A new propaganda video created by an extreme environmental activist is making its way into America's classrooms and The New York Times loves the whole idea. Enviro obsessive Annie Leonard, Greenpeace member and activist, has created a 20 minute video filled with anti-capitalist, anti-American propaganda to encourage kids to eschew "stuff," calling the presentation "The Story of Stuff."

Leonard's propaganda piece is so anti-American she even begins her video by saying that her "friends" say she should describe the United States by using the symbol of a military tank because "it's true in many countries and increasingly in our own." And why is a tank "increasingly" the symbol of the USA? Because "more than 50% of our federal tax money is going for our military." Naturally, this misleading propaganda doesn't mention that a large portion of that federal military spending ends up going to the weekly pay and health care of our soldiers, something apparently Ms. Leonard is against. She goes on to say that a government's job is to "take care of us, that's their job." Here she is trying to promote dependency and proves that she has no clue what a government is really for -- especially in the U.S. system.

Leonard also starts the intro of the piece off saying that "some people matter more than others" in an effort to impress on kids that "the system" is evil and that "some" people are of lesser value as far as our system is concerned. Again, this is a clear abrogation of the simple truth that everyone in the U.S. is equal under the law but that the individual's own abilities makes them what they are.

Naturally her symbol for "the corporation" is a bloated, fatcat with a top hat and a huge dollar sign on its stomach. Leonard claims that "the corporation looks bigger than the government because the corporation IS bigger than the government." Of course what is misleading with this is that the business community is not "the" corporation. There are many thousands of corporations world wide, so presenting business as an evil "the corporation" is starkly anti-capitalist, unrealistic and dangerously simplistic for kids.

Her second chapter is the "explanation" of what "extraction" is. Leonard calls extraction "a fancy word for natural resource exploitation, which is a fancy word for trashing the planet." Well, you can see where this is going, I am sure. From here every chapter shows how evil production, invention, capitalism, and economies are as kids are told that everything we eat, wear, and every tool we use is one more step toward destroying the planet.

Despite the fact that this is pure anti-American, anti-capitalist propaganda with no balance and no real economic or scientific truth, The New York Times celebrates this thing in its Sunday, May 10 piece. The Times story oos and ahs over this "sleeper hit" that has seeped into our nation's classrooms and is awed that it caused one little boy to wonder if he should want to buy a set of Lego toys because toys are now thought to be evil thanks to Leonard's film. Imagine frightening a kid so bad that he is afraid to want a toy! This is the level of zealotry we are talking about.

The Times is quite in love with the little film and makes sure to inform us that "educators" highly recommend it. "But many educators say the video is a boon to teachers as they struggle to address the gap in what textbooks say about the environment and what science has revealed in recent years," the Times assures us.

Still, at least the Times gave the other side of the story, though it did wait until the end of its coverage to do so. The last few paragraphs detail a single parent that stands against the video and reports of a school in Montana that has decided not to use the propaganda flick in its classrooms.

I would suggest that if you are a parent you find out quickly if this anti-American video is being shown in your schools without your knowledge. I am sure it is a "sleeper hit" because teachers of far left ideology are sneaking it into classrooms without alerting parents.

(Photo credit: Eros Hoagland for The New York Times)