Dear Mr. President...

Dear President Barrack Obama,

I would like to start of by saying, "Thank You!" for taking the time to read this letter. It has come to my attention, through a media literacy class I attended at the University of Vermont, that the media is strongly affecting our culture, and not in a positive way. Millions of people are consumed by media through television, billboards, internet, and a variety of other advertising mechanisms every day. People are wasting away years of their life surfing the internet and watching TV, and who is to benefit from all of this? The answer is a minute percentage of the population.; people who control big corporations such as Disney and NBC. Although this may lead to an economic gain within our country, the truth is we are seriously harming our own people, culture, and environment.
In a book I recently read, titled, "Culture Jam", (I highly recommend it) the author states, "The moment you fail to understand why the natural world might have relevance in the day-to-day lives of human beings, you become, to quote my physics teacher, 'a lost ball in high weeds.' Abandon nature and you abandon your sense of the divine. More than that, you lose track of who you are." While I applaud you for your efforts concerning the environment we need to understand that we also need to take into consideration the reason for why we are consuming so much and creating such massive environmental destruction to the Earth. We are bombarded by media everyday telling us what we should wear, who we should be, and what we need to buy to be that way. It's the media that has created the consumption habits and unless we put a control on the media we are going to continue to see environmental catastrophe no matter how much of a cap we put on green house emissions and driving hybrid cars.
Education also plays a role in stopping this. Several countries in Europe and Australia have incorporated Media Literacy classes into their public education system because they have seen the detrimental affects it has had on American society. Did you know, 9 out of 10 girls thinks their is something wrong with the way they look? It's not because they are female, it's because the media tells them their is something wrong with their body. If they don't look like a Barbie doll then they will never match up to societies standards, therefore, in their minds, fail at life. Rates of eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia have sky-rocketed since the creation of advertising and mass media. Before mass media there was no one telling girls how they should look other than their peers and family.
While one may say, "well that is just a product of technology and there is nothing we can do about it", the truth is is that we can. We can put bans on ads promoting violence, sex, and drugs. Why do you think our country is plagued by rapists and pedofiles and why porn is one of the number one industries? We have raised human beings that are addicted to sex. Even potato chips ads use sex to sell and their is no reason why you need sex to sell a potato chip, especially since children and teens see these ads and eat these potato chips.
I guess the bottom line is that we need to fix what we have created. We know that the environment is being harmed because of our consumption habits but it has harmed us as well. We are not the same people we used to be. Our culture is changing. We need to stand up for our own country and for ourselves as human beings. Our country was founded on activism so why not take a step in the name of our ancestors. I am sure they would be pretty disappointed if they saw us now. In order to do this we need your help. We need governmental pressure to create massive awareness. We need to hit every home in America. There needs to be laws on the media and education in the schools. If we lose this battle, we will lose ourselves. As Kalle Lasn, the author of "Culture Jam" puts it, " The loss of a language, tradition, or heritage- or the forgetting of one good idea-is as a big loss to future generations as a biological species going extinct." Do you want this to happen?

Sincerely, a deeply concerned citizen,

Amber Imm