Tag Archives: education

Henry Giroux and Nate Bellinger

Today’s show is in two parts. First, longtime friend of Forthright Radio, scholar, public intellectual, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest, and The Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy, Henry Giroux, joins us again to discuss many issues facing our nation and the world – from the increasing militarization of America at home and on the seas, to the young people he teaches who are rising to the challenges of becoming effective cultural producers in this era unlike any in human history.

In the last part of the show Nate Bellinger, Our Children’s Trust’s Supervising Senior Staff Attorney, shares with us about the latest in the recent federal district court decision that Federal District Dourt Judge Dana Christenson rendered on October 16, 2025, in the Lighthiser v Trump case, and their on-going legal efforts representing their youth plaintiffs suing for a livable climate.

The link to read the students’ Public Intellectuals Project essays Henry Giroux mentioned in our interview: https://publicintellectualsproject.humanities.mcmaster.ca

In the KZYX pledge drive show, we read this poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

Talk

You’re a brave man they tell me.
I’m not.
Courage has never been my quality.
Only I thought it disproportionate
so to degrade myself as others did.
No foundations trembled. My voice
no more than laughed at pompous falsity;
I did no more than write, never denounced,
I left out nothing I had thought about,
defended who deserved it, put a brand
on the untalented, the ersatz writers
(doing what anyhow had to be done).
And now they press to tell me that I’m brave.
How sharply our children will be ashamed
taking at last their vengeance for these horrors
remembering how in so strange a time
common integrity could look like courage.

by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Translated by Robin Milner-Galland and Peter Levi

Articles pertinent to these interviews:

Stephen Miller and the Making of the Fascist Subject https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/17/stephen-miller-and-the-making-of-the-fascist-subject/

Trump’s America: Echoes of a Fascist Past https://socialistproject.ca/2025/10/trumps-america-echoes-fascist-past/

Pedagogies of Repression: Ford, Trump and the War on Education https://socialistproject.ca/2025/09/pedagogies-of-repression/

Charlie Kirk’s Death Is a Symptom of a National Political Culture in Crisis https://truthout.org/articles/charlie-kirks-death-is-a-symptom-of-a-national-political-culture-in-crisis/

Trump’s Theater of Cruelty: Fascism’s Malignant Return https://www.laprogressive.com/immigration-reform/theater-of-cruelty

The Democratic Party: Architects of Cowardice, Accomplices to Fascism https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/08/the-democratic-party-architects-of-cowardice-accomplices-to-fascism/

The War on Memory: How Trump’s Cultural Erasure Threatens Democracy in the U.S. and Canada https://www.laprogressive.com/democracy/trumps-cultural-erasure-threatens-canadian-democracy

Plastic surgeons wrestle with requests for ‘Mar-a-Lago face’: ‘You’re going to look like Maleficent’ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/18/mar-a-lago-face-plastic-surgery

Trump’s Warfare State: Domestic Terrorism and Spectacular Violence https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/29/domestic-terrorism-and-spectacularized-violence-in-trumps-warfare-state/

Resisting the Deadly Language of American Fascism https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/11/resisting-the-deadly-language-of-american-fascism/

A Broad Wave of Firings Followed Charlie Kirk’s Assassination https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/us/kirk-critics-fired-free-speech.html

New Trump Order Among ‘Scariest Things I’ve Seen in US Politics,’ Civil Rights Attorney Says https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-vigilante-portal

Kamala Harris Thinks Trump Is a “Communist.” That’s Insane. https://jacobin.com/2025/09/harris-newsom-trump-communist-oligarchy

‘An unworkable request:’ Federal judge dismisses climate lawsuit https://dailymontanan.com/2025/10/16/an-unworkable-request-federal-judge-dismisses-climate-lawsuit/

The Kids Who Sued Trump Just Lost Big in Court. Or Did They? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/climate/climate-lawsuit-children-montana-trump-health.html

Judge Throws Out Children’s Lawsuit Against Trump’s Energy Policies https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/climate/montana-youth-trump-climate-lawsuit-dismissed.html

Young Activists Say 3 Trump Orders Violate Constitutional Rights https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/climate/lighthiser-trial-climate-trump.html?searchResultPosition=2

Young People Suing Trump Over Climate Have Their Day in Federal Court https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/climate/montana-lawsuit-trump-executive-orders-energy.html

Hawaii Settles With Young Plaintiffs in Climate Case https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/climate/hawaii-youth-climate-lawsuit.html

Youth Climate Activists Get Major Win in Montana Supreme Court https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/climate/held-montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html

Bruce Gourley Americans United for Separation of Church and State

This edition of Forthright Radio marks the 20th anniversary of the first program that day after Thanksgiving in 2004. I am deeply grateful to Mendocino County Public Broadcasting, KZYXfm, and all the listeners who support community radio, for having given me the opportunity to host and produce Forthright Radio.

Bruce Gourely is an historian specializing in American History and the editor of Church & State magazine, the publication of Washington D.C. based Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He is an award winning author and photographer. Among his nine books are Crucible of Faith and Freedom: Baptists and the American Civil War; Diverging Loyalties: Baptists in Middle Georgia During the American Civil War. He also owns and operates the website, Yellowstone.net.

I recently had the opportunity to hear Bruce Gourely speak right after the recent election, and I immediately invited him to share his thoughts as an historian and a person dedicated to to preserving our First Amendment rights to help prepare us for what will surely be challenging times ahead. We spoke with him on November 19th, 2024 in the Beyond the Deep End studio.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

From the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s ‘Body of Liberties’ to today’s ‘Moms for Liberty’: A brief history of the anti-freedom parental rights movement https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/from-the-massachusetts-bay-colonys-body-of-liberties-to-todays-moms-for-liberty-a-brief-history-of-the-anti-freedom-parental-rights-movement/

Supreme theocrats: The anti-freedom, anti-life, biblical worldview of the Christian Nationalist majority on the nation’s highest court https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/supreme-theocrats-the-anti-freedom-anti-life-biblical-worldview-of-the-christian-nationalist-majority-on-the-nations-highest-court/

Legislating inequality: The Christian Confederate roots of Project 2025 https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/legislating-inequality-the-christian-confederate-roots-of-project-2025/

The passing of Pat Schroeder reminds us how far we’ve come https://gazette.com/politics/pat-schroeder-women-trailblazer/article_a09b6882-c38f-11ed-82ef-833044f03ea3.html

““The women in Congress had to wage virtually every battle alone,” Schroeder wrote in her memoir of those early years, “whether we were fighting for female pages (there were none) or a place where we could pee.”
That’s right. For many years, women didn’t have a bathroom off the House floor like the men did. When Schroeder was there, women were forced to use the restroom inside the women’s reading room far off on another floor. Female members of the House didn’t get a women’s bathroom off the House floor until 2011.”

Education or indoctrination? As public schools go back into session, Americans United fights a rising tide of state-sponsored religion https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/education-or-indoctrination-as-public-schools-go-back-into-session-americans-united-fights-a-rising-tide-of-state-sponsored-religion/

Federal Judge Blocks Louisiana Law Requiring Ten Commandments in Classrooms https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/us/louisiana-ten-commandments-ruling.html?searchResultPosition=

Thou shalt not bear false witness https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/thou-shalt-not-bear-false-witness/

Texas Education Board Backs Curriculum With Lessons Drawn From Bible https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/us/texas-bible-curriculum-public-schools.html

Abortion clinics can stay open; judge extends block on license requirement for now https://dailymontanan.com/2024/11/18/abortion-clinics-can-stay-open-judge-extends-block-on-license-requirement-for-now/

Judge strikes down Wyoming’s anti-abortion laws in victory for rights advocates https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/19/wyoming-anti-abortion-laws-struck-down-pills

As nuns disappear, many Catholic hospitals look more like megacorporations https://dailymontanan.com/2024/11/17/as-nuns-disappear-many-catholic-hospitals-look-more-like-megacorporations/

Judge hears case over Montana rule blocking trans residents from changing sex on birth certificate https://montanafreepress.org/2024/11/15/judge-hears-case-over-montana-rule-blocking-trans-residents-from-changing-sex-on-birth-certificate/

Voters Poised to Reject Private School Vouchers in Three States https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/us/private-school-funding-election-rejection.html

Trump Wants to Shut Down the Department of Education? Is That Possible? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/us/shut-down-department-of-education-trump.html

Colorado parolee who refused to take part in Christian worship wins settlement https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/colorado-parolee-who-refused-to-take-part-in-christian-worship-wins-settlement/

Supreme Court abortion ruling fails to provide protection, AU says https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/supreme-court-abortion-ruling-fails-to-provide-protection-au-says/

‘Partisan politics’: how efforts to overturn the Johnson amendment could upend campaign finance https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/14/johnson-amendment-campaign-finance

Christian Nationalist Podcasters Want to Take Over Tennessee County https://www.newsweek.com/christian-nationalists-plans-community-tennessee-county-1987879

Revealed: trans rights case at US supreme court features doctors previously discredited by judges https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/21/supreme-court-trans-rights-doctors-testimonies-bias

Trump’s Pentagon pick Hegseth wrote of US military taking sides in ‘civil war’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/22/trump-defense-secretary-pete-hegseth-book

Republican bathroom bill targets Congress’s first transgender member https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/19/sarah-mcbride-congress-bathroom-bill-transgender

A lawsuit of biblical proportions: Americans United representing parents, students, teachers and clergy in challenge to Oklahoma state superintendent’s plan to force Bibles into public schools https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/a-lawsuit-of-biblical-proportions-americans-united-representing-parents-students-teachers-and-clergy-in-challenge-to-oklahoma-state-superintendents-plan-to-force-bibles-into-public-schools/

Oklahoma Students Mandated To Watch Video Announcing New Religious Department https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bc-us-religious-freedom-office-oklahoma_n_6738e2bae4b0520a467732ca

Louisiana students who were sent to church will be able to pursue legal action https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/louisiana-students-who-were-sent-to-church-will-be-able-to-pursue-legal-action/

Opinion analysis: Court rules that religious schools cannot be excluded from state funding for private schools https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/06/opinion-analysis-court-rules-that-religious-schools-cannot-be-excluded-from-state-funding-for-private-schools/

South Carolina Supreme Court strikes down school voucher plan https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/south-carolina-supreme-court-strikes-down-school-voucher-plan/

Amanda Jones THAT LIBRARIAN: The Fight Against Book Banning in America

What if you attended your local small town public library board meeting to speak out against book censorship and soon found your reputation smeared by people from an entirely different county with lurid and untrue allegations that go viral, alleging that you advocate teaching anal sex to 11 year olds?

That’s what happened in July of 2022 to award winning Middle School librarian, Amanda Jones, which she writes about in her forthcoming book, THAT LIBRARIAN: THE FIGHT AGAINST BOOK BANNING IN AMERICA. Among her many awards are the 2021 School Librarian of the Year and the 2023 American Association of School Librarians’ Intellectual Freedom Award, as well as the American Library Association’s Paul Howard Award for Courage.

The group who singled her out of the thirty or so other people who spoke against book censorship at that Livingston Parish public library meeting, is Citizens for a New Louisiana, whose leader is Michael Lunsford. His confederate, Ryan Thames, operates the Facebook page, “Bayou State of Mind,” which posted mean, fallacious memes about her repeatedly, so she sued them for defamation of character.

We spoke with Amanda Jones on July 5, 2024 via Skype, but before we share our conversation, we begin with what she actually said on July 22, 2022, that made her the focus of the ire of reactionary, Christian Nationalist agitators.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

Librarian Fired in Books Dispute to Receive $700,000 Settlement https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/us/wyoming-library-settlement-book-bans-terri-lesley.html

2021 School Librarian of the Year Amanda Jones Keeps Fighting, Files Appeal of Court Decision http://2021 School Librarian of the Year Amanda Jones Keeps Fighting, Files Appeal of Court Decision

Georgia lawsuit challenges anti-LGBTQ+ book bans over ‘real harms’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/03/georgia-lawsuit-book-bans

Arkansas Law Criminalizing Librarians Ruled Unconstitutional https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-us-book-ban-librarians_n_6769ee23e4b04743daf033a9

Florida 7-year-old compelled to testify in book ban lawsuit https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/23/florida-book-ban-child-testify-00170618

What Was the First Banned Book in History? https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-was-the-first-banned-book-in-history?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Trump and Project 2025 are attacking the Department of Education. How might they reshape US schools? https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jul/04/trump-project-2025-heritage-foundation-education-department

How a Patriotic Painting Became the Internet’s Soap Box https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/style/norman-rockwell-freedom-of-speech-meme.html

Your Religious Values Are Not American Values https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/04/opinion/christian-nationalist-religion-america.html

Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Requires Public Schools to Teach the Bible https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/us/oklahoma-public-schools-bible.html

Young girl faints as Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signs controversial Ten Commandments bill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_XBSWQwyMQ

Louisiana now requires the 10 Commandments to be displayed in classrooms. It’s not the only terrifying state law https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/commandments-louisiana-laws-religion-republicans-b2572077.html

Featured image of Amanda Jones above: Emily Kask/NBC News

Randy Fertel WINGING IT: Improv’s Power & Peril in the Time of Trump

Randy Fertel is a writer and philanthropist dedicated to the arts, education, New Orleans, and the environment. His philanthropy includes as the President of the Fertel Foundation supporting a number of causes, including The New Orleans Edible Schoolyard, Artist Corps New Orleans, YAYA (that’s Young Artists, Young Aspirations), and The Ridenhour Prizes, which recognize and encourage those who persevere in acts of truth-telling that protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society.

The prizes memorialize the spirit of Ron Ridenhour, the Vietnam veteran who wrote a letter to Congress and the Pentagon in 1969 describing the horrific events at My Lai, the infamous massacre of the Vietnam War, bringing the scandal to the attention of the American public and the world. Ridenhour went on to become an investigative journalist, and his extraordinary life and career exemplified the fearless truth-telling which the eponymous prizes now recognize. The 2024 recipients are Emma  Pildes and Tia Lessin for their documentary film, The Janes; Congressman Jamie Raskin received The Courage Prize; and The Truth Telling Prize went to Dawn Wooten, the nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center Immigration Facility in Georgia, who filed a whistleblower complaint in September 2020 after being demoted for raising concerns about inadequate medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic and non-consensual gynecological procedures performed on women in detention. Her claims have been verified by a Senate subcommittee, ICE records, and independent medical experts. If it were not for her disclosures, women in immigrant detention would still be at risk of undergoing unnecessary, non-consensual surgeries there. However, Ms. Wooten, a single mother of five, faces ongoing retaliation.

Additionally, The Fertel Foundation organized Dutch Dialogues. South Louisiana, like the Netherlands, must adapt to the threats inherent to living in a subsiding delta. The Dutch Dialogues workshops brought together Dutch engineers, urban designers, landscape architects, city planners and soils/hydrology experts together with their Louisiana counterparts to explore whether Dutch approaches to water management, landscape architecture, flood protection and urban design were relevant to New Orleans as it recovered from Hurricane Katrina.

But More pertinent to this edition of Forthright Radio are his Improv Conferences NOLA, inspired by his life-long fascination with improvisation.
Randy Fertel’s earlier books include, A Taste for Chaos: The Art of Literary Improvisation and The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir. His most recent book is WINGING IT: IMPROV’S POWER AND PERIL IN THE TIME OF TRUMP, just published by Spring Publications.

We spoke with him via Skype on April 9, 2024.

Articles & videos pertinent to this interview:

Inventing Improv: A Chicago Stories Special Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQLIS1ZeNgw

‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes

What War by A.I. Actually Looks Like https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/opinion/war-ai-israel-gaza-ukraine.html

Daniel Kahneman, Who Plumbed the Psychology of Economics, Dies at 90 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/daniel-kahneman-dead.html

Blender/ The Spanish Inquisition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKcuVQ8dA7c

Henry Giroux -The Terror of the Unforeseen

“Power is never so overwhelming that there’s no room for resistance.” Henry Giroux

In this interview with Professor Henry Giroux, we discuss his latest book, THE TERROR OF THE UNFORESEEN, published by LARB Provocations, from The Los Angeles Review of Books. Just the latest of over 65 books he has written.

Henry Giroux is the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest & The Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. The Toronto Star has named him one of the 12 Canadians Changing the Way We Think. He has also been named in Routledge’s Key Guides as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period. He is on the editorial and advisory boards of numerous national and international scholarly journals. He is on the Board of Directors for Truthout.

Henry Giroux is a regular contributor to a number of online journals including Truthout, Truthdig, and CounterPunch. He has published in journals including Social Text, Third Text, Cultural Studies, Harvard Educational Review, Theory, Culture, & Society, and Monthly Review.

His primary research areas are: cultural studies, youth studies, critical pedagogy, popular culture, media studies, social theory, and the politics of higher and public education. He is particularly interested in what he calls the war on youth, the corporatization of higher education, the politics of neoliberalism, the assault on civic literacy and the collapse of public memory, public pedagogy, the educative nature of politics, and the rise of various youth movements across the globe.

Articles cited in this interview:

History Holds the Antidote to Trump’s Fascist Politics https://www.truthdig.com/articles/history-holds-the-antidote-to-trumps-fascist-politics/

As Ilhan Omar Said, Trump Is a Fascist — and His Rallies Prove It https://truthout.org/articles/as-ilhan-omar-said-trump-is-a-fascist-and-his-rallies-prove-it/

Trump’s race-baiting rallies echo a dark past https://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/9548102-trump-s-race-baiting-rallies-echo-a-dark-past/?fbclid=iwar2ddin-vvf0layxzxiowidbsrkpj0oqk8l7zxgomemfvwnp-uaht5xvyzc

How ignorance lost its innocence https://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/9505301-how-ignorance-lost-its-innocence/

Against the dictatorship of ignorance in the age of Donald Trump: Parts 1 & 2

https://www.salon.com/2019/05/18/against-the-dictatorship-of-ignorance-in-the-age-of-donald-trump-part-1-of-2/ https://www.salon.com/2019/05/19/against-the-dictatorship-of-ignorance-in-the-age-of-trump-part-2-we-can-still-fight-back/

If Classrooms Are “Free of Politics,” the Right Wing Will Grow https://truthout.org/articles/if-classrooms-are-free-of-politics-the-right-wing-will-grow/

Pedagogical Terrorism and Hope in the age of Fascist Politics https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/10/pedagogical-terrorism-and-hope-in-the-age-of-fascist-politics/

Rethinking the Normalization of Fascism in the Post-Truth Era https://www.tikkun.org/rethinking-the-normalization-of-fascism-in-the-post-truth-era

The Ghost of Fascism in the Post-Truth Era https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/22/the-ghost-of-fascism-in-the-post-truth-era/

Insisting on Resistance in an Age of Ignorance https://www.truthdig.com/articles/insisting-on-resistance-in-an-age-of-ignorance/

SF Board of Supervisors declare National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist organization https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-Board-of-Supervisors-NRA-domestic-terrorists-14411936.php

The media has become gossip, clickbait and punditry. This threatens democracy https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/27/bernie-sanders-media-democracy

Twitter Wits Go Bonkers Over ‘Trump Gibberish’ That ‘Media Is Destroying The Free Press’ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-gibberish-twitter-reacts-media-destroying-free-press_n_5d620682e4b0b59d2575c3c7

These Fascists Inadvertently Raised Over $35,000 For A Cause They Hate https://www.huffpost.com/entry/portland-fascists-donations-latino-immigrants_n_5d624b7fe4b0dfcbd48eae54

The myth of the free speech crisis https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/03/the-myth-of-the-free-speech-crisis

Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom-enemy-donald-trump

Violence in the name of Trump Dozens of supporters of Donald Trump have carried out or threatened acts of violence. Here, the Guardian lists them all https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/aug/28/in-the-name-of-trump-supporters-attacks-database

US teacher strikes generated victories. So why are they ready to strike again? https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/aug/29/us-teacher-strikes-generated-victories-so-why-are-they-ready-to-strike-again

Billionaires v teachers: the Koch brothers’ plan to starve public education https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/07/arizona-fight-koch-brothers-school-vouchers

A teachable moment: educators must join students in demanding climate justice https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/30/climate-strike-teachers-students-greta-thunberg

To rescue democracy, we must revive the reforms of the Progressive Era https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/30/democracy-capitalism-progressive-era-gilded-age

Henry Giroux – Democracy in Exile

“It is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and the crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.” from A Democracy in Exile Fights Against Fascism

In this edition of Forthright Radio, we welcome back Professor Henry Giroux, who holds the McMaster University’s Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department, and who is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. He is a prolific author and journalist. His books -more than 65 – include AMERICA AT WAR WITH ITSELF; DISPOSABLE FUTURES: VIOLENCE IN THE AGE OF SPECTACLE; HEARTS OF DARKNESS: TORTURING CHILDREN IN THE WAR ON TERROR; ZOMBIE POLITICS AND CULTURE IN THE AGE OF CASINO CAPITALISM, and THE VIOLENCE OF ORGANIZED FORGETTING.

Articles by Professor Giroux cited in this interview include:

A Democracy in Exile Fights Against Fascism https://truthout.org/articles/a-democracy-in-exile-fights-against-fascism/

Trump’s Racist Language of Pollution Drives His Neoliberal Fascism https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-racist-language-of-pollution-drives-his-neoliberal-fascism/

Striking Teachers Beat Back Neoliberalism’s War on Public Schools https://truthout.org/articles/striking-teachers-beat-back-neoliberalism-s-war-on-public-schools/

Neoliberal Fascism and the Echoes of History https://www.truthdig.com/articles/neoliberal-fascism-and-the-echoes-of-history/

Henry A. Giroux on Developing a Language of Liberation for Radical Transformation https://truthout.org/articles/henry-a-giroux-on-developing-a-language-of-liberation-for-radical-transformation/

Trump’s act of state terrorism against children https://theconversation.com/trumps-act-of-state-terrorism-against-children-98612

Neoliberalism in the Age of Pedagogical Terrorism https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/22/neoliberalism-in-the-age-of-pedagogical-fascism/

Killing Children in the Age of Disposability: The Parkland Shooting Was About More Than Gun Violence https://truthout.org/articles/killing-children-in-the-age-of-disposability-the-parkland-shooting-was-about-more-than-gun-violence/

Education as a Weapon of Struggle: Rethinking the Parkland Uprising in the Age of Mass Violence https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/26/education-as-a-weapon-of-struggle-rethinking-the-parkland-uprising-in-the-age-of-mass-violence/

Donald Trump’s fascist politics and the language of disappearance https://www.salon.com/2018/11/18/donald-trumps-fascist-politics-and-the-language-of-disappearance/

Henry Giroux – American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism

In this edition of Forthright Radio, originally broadcast on June 6, 2018, our guest is McMaster University Professor, Henry Giroux, who has been our guest numerous times over the years. His latest book, which just came out from City Lights Publishing, is American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism. It is A far-ranging critique of the rise of authoritarianism and white nationalism in the US, and the consequences for democracy.

Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest. He is a prolific writer of books, sometimes more than one a year, and articles which appear in numerous online and print publications, as well as scholarly journals. His books include: AMERICA AT WAR WITH ITSELF; DISPOSABLE FUTURES: VIOLENCE IN THE AGE OF SPECTACLE; Hearts of Darkness: Torturing Children in the War on Terror (Paradigm, 2010); Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism, THE VIOLENCE OF ORGANIZED FORGETTING and many, many others.

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” Hannah Arendt

Henry Giroux: America At War With Itself

In this interview, we welcome back Henry Giroux, public intellectual, prolific writer, cultural critic, scholar and one of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy. He has spent a lifetime asking & analyzing important, hard, even scary questions such as these, which I quote from his essay, Thinking Dangerously: The Role of Higher Education in Authoritarian Times (http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/41058-thinking-dangerously-the-role-of-higher-education-in-authoritarian-times):

“What happens to democracy when the president of the United States labels critical media outlets as ‘enemies of the people,’ and disparages the search for truth with the blanket term ‘fake news’? What happens to democracy, when individuals and groups are demonized on the basis of their religion? What happens to a society, when critical thinking becomes an object of contempt? What happens to a social order ruled by an economics of contempt, that blames the poor for their condition, and subjects them to a culture of shaming? What happens to a polity, when it retreats into private silos, and becomes indifferent to the use of language deployed in the service of a panicked rage — language that stokes anger, but ignores issues that matter? What happens to a social order, when it treats millions of undocumented immigrants as disposable, potential terrorists and “criminals”? What happens to a country, when the presiding principles of its society are violence and ignorance?”
We discuss these and other questions, and it may surprise you to learn that Henry Giroux’s analysis, although clear-sighted in the face of the forces of dystopia, leads to an energized, engaged vision of collective agency and action.

Henry Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest. He is the author of more than 65 books, has published more than 400 papers, in addition to hundreds of chapters in the books of others, as well as many essays and articles in such journals as Truthout, Truthdig, and CounterPunch. His works have been translated into numerous languages.
He is particularly interested in what he calls the war on youth, the corporatization of higher education, the politics of neo-liberalism, the assault on civic literacy and the collapse of public memory, public pedagogy, the educative nature of politics, and the rise of various youth movements across the globe.

His latest book is America at War With Itself, published by City Lights Books. His forthcoming book, The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism, is to be published in 2018 by Routledge.

Learn more at https://www.henryagiroux.com/