Hightower Lowdown
"If all economists were laid end-to-end -- it would be a good thing." -- JK Galbraith
In This Issue
July's Lowdown
If Obama wins, who will be on his team--and who should be?
There'll be a crush of cameras at the front door of the White House on January 20 as scores of media outlets scramble to record the moment that the new president walks in. But, wait--who're those people who'll be sliding in quietly behind him? They're the ones who'll spend the next four years whispering in the president's ear, sitting in strategy sessions, running presidential councils, filling agency slots, and pulling the levers of executive power.
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RIGHT-TO-KNOW
If you live near any kind of factory, chemical plant, or similar facility, you might have noticed curious smells emanating from those places. What is it?
Well, you and I have a legal right to know in detail what kind and how much toxic stuff these places are releasing into our air, water, and soil. The national Right-To-Know Program, passed in 1984, provides that data on air-borne toxins be made public.
It was not Congress--and certainly not the polluting corporations--that created this essential public tool. Rather, the sparkplug was a guy named Tony Mazzocchi, a wiry, savvy, spirited labor leader (one of the best ever) who coined the phrase, "right-to-know." Around 1970, Tony was getting hundreds of complaints from chemical workers about plants that were shrouded in what the corporate bosses dismissively called "dust." Mazzocchi barnstormed across America, helping grassroots coalitions pass dozens of local right-to-know laws and then the federal legislation.
However, in 2001, George W happened, and he's been doing his damnedest to undo Tony's work. At the behest of corporate executives who hate the pesky public, W's regulators have exempted some 3,500 toxic spewers from the Right-To-Know law.
Congress or a new president must reverse W's monkey-wrenching, and if they need inspiration they should read Les Leopold's new book, The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi (Chelsea Publishing, Nov. 2007).