I follow the weekly, "Notes From Home" column published each week by Trudy Wischemann. Her column appears in the local newspapers of several Central Valley communities. If you click the link that I have provided in the next line of this blog posting, you should be able to read her column titled, "Sal Si Puedes." That means, "Get Out If You Can." Actually, Wischemann is urging her readers to stay put, dig in, and fight back. Small farmers in California's Central Valley are under incredible economic pressure, and many are getting discouraged.
In the column I have linked, Wischemann cites to Peter Matthiessen’s book, Sal Si Puedes: Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution. Here's her comment:
Early in the book, Matthiessen held out this hope: “Before this century is done, there will be an evolution in our values and the values of human society, not because man has become more civilized but because, on a blighted earth, he will have no choice.”
I think that this is an accurate statement of where global warming has put us. As I am typing out these comments, in mid July, virtually the entire nation faces a massive "heat wave" unlike anything that we have experienced before. Sure, it's been terribly hot, before, but you don't have to be a climate scientist to begin appreciating the fact that our "climate" is definitely "changing." We are all affected, and we, collectively, are causing the problem.
Could this problem be a "blessing in disguise"? Matthiesen's comment seems to indicate that this might be true. It is now clear, for those who hadn't grasped this before, that we, and I do mean all of us, are "in this together." It is more and more obvious that nationalistic rivalries and wars, and divisive prejudices of all kinds, are no longer something in which we can indulge. We must collaborate, and help ourselves to stop damaging, and start repairing, our natural environment.
What glorious opportunities we have ahead!
We do, however, have to "stick around" and join the effort, and not think we can make an "individual" escape. Wischemann is right. "Sal Si Puedes" is the very opposite of what we need to be trying to do. Let the billionaires give it their best shot (because it's clear that Peter Thiel and many of the world's other billionaires really do think they can make a personal escape, somehow).
Wave goodbye to them, and join hands. Maybe we might get in the mood by raising our voices in this song, inspiring when first heard, and still capable of getting us in the mood for what we need to do, right now.
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