New, yes -- to this milennium of posts. I poked my nose in back around 25,600 or so and thought it high time I came back 'round again.
Love your Walt Whitman quote, BTW. I may copy/paste it and email it to a few friends; some because they'll laugh, others because they'll gnash their teeth, all for my own pleasure, of course.
Regards
:)
I've read that Gatto piece too, and have to say, most of the points he makes are valid.
In fact, it's probably one of the more compellingly written, cogent essays that was published in that "Disinfo" anthology.
I read with avid interest his explanation of how higher education could actually serve as impediment to progress, e.g. in Weimer Germany, which facilitated-to a certain extent-the rise to power of Hitler and other bourgeoisie intellects.
The same holds true for the upper classes in benighted, despotic Arab lands like Egypt, where the elites groomed a disenchanted, politically impotent class of individuals who used the talents they honed over the course of their studies to vengefully strike back at the institutions that had nurtured them.
The Ikwhan Muslimen, i.e. "Muslim Brothers" were, after all, primarily engineers.
Doctors, police officers, attorneys-not impoverished, ignorant plebieans-these were the chief recruits-and to a large extent, the foundational core-for Islamist, Salafi terror organizations like Al Qaeda, Al Gammaa, Al-Jihad, The "Services Office" and other assorted international terrorist franchising brands.