The only sensible part of Friedman's crappy column

I wonder if Thomas Friedman outsourced his column :-)  It was a whole lotta blah, blah and blah.  What was the only sensible part?  His statement (not an argument, because of all the blahs) for "So what do we do?":

The standard answer is that we need better leaders. The real answer is that we need better citizens. We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things. Otherwise, folks, we’re in trouble.

I agree with him here.  If only people will forget that no president or governor can be the game-changer and that, in fact, the constitution divvies up the powers so well that the power really lies only with the people.  But, if we doze off, well, then that is what we deserve.

My classes are wonderful examples of this.  (Not about dozing!)  When I present students with the petroleum issues--who the exporters are, and how anti-democratic most are--they immediately see how our oil consumption then ends up supporting those nutcases.  If more citizens understood this concept, well, not only will we be better off, the entire planet will be better off.  And oil is only one such issue ....

Power to the people, indeed.