stalinist fruitcakes united – the red flag

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 1 2008 14:16 utc | 4

Honoring May Day

I would like to use this opportunity to remind readers what happened in Chicago on May 1,1866.
On that date, several thousand immigrants and workers had gathered to support striking workers who were demanding better wages, fair treatment and safer working conditions. This was a time when American workers routinely worked 12-15 hours per day, and children were used in slave-like conditions in factories and coal mines.
The rally began peacefully that day, and the crowd was so calm that Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison walked home early after observing the event for several hours.
In the middle of the rally, the police ordered the crowd to disperse and began marching in formation towards the speakers’ wagon. Someone threw a bomb, killing a police officer. Chaos ensued, with police firing into the crowd.
Although every speaker at the event had urged peaceful protest, eight organizers were charged with murder. The prosecution offered no evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing, arguing that the rally organizers were engaged in a “conspiracy.” ..
Several of the defendants were hanged, and others received life sentences. Legal scholars often refer to the Haymarket prosecution as one of the most serious miscarriages of justice ever perpetrated in a United States court.
Most historians believe that Pinkerton agents provoked the incident, and several years later Illinois Gov. John Altgeld concluded that all eight defendants were innocent and signed pardons for those who had not already been executed. The governor publicly stated that the real reason for the bombing was the city of Chicago’s failure to hold Pinkerton guards responsible for their practice of shooting striking workers.
….
In that proud tradition, the International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) has issued a clarion call for a worker’s action to stop the war against the people of Iraq.
Their resolution observes that “the overwhelming majority of the American people now oppose this bipartisan and unjustifiable war, but the two major political parties — Democrats and Republicans — continue to fund it.”
The ILWU is halting work today all along the West Coast, and every major port will be shut down for eight hours in a tangible display of the strength and power of organized labor.
It is reminiscent of the refusal of longshoremen to load bombs for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1978 and a similar refusal to load military cargo to the Salvadoran military dictatorship in 1981.

May Day rallies could shut down port, downtown traffic

KING 5 News & Associated Press
Video: May Day rallies expected to disrupt Thursday traffic
SEATTLE – May Day rallies Thursday are expected to not only disrupt traffic in downtown Seattle but also shut down ports.
Thousands of protestors are expected to march in downtown Seattle in several rallies scheduled for the afternoon and evening. Now, longshoremen up and down the West Coast plan to not show up for work to protest the Iraq War, which may also include longshoremen on the Seattle waterfront.
May Day is when workers traditionally celebrate the labor movement. More than 25,000 longshore workers at 29 West Coast ports are taking the day off work and calling for an end to the war in Iraq.
Arbitrator steps in to avoid West Coast port slowdown
An arbitrator has ordered the union that represents dockworkers at West Coast ports to tell members they must report to work on Thursday and not take the day off to protest U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A wide enough walkout could cause a slowdown at the West Coast ports – the nation’s major gateway for cargo from the Far East.
Arbitrator John Kagel issued his decision Wednesday after holding a hearing by phone with the employers’ group, the Pacific Maritime Association, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, according to a document outlining the ruling.
The union previously asked employers to clear the way for members to skip out on the day shift to protest the war, but employers refused the request and were backed by the arbitrator last week.
Despite that decision, word continued to spread on the Internet of a May 1 walkout by longshore workers and details of protests, including a march in San Francisco. Thursday is May Day, when workers traditionally celebrate the labor movement.
Employers went back to the arbitrator on Wednesday, armed with accounts of dockworkers in San Francisco, Seattle and other ports telling supervisors that they would not be showing up to work.

abc local
OAKLAND, CA (KGO) — Union dock-workers are hoping to shut down every port on the West Coast in protest of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Longshoreman up and down the coast will not be at work. They picked this day to coincide with the five year anniversary of when Bush declared victory in Iraq. President Bush made the speech under the very controversial ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner.
This is the first time in decades the union has gone on strike to protest a war. Some truckers got early word of the protest and others were very surprised by the lack of activity at the Port of Oakland.

long time comin’
in solidarity

Posted by: annie | May 1 2008 15:57 utc | 6

“May Day is when workers traditionally celebrate…”
yeah, i think many people think it is a holiday to dance around a maypole. when i was a kid we made wildflower baskets and hung them on neighbors doors, rang the doorbell and ran off.
that was during the cold war, nobody mentioned socialists. i didn’t know it was a worker’s holiday until ’80/’81 when i was in austria on may 1st. wow, was that an eye opener.

Posted by: annie | May 1 2008 18:20 utc | 8

one of the elements of 1968 that has been betrayed until quite recently – a lesson – whether people like it or not was taught by the cultural revolution in china – was the alliance of students & workers – in the common struggle
even as a youngster it was exhilirating to read my poems to massed workers on the factory floor. i remember my first comrade there was a dutch man of jewish origin – at the same time in the cell i was placed under the wings of a russian with poliomylitus – these two were teachers at the deepest level i have ever had teachers
indeed many of us in that moment were invited to china to engage in cadre schools to deeper understand the necessity of that alliance
tho i have little sympathy with the new emporers of today – i regret nothing, nothing at all from that past
it is with their eyes that i witness this world. their actions inform my own even in the midst of life
& i am not nostalgic for that even though that struggle was by its very nature romantic – simply because it embraced everything
i had great teachers who had made it clear that the great texts – the texts of marx or rosa luxembourg or gramsi – were not absolutes – merely tools given by gifted & couragous comrades
what was richest was the exchanges & i suppose that is an element in writing here with you – because it is a magnificent exchange – of ideas & of resources
when i watch the false honouring or the creepy condemantation of those days in may – or the incoherent obsessions of a bernando bertolucci – i know that what i have experienced as a human is a very different thing than that that the filmmakers fake
& they are without history. they do not distinguish that perhaps the raf in germany were taking acts more against the history of their fathers & mothers, & against a germany that in terms of jurisprudence was not so far from the old times – indded many legislators judges & procurers were nazis. i see the acts of desperation but i am capable of also seeing the acts of love. in italy it was a civil war – with the mafia & the fascists quite willing to engage in massacre to maintain their position, in the east the ossification of the beauracracies werer stifling the people & it is often not recoognised that a great deal of opposition to the russians were from the left, in greece the junta ruled casually using murder & torture under the explicit instructions of the americans
in 1968 we were all vietnamese & tet was our victory as well as theirs
i witness what has happened to the universities & the profession of teaching & i am scandalised. they were amongst the first to experience & absorb the fear taught us by the neoliberals & the neoconservatives
to dream is not a perversion – on the contrary it is a construction of hope in a time when there appears to be none

Posted by: r’giap | May 1 2008 18:29 utc | 10

it is in 2008 that berlusconi sd loud & clear, “we are the new falange”. our enemy knows exactly who they are

Posted by: r’giap | May 1 2008 19:29 utc | 12

John D. Rockefeller was so alarmed at the political fallout of the Haymarket Square riots that he founded the University of Chicago to advance the capitalist point of view.

Posted by: alabama | May 1 2008 20:56 utc | 14

@alabama #14
Wow, is that true? Or common knowledge? It certainly wouldn’t surprise me, and sounds like it would be valid, but I hadn’t heard that before, or is that merely an opinion ? Nonetheless, a pithy comment.

Posted by: Anonymous | May 1 2008 22:50 utc | 16

well i prefer maypoles to soviet missile displays…if that counts for anything

Posted by: spoon of the stars | May 1 2008 23:19 utc | 18

It’s true, Uncle $cam.

Posted by: alabama | May 1 2008 23:49 utc | 20

It was May 2 here by the time I noticed the thread which must have gone up ‘overnight’.
So, a few even more jumbled than usual thoughts as it’s back to skool on monday after which I will be trying to do other things like attend lectures study, play the role of wise old man of class rather than just oldest man but I don’t know how much longer I will be able maintain that illusion.
Yesterday am (May 1) I tuned into the TVNZ (state broadcaster) breakfast show. The nasty little winger who is the male ‘host’ managed to do the ‘on this day’ segment without mentioning international workers day or the liberation of Ho Chi Minh city but for some reason he did mention the anniversary of Cuba’s victory over Batista. Only that wasn’t how he said it what he said was something like: “On this day in 1959 Fidel Castro took over cuba. The first thing he did was abolish elections.’
Where do you start with such wild inaccuracy? May 1 is a holiday in Cuba but it isn’t the anniversary of the fall of batista who fled on January 1 1959, or the liberation of Havana (january 8 1959) or the ascension of Fidel who was named Prime Minister of Cuba on February 16 1959.
it was the abolishing elections bullshit which got to me the most. The reason Batista had to be got rid of by way of a revolution was precisely because he had suspended the crooked electoral process in 1952 when he came to power from a coup d’etat.
I realise no one else is particularly interested in who said what when on TVNZ but I draw attention to it because that is the way that people are brainwashed. Not with big lies in headlines but with many small lies in the background. Though even in the height of the cold war state television would never have told such a brazen lie as that. They used to distort and ignore but rarely out and out lie. It just goes to show how arrogant the elites have become, when a public broadcaster is obliged to lie to keep up with the play, although admittedly, a lot of that ‘on this day’ stuff was probably just ignorance rather than deliberate lies.
When I lived in the Northern Territory of Australia May 1 was a public holiday still is and had been since the depression as the NT was a hotbed of radicalism throughout the first half of the 20th century. I think I’ve already told the story of how the NT administrator, appointed by Canberra back in the day when the NT still had a bigger aboriginal population than whitefella (it would have been the sole state or territory that had more aboriginal people) the administrator had to be rescued by gunship a few years after the end of ww1 when angry white trade unionists and aboriginal people laid his mansion under siege.
So anyway May 1 was always a public holiday which presented a challenge for the right wing government which held power in the NT from the late 70’s until the late 90’s. The idea of abolishing a public holiday was out of the question, even though the left were in dire straights in the Territory throughout the 80’s, abolishing a public holiday would have seen a Labor government elected by a landslide next election.
Our unions had always organised union picnics on May Day so first of all the CLP govt changed the name of the holiday from May Day to Picnic Day then set about organising competing picnics. They tried to be bigger and better with free sausage sandwiches hot off the barbie, courtesy of Rotary, Lions and the Junior Chamber of Commerce.
They had to come up with a theme for the picnics a raison d’etre, if you will, so they decided to call it “On the beach”
Northern Australian waters are unsafe for swimming in from the beginning of October till the end of may because the onshore breeze (I think onshore described breezes which blow from offshore to onshore unlike a southerly which blows from the south) anyway the winds blow ‘box jellyfish’ aka ‘sea wasps’ in close to the shore. Swimming amongst such lethal jellyfish is pretty dangerous unless you know what you are doing and even then it can be dangerous.
So the tories would hold a big party on the beach every May Day and the Rotarians et al plus ambulances would have their picnic. As you may have noticed I wrote that box jellyfish which never completely disappear are still prevalent throughout the month of May.
That didn’t stop the tories from getting innocents in the water every May 1.
Stopping ‘comminism’ was more important than ‘stingers’ maiming and occasionally killing tourists.
The CLP picnics only ever really caught on for rotarians and tourists, the rest of us would play in the “May Day March” which always drew a far bigger crowd than ‘on the beach’ (when you consider the novel of that name, in a way it is a most appropriate title).
I’m told that May Day turnouts have dwindled since the election of a pseudo-leftist government in the NT. It pains me greatly to call that government pseudo leftist because I along with tens of thousands of others fought hard to get the ALP into power in the territory and many senior members of the administration were close friends with whom I still swap the obligatory annual email.
However there is nothing like a bit of repression to breed insurrection so as piss weak as the Labor administration is, they have confined there worst oppression to aboriginal people and addicts, so in all likelihood most young territorians now believe May 1 is about picnics.

Posted by: Debs is dead | May 1 2008 23:51 utc | 22

Greetings, comrades! I am so truly grateful for the 40-hour week (even if my employer abuses it regularly) and for the WEEKEND! Really. People take weekends for granted now and don’t realize how hard a battle it was to achieve them.
A salute and a toast… to our wonderful host, Bernhard; and to the dear, lost Comrade Billmon! Thanks for the reprint, B. And to R’Giap, Uncle $cam, Annie, Alabama, Anna Missed, Beq and all other barflies, of whom I know I’ve neglected to mention many. And where are Cat Lady and Conchita?
I have my “impeach him/impeach them both” sign in my front yard; interestingly many more have been springing up in neighboring yards lately.

Posted by: Maxcrat | May 2 2008 0:46 utc | 24

protests like this don’t happen often because frankly lots of kids just don’t give a shit.
Too true, too true. And I say this as a kid of 21.
Also though, the slightest hint of protest or questioning authority can get one informally shitlisted for life where I live in McCarthyitesville USA. So what few dirty fucking hippies there are, tend to lay low.

Posted by: Cloud | May 2 2008 1:56 utc | 26

Blasts from the past and Walpurgis anniversaries reminds me… it’s been five years since Mission Accomplished™.

Posted by: Monolycus | May 2 2008 2:26 utc | 28

Monolycus: blows my circuits. cognitive dissonance. stupidsmart? AHHH…

Posted by: Lizard | May 2 2008 3:14 utc | 30

Message of solidarity from the Iraqi dockworkers.

We the port workers view that our interests are inseparable from the interests of workers in Iraq and the world; therefore we are determined to continue our struggle to improve the living conditions of the workers and overpower all plots of the occupation, its economic and political projects.
Let us hold hands for the victory of our struggle.
Long live the port workers in California!
Long live May Day!

Posted by: catlady | May 2 2008 3:46 utc | 32

“President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said ‘mission accomplished’ just for these sailors on this ship on their mission, and not implying the war in Iraq. The President flies out to returning US flag ships on a regular basis…” White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. “… we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that matter. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they will do every single year.”
Ms. Perino was photographed by paparazzi later that afternoon, drunk on her ass in
a DC pub crawl, giving lap dances to patrons for $5. “Wha’, you wanna say sompin’?”

Posted by: Tudor Perini | May 2 2008 5:16 utc | 34

btw, while there’s a picture of Marx hung up, can someone explain to me why “from each according to his ability” is not a chilling demand for the state to make? is it just supposed to be a friendly suggestion?

Posted by: boxcar mike | May 2 2008 5:49 utc | 36