Putting Youth Back into the Future: Reclaiming Education and Hope in Dark Times

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of this article: As someone who has recently relocated from the United States to Canada, I am deeply concerned that Canada not emulate the domestic and foreign policies that have been unleashed by the deeply reactionary presidency of George W. Bush. Many Canadians are distrustful, if not appalled, by “the public religiosity” of a right-wing regime in Washington, which appears not only “under the control of Christian jihadists confronting Islamist jihadists,” but is also waging a war on any vestige of the public good, especially the social contract and the welfare state, two elements of Canadian society that are central to its commitment to social justice and democracy (Whitaker 5). Similarly, most Canadians refuse to endorse Bush’s failed war in Iraq, his ruinous economic policies, his fraudulent case for a missile defence system, or his “outsourcing of torture.” But, as skeptical and critically thoughtful as Canadians are of Bush’s foreign and domestic policies, I think Canadian academics, politicians, journalists, and other intellectuals should give more attention to the degree to which the Bush administration increasingly wages an assault against young people in the United States and, in doing so, loses all semblance of moral and political credibility.