What is wrong with America? Has she lost her way? In the season finale of Real Time with Bill Maher this past Friday, Maher made an excellent point about what ails America by referencing a bag of Sun Chips.
For those not familiar the story is as follows: in early 2009 Frito-Lay introduced a biodegradable packaging for Sun Chips. Made of completely plant-based material, the bag decomposed into dirt instead of remaining a bag of chips for five hundred years. A good idea, forward thinking, great PR, etc. etc. There was one hitch: this bag was damn loud, shockingly so. But who cares, right? In both the Pacific and Atlantic ocean swirls a Texas sized "island" of garbage, which certainly contains a bag of Sun Chips or two.
Shouldn't environmental thinking trump a loud potato chip bag? I guess not. Critics, from consumers to media commentators, descended: facebook groups and youtube videos sprouted up as a grassroots campaign against the loud bag took hold. Finally, on October 5th they pulled the packaging from America's shelves.
It seems that what should have been hailed as a beacon of progress, and a wonderful sign of a corporation taking some initiative, has been relegated to the world of corporate misstep. Worse, it seems that the selfish nature of individual Americans was on display in its truest form. As Maher put it,
"Of course we could have made the ultimate sacrifice and - I dunno - poured the chips into a bowl... Sidenote: in Canada, Sun Chips is keeping the non-earth raping bag, because they are not a nation of crack babies. They get it; that sometimes you have to give up small things in order to make the world a better place. Except in America, where 'have it your way' is the rule for everything, including volume on snacks. You think we're going to reform Social Security??? haha"
Sun Chips Canada took full advantage of this PR opportunity
The silver lining in this story is that, yes, Canadian shelves will remain stocked with this loud bag. As a Canadian, of course I am proud of our great sacrifice, ha! There has been a lot of talk of late about how this is Canada's moment (http://is.gd/hdzkx), after battling domestic issues for decades we are now at the fore-front of international envy. Our banks have been lauded as the most stable in the world by the World Economic Forum three years running (http://is.gd/hdBm5). We hosted a relatively successful Olympics this past winter. Et cetera. Are we perfect? Of course not. Far from it. But we are certainly in better shape than our neighbour to the south.
Thing is, we can't afford to ignore America's problems. Our greatest trading partner, best friend, and often times family, is in a near state of crisis. High unemployment, cumbersome national debt, a broken health care system, disastrous foreign policy, and a reeling economy; resulting in a broken and highly divisive political landscape. America's problems are quite large and threaten its position on top of the world. Worse, the electorate and politicians don't appear capable of getting anything done. Every election we see a sweeping shift in another direction. Imagine the cool kid being dethroned, with 300 million voices inside her head. They feel threatened as the number one country in the world, and with very good reason. Maybe the Sun Chips saga is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme. But Maher's point is that a solution to what ails America is impossible while American's are unwilling or unable to think of the bigger picture. And he is spot on.
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