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5/1 - Mayday [1]
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Date: 2023-05-01
May Day 13 - Strikers in Union Square
There are places where May Day brings out maypole dancers and the like. Some of these places, largely in Europe, have cultural linkages to Beltane, Floralia or both, while others, such as in the US have no such connection. Here Puritans and other such groups worked mightily to destroy traditions of such satanic celebrations and prevent their occurrence. Later, they were consciously and laboriously taught to and instilled in the nation's educational institutions by those who sought to create a more refined outlet for the energies of the hoi polloi than carnivals and amusement parks. These supercilious buffoons initially especially targeted women's colleges for these "good works" of theirs, complete with May Queens, etc. I am told that this practice is now in serious decline
In a lot of the world it is International Workers' Day, or Labor Day, but not here for sure. The US has a terrible history with labor and labor rights. The fact that a huge swathe of the nation depended upon the unpaid forced labor of enslaved persons to keep its economy running is just part of the picture. This was something of a plutocracy from day one, money talked and it talked loudly enough to get tons of laborers killed. Any hint of labor organizing was attacked by both government and private interests, that union of the two interests that Mussolini spoke of. The grange, unions by any name, socialists in general and more were attacked by private armies, police forces, legitimate and otherwise, the national guard and even the army. The Pinkertons would do anything to bust unions and strikes as would the Baldwin-Felts Agency, paid assassins for the coal companies who killed striking miners at the battles of Matewan and Blair Mountain.
On May 1, 1886, rallies were held throughout the United States demanding an eight-hour work day. These led to the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers' Day in many countries but not, of course, the US. Even the US labor movement, such as it was, shied away from associating itself with that event though it is something of a microcosm of US labor history except for the bomb. Even after the criminal violence against unions died down including pretty much open war against the Wobblies, and unions were given a legal right to exist, the Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947 to try to cripple them, hurt their ability to organize and limit their right to strike. Then the McCarran Act of 1950 put a ton of requirements on any association that the government chose to consider to be communist or subversive, backed up with concentraion camps for violators. This act enhanced assorted requirements placed on union leadership to make sure that they weren't commies and didn't turn their unions in that direction.
Nonetheless, there was still a nagging fear that the CPUSA might evolve into a ready made third political party sympathetic to workers, workers' rights, and the working class in general and that said workers and working class might flock to it. Eventually, the Communist Control Act of 1954 was passed. It simply outlawed the Communist Party and criminalized membership in or support for the party or "Communist-action" organizations, seemingly retroactively. In conjunction with the McCarran Act, this was seriously unconstitutional, violating the 5th Amendment, the right of free association, and the prohibition on ex-post facto laws, just for starters, but that was of no import to the elites of the day. Meanwhile, pursuant to Taft-Hartley, many states passed "right to work" laws. So, no Virginia, we don't celebrate Workers' Day here.
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