From The American Prospect:
In Bertolt Brecht’s play Galileo, the scientist is met by Andrea, one of his acolytes, after he’s recanted his heresy—that the Earth orbits the sun—rather than submit to torture at the hands of the all-powerful Church. They exchange the following remarks:
Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes.
Galileo: No, Andrea. Unhappy the land that needs a hero.
That exchange came to mind yesterday when I read the New York Times story documenting Cesar Chavez’s grooming, molestation, and rape of two middle-school-aged girls, the daughters of activists in the union Chavez founded and led, the United Farm Workers, as well as his rapes of the union’s co-founder and fellow leader Dolores Huerta.
Because Chavez was a hero in a land that needed one...
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