Dear Rethinking Schools friends, We’re pleased to announce our latest “publication,” The Zinn Education Project: Teaching a People’s History — www.zinnedproject.org — a new website with free downloadable teaching activities. The Zinn Education Project: Teaching a People’s History is a collaboration between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change, supported by an anonymous donor (a […]
Archive | Commentary
Monthly Review Magazine
SMS Iran (after Gilles Peress)
Every gathering with a foretold script. The security barriers mark a neutered zone for dissent. Finally though, there is this one day in Brooklyn. The air is traversed (by bridge) and the marchers walk from one bank to another. It isn’t a miracle but it is beautiful. x number of women and men for […]
Are Shorter Work Hours Good for the Environment? A Comparison of U.S. and European Energy Consumption
Variation in Work Hours among Countries It is well known that Europe lags behind the United States in terms of GDP per capita. However, it is less well known that European workers in a number of countries are nearly as productive, and in some cases more productive, than their American counterparts. As seen in Table […]
Faridabad and Gurgaon: Workers’ Action, Leftwing Media
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its December 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. The establishment media is for most the source of our daily information. Even if we manage to be continually conscious of the embedded commercial and class bias, the […]
Sumac Kawsay/Buen Vivir
Perhaps because I am a Brazilian, the first time I heard the expression “buen vivir,” I immediately thought of “boa vida,” a term which in our country is used pejoratively to refer to an easy, tranquil, and carefree life: no work, plenty of evening strolls, luxury at the expense of others, and zero political consciousness.
For a Mandatory Universal Pension System
Most people have heard that our retirement income security system is built as if it were a three-legged stool, where income comes from Social Security, from employer-based pensions, and from personal wealth. That image implies that there are equal sources of income coming from each of those sources for all retired families, and that image […]
Economic Crisis Savages Public Education
Capitalist crises, especially severe ones, are case studies in that system’s social costs. Because the dutifully conservative economics profession rarely studies such cases, let’s do just that here by focusing on how the current capitalist crisis is damaging public education. Deteriorating schools leave scars lasting for many years. They undercut the quality of the skills […]
Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side the United States Government Is on with Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras
At dawn on June 28, the Honduran military abducted President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint and flew him out of the country. Conflicting and ambiguous statements from the Obama administration left many confused about whether it opposed this coup or was really trying to help it succeed. Here are the top ten indicators (with apologies to […]
Going Underground
Kurdish-Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi, known for making slow-moving, heart-rending films along the western border of Kurdistan (A Time for Drunken Horses, Turtles Can Fly, Half Moon), shifts to the heart of the capital in his latest feature to give us a glimpse of Tehran’s underground music scene. Making a self-reflexive appearance in the opening sequence […]
The Manama Dialogue and Iran’s Pivotal Regional Role
But for Iran, the 6th Manama Dialogue would have failed to achieve its very objective, namely serving as a forum for debating regional security. Held in Bahrain from 11 to 13 December, the occasion attracted Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki following a two-year absence from the annual event. Senior Iranian officials shunned the 2007 […]
Iran’s Foreign Policy Strategy: Implications for the United States
We want to draw your attention to a brilliant piece, “Iran’s Foreign Policy Strategy After Saddam,” just published by Kayhan Barzegar, an Iranian scholar and foreign policy analyst currently at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. We have previously posted about an Op Ed that Barzegar published on Iranian perspectives about […]
National Call for March 4 Strike and Day of Action to Defend Public Education
California has recently seen a massive movement erupt in defense of public education — but layoffs, fee hikes, cuts, and the re-segregation of public education are attacks taking place throughout the country. A nationwide resistance movement is needed. We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations and communities across the country to […]
Sandwich Theory and Operation Green Hunt
The ‘Sandwich Theory’ I was piqued by the phrase ‘sandwich theory’ when I first heard it from Delhi students. They were referring to the views of a section of articulate, influential, middle India in the wake of the controversies over Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and now Operation Green Hunt. The ‘theory’, if we may call […]
The Campaign to Ban One Person Locomotive Crews and Regulate Locomotive Remote Control
Heather Boehlke, widow of Jared Boehlke, locomotive remote control operator, who was killed on Mother’s Day, 2009, while working alone, appeals for support. Click here to find a sample letter to Congressman James Oberstar, head of the House Transportation Committee. Video by Railroad Workers United. For more information, go to . | | Print
What’s Wrong with a 30-Hour Work Week?
With millions of jobs lost during the first part of 2009, who is calling for a shorter work week to spread the work around? Not the Republicans. Not even the Democrats. But why is there nary a peep from unions? In the U.S., auto sets the pace for organized labor. The only discussion at the […]
Gaza Freedom March: Palestinian Non-violence and International Solidarity
I’m going to discuss the utility of non-violent resistance as it applies to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict and, specifically, the occupation and blockade of the Gaza strip. Even more specifically, I’m going to discuss the Gaza Freedom March (GFM), of which I’m one of the organizers. But before discussing Palestinian non-violence, several things must be […]
Poverty: A Political Football in Iran among Rival Factions
Iran is not going to the 2010 World Cup, but there is another football being kicked around in the domestic Iranian media: the extent of poverty in Iran. Last month, the Statistical Center of Iran reported that 70 percent of Iranians earn less than a monthly income of $450 for a household of five. This […]
Washington’s Two Lost Wars
The United States has already lost the war in Afghanistan, just as it has lost the war in Iraq. President Barack Obama’s vast expansion of the Afghan war announced Dec. 1, and the extension of the violence into neighboring Pakistan, are intended to camouflage the reality of defeat, as was the Bush Administration’s “surge” in […]
Lebanese Shia Women: Temporality and Piety
For many Shia Muslims in Lebanon since the late 1970s — particular practices of piety have become part of a discourse that is held up as an alternative to notions of a secular modernity. In this process, an identity has been forged that is understood to be both pious and modern, and where notions […]
When Will the Obama Administration Try Actually Engaging Iran?
Western media commentary continues to depict Iran as having “rejected” the Baradei proposal for refueling the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), thereby setting the stage for the Obama Administration to pursue, at a minimum, tougher multilateral and unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic. As we wrote about in The Race for Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr […]
