I almost titled this 'The Content of their Characters' I hope you click on to Judy's full statement. It's beautiful and powerful and I'd have posted it, but for length. The part that's in the article demonstrates well. Thanks to Mark Vallen for the piece and his own great art, over the years. I'm privileged to have worked with them and join him in solidarity. And thanks to Jerry for his insight and sharing of a unique history. He doesn't mention it, but he headed the boycott in Florida, became a farmworker, and lots more. Ed
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Kay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ed Pearl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 9:06 AM Subject: Re: The Legacy of Miguel Contreras, Ed, Thanks for all the articles about Miguel Contreras who was just with many of us in Salinas last month for the memorial service of another wonderful past UFW organizer, Jessica Govea. Around that time you had asked me what was it about Cesar Chavez that made him so great since he never seemed to have the great oratorical skills of Martin Luther King or appear loud and dashing in the manner of many Latino leaders. I think that in the legacy of Miguel and the thousands who came out of Cesar's movement you have an answer to why Cesar was a great leader. Cesar was essentially an organizer of organizers. It was his greatest talent and reward to find others, whever they may be, coming out of nowhere, to recognize their talents and put them to use in the struggle for justice for poor people and to be nourished and grow. Miguel, the son of migrant workers, knew that when he joined the grape boycott and was sent to Toronto to stop the sale of California grapes, it was a tall order for a young Chicano. But he would be joining with hundreds of other farm workers sent all across the continent essentially with a few dollars, a few buttons and a couple of phone numbers to start getting the job done, however long it would take. Of course Jessica Govea was already in Montreal and helping in Toronto, and Dolores Huerta had headed up New York, Marcos Munos in Boston, Eliseo Medina in Chicago and others all across the country. They had to appeal to local support - to unions, churches, schools, political and community organizations--one by one meeting in halls and homes slowly building a grassroots organization with a specific task and a quantifiable way of measuring success. These were all tactics employed and developed by Cesar and his great mentor, Fred Ross. So, Miguel and thousands like him, who came from virtually nowhere learned how to craft a big message and get it across to large numbers of people in a way that they could all participate and get a feeling of a big accomplishment. So imagine the feeling in 1970, with Ronald Reagan as Governor and Richard NIxon as President, when this group of farm workers brought the state's poweful agricultural industry to its knees to sign a labor contract. >From there Miguel went to work in UFW field offices, organizing workers, administrating labor contracts, handling grievances with growers, then working on political campaigns, fighting the Teamsters who then colluded with the growers, Reagan, Nixon and the Farm Bureau to wipe out the UFW--all essential stepping stones to becoming the labor leader he turned out to be. Miguel's ability to see the big picture and define issues in a way that workers could identify on a broad basis, his ability to reach across the table to many different interests, his ability to pick campaigns that had a definable goal and a measureable way of calculating your progress were all qualities he pciked up directly from Cesar Chavez and the UFW. So was his desire to find and nurture talent. However, what made Miguel great was his own qualities of picking the right battles, having the personality to make personal friends and allies beyond the petty bickering of ethnic and political rivalries and always, always remembering that true power lay within the ability of appealing to and harnessing the positive spirit and labor of common folks. *** >From Mark Vallen's weblog: www.art-for-a-change.com/blog California Public Art Under Attack >From Thursday, May 12, 2005 Right-wing activists from the organization, Save Our State (SOS), have called for the removal of a public monument called Danzas Indigenas located in the Metrolink Station in Baldwin Park, California. Joseph Turner, executive director for the anti-immigrant group, plainly stated his organization's opinion of the monument, "we will not tolerate its anti-American message. This is not art. This is not freedom of expression. This is government-sanctioned sedition." SOS activists are calling for and organizing a noon time demonstration at the monument on Saturday, May 14th, 2005, and they are demanding that the monument be altered - if not removed. What exactly has drawn the ire of these self-proclaimed guardians of the American way? Designed in 1993 for the MTA by famed Chicana artist Judith F. Baca, the monument bears several engraved statements upon it, one reads "It was better before they came", and the other "This land was Mexican once, was Indian always - and is, and will be again." SOS calls the monument "propaganda" from "radical organizations" who wish to "return the Southwestern US to Mexico." The organization's website declares that California's cities have been turned into "Third World cesspools as a result of a massive invasion of illegal aliens." SOS has threatened that if the "offensive passages" are not removed from Baca's artwork before the American Independence weekend, they "will take additional steps to ensure that the passages are removed." That sounds like an open appeal for vandalism and property destruction to me. For all the hot air about being patriotic defenders of freedom and the American way, the SOS organization sounds much like the fundamentalist Taliban, who because of their racial and religious prejudices blew up the magnificent 2000-year-old statues of Buddha at Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Left-wing activists have responded with their own calls for a counter-protest. Groups like the Southern California Human Rights Network, the International Action Center and its Committee in Defense of Immigrant Workers, the International Socialist Organization and many others I'm sure, will counter-demonstrate to demand "Full Rights for Immigrants", an "End to Racist Attacks on Immigrants and Mexicans", and the protection of "Indigenous Heritage". But where is the left's defense of artistic freedom? What the left and right seem not to understand in this escalating battle over Baca's Danzas Indigenas is that this is more a struggle over art and censorship than of the politics of race, national identity and borders. One side wants to censor or destroy an artwork for political reasons while the other side counters with its own political arguments that have nothing to do with the rights of artists - both ignore the underlying primary issue - an artist's freedom to create and display a public work of art. Judith F. Baca is an internationally respected artist, one of America's acclaimed contemporary muralists, and the Founder and artistic director of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) located in Venice California. As a socially aware artist engaged in community art projects for many decades, she is a highly regarded and cherished member of the Los Angeles community. Without hesitation, I wish to express my total and unconditional solidarity with Ms. Baca, and I urge all other working artists to do the same. If reactionaries succeed in censoring one artist, then all stand in peril. In her own defense Baca has posted an artist's statement on the SPARC website where you can also see a photo of the monument she created. The great irony of the SOS attack on Baca's artwork is over the passage "It was better before they came" - which SOS misinterprets as a Mexican's racist view of Whites. However, Baca makes clear in her statement that "While this group has cast this artwork as part of a Reconquista movement it is in fact neither advocating for the return of California to the Mexican government nor saying 'it is better before they came'. This statement was made by a white local Baldwin Park resident who was speaking about Mexicans. The ambiguity of the statement was the point. About which 'they' is the anonymous voice speaking? Our capacity as a democracy to disagree and to coexist is precisely the point of this work. No single statement can be seen without the whole, nor can it be removed without destroying the diversity of Baldwin Park's voice. Silencing every voice with which we disagree is profoundly un-American." For those who understand artistic expression to be a sacred human right - for those who appreciate public art as part of democratic culture, for those who recognize the despoilers and abusers of art as the shocktroops of an incipient fascism - stand up to defend Danzas Indigenas and the right of artists to free and unfettered self-expression. Please attend the peaceful and legal demonstration in defense of these right to be held at the monument on Saturday May 14th, from noon until 2 pm, at the Metrolink Station, 3875 Downing Ave., Baldwin Park, California 91706. (Map) #### "Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare." - Japanese proverb www.art-for-a-change.com/blog *** What's next? Published on Wednesday, May 4, 2005 by The Nation www.thenation.com/ An Open Letter to Howard Dean by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich Dear Chairman Dean, Speaking before an ACLU crowd last week in Minnesota, the state of Paul Wellstone, you were quoted as saying, "Now that we're there [in Iraq], we're there and we can't get out.... I hope the President is incredibly successful with his policy now." Did these words really come from the same man who claimed to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and who had recently campaigned on the antiwar theme? What's changed? Perhaps you now believe that an electoral victory for Democrats in 2006 and beyond requires sweeping this war under the rug. If so, you are only the latest in a long line of recent Democratic leaders who chose a strategy of letting "no light show" between Democrats and the President on the war. Emphasize the economy, instead, they advised, in 2002 and again in 2004. Following this advice has kept us in the minority. During the 2002 election cycle, when Democrats felt they had historical precedent on their side (the President's party always loses seats in the midterm election), the Democratic leadership in Congress cut a deal with the President to bring the war resolution to a vote, and appeared with him in a Rose Garden ceremony. The "no light" strategy yielded a historic result: For the first time since Franklin Roosevelt, a President increased his majorities in both houses of Congress during a recession. The President went into the 2004 election with tremendous vulnerability on the war, which the Democratic Party again sacrificed: by avoiding the issue of withdrawal from Iraq in the party platform, omitting it from campaign speeches and deleting it from the national convention. Why does failure surely follow from sweeping the war and occupation under the rug? Because the war is one of the most potent political scandals of all time, and it has energized grassroots activity like few others. President Bush led the country into war based on false information, falsified threats and a fictitious estimate of the consequences. His war and the continuing occupation transformed Iraq into a training ground for jihadists who want to hunt Americans, and a cause c�l�bre for stoking resentment in the Muslim world. His war and occupation squandered the abundant good will felt by the world for America after our losses of September 11. He enriched his cronies at Halliburton and other private interests through the occupation. And he diverted our attention and abilities away from apprehending the masterminds of the September 11 attack; instead, we are mired in occupation. The President's war and occupation in Iraq has already cost $125 billion, nearly 1,600 American lives, more than 11,000 American casualties and the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis. The occupation has been more costly in this regard than the war. There is no end in sight for the occupation of Iraq. The President says we will stay until we're finished. A recent report by the Congressional Research Service concluded that the United States is probably building permanent military bases in Iraq. The President refuses to consider an exit strategy. The Republican Congress gives the President whatever he asks for. We can draw no clearer distinction with the President than over this war. He cannot right a wrong (unjustified war) by perpetuating a military occupation. Military victory there is not possible. General Tommy Franks concedes that. The war will end when we say it's over. The Democratic leadership should be pressing for quick withdrawal of all troops from Iraq. That's what most Democrats want, too. Your performance in the early stages of the primary, and your recent chairmanship of the party, were made possible by many, many progressive and liberal Democrats. It was their hope and expectation that you would prevent the party from repeating its past drift to the Republican-lite center. They hoped that this time the party would not abandon them or its core beliefs again. Yet you say that you hope the President succeeds. With no pressure exerted from the leadership of the Democratic Party, the past threatens to repeat itself in 2006. We may not leave Iraq or our minority status in Washington for a long time to come. Dennis J. Kucinic ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? 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