The war on terror, rebranded under Obama as the "Overseas Contingency Operation," has morphed into war on democracy.
Henry GirouxA symptomatic example of the way in which violence has saturated everyday life can be seen in the increased acceptance of criminalizing the behavior of young people in public schools. Behaviors that were normally handled by teachers, guidance counselors and school administrators are now dealt with by the police and the criminal justice system.
Henry GirouxWhether we're talking about the New Deal or the Great Society: they didn't come about because they wanted to buy people off with "hush money." They were the outcomes of struggles. They were the outcomes, in the 1930s, of a viable socialist-communist movement. They were the outcomes of a viable workers' movement. FDR didn't give in because he wanted to shut people up, he gave in because he was under pressure. He had no choice.
Henry GirouxThe historical legacies of resistance to racism, militarism, privatization and panoptical surveillance have long been forgotten and made invisible in the current assumption that Americans now live in a democratic, post-racial society.
Henry GirouxI mean, think of Flint. I mean, think of the lead poisoning of thousands of poor and black children across the United States.
Henry GirouxThe production of knowledge in schools today is instrumental, wedded to objective outcomes, privatized, and is largely geared to produce consuming subjects. The organizational structures that make such knowledge possible enact serious costs on any viable notion of critical education and critical pedagogy. Teachers are deskilled, largely reduced to teaching for the test, business culture organizes the governance structures of schooling, knowledge is viewed as a commodity, and students are treated reductively as both consumers and workers.
Henry Giroux