Re: The Overthrow Of The American Republic

thanx, NL. i, too, have only lived in the US for 15 years. in school, i was considered one of those "gifted" kids, yet i felt something was missing in my education. it's interesting how gatto correlates the rewards by "stars & checks" under emotional dependency, to the full-fledged adult accepting the limitations given only 2 candidates to vote for.
another thing that occurred to me as i was reading the excerpt was bush's "leave no child behind". he purports to support the education of children, wanting all kids to have the ability to read by 6th grade, but the question remains - WHAT are the kids reading? a young friend of mine, in her early 20's, was arguing with me because i said i thought it was sad that kids weren't really taught history in school anymore. she said it's not really sad. i said, oh yeah, a few years ago, a co-worker didn't know who pocahontas was. the girl laughed and said "oh, you mean that Disney cartoon character?". i wanted to cry! if american kids don't even know american history, how can they be expected to know european history, or better yet, in this time, middle-eastern history? it really gets my goad when i hear "patriots" and "troop-supporters" resort to the old "we bailed your asses out in WWII" when speaking of the french. i usually ask them to check their history - who bailed the americans out in the revolutionary war, even though we had been previous enemies - hey, the french! without their help, america would very likely still be a british colony, and blair wouldn't have to cower under bush's "request for help", n'est ce pas?