california farmworkers
THE VAST AGRICULTURAL plain of Ventura County in California, where César Chávez first envisioned the United Farm Workers movement, is no stranger to grassroots activism. When federal immigration officers raided Glass House Farms in Camarillo on July 10, a rapid response network, the 805 Immigrant Coalition, immediately used its text app to mobilize citizens to protest and document the event.
“This is quickly becoming one of the largest operations since President Trump took office,” wrote Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on social media as the chaotic raid unfolded, a raid that ultimately resulted in the death of farmworker Jaime Alanís Garcia.
The Christianized Jesus -- the turning of a radical into a conservative shadow of his former self -- explains our problem of establishing and celebrating freedom fighters today. It is important that our progressive heroes be given their deserved fame, an accurately reported fame, and this is crucial in ways that impact our own activism.
Jesus of Nazareth was not a Peak Performance Strategist as the prosperity preachers would have it. Nor was he a foreigner-hating patriot as the tea party would argue. Obviously American politicians and their lobbyists pursue so many policies that are against the teachings of Jesus but are supported by mainstream Christian opinion. In fact, Jesus' parables and sayings push the spiritual revolution of gift economies, and of justice through radical forgiveness.