Cesar Chavez, Minuteman

[Etta Place]

Can you believe it? Well it's true.

During his prime, Chavez, a third-generation American citizen from Yuma, Arizona and Navy veteran, was an American labor leader fighting against the importation of strikebreakers from Mexico. But as power and praise went to his head, his image morphed into that of a Mexican mestizo racial emblem, the patron saint of the reconquista of Alta California by la raza.

In 2006, we automatically assume that America’s self-appointed Latino leaders—the politicians, campaign consultants, media mouthpieces, and identity-politics warriors—favor ever more immigration. Their influence and income flow from their claim to represent vast numbers of Hispanics, so the more warm bodies they can get across the border, the larger will be the ethnic quotas upon which their careers are based. But the union leader who is honestly battling for the welfare of his members—as opposed to the boss merely attempting to maximize the number of dues-paying workers—wants less competition for them.

Chavez’s essential problem was straight out of Econ 101, the law of supply and demand. He needed to limit the supply of labor in order to drive up wages. Just as American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers, himself a Jewish immigrant, was one of the most influential voices calling for the successful immigration-restriction law of 1924, Chavez, during his effectual years, was a ferocious opponent of illegal immigration.

His success stemmed from the long-term decline in the farm labor supply. According to agricultural economist Philip L. Martin of the University of California, Davis, migrant farm workers in the U.S. numbered 2 million in the 1920s. Eisenhower cracked down on Mexican illegal immigrants, shipping one million home in 1954 alone. The famous 1960 “Harvest of Shame” documentary by CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow inspired liberal Democrats in Congress to abolish the bracero guest-worker program in 1964. The supply of migrant workers dropped to about 200,000, most of them American citizens, making unionization and better contracts feasible—as long as what Marx called “the reserve army of the unemployed” could be bottled up south of the border. The next year, Chavez began his storied organizing campaign.

Growers fought back by busing the reserve army up from Mexico. In 1979, Chavez bitterly testified to Congress:

… when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration service has removed strikebreakers. … The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking…

In 1969, Chavez led a march to the Mexican border to protest illegal immigration. Joining him were Sen. Walter Mondale and Martin Luther King’s successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Ralph Abernathy.

The UFW picketed INS offices to demand closure of the border. Chavez also finked on illegal alien scabs to la migra. Columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr. reported in the Arizona Republic, “Cesar Chavez, a labor leader intent on protecting union membership, was as effective a surrogate for the INS as ever existed. Indeed, Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union he headed routinely reported, to the INS, for deportation, suspected illegal immigrants who served as strikebreakers or refused to unionize.”

This is from an old publication of The American Conservative.

Cesar Chavez, Minuteman

[jmichna]

Some other "occupations":

Adolph Hitler, Painter

Mao Zedong, Farmer

Joseph Stalin, Seminarian

Pol Pot, Electrical Engineer

Ta Mok, Buddhist Monk

Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, Military Academy Cadet

Francisco Macías Nguema, Merchant

Mengistu Haile Mariam, Commissioned Officer

Joseph Goebbels, Bank Clerk

Josef Mengele, Anthropologist

Karl Marx, Philosopher

Vladimir Lenin, Lawyer

[Frenchy]

What's your point, jmichna?

[jmichna]

Originally Posted by Frenchy

What's your point, jmichna?

Frenchy,
I guess it is that what people may do early in their "career" - though beneficial or at worst, innocuous - does not indicate what path they may take later in life.

Why do you ask?

[Brickboy240]

Yes, its true. Chavez was against illegal imigration. However, don't put it past the left to hijack a figurehead or leader and make them their own.

Take John F. Kenedy for example. Often held up by the left as a liberal posterchild. JFK actually cut taxes and believed in tax cuts stimulating the US economy. He also stood down the Russians with the Cuban misslie blockade. Lets see...believed in tax cuts and used the military to bend the communists to our way...hmm...doesn't seem very "progressive" if you ask me! He also served in the Navy in WWII....again...not very "left" if you think about it. JFK may have had a "D" after his name but JFK was very different from the Democrats of today and would probably be drummed out of that party today.

Then we have Al Gore, who lives in a 30,000sq ft home and travels in a learjet who is held up by the left as the guru on all things green.

John Edwards talks about "two Americas" then takes a job managing a hedge fund and gets 400 dollar haircuts. A real man of the people...right?

Seeing a pattern developing here? There are other more glaring examples...I could go on forever.

The right does this too, but we were talking about how the left adopted Chavez. its nothing new.

- Brickboy240

[Gorillaman]

As it was, (rumored) Cesar's brother Raul was my 4th grade teacher, was it a good thing or not?? ..... I get Friday off work with pay for CC day..
its good

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by Brickboy240

Yes, its true. Chavez was against illegal imigration. However, don't put it past the left to hijack a figurehead or leader and make them their own.

Take John F. Kenedy for example. Often held up by the left as a liberal posterchild. JFK actually cut taxes and believed in tax cuts stimulating the US economy. He also stood down the Russians with the Cuban misslie blockade. Lets see...believed in tax cuts and used the military to bend the communists to our way...hmm...doesn't seem very "progressive" if you ask me! He also served in the Navy in WWII....again...not very "left" if you think about it. JFK may have had a "D" after his name but JFK was very different from the Democrats of today and would probably be drummed out of that party today.

Then we have Al Gore, who lives in a 30,000sq ft home and travels in a learjet who is held up by the left as the guru on all things green.

John Edwards talks about "two Americas" then takes a job managing a hedge fund and gets 400 dollar haircuts. A real man of the people...right?

Seeing a pattern developing here? There are other more glaring examples...I could go on forever.

The right does this too, but we were talking about how the left adopted Chavez. its nothing new.

- Brickboy240

You may have a point, but you are generalizing. There are many vets who are Democrats.

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by jmichna

Frenchy,
I guess it is that what people may do early in their "career" - though beneficial or at worst, innocuous - does not indicate what path they may take later in life.

Why do you ask?

According to the article in the American Conservative, Chavez, early in his career, was vehemently opposed to illegal immigration because it drove down the wages of the people working in the U.S. legally. Later in his life, his fame went to his head.

During his prime, Chavez, a third-generation American citizen from Yuma, Arizona and Navy veteran, was an American labor leader fighting against the importation of strikebreakers from Mexico. But as power and praise went to his head, his image morphed into that of a Mexican mestizo racial emblem, the patron saint of the reconquista of Alta California by la raza.

[cjive134]

Originally Posted by Brickboy240

Yes, its true. Chavez was against illegal imigration. However, don't put it past the left to hijack a figurehead or leader and make them their own.

Take John F. Kenedy for example. Often held up by the left as a liberal posterchild. JFK actually cut taxes and believed in tax cuts stimulating the US economy. He also stood down the Russians with the Cuban misslie blockade. Lets see...believed in tax cuts and used the military to bend the communists to our way...hmm...doesn't seem very "progressive" if you ask me! He also served in the Navy in WWII....again...not very "left" if you think about it. JFK may have had a "D" after his name but JFK was very different from the Democrats of today and would probably be drummed out of that party today.

Then we have Al Gore, who lives in a 30,000sq ft home and travels in a learjet who is held up by the left as the guru on all things green.

John Edwards talks about "two Americas" then takes a job managing a hedge fund and gets 400 dollar haircuts. A real man of the people...right?

Seeing a pattern developing here? There are other more glaring examples...I could go on forever.

The right does this too, but we were talking about how the left adopted Chavez. its nothing new.

- Brickboy240

I did think about and I must say that this statement is totally out of line. I can tell you that there were just as many Democrats who joined the service in WWII as there were rebublicans. You just slapped both my grandfathers in the face. Both were Democrats, and both served during WWII.

Yeah, and FDR stood down the Nazis. I guess he was a republican too?

[Frenchy]

Originally Posted by jmichna

Frenchy,
I guess it is that what people may do early in their "career" - though beneficial or at worst, innocuous - does not indicate what path they may take later in life.

Why do you ask?

During his prime, Chavez, a third-generation American citizen from Yuma, Arizona and Navy veteran

I don't think any of the men you listed qualified.