Imagine the chutzpah of wanting to learn!

Students in Chile have been protesting for well over a year against second-rate public education, costly private universities, & banks making a killing on student loans students cannot afford to repay. Here cops gang up on a student protesting in Santiago, Chile. The guy wants an education. Imagine the chutzpah!? The oligarchs think we’ve become entirely too entitled & way too uppity in an upwardly-mobile way--thinking we have some kind of rights to social security, education, health care, even civil liberties. Their approach to pedagogy is a more punitive one involving tear gas & billy clubs. But oligarchs beware! The heart-felt desire for learning has always been a compelling commitment of the oppressed, igniting & sustaining the fury of rebellion. W.E.B. DuBois wrote powerfully in “Black Reconstruction in America” on this issue which led Blacks to establish universal public education in the US. When oligarchs challenge the right of the young to learn, they create legions of their own grave diggers. (Photo by Victor Ruiz Caballero/AP)