The author reports on the appalling ignorance of ordinary Americans. He makes numerous statements that suggest that this is intentional, but fails to really delve into that dangerous topic, that is, dangerous for a liberal critic of capitalism. The following is as far as he is willing to go in that direction:
Today, it's a national disaster by design. So-called education reform's a fraud. It masks privatization schemes, a society of growing haves and have nots, and no desire to educate masses for low pay, low skill jobs if they can find one.It appears to me that most of his article focuses on blaming the victims--ordinary Americans.
All class structured societies function through some combination of violence and disinformation. The solution lies in efforts devoted to transforming such societies by establishing our own media, our own educational systems, and creating models that insure full participatory involvement of all citizens in social-economic arrangements. Given that capitalism is fast approaching ecological crises of profound consequences for human and other life forms, it is now urgent that such efforts being undertaken immediately. Now, more than ever, Francis Moore Lappé's statement must be heeded:
We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, Time for Progressives to Grow Up
