Beyond the Limits of Neoliberal Higher Education: Global Youth Resistance and the American/British Divide

                                 ***THIS IS A MUST READ***

Clearly, any institution that makes a claim to literacy, critical dialogue, informed debate, and reason is now a threat to a political culture in which ignorance; stupidity, lies, misinformation, and appeals to the common sense have become the only currency of exchange. And this seems to apply as well to the dominant media.
 How else to explain the widespread public support for politicians in the United States such as Herman Cain, who is as much of a buffoon as he is an exemplary symbol of illiteracy and ignorance in the service of the political spectacle. If fact, one can argue reasonably that the entire slate of presidential Republican Party candidates extending from Rick Santorum to Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann embody not simply a rejection of science, evidence, informed argument, and other elements associated with the Enlightenment, but a deep seated disdain and hatred for any vestige of a critical mind. Ignorance now replaces knowledge and impotence with power. Almost every position they take harks back to a pre-Enlightenment period when faith and cruelty ruled the day and ignorance became the modus operandi for legitimating political and ethical impotence. . . the value of higher education is now tied exclusively to the need for credentials. critical thinking has been devalued as a result of the growing corporatization of higher education. . . critical thinking has been devalued as a result of the growing corporatization of higher education. . . The current right-wing politics of illiteracy, exploitation, and cruelty can no longer hide in the cave of ignorance, legitimated by their shameful accomplices in the dominant media.

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Phil Ochs: The Ringing of Revolution


Phil wrote this song in 1st person, telling the story of the last of the bourgeois during a revolution, very creative and inspiring song.

In a building of gold, with riches untold,
lived the families on which the country was founded.
And the merchants of style, with their red velvet smiles,
were there, for they also were hounded.
And the soft middle class crowded in to the last,
for the building was fully surrounded.
And the noise outside was the ringing of revolution.

Sadly they stared and sank in their chairs
and searched for a comforting notion.
And the rich silver walls looked ready to fall
As they shook in doubtful devotion.
The ice cubes would clink as they freshened their drinks,
wet their minds in bitter emotion.
And they talked about the ringing of revolution.

We were hardly aware of the hardships they beared,
for our time was taken with treasure.
Oh, life was a game, and work was a shame,
And pain was prevented by pleasure.
The world, cold and grey, was so far away
In the distance only money could measure.
But their thoughts were broken by the ringing of revolution.

The clouds filled the room in darkening doom
as the crooked smoke rings were rising.
How long will it take, how can we escape
Someone asks, but no one’s advising.
And the quivering floor responds to the roar,
In a shake no longer surprising.
As closer and closer comes the ringing of revolution.

Softly they moan, please leave us alone
As back and forth they are pacing.
And they cover their ears and try not to hear
With pillows of silk they’re embracing.
And the crackling crowd is laughing out loud,
peeking in at the target they’re chasing.
Now trembling inside the ringing of revolution.

With compromise sway we give in half way
When we saw that rebellion was growing.
Now everything’s lost as they kneel by the cross
Where the blood of christ is still flowing.
To late for their sorrow they’ve reached their tomorrow
and reaped the seed they were sowing.
Now harvested by the ringing of revolution.

In tattered tuxedos they faced the new heroes
and crawled about in confusion.
And they sheepishly grinned for their memories were dim
of the decades of dark execution.
Hollow hands were raised; they stood there amazed
in the shattering of their illusions.
As the windows were smashed by the ringing of revolution.

Down on our knees we’re begging you please,
We’re sorry for the way you were driven.
There’s no need to taunt just take what you want,
and we’ll make amends, if we’re living.
But away from the grounds the flames told the town
that only the dead are forgiven.
As they vanished inside the ringing of revolution.

Mason Crumpacker and the Hitchens Reading List

When Christopher Hitchens got the Dawkins Award in Houston, I posted the following report from Chron.com: Though [Hitchens] was asked a variety of questions from the audience, none appeared to elicit more interest than the one asked by eight-year-old Mason Crumpacker, who wanted to know what books she should read. In response, Hitchens first asked where her mother was and the girl indicated that she was siting beside her. He then asked to see them once the presentation was over so that he could give her a list.

As the event drew to a close, Mason and her mom, Anne Crumpacker of Dallas, followed him out. Surrounded by attendees wanting a glance of the famed author, Hitchens sat on a table just outside of the ballroom and spent about 15 minutes recommending books to Mason.

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Judgment Day: Intelligent Design On Trial (Creationism vs. Evolution) – Full NOVA Documentary


In this award-winning documentary, NOVA captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools. Featuring trial reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants, including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers, and town officials, “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” follows the celebrated federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District.

Christopher Hitchens Night: A Review

“I’m not as I was,” Christopher Hitchens poignantly remarked recently. Afflicted by oesophageal cancer and, now, pneumonia, Hitchens, who I interviewed for the New Statesman last year, was too ill to appear in conversation with Stephen Fry at the Royal Festival Hall in London last night. But rather than cancelling the event, the organisers assembled an extraordinary selection of Hitchens’s comrades and friends to pay tribute to the great essayist and polemicist.
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PZ Myers: This is why I hate college football programs

I know, students enjoy them, and a weekend of sports can be a fun event, and yes, they do have a strong effect on college enrollments (which always seemed bizarre to me—students actually select their academic institution based on the performance of the athletic team? But the correlations in the enrollment/season wins data all bear it out). But they also turn into hyper-inflated domains of privilege, where the coaches are paid more than faculty, students and alumni vividly demonstrate the etymological source of the term “fan”, and the athletes too often turn into swaggering assholes. Can we just have small athletic programs where it’s all for fun, and no one makes the games more important than the academics?
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