I feel kind of bad for using Nelson on this story, but my self-restraint failed me, the sooner everyone recognizes Gavin Newsom as the creep he is, the better off everyone will be.
A lot of good people are hurt, disillusioned and confused by the revelations, published by Axis stalwart the New York Times, that United Farm Workers and Mexican-American icon Cesar Chavez raped women and girls. All of the headlines will say “allegedly,” but the evidence is very strong, and you know the Times, which happily covered up not-quite so convincing evidence that Joe Biden sexually assaulted a staffer when he was in the Senate and never fully investigated the darkest accusations against Bill Clinton, would have done the same with the Chavez revelations if they could find the slightest justification. Read the Times story here, on my gift link. I won’t waste time repeating it, as this post will be long enough.
Ethics Issues:
Ethics Alarms 
“The Association of Trial Lawyers of America was begun by, among others, super-lawyer and litigation innovator Melvin Belli. His name is nowhere to be found on the organization’s website or in its headquarters, because Mel (whom I knew bit) embarrassed ATLA by flagrant, high profile and unethical solicitation of clients.”
The real crime was his role as the Friendly Angel in that execrable Star Trek episode “And the Children Shall Lead”.
On a more serious note (because I’m afraid the children’s chant will become an earworm if I think on it too long), this strikes me as somewhat convenient. I think that there are problematic people on the Left’s list that they just want a good reason to dump and wait for a serendipitous moment to do it. The Left probably knew about Chavez for years but couldn’t risk alienating the Latino community, the Farmworkers and DEI activists. However, the Highest Tier Progressive causes include Illegal Immigrants and Chavez was notoriously critical of them. These revelations have simply given them the opportunity to throw him under the bus because they are shocked…shocked!.. that such an important figure has been accused of rape.
The Left doesn’t care about sexual misconduct if it involves one of their own. They’ll toss a sacrificial lamb like Al Franken on the altar of righteous indignation every so often, but they are jettisoning Chavez because he didn’t promote their narrative. He’s a victim of presentism, too. The scoundrel.
“The Left probably knew about Chavez for years but couldn’t risk alienating the Latino community, the Farmworkers and DEI activists.”
If you want to see or hear the most ardent anti-illegal immigrant sentiments, talk to Latinos who slogged through the arcane, Byzantine immigration rules to obtain legal status, permanent residency, and later citizenship. They also think that the Cesar Chavezes of the world are grifters and ne’er-do-wells. They are not so loving toward the narrattive that “good and hard-working” people are simply crossing the border in search of better lives. They know that the farm workers Chavez so cirminally loved and adored have guest worker status, work legally during the spring planting and fall harvest times, go back to the home countries, and are pretty decent people. Many will also tell you that they are not, in any way, shape, or form, like the uneducated hordes of people flooding the border, paying coyotes to cross illegally and demanding rights and privileges they are neither entitled to or warrant receiving. Many are highly educated, professionals, and come here to pursue the American Dream.
jvb
I already see gloating reactions from the not-so-left, e.g. about left wing icon and “civil rights martyr” George Floyd:
Not St. George of the Floyd. Please say it ain’t so.
jvb
“They made the very difficult utilitarian decision to protect a serial rapist and child predator to advance Chavez’s humanitarian cause. I hold that was, in fact, a defensible position. This was ethics zugzwang.”
So, if the cause is righteous, then covering up the leader’s bad, criminal behavior is justifiable. I guess we should cover up Bill Cosby’s felonious ways because he was a TV icon. Or, we should ignor any number of clergy members of various religious orders’ abhorrent behaviors toward their congregants because saving innumeral souls outweighs the damage done to members of the flock(s). Or, Black Lives Matter should not have to address its “leaders'” corruption and embezzlement of millions of dollars of organization funds for their own benefits (lovely homes, cars, watches, purses, spa treatments, etc.) because police brutality against blacks is more important that the organization’s fiscal and corporate integrity.
To me, the movement can survive the ousting of the supposed figurehead. In fact, throwing a Cesar Chavez out of the organization because he is credibly accused of reprehensible actions and crimes would make the organization stronger, sending a message that the organization would not, under any circumstances, tolerate that behavior, especially from the leader.
jvb
Sure it can…now. But if King had been outed as a rapist in 1962, it would have set the Civil Rights movement back a decade or more.
Does that mean that giving the saint a pass can be ethically defended on grounds of ethics zugzwang and ethics conflict?
:::sigh:::
Boys will be boys I have often say.
Ironic that I’m reading Baldwin’s “Go Tell it on the Mountain” right now.