hi, Stacey

 

first, there is no such thing as a lowly student -- despite what you may have been lead to believe by people calling themselves professors, so feel free to reject that moniker.

 

second, i certainly agree with Dave's assessment; i have been doing change work for some time and you do get worn down. i also think that there is a "fear" factor of either direct or indirect sanctions for delving too deeply into "politicized" material. i have recently submitted a request for our college's book-in-common to adopt Naomi Wolf's new text on The End of America. i haven't heard anything yet, and am most curious to see what the outcome will be. i debated about whether to submit it as a recommendation and then decided that i would, screw the outcome. i feel absolutely fine in doing so and would love an opportunity to respond to any challenges from my colleagues about the appropriateness of it.

 

i can't help but wonder if the "masses" are not really waiting for someone of substance to stand up and just say, "what you have been hearing for some time is complete crap" -- i believe that many people already are thinking this, but no one that can be trusted has made such an announcement (i exclude virtually all politicians from the category of trusted people). one of the reasons that i enjoy teaching at the college level (and especially at community college level) is that most young(er) people haven't been conditioned into the ignorance that Dave spoke of yet; they are on their way, but the conditioning has not been as complete. as such, i think that they have an easier time seeing the hypocrisy than old(er) people do. as one of those older people, i am happy to confirm their observations. as noted, i think that there are millions of people with those same observations, but no one has really condensed the issues in such a way for people to verbalize their outrage.

 

certainly impeachment proceedings would be a help, but again, we are relying on politicians to "do the right thing" -- i am not holding my breath.

 

john