Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Book review of ‘Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir’ by Joe Bageant

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, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Book review of ‘Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir’ by Joe Bageant – So different yet so familiar

by William Bowles from Creative-i.

This is a great review of a recently published book by Joe Bageant who writes about some of the most victimized Americans--ordinary people he grew up with in the heartland of the USA.

...over the past two hundred-plus years of capitalism rampant, Joe’s experience is the third such auto-destruction to take place in the so-called developed world, where entire cultures and communities have been erased from the face of the earth. All in the name of ‘progress’ of course as capital yet again must revolutionize the means of production or die.

And as Bowles correctly observes, Bageant's book makes an important contribution because it...

explains in part why so many people can be screwed over and over again and yet never revolt. The other part is the simple fact that they are mostly illiterate and deliberately under-educated, fed on a diet which is literally killing them physically and mentally.