Introduction

Abstract

Paulo Freire was concerned with the number of persons who let themselves be deceived by neo-liberal slogans and so become submissive and apathetic when confronted with their former dreams. Paulo used a metaphor for this situation: "They have gone to the other side of the river!"-Ana Maria (Nita) Araújo Freire This volume arrives at a precipitous moment in the history of modern capitalism. Capitalism meltdown (or, more specifically, the epic housing crisis and the financial collapse), coupled with the election of the first biracial U.S. president, leaves little doubt over who will set the agenda in the current battle over public education, health care, and the judiciary system. Henry and Susan Giroux (2008) remark: Once upon a time a perceived bastion of liberal democracy, the social state is being recalled from exile, as the decades-long conservative campaign against the alleged abuses of "big government"-its euphemism for a form of governance that assumed a measure of responsibility for the education, health and general welfare of its citizens-has been widely discredited. Not only have the starving and drowning efforts of the Right been revealed in all their malicious cruelty, but government is about to have a Cinderella moment; it is about to become "cool," as Prince Charming-elect Barack Obama famously put it. One would be profoundly naïve in minimizing the connection between the current state bailouts to the private corporations and the systematic enactment of defunding public education and even more naïve in underestimating the impact of the lives of the oppressed. The rapid intensification of neoliberal practices in education legitimized by political passwords such as "NCLB" has constricted the range of possible purposes and practices of education to those that support capital's bottom line. While critical educators are facing tough times, it is undeniable that they have been on the very front line not only in Masheila_intro.indd 1 Masheila_intro.indd 1