My annual Labor Day blog is very special to me this year. First of all, Garrison Keillor in his Writer's Almanac has mentioned the meaning of this day. Usually it gets totally blacked out in the American media. Second Keillor mentions that it is also the birthday of Joseph Heller the man who wrote:
What does a sane man do in an insane society
I don't know how you feel , but I think the juxtaposition is very meaningful. Here we are in a country that hates its workers so much that it has even developed a separate holiday for them to obsrve in the fall so they dare not be in solidarity with the rest of the working people in the world. Read on below and we can examine this insanity further.
Keillor starts out by reming ding us that may 1st had had a variety of meanings. then he goes on to remind us that the basis for mthis workers holiday originated here in the United States:
It's the date when many countries celebrate Labor Day, a tradition with its roots in the 19th-century labor movement in the United States. In 1886, unions around the country went on strike in support of an eight-hour workday. Since many of the organizers of the strikes were communists, socialists, and anarchists, May Day has also come to be associated with communism, and was a big national holiday in the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower tried to take back May Day during the Cold War by declaring it Law Day and Loyalty Day. It remains a day of rallies and protests in many parts of the world, and in 2006, protest returned to the United States on May 1st to call attention to immigrants' rights.
If we want a refresher for our memory here is what wikipedia has to say:
May Day can refer to various labour celebrations conducted on May 1 that commemorate the fight for the eight hour day. May Day in this regard is called International Workers' Day, or Labour Day. The idea for a "workers' holiday" began in Australia in 1856; after a stonemason's victory in securing improved employee rights, April 22nd was declared "Eight-Hour Day", a public holiday.[3][4] With the idea having spread around the world, the choice of May 1st became a commemoration by the socialist Second International for the people involved in the 1886 Haymarket affair.[5]
The Haymarket affair occurred during the course of a three-day general strike in Chicago, Illinois, United States that involved common laborers, artisans, merchants, and immigrants. Following an incident in which police opened fire and killed four strikers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. plant, a rally was called for the following day at Haymarket Square. Towards the end of the rally, as police moved in to disperse the event and opened fire on the unarmed crowd on the plea that an unknown assailant threw a bomb into the crowd of police. The bomb and resulting police riot left at least a dozen people dead, including one policeman. A sensational show trial ensued in which eight defendants were openly tried for their political beliefs, and not necessarily for any involvement in the bombing. The trial led to the eventual public hanging of four anarchists. The Haymarket incident was a source of outrage from people around the globe. In the following years, memory of the "Haymarket martyrs" was remembered with various May Day job actions and demonstrations.
Part of the insane irony of this day is the fact that we are here in the year 2011 and our political landscape is full of rhetoric and rewritten history about the role of unions, workers and immigrants in what we are today. It is truly hard to stay sane in this culture. Thanks Joseph Heller.