Obama: 'Today we celebrate Cesar Chavez'

Associated Press ^ | Oct. 8, 2012 | BEN FELLER

[Free ThinkerNY]

KEENE, Calif. (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Monday designated the home of Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez as a national monument, calling Chavez a hero who brought hope to millions of poor, disenfranchised farm workers who otherwise might have remained "invisible" to much of the nation.

""Today, we celebrate Cesar Chavez," Obama said at a ceremony at La Paz, the California farmhouse where Chavez lived and worked for more than two decades.

[LibLieSlayer]

“Who is “we”?”

Illegal alien invaders, islamists, communists and fagots.

LLS

[roadcat]

Chavez was a communist pig. San Francisco “leaders” renamed the wide boulevard formerly called “Army Street”, to “Cesar Chavez”, despite protests from citizens. To this day, I and many others still refer to it as “Army Street”. Anything honoring the military was stripped away, and then they honor communists.

[Mrs. Don-o]

It's true that Cesar Chavez was against illegal immigration, and even organized a short-lived border patrol to try to keep them out. But the UFW pushed this stand only feebly and inconsistently. During strikes, they didn't want strikebreakers trucked up from Mexico. But they changed their tactics fairly early to depend on boycotts, street demonstrations and political pressure rather than strikes; and for that, having lots of extra Mexicans around was a plus.

Full disclosure, I used to work for Chavez in the early days ((late 1969 - early 70's) and have been amazed at the internal contradictions. The Union movement finally failed, partly BECAUSE they were legalized by the CALRA (ask me why sometime for a long explanation) -- but the Chavez Family machine goes on, headed up by Paul Chavez, Artie Rodriguez, and a true pro-abortion pro-illegals mega-wicked witch, Dolores Huerta -- the whole shebang is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Trotskyite wing of the Democratic Party. It's rather sickening..

[Vendome]

I know this thread is two years old but, I just saw Chavez movie.

My friends went on quite a bit in celebration.

I found it plodding, myopic and the concerns of the workers dissappeared in the background.

I guess I understand they can’ t very well discuss Chavez’s view of illegal immigrants or “Wetbacks” as he called them on September 25, 1972 in an interview on KQED.

There were a few other items I brought up and was instantly challenged on but, Youtube of the man speaking pretty much trumps outrage.,

Particularly when you see the words formed by his lips as he speaks.

Would you care to expand on your post?

Thnx

[Mrs. Don-o]

After all these years I still don't have it all sorted out, particularly Cesar personally. It is a sin to make judgments about things you cannot know (like another person's interior disposition) and yet I keep thinking about his words and actions, and I see objectively huge contradictions which make me wonder whether he consciously turned toward the Dark Side, or was increasingly mentally ill from maybe the mid-70's on.

(Forgive me Lord if I am making illegitimate judgments. And Vendome, take all this with the appropriate grain of salt.)

The plain fact is, the influx of wave after wave of cheap workers will always destroy work environments, crater wages, and break unions. There's no way around it. If Cesar had been interested in winning in a classic labor union sense, he would have made a huge, consistent stink against the importation of low-wage low-skill workers, whether legal or illegal. That's the only way to *make* the employers negotiate with you.

But at some point, Chavez decided to turn the UFW into a lobby group, rather than a union. They would try to wrest whatever they could get, not from the employers but from the government. And for whom? Chicanos -- not necessarily farm workers.

And, in a real reversal from the way it was in the mid-60's, it got to the point that Cesar was bored or annoyed with actual farmworkers, and didn't even want to represent them. This came to a head of sorts in the 1970's, when the lettuce workers in Salinas went on strike, and Cesar found this too uppity-worker-led, too disruptive of what he was really going for. He dismissed any pretense of real worker-leadership or democracy in the Union. It was shameful.

And Cesar was getting paranoid as hell, secretive, and frankly nutty.

My memories of all the particulars are fading. The people who could really spill the beans would be Dr. Marian Moses, Cesar's physician; or Jerry Cohen, the gut-busting general of his brilliant, brutal lawfare battles against the UFW's opponents.

I don't even know if either one of them is still alive. Or if they would be willing to tell the truth, even now.

[Mrs. Don-o]

This fills in a lot of the details. It is heartbreaking reading.

http://monthlyreview.org/2010/05/01/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-united-farm-workers

Monthly Review is socialist, but it's not generally dishonest or fanatical or nutty. I think this is a pretty accurate version of what was going on. Confirms, and expands, as well, my own memory of it from my own very lowly perch.