Redstate

By patriotroom Posted in History — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I know, Wikipedia says it was inspired by an incident in Chicago and is a Worldwide celebration of the labor movement.

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 choice of May 1st was a commemoration by the Second International for the people involved in the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago, Illinois. As the culmination of three days of labor unrest in the United States, the Haymarket incident was a source of outrage and admiration from people around the globe. In countries other than the United States and Canada, residents sought to make May Day an official holiday and their efforts largely succeeded. For this reason, in most of the world today, May Day has become an international celebration of the social and economic achievements of the labour movement.

And Wikipedia will also tell you why we don't celebrate our Labor Day on May 1.

Although May Day received its inspiration from the United States, the U.S. Congress designated May 1 as Loyalty Day in 1958 due to the day's appropriation by the Soviet Union.

When I was younger, there was no question that the big news story of every May 1 was to show the Soviet May Day military parades with ICBM's (for those under 35, they were the nuclear tipped missiles aimed at every American city) towed through Red Square, tanks, and hordes of marching squares of Communist soldiers. There were hammer and sickled red banners everywhere and huge head shots of Lenin and Stalin. May Day is a "Workers' Holiday" and Communism is all about a despotic few acting in the name of the the little workers who would otherwise be crushed by the evil forces of capitalism.

Here's a little taste of the Soviet May Day parade from 1961. The American narrator knew the bad guys when he saw them.

Former Soviet citizens will tell you, despite the pageantry, it was all for show.

Palm Coast resident Irene Mednikov always attended the parades for May Day, also known as International Workers Day, when she lived in the industrial city of Chelyabinsk, Ural, until 1996.

"I marched," she said. "I never missed a parade ever, because it was mandatory."

The May 1 event was like a holiday, she said, with parties, dancing and singing.

In Russia, streets filled with people parading for the worker and for the Soviet Union, in a sea of red flags and political banners. [snip]

Companies were required to bring a particular amount of workers to the parades, Mednikov said, and each company decorated for the day.

Ah, the old gun-to-your-head parade. Mandatory attendance and employee quotas. Good times.

Today, May Day is a day for workers to gripe, immigrants to protest law they have broken, and generally an excuse for whiners to complain.

Back to work slackers.

Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room