Click here to access article by Henry A. Giroux from Uncommon Thought Journal.
This educator has written a lot about the deterioration of education under the onslaught of neoliberals and their ideology. He certainly identifies the deleterious effects that they have had on education. However, he falls far short of a fundamental critique that can liberate us from the juggernaut of capitalist control that is adversely affecting all of our lives, and is even now threatening to destroy conditions on our planet Earth that can sustain human life.
In this piece the liberal educator appears to pretend to be more radical than other liberals. Of course, the political spectrum in the US has shifted so far to the right that he is able to make such an argument. Because of his limited perspective, I hesitated to post this article on my website. However, social critics like this are given such wide exposure on the web that I thought that, once again, it is necessary to poke holes in it.
One of the first indications of his limited political perspective as expressed in this article was his criticisms of Obama. This is a fundamental error of political understanding that will lead many people to avoid a deeper, and more accurate, understanding of how capitalists rule today. I am referring to the existence of a ruling class that functions with a shadow government that essentially issues orders to their agents in the formal institutions. I have no idea if he does this deliberately as a ruling class ideological gatekeeper, or if he is blinded by his long immersion in capitalist institutions. (The same observation applies to Chris Hedges.)
He identifies the "evil doers" in today's society as mostly neoliberals, but also names the "corporate class", corporations, and "casino capitalism". However, it is clear that he only takes issue with the latest stage of capitalism--not capitalism itself--which has outgrown national boundaries and is now gone global. Thus, capitalists, who dominated much of the rest of world to favor their own national economies, have now abandoned their home nations, removed all boundaries inhibiting the flow of commerce, and now see the world as their oyster. The only purpose that their national bases provide for them is the supply of weapons and training for their military forces. Thus, the huge developments of the military-industrial complex in NATO countries, a police state with 24/7 surveillance of communications, austerity policies, and increasing corporate influence over all aspects of education (and all other institutions) to serve corporate needs about which Giroux is so knowledgeable.
