May Day

by **minime** » Tue May 01, 2018 11:35 am

And Happy International Workers' Day!

Any workers out there anymore?

Lots of pix at the link...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/world/may-day-rallies-around-the-world-intl/index.html

Demonstrators across the globe took to the streets on Tuesday to demand better working conditions, as part of rallies marking International Workers' Day. Held on May 1 each year -- known as May Day -- the rallies date back to the 1880s. At the time, labor movements around the world were campaigning for safeguards such as eight-hour workdays and trade unions. The date of May 1 was chosen as it coincided with the anniversary of the Haymarket affair in Chicago, where police killed four people at a peaceful protest after someone threw a bomb into the crowd.

by **thrulookingglass** » Tue May 01, 2018 1:47 pm

Ludlow Massacre
Woody Guthrie

It was early springtime when the strike was on,
They drove us miners out of doors,
Out from the houses that the Company owned,
We moved into tents up at old Ludlow.
I was worried bad about my children,
Soldiers guarding the railroad bridge,
Every once in a while a bullet would fly,
Kick up gravel under my feet.
We were so afraid you would kill our children,
We dug us a cave that was seven foot deep,
Carried our young ones and pregnant women
Down inside the cave to sleep.
That very night your soldiers waited,
Until all us miners were asleep,
You snuck around our little tent town,
Soaked our tents with your kerosene.
You struck a match and in the blaze that started,
You pulled the triggers of your gatling guns,
I made a run for the children but the fire wall stopped me.
Thirteen children died from your guns.
I carried my blanket to a wire fence corner,
Watched the fire till the blaze died down,
I helped some people drag their belongings,
While your bullets killed us all around.
I never will forget the look on the faces
Of the men and women that awful day,
When we stood around to preach their funerals,
And lay the corpses of the dead away.
We told the Colorado Governor to call the President,
Tell him to call off his National Guard,
But the National Guard belonged to the Governor,
So he didn't try so very hard.
Our women from Trinidad they hauled some potatoes,
Up to Walsenburg in a little cart,
They sold their potatoes and brought some guns back,
And they put a gun in every hand.
The state soldiers jumped us in a wire fence corners,
They did not know we had these guns,
And the Red-neck Miners mowed down these troopers,
You should have seen those poor boys run.
We took some cement and walled that cave up,
Where you killed these thirteen children inside,
I said, "God bless the Mine Workers' Union, "
And then I hung my head and cried.

Songwriters: Woody Guthrie

WORKERS UNITE! ALL UNITE! Nothing to lose but our chains.

by **Cordelia** » Tue May 01, 2018 2:00 pm

May Day in Puerto Rico; protestors angry at being directed to further tighten their belts as new measures (and continued lack of help) further tightens their nooses......

Thousands of Puerto Ricans protest austerity measures, slow hurricane recovery

By Associated Press
May 01, 2018 | 9:40 AM
| San Juan, Puerto Rico

Thousands of Puerto Ricans marched on Tuesday to protest pension cuts, school closures and slow hurricane recovery efforts as anger grows across the U.S. territory over looming austerity measures.

The protest attracted teachers, retirees and unionized workers from both the private and public sector. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz was among those marching.

Concerns that the protest could grow violent prompted the island's biggest shopping mall to close for the day, along with several banks, government agencies and schools.

Puerto Rico is mired in an 11-year recession and trying to restructure some of its $72-billion public debt load as it struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria. Some 30,000 power customers remain in the dark after the Category 4 storm struck on Sept. 20.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pue ... story.html

by **American Dream** » Tue May 01, 2018 4:15 pm

The incomplete, true, and wonderful history of May Day

Peter Linebaugh

Once upon a time, long before Weinberger bombed North Africans, before the Bank of Boston laundered money, or Reagan honored the Nazi war dead, the earth was blanketed by a broad mantle of forests.

As late as Caesar’s time a person might travel through the woods for two months without gaining an unobstructed view of the sky. The immense forests of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America provided the atmosphere with oxygen and the earth with nutrients. Within the woodland ecology our ancestors did not have to work the graveyard shift, or deal with flextime, or work from Nine to Five. Indeed, the Native Americans whom Captain John Smith encountered in 1606 only worked four hours a week. The origin of May Day is to be found in the Woodland Epoch of History.

In Europe, as in Africa, people honored the woods in many ways. With the leafing of the trees in spring, people celebrated “the fructifying spirit of vegetation,” to use the phrase of J.G. Frazer, the anthropologist. They did this in May, a month named after Maia, the mother of all the gods according to the ancient Greeks, giving birth even to Zeus.

The Greeks had their sacred groves, the Druids their oak worship, the Romans their games in honor of Floralia. In Scotland the herdsmen formed circles and danced around fires. The Celts lit bonfires in hilltops to honor their god, Beltane. In the Tyrol people let their dogs bark and made music with pots and pans. In Scandinavia fires were lit and the witches came out.

Everywhere people “went a-Maying” by going into the woods and bringing back leaf, bough, and blossom to decorate their persons, homes, and loved ones with green garlands. Outside theater was performed with characters like “Jack-in-the-Green” and the “Queen of the May.” Trees were planted. Maypoles were erected. Dances were danced. Music was played. Drinks were drunk, and love was made. Winter was over, spring had sprung.

The history of these customs is complex and affords the student of the past with many interesting insights into the history of religion, gender, reproduction, and village ecology. Take Joan of Arc who was burned in May 1431. Her inquisitors believed she was a witch. Not far from her birthplace, she told the judges, “There is a tree that they call ‘The Ladies’ Tree’—others call it ‘The Fairies’ Tree.’ It is a beautiful tree, from which comes the Maypole. I have sometimes been to play with the young girls to make garlands for Our Lady of Domrémy. Often I have heard the old folk say that the fairies haunt this tree.” In the general indictment against Joan, one of the particulars against her was dressing like a man. The paganism of Joan’s heresy originated in the Old Stone Age when religion was animistic and shamans were women and men.

https://roarmag.org/essays/linebaugh-history-may-day/