Mark Naison: Chicago teachers have shown the way, not only to force changes in policy, but to create a new narrative about what is really going on in the nation’s schools.

Joseph Palermo: The 29,000 striking Chicago teachers are sending the message to Emanuel that their teacher bashing and privatization schemes for public education have become so onerous and destructive to the teachers’ mission and profession that they have no choice but to fight back.

Mark Naison: The first step is to join the discussions about how public education is being destroyed wherever it takes place.

Craig Williams: An old Teamster organizer once told me “you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” It’s also an insult to working people and the tradition of organizing.

Peter Dreier: It is incredibly irresponsible for some radicals and progressives to call for killing the health care bill. It is important to push for changes that would improve the Senate version of the bill. For example, the House funding plan (a tax on families with incomes over $1 million) is much better than the Senate version (a tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans). That’s what the labor movement, liberal and progressive Democrats in Congress, pro-choice advocates, and others will be doing in hopes of putting a better bill on President Obama’s desk, as Harold Meyerson discusses in his latest Washington Post column.

New York City provides a case study of a large, ethnically diverse, California-like entity where citizen ballot measures are not an option. The result? A profoundly undemocratic city where large real estate developers call the shots.

President Obama knows that solutions won’t arise out of politics as usual. His personification of dignitarian politics resonates not only with Americans but around the world.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s overwhelming victory in Iran’s presidential election disappointed many who had hoped for a president who is not an international embarrassment and loose cannon. That is the image …