Via Truthout: Henry A. Giroux | Memories of Hope in the Age of Disposability

Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: "My youth may be marked as the last time when young people could still experience the hope and support given to poor youth in the form of a social state that took the social contract somewhat seriously. While we may have lived in private hells, we never felt entirely demonized or shut out from the most basic social services. Nor did we feel that our troubles were simply private issues.... Politicians at either end of the political spectrum viewed youth as a social investment, even if it meant investing in some youth more than in others…. For many poor, white youth and youth of color today, the notion of solidarity and the sense of dependence and respect that marked my childhood are gone. Instead, America today is waging not only an immoral and unjust war abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also a more insidious high-intensity war at home against any viable notion of the social."

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