No one is coming to save the day

Recently, I cleared out all the Disney princess books from my three-year old daughter’s room.

I have always disliked reading these books to her. There are too many adult themes and way too much kissing and killing. But after about a year of changing the words in the books—in part to make the stories less about hapless women mooning over princes to kiss, but also because most of them are insipid and poorly written—I’d had enough.

Goodbye to Ariel, with her poor body image. Good luck to Belle, chased around by the village bully, forever rescuing her hapless dad, falling prey to Stockholm Syndrome and falling in love with the Beast (“Beauty and the Beast”, I’ve decided, isn’t as much about looking beyond a person’s physical appearance as it is about encouraging girls to have low expectations when choosing partners.) And Snow White? I’m sorry, but you’re just an idiot. You have no place in our house.

Um, so what does any of this have to do with Labor Day?

Never until today did I realize how much those princess books may have shaped my own expectations.

All this time, I have been waiting for someone to rescue America.

I have been waiting for lawmakers to consider the interests of their constituents over those of corporate bidders. (Foolishly, I’ve been waiting for those very same lawmakers to embrace campaign finance reform.)

I have been waiting for environmental groups to figure out a way to protect natural resources and communities.

I have been waiting for people to realize that newspapers aren’t about profits. They are about freedom and justice; truth-telling, accountability and yes, nurturing a literate and informed public.

I have been waiting for the war to end, torture to stop, and health care reform to blossom.

As a journalist, I’ve also waited for the public to raise a little hell once they’ve learned the truth of a matter. I’ve waited for people to show up at the offices of lawmakers or accept the hard facts about issues such as climate change.

As a mother, I’ve waited for people to treat their neighbors with compassion; to recognize that when we scream at one another at Town Hall meetings, we’re doing nothing but hurting our own hearts and one another—while those making money off our misery sit back and tally their profits.

As an aside, just this weekend, while listening to NPR, I learned that “profits for insurance companies have risen over 1,000 percent in the last seven years.”

There is nothing wrong with hoping for a better future. There is nothing wrong with putting your faith in another person. It’s even okay to cast about for a prince (or princess) and to kiss a few frogs every once in a while.

But progressives can no longer place the burden of hope on lawmakers while we each set ourselves on Auto Pilot, imagining someone else will rectify the problems our nation faces.

Rather than waiting here heartbroken—as many of us are today, feeling the blow of the recent Van Jones resignation—it’s time to start moving.

And I have reason to believe that each of us can make a difference—simply by deciding to take action.

One of my favorite books—and no, I haven’t started reading it to my three-year old yet—is Les Leopold’s “The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi.”

A few years back, while researching and writing about how environmentalists and labor unions were working together on issues such as climate change, I interviewed Leopold and met a handful of people who had worked with Mazzocchi.

Here’s an excerpt of one of those stories:

One of the leaders in that fight was the late Tony Mazzocchi from Brooklyn, who was a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) for 52 years. Mazzocchi’s fingerprints are visible on almost all of the labor successes of the past 50 years: He negotiated contracts dealing with issues from dental insurance to equal pay for women; he lobbied for passage of the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Administration Act; and in 1974, he worked with Karen Silkwood, who was exposing safety violations at a Kerr-McGee nuclear fuel-rod plant in Oklahoma. In 1996, he founded the national Labor Party.

For Mazzocchi, a healthy environment was just as important as a safe workplace. In the 1950s, he helped document the effects of fallout from nuclear bomb testing by collecting baby teeth from mothers working at a cosmetics factory, and giving them to doctors to examine for traces of radioactivity. In 1970, he co-chaired the nation’s first Earth Day celebration.

"His whole idea was to invigorate and activate people against the evils of the world," says Joe Anderson, an OCAW member and the current project director of the Denver-based Labor Institute West, a branch of the Public Health Institute.

When Leopold’s book came out a few years ago, I couldn’t wait to read it and learn more about the labor leader.

What has stuck with me most of all?

Mazzocchi wasn’t privileged. Or powerful. He had enemies even within the labor movement. But he had heart and a fierce sense of justice. He also had a bright fire within him that lit his ass into action each and every day.

Read again that brief list of his accomplishments. Extrapolate out the influence he has had on each of our lives. Then be reassured that one person can indeed make a difference.

In the prologue to his book, Leopold reflects on his friend, Mazzocchi:

He was, as labor leader Ed Ott said, “the man who never sold out”—and many of us found this deeply inspiring. For Tony, the struggle for victory was also about how you got there.

Leopold also quotes from a 1972 Washington Post article about Mazzocchi:

Mazzocchi’s theme was that it is time for ordinary workers and citizens to stop being polite to industry and other sources of environmental pollution… The Mazzocchi’s of this world act as catalysts to the rest of us.

Amen.

Happy Labor Day. Now, get to work.

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Looking for something to do? Set aside the compulsion to be swept up in elections. Instead, call, write (forget e-mail, please) or visit with your elected officials.

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez (505) 768-3000

Albuquerque City Council:

Ken Sanchez (505) 768-3183
Debbie O’Malley (505) 768-3159
Isaac Benton (505) 768-3186
Brad Winter (505) 768-3101
Michael Cadigan (505) 768-3189
Rey Garduño (505) 768-3152
Sally Mayer (505) 768-3136
Trudy Jones (505) 768-3106
Don Harris (505) 768-3123

Here’s a link to the City Council meeting schedule.

Find your state legislator here:
http://legis.state.nm.us/lcs/

Find contact information for the New Mexico congressional delegation here and here.

While you’re at it, check out campaign contributions to members of the New Mexico delegation. The Center for Responsive Politics makes it easy.