It's amazing how people can get so excited about a rocket to the moon and not give a damn about smog, oil leaks, the devastation of the environment with pesticides, hunger, disease. When the poor share some of the power that the affluent now monopolize, we will give a damn.
Interpretation
Chavez highlights society's contradictory priorities, focusing on space exploration while neglecting pressing social and environmental issues.
Cesar Chavez critiques the fascination with technological advancements, like space travel, juxtaposed with the alarming disregard for critical issues affecting humanity and the environment. He emphasizes that true progress requires addressing these disparities and empowering the less fortunate to partake in the power held by the affluent, implying that societal change must prioritize humanitarian and ecological concerns over mere technological achievements.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about environmental activism to emphasize the need for societal change.
I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do. I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings.
I think one of the great, great problems...is confusing people to the point where they become immobile. In fact, the more things people can find out for themselves, the more vigor the organization is going to have.
In the final analysis it doesn't really matter what the political system is...We don't need perfect political systems; we need perfect participation.
There is enough love and good will in our movement to give energy to our struggle and still have plenty left over to break down and change the climate of hate and fear around us.
Our union represents a breaking away...represents sharing a power, represent questioning, represents a new force...however long it takes, we are geared for a struggle.
Every time we sit at a table at night or in the morning to enjoy the fruits and grain and vegetables from our good earth, remember that they come from the work of men and women and children who have been exploited for generations.
The change which the writing wrought in me (and of which I did not write) was only a beginning; only to prepare me for the gods' surgery. They used my own pen to probe my wound.
When you tire of living, change itself seems evil, does it not? for then any change at all disturbs the deathlike peace of the life-weary.
The arc of history is longer than human vision. It bends. We abolished slavery, we granted universal suffrage. We have done hard things before. And every time it took a terrible fight between people who could not imagine changing the rules, and those who said, 'We already did. We have made the world new.' The hardest part will be to convince yourself of the possibilities, and hang on.
Getting sober just exploded my life. Now I have a much clearer sense of myself and what I can and can't do. I am more successful than I have ever been. I feel very positive where I never did before, and I think that's all a direct result of getting sober.
A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.
When I was young, we were taught not to dunk. We were taught not to stand out from the rest of the team. It's different now.
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