after viewing "The Story of Stuff," by Annie Leonard--produced by Free Range Studios, who brought us "The Meatrix." Not that I have anything against the real Christmas. What terrifies the stuffing out of me is that we don't need to worry about terrorists as much as we do our own capitalistic society. Mass consumerism is devastating the planet to a much greater extent, and more quickly than all the so-called terrorist countries put together. Mass consumerism will get us faster than global warming, and I've seen enough change in my lifetime to notice.

It's us. We are gobbling up resources to the point that we are teetering on serious shortages. This is compounded by all the toxins that go into "stuff" gludging up the world. Toxic air, water, food, you get the idea.

I am not an alarmist. I've never uttered the phrase "The sky is falling" in my entire life. I am intelligent. I do read about and research controversial issues. So far, I've been able to sift the garbage from the truth, and never have trusted main-stream media as my own personal savior.

And spare me the "we need consumerism to support jobs, keep the economy strong" argument. That is utterly untrue and one of the three biggest piles of horse shit ever dumped on mankind (the other two being "We have to fight them over there to protect us over here," and "Don't worry, honey, I'll pull out in time.") I am living in a house built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930's. This program, under the Works Progress Administration created boodles of jobs, used local, natural materials with little or no extra chemicals, and were built so solidly they'll be standing for at least another hundred years or more. Many of our state parks were built and maintained by the CCC, and they're doing just fine. We could reduce our unemployment ranks to nothing by putting folks to work in alternative energy projects, sustainability projects, so many more intelligent, humane, healthy, SUCCESSful projects.

Annie Leonard is funny. Yep, you read that right. She's warm, and informed, and sings it out clear as a bell.

If you've not yet watched it, open another tab, copy and paste that url, sit back, learn, and enjoy! Here it is again: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120907E.shtml. Annie said it was OK to spread it around, so do it :)