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Monday, September 7, 2015

CESAR CHAVEZ--LABOR DAY SHOULD BE A DAY OF GREAT HOPE FOR OUR COLLECTIVE FUTURE

March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993
!Que viva la soledaridad!  !Long live our interconnectedness!  !Gracias a Dios!  Thank you Cesar Chavez for your years of labor to help the struggle for farm workers to be recognized as full members of society.   May we acknowledge many of our migrant workers as having been here long before there was a USA.  And may we welcome the most recent immigrants and refugees caused by our many years of rampant wars that have terrorized other nations’ shores.





Thus it began and so continues. -- After our CIA ups the ante to weaponize Arab Spring.  Syrian refugees fleeing the violence in their country make their way to a refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq July 31, 2012   

QUOTES OF CESAR CHAVEZ
"Do not romanticize the poor...We are all people, human beings subject to the same temptations and faults as all others. Our poverty damages our dignity."
"Our very lives are dependent, for sustenance, on the sweat and sacrifice of the campesinos. Children of farm workers should be as proud of their parents' professions as other children are of theirs."
"People who have lost their hunger for justice are not ultimately powerful. They are like sick people who have lost their appetite for what is truly nourishing. Such sick people should not frighten or discourage us. They should be prayed for along with the sick people who are in the hospital. "The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but it is also the most true to our nature."
"The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating."
"The non-violent technique does not depend for its success on the goodwill of the oppressor, but rather on the unfailing assistance of God.
"It is not good enough to know why we are oppressed and by whom. We must join the struggle for what is right and just. Jesus does not promise that it will be an easy way to live life and His own life certainly points in a hard direction; but it does promise that we will be "satisfied" (not stuffed; but satisfied). He promises that by giving life we will find life - full, meaningful life as God meant it."



hese are some of the words of the nonviolent organizer of the United Farm Workers Union--Cesar Chavez.  His vision and hard work brought dignity and justice to the people of La Raza and latinos everywhere.   He fasted forty days two times as a witness to opponents, and to bring spiritual strength to the people of his movement.  He died alone in one of the farm houses he’d grown up in, after having a hard day in court with agribusiness lawyers who were trying to foreclose that small piece of property left to his family.



References
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/world/middleeast/arms-airlift-to-syrian-rebels-expands-with-cia-aid.html
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzbL3X68TEI

Illumination by Kathy Brahney




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