Sgt. Pepper, Giroux

I'd like to start out with what I thought was Giroux's most pertinent quote to postmodernism.

"In Eastern Europe and elsewhere there is a strong call for the primacy of the political and the ethical as a foundation for democratic public life whereas in the U.S. there is an ongoing refusal of the discourse of politics and ethics" (384).

Here Giroux is talking about the non-activism of the American people. Dr. Rog used the example in class of the fall of the Soviet Union, and how it was due to the oppressed yearning for a voice. Giroux suggests that it is almost selfish of us to keep so quiet when we have so much opportunity to speak, but he also addresses the issue of why we keep so quiet. In our democratic society it seems almost like a waste to not utilize our freedoms, but how truly democratic is our society? In the same way Butler argues that women technically have the freedom of speech, but are hardly acknowledged, so goes the same treatment of the American people. While we do live very free lives, we have little power over the structure of our society. A perfect example of this is our presidential elections that will be held this November. While technically each citizen does have the right to vote, it is pretty clear that the results are decided way before any voting takes place. Do you think it was an accident that both the Democratic and Republican candidates last election (Bush and Kerry) both attended Yale University and were both part of the same secret society there? It really wouldn't have mattered who won; the same actions would have been taken either way. I guess what I'm getting at is that changing the structure of our society seems near impossible. The only way for it to happen would for people to start raising their voices again. While the "big men" do have a lot of power, I think if millions of citizens revolted against them something could get done.