A story that is becoming increasingly passe just over our southern border:

“Women, Children Raped In County’s ‘Most Dangerous Area‘”

SAN DIEGO — Authorities said a desolate corner of San Diego County may be its most violent area. It is so dangerous 10News crews had to put on bulletproof vests before entering the area near Boulevard.

“The violence in this area is so bad that a 12-year-old was raped to death,” said Estela De Los Rios of the Center for Social Advocacy.

In the area, authorities said there are pieces of evidence left behind that serve as a grim reminder of the violence happening near the U.S.-Mexico border.

“They’re ruthless; they’ll come over here, they’ll pick one out that they want, they drag her off onto the rocks, they’ll rape her and they just leave them here,” said Carl Braun, founder of the Border Patrol Auxiliary, a group that assists U.S. Border Patrol agents.

The rapes are committed by the people the victims trust, authorities said. The women and their families give their life savings to human smugglers, only to be hurt by them.

“What they’ll do is they’ll get them in sight of the border or right across the border and then they’ll demand a form of payment that wasn’t agreed to on the front end. They will take them off and then rape them,” said Braun.

After raping the women, authorities said the smugglers hang their underwear on the trees as trophies to mark their brutal conquests.

Braun said he has witnessed a woman being raped but could not help because it happened on the south side of the border.

“In the morning, we found her undergarments hanging from that stick that’s sticking up by the fence there,” said Braun.

Braun said the violence has now crossed the border into San Diego County.

Here are my thoughts about this: build a wall.  Build it tall and strong.  And patrol our side of it.  Keep these people the hell out of our country.

And in so doing prevent helpless women and children from trusting these human-suit-wearing-cockroaches to illegally bring them here in the first place.

La Raza-types would argue that my opposing illegal immigration qualifies me as a racist, to which I shout, “What a racist thing of you to say!”  They don’t bother to make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration.  If I oppose illegal immigration I’m a racist.  But they’re the racists.  And why should anyone care what they say?

La Raza may not give a damn about these Mexican women and young girls being raped  by Coyotes within sight of the U.S. border, but I sure do.

Conservatives are all in favor of immigration – from ALL over the world, and not just from Mexico or Latin America – as long as it is a) legal and b) benefits the United States.  Now, very little of either occurs.

Allow me to elaborate on how we severed the improvement of the United States from our immigration policy to show how we got to this point.

This country used to have the best interest of the nation and its own people as a core value.  But in 1965, championed by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson and Senator Ted Kennedy, that changed with the passage of the Hart-Celler Act.  Democrats assured the country that our borders would never be flooded with waves of immigrants.

The Hart-Celler Act repealed our previous immigration laws – which Democrats attacked as favoring Europeans and immigrants with job skills – and replaced our previous sane policy with one of chain immigration.  Instead of bringing in people with the job skills this country needed, the agenda became bringing in relatives of immigrants [Source: Mark Levin, Liberty And Tyranny, pp 150-151, and his citation from the Center for Immigration Studies, Sept. 1995].

We have continued to see wave after wave of unskilled immigrants flow into our country, along with their unskilled relatives, ever since.  We have attracted them with all the welfare benefits that a Great Society could provide.  And we have encouraged illegal immigration by these means, and by refusing to deal with the crisis our own elected representatives have foisted upon us.

Republican Representative William Miller understood the ramifications quite well.  He said, “We estimate that if the President gets his way, and the current immigration laws are repealed, the number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more.”

He was right.  The Democrats were terribly wrong – other than the fact that they have – at the expense of the nation and the American people – successfully created a new pro-Democrat special interest/constituency group.

We need to end the process by which unskilled Latin American immigrants flood into this country either illegally or legally, and return to the system – based on fair international quotas and job skills – in which the most qualified people from all over the world come here to start new lives as Americans.  We need to encourage immigrants who will leave their cultures behind and embrace American values, rather than our current system which encourages our immigrants to march against the clear national interests of the American people on a communist holiday (May Day) carrying a Mexican flag rather than the American flag – or even worse:

For what it’s worth, I’m not opposed to qualified, skilled immigrants legally coming here from Mexico or the Latin American hemisphere.  Quite the contrary.  I would gladly welcome such new Americans to this country.  But you can count on me being much less gracious and welcoming to people who come and demand welfare benefits while flying a foreign flag.

12. May Day

Of all the stories my mother told me about my father, the one which made the deepest impression on me, of course, was the story of May Day.

When the Russians finally decided to leave Twentyland, Colonel Ostrovsky came to see my father for the last time.

“I take it for granted, Comrade,” he said, “that your country will remain a loyal observer of the Warsaw Pact and fully co-operative with the fraternal economic and political initiatives of your allies. I just hope that now you’ve got the place, you can run it, because you won’t be getting any help – you understand that?”

He paused, sighed, and took off his hat.

“Good luck, Marki,” he said, “You’re going to need it. Lots of it. But you won’t fail through lack of cheek. Comrade, I salute you for the last time.”

He embraced my father and marched out of the Palace forever.

People assumed that once the Russians had gone there would be an adjustment: that Tretchin would be unceremoniously ejected and my father would take over as Prime Minister. Tretchin must have thought so, because he tried to leave the country and was intercepted at the airport. My father reassured him: there would be proper elections for a new Prime Minister in due course, in which he was welcome to stand if he wished: in the meantime my father would remain President.

What happened was that without any law being passed, or any appointments being made, the President somehow became the real leader of his country and the office of Prime Minister became a minor one. Perhaps it would be truer to say that people recognised openly now that my father had always been the leader, whatever the Russians thought about it.

Nevertheless, Ostrovsky’s references to my father needing luck were not idle. The people of Twentyland had soon got over their gratitude at being liberated, and they were not at all happy to find themselves in the Soviet orbit. In old Dubitania, there had been a somewhat unrealistic sense of being a leading Romance nation, one of the three pillars of European culture along with France and Italy. Dubitania looked first to the Mediterranean for its culture: and second, to Germany and Austria. The Twentylanders still regarded the Russians as very much their inferiors: to have Russian soldiers swaggering through the streets of Sescastri, helping themselves to any small items that took their fancy, seemed to them a deeply wounding humiliation, and to have their children taught Russian at school instead of French was quite unendurable. The departure of the Russians obviously did a great deal to dispel these tensions, but there was still some resentment against the Party and it was quite possible that this resentment would turn itself against my father. There was no doubt that certain clandestine groups had begun making plans for risings against his regime in favour of some variety of reactionary bourgeois social democracy, and even, farcically, in support of a restored monarchy. It must be remembered that at this stage, my father had not yet had the freedom to introduce his own distinctive policies, and that while he still commanded the support of the great majority of Twentylanders, he had not yet attained the unanimous popular backing which we now take for granted.

A key milestone would be the first grand May Day parade to be held in Sescastri following the departure of the Red Army. For several months beforehand, Commissar Ursin was forced to neglect his supervision of the police while he attempted to ensure that the armed forces of Twentyland would be able to put on a good show. This was no easy task; frankly, they were threadbare and suffered from low morale.

My father was uneasy about the whole thing, displaying an uncharacteristic quietness and passivity. It seemed as if for the time being he had lost his sense of direction. The one thing that rekindled his energy at that time was the intermittent efforts which were made by Ursin and others to get him to wear the uniform of a Field Marshal.

“I should rather wear a skirt.” he said, “And you know, if you don’t shut up about this, Juri, I really think I will.”

The process of planning seemed dogged by problems; my father said he thought we should set a precedent among the Communist nations of the world by delivering the May Day parade in July. But eventually everything was arranged. Early on the day of the parade, my father was sitting wearing his uncomfortable best suit in the upper room of the Café Napoleon, which had been reserved for his use, when Ursin strode in with a grim smile on his face.

“We’ve got an assassin, Marki.” he declared jubilantly, “Young fellow, standing in the crowd, carrying a big suitcase with a home-made bomb in it.”

“A suitcase?” asked my father, incredulously.

“Yes. An amateurish piece of work – he was lucky he didn’t blow himself up by accident. My men had him within three minutes of him showing up. I don’t think he had any detailed plan. He was just hoping that somehow he could get near you, and then I suppose he was either going to hurl it at you or blow himself up as well. Amateurs. If this is the best the opposition can do, you can sleep pretty easy.”

“You didn’t shoot him?”

“No, no. Took him clean as a whistle – hop! – the people standing next to him didn’t even know anything had happened. I thought you might want to talk to him. Shall I have him brought up?”

“No, no,” said my father, “I’ll come down.”

They had the boy handcuffed, standing in the open with a couple of Ursin’s men in black uniforms. Behind them, missile launchers and a couple of tanks were edging back and forth arthritically, making a thunderous noise and spewing out clouds of smoke. It was noticeable that the Twentyland markings were fresh and recent, in contrast to the obvious age of the vehicles, and the outline of the earlier Russian markings was still clearly visible.

The boy was tall and thin, rather unhealthy in appearance, about eighteen, pale, with a defiant look on his face. It seemed that the neatness of his extraction from the crowd had not precluded his being given a quick but thorough beating.

“It seemed a great relief to me, at first anyway, that he was fair-haired and looked upper-class somehow,” my father said, “If he had at all resembled Tibri, I’m not sure I could have spoken to him. Though perhaps that would have been better”

“Why did you want to kill me?” he asked the boy, “What have I done to you that would justify that?”

“You killed my father.” the boy replied defiantly.

“Your father?”

“Yes. You and your filthy Russians. He was betrayed, they set a trap and then you shot him down with machine guns. You didn’t even give him a chance.”

“I’m sorry, but I assure you I know nothing about it,” said my father, “I’m afraid it’s true that our Russian allies did not always behave well. Lots of decent men got killed; I did what I could at the time and I bitterly regret that I couldn’t do more, but I don’t think your father’s death was anything to do with me.”

“You deny it,” said the boy, “Like the coward you are. But when they came for him they told him they had come with a present from Comrade Larvartin.”

“What was your father’s name?” demanded my father.

The boy threw back his head in a sad attempt at haughtiness.

“Julio Cesare Obertin.” he said.

My father covered his face with his hands and stood in silence for a long time.

“Marki?” asked Ursin at last.

My father removed his hands and looked at the boy.

“They lied to you,” he said, “They lied atrociously. Your father was my friend. I should rather have died myself than caused his death. I wanted… I would have… He…” he tailed off, shook his head hopelessly and was silent again for several minutes.

“Let him go,” he said to Ursin at last, “He is not to be punished, He has every reason to kill me. He has the right to kill me, in fact. He has the right to kill me three times over if he could.”

“Very well.” said Ursin briskly, and beyond one small twitch of an eyebrow, he betrayed no surprise, “Lads, you heard the Chief. This gentleman is not to be punished. Take him back to the centre and let him clean up a bit, put something on those cuts. Then I want to see him before he goes, to apologise personally – understand? Make sure he waits till I come – alright?”

My father looked unwell and unsteady. They brought a chair and he sat with his face in his hands.

“Time to get ready for the parade, Marki,” said Ursin at last, “This is important, remember? We’ve got to put on a good show for the people.” He looked at my father with real concern. “Marki?” he asked, “Are you OK?” There was no answer. “Look, Marki,” he said, putting one hand on my father’s shoulder, “That was all nonsense. You know as well as I do that Obertin had no son. That story about the Russians is just some malicious nonsense. Chances are, Obertin’s living it up in Rio at this very moment. You know that.”

My father sat up.

“More bombs, more guns, Juri,” he said, “Always more guns.” He stared at the missile launchers which were still revving and shifting on the road nearby. “Tell them to put the bloody things away.” he said, hoarsely.

“What?”

“The guns. Put the bloody guns away. And the soldiers. No, wait – they can stay if they like, but no marching, and no guns. Otherwise they can go back to barracks. We don’t want that today. No more of that.”

“But Marki, they’ve been rehearsing all week. What am I going to say? What do you expect me to tell the commanders of the Twentyland Armed Forces?”

“Tell them to fuck off.” said my father.

* * *

At the dais where my father was due to make his speech, there was consternation. There were rumours that the whole parade had been called off. Then my father appeared, calm and apparently unruffled, although there was no sign of the troops who should have been waiting to salute him. In fact, for the first time, he was smiling in his old, confident way.

My father’s speech began along predictable lines. He expressed gratitude for the fraternal support of the Red Army over many years, and said that Twentyland was now entering on a new era.

“It is customary on these occasions, comrades,” he said, “To make a display of our most formidable weapons. I intend to adhere to that tradition, and I mean to show you the most powerful item in my armoury. With this weapon, I intend to seize, not territory or power, but the future itself. The strange thing about this potent apparatus is that it spreads, not death and destruction, but hope and joy. Comrades, join with me.”

And with that, he reached down and picked up – his three-year-old daughter Lucia! Yes! He held her up for the crowd to see; there was a moment of surprised silence, and then a roar of relief and applause. He set her on his shoulders and descended from the dais. It became clear that he meant to lead the procession himself. From streets on every side came columns of schoolchildren. A group of Ursin’s black-clad henchmen moved among them, handing out flags and balloons with varying degrees of embarrassment, and the whole peculiar cavalcade set off.

At first the crowds of people standing by were puzzled, then gradually they became amused, and finally charmed. The spectacle of my father, like Bacchus and Silenus rolled into one, leading a wild, disorderly procession of laughing children down the grand avenue was irresistible. Parents and other children left the crowds on the pavement to join in, and the procession swelled in size; the difference between procession and audience began to blur. The Sescastri People’s Guard Marching Band appeared, playing a jaunty march; they looked sheepish, but they too began to smile as the spirit of the day caught them up. Gradually the procession split up and turned into a general rout all through the streets of Sescastri; a huge children’s street festival.

“The effect was astonishing,” my mother told me; “Really, it was as though the sun had come out for the first time after a long, long winter. You could see the strain and fear leaving people’s faces. After that day, your father had nothing to fear from anyone.”

That is why, unlike all its allies, Twentyland has May Day parades without guns, composed mainly of children; and not orderly bands of Young Pioneers or carefully drilled gymnasts, but chaotic, joyful, promenading parties, that roam all over the town, where the soldiers are dressed as clowns or pixies, and no weapon more deadly than a balloon on a stick is ever to be seen.

This parade was of course the occasion depicted in the famous poster “Encarpa Futura!” which you can still see displayed in waiting rooms and other public spaces; it shows the famous piggy-back ride with the slogan in large letters in the background. My mother has often told me of the deep impression made by the figure of my father waltzing tirelessly through the streets.

“He laughed so much,” she said, “It was infectious. You couldn’t help joining in. He laughed and laughed until the tears were streaming down his face.”

*”Grasp the future!”

34,131 words

Have you ever wondered what it is about parades and military forces?

Every time a country wants to celebrate something – May Day in Russia, 60 years of oppression in China, that sort of thing, then the country organises a parade showing off their military goodies.

The reason for a parade in the first place is to celebrate something. But who should be doing the partying – the citizens or those in power? From the look of the parades these days, it must be the government, and they don’t really care whether the people enjoy the resulting spectacle or not. “We are celebrating our achievement with this parade which you will enjoy” would be the common sentiment of the typical organiser! I can’t imagine that the average office worker or open-minded citizen would get too many kicks watching a lot of jack-booted soldiers thumping down the street.

If sporting a good-looking uniform is the criteria for putting on a show for the public, then perhaps the police (same as the military in some countries) or some firefighters could do just as well. If the criteria is that being a government employee is all that is necessary, why not send a few civil servants down the street instead. Pretty much guarantees a good show, although the bureaucrats on parade might not enjoy it quite as much as the rest of us would! If it was left up to the private sector to organise, then I think we could see quite a few improvements. Those selected for their uniforms could be air hostesses, or comely nurses. And I’m sure some marching girls would be able to keep good step to entertain us. The ladies would probably enjoy the talents of some fitness instructors being paraded down the street. I’m sure you get the idea.

So why is it that the military always get the nod to intimidate us with their image of might?

A little more creative thinking in the planning of a parade would ensure that all the citizens would be able to celebrate just as much as the country’s rulers.

May Day - London

A CENTURY+ OF MAY DAYS: LABOR AND SOCIAL STRUGGLES

A Century+ of May Days: Labor and Social Struggles
International Conference

In Chicago during May Day weekend 2010, there will be a conference to discuss, debate and analyze labor and social struggles, both past and present.

Call for Papers, workshop and panel proposals (by December 15^th).

We hope to cover an array of important historical and political topics. In addition to purely academic pursuits, conference participants will have the opportunity to participate in the May Day rally organized by the Chicago Federation of Labor and the Illinois Labor History Society.  If there is sufficient interest, we will set up a Chicago labor history tour.

Initial list of participants and endorsers: Illinois Labor History Society; James Thindwa, In These Times; Suzie Weissman, Saint Mary’s College of California; Bryan Palmer, Labour/Le Travail (Canada); Ronald van Raak, M.P. (The Netherlands); Kim Bobo, Interfaith Worker Justice; Michael McIntyre, DePaul University; Peter Hudis, Loyola University; Sungur Savran, Author (Turkey); Lea Haro, University of Glasgow (Scotland); George Gonos, SUNY-Potsdam; Janine Hatman, University of Cincinnati; Lauren Langman, Loyola University; Alexander Pantsov, Capital University; Francis King, Secretary–Socialist History Society (London); Mark Lause, University of Cincinnati; Eric A. Schuster, Truman College; Knud Jensen, DPU Aarhus University (Copenhagen); Axel Fair-Schulz, SUNY- Potsdam; JP Page, CGT (France); Dianne Feeley, Against the Current; Kevin Anderson, UC – Santa Barbara; Fritz Weber (Vienna); Jerry Harris, DeVry University; Joe Berry, University of Illinois; Theo Bergmann, (Stuttgart); Dan LaBotz, Author (Cincinnati); Sobhanlal Datta Gupta,. Surendra Nath Banerjee Professor, Calcutta University. (India); Spectre Magazine (Belgium); Steven McGiffen, American Graduate School of International Relations (Paris); Len Kaufmann (Wisconsin); William A. Pelz, Institute of Working Class History (Chicago)

Further details: mayday1890.2010@gmail.com <mailto:mayday1890.2010@gmail.com>  or write: Institute of Working Class History, 2335 W. Altgeld Street Chicago, IL. 60647-2001 U.S.A.A

Web site: http://www.mayday2010.info/

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

A Hawaiian word meaning “foreigner”; this term, which predates Captain James Cook’s 1778 arrival in Hawaii, has also come to refer more generally to Caucasians; another Hawaiian nickname for white people—especially tourists—is “shahkbait”; you don’t want to be called shahkbait; some time ago, I found myself in Maui—with my father; we spent a few days at a hotel called Mama’s Fish House, by the beach in Paia (a laid-back town that’s home to Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson); my dad enjoyed himself in Paia; he ate; “I appreciate any culture that makes Spam a staple,” said my dad; I tried to keep dad from ordering dessert after every meal—pineapple upside down cake, coconut pie, haupia—but in my heart, I knew it wasn’t a battle worth fighting; rather, I knew I couldn’t win; my dad has a big personality—and Type 2 Diabetes; on our last day in Maui, we woke up at dawn to drive the winding Hana Highway; we visited a famous break called “Jaws” and watched local surfers from the safety of the shore along with other oglers; a Rastafarian with a longboard gave us the finger and called us “shahkbait”; road signs were, mostly, missing (supposedly yanked down by locals to discourage adventurous haoles—like us); we stopped at a wayside park called Kaumahina, which had a stunning view—and a prominent sign reading “no soliciting”—but dad and I were more interested in the family of feral cats that comingled with a band of aggressive, wild chickens; I fed the chickens bits of my apple core; dad gave them Hershey’s kisses; the next day, we drove to the airport in Kahului; with an hour to kill, we went to a shopping center with a Borders and a Starbucks; my father and I got into a fight when he ordered an Iced Caffe Mocha and an Old Fashioned; I asked him not to eat so much dessert—at least in front of me; he reminded me that he’s my father, that I can become patronizing and idiotic, and then he proceeded to order a second Old Fashioned; I couldn’t watch; I went to Borders and looked at a picture book about large jungle cats; two hours later, my father and I boarded different flights; on the plane, I kept mentally replaying the incident in Starbucks, and I became upset for being so controlling; my father likes doughnuts, it’s that simple; he’s 63; I should’ve let him eat his Starbucks doughnuts in peace; at one point in Hawaii, the last day of the school year was known as “Kill Haole Day”; Kill Haole Day seems to be a tropical cousin of “Beat Up a White Kid Day,” which coincides with May 1^st—May Day; Beat Up a White Kid Day has been a long-standing tradition in Cleveland public schools; seriously; while I am no supporter of random violence, this seems to be a fascinating inversion of traditional race/power dynamics; in “Maximum City,” Suketu Mehta’s analysis of Hindu-Muslim violence in Mumbai, he writes eloquently about “the powerful wish of minorities all over the world to be the oppressor rather than the oppressed”; for me, this is a troubling, cynical thought; I’d prefer an alternate path, one where—as Will Oldham (aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy) sings: “You do what you want/And I will do what I want/I’m now free of master and everyone/servant of all and servant of none”; that being said, I’m not one to speak: my father and I recently had a two-hour-long quarrel about a box of Thin Mints.

Some random thoughts and facts for tonight:

-I apologize in advance for invoking Godwin’s Law, but the right wing historiography of the Vietnam war in some respects resembles the Nazi party’s historiography of World War I, most significantly in that they both share a “myth of the stab in the back.” In the latter, good, honest ethnic Germans were sacrificing everything on the front while Jewish bankers profited at home; while in the former, good honest Americans were sacrificing everything in Indochina while the Left and the “liberal media” undermined the war effort at home.

-May Day, known today to most Americans for the elaborate parades held by the Soviet Union, was originally a commemoration of the Haymarket Affair in Chicago, where a bomb thrown at a labor rally was used as a pretext to try and execute nine American anarchists who had been campaigning for the eight hour day; the original significance of May 1st was that it was to be the day after which workers would simply refuse to work more than eight hours if that right had not already been won. Monuments to the “anarchists of Chicago” are spread throughout the world, except conspicuously in the United States; however, the pedestal of the now gone monument in Chicago to the policemen who died in the blast has been thoroughly defaced and is now an unofficial anarchist monument. During the second Red Scare Congress appropriated May 1st and declared it to be “Law Day,” a jingoist holiday.

-George Orwell was a socialist. He even volunteered for a socialist militia in the Spanish Civil War, where he was shot in the neck and nearly killed. His famous books Animal Farm and 1984 were meant to be polemics against Bolshevism and not socialism generally.

What was seeing recently is nothing new..

Out of the 306 songs I’ve listened to this week, here are the top 20:

20. May Day – 你不是真正的快樂
19. DBSK – Runaway
18. S.H.E – 安靜了
17. Super Junior – Angela
16. Super Junior – MONSTER
15. JJ Lin – Cries In A Distance
14. Epik High – 1 Minute 1 Second ft. Taru
13. SHINee – SHINee Girl
12. SHINee – The Name Loved
11. Jason Chan – Mr. Adult
10. Big Bang – Lady
09. EunHyuk – I’m yours
08. Super Junior – Let’s Not
07. Jungmin – If you cannot ft. Jisun
06. SS501 – One Only Day (하루만)
05. SHINee – Ring Ding Dong
04. SS501 – Obsess (중독…)
03. SS501 – WASTELAND
02. SS501 – Love Like This (For You)

‘Rebirth’ is an awesome album *O*.

The images they showed us in school of the warlike Russians and their tanks and planes massed in Red Square are linked, for me, with our excursions out into the halls to crouch on the floor with our arms over our heads, and with one of those drills inexplicably scheduled during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics brought me back to those drills. There is something profoundly terrifying about the People’s Republic of China (a rather ironic name, when you think about it), embodied in these pictures. What will they be making their people do in another sixty years?

Sunday, April 30, 2006 11:36 PM

May Day is my kind of holiday!  Many people know of the various holidays celebrated this first day in May.  What most people don’t know of is the tumultuous history of this day.  Most people commonly refer to today as May Day.  They might even know of the pagan origins behind that holiday, which celebrated spring fertility and community.  Having a slight interest in pagan history, I did a little research.  Man, those pagans must have had some awesome parties…

It turns out most of the rituals of May Day are derived from the festival of Beltane.  It marks a cross-quarter day, a midpoint in the sun’s progress between the vernal equinox, and the summer solstice.  A huge bonfire would be lit, and the festival would commemerate the release of the cows out to the pastures for the summer.  Drunken druids out in fields, how serene.  Ireland must be lovely at this time of the year.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t so in the US a few centuries later.

“There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!”  August Spies, Anarchist labor activist

Chicago, 1886.  Labor unions have organized a massive strike demanding the eight-hour workday we enjoy today.  Ten to twelve hour shifts, six days a week, in miserable, industrial conditions were the norm.  At the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant, a massive fight broke out at the picket lines.  The responding police eventually struck and killed two workers, inciting the fury of the local community.  A local upholsterer involved in trade union activities named August Spies published a pamphlet in response to the massive injustice.  It was entitled, Revenge! Working Men to Arms!  I found a small sample of his rant, which helped incite the bloody Haymarket Riot of 1886.

“They killed the poor wretches because they, like you, had the courage to disobey the supreme will of your bosses. They killed them to show you ‘Free American Citizens’ that you must be satisfied with whatever your bosses condescend to allow you, or you will get killed. If you are men, if you are the sons of your grand sires, who have shed their blood to free you, then you will rise in your might, Hercules, and destroy the hideous monster that seeks to destroy you. To arms we call you, to arms.”

Wow!  Did this guy have a penchant for the dramatic, or what?  In either case, this massive riot served as future inspiration for various socialist, communist, and anarchist demonstrations.  The Soviet Union eventually embraced the occasion, which usually meant massive military parades in support of the communist government.  Back in the states, the red scare movement pretty much killed the popularity of May Day as a mass holiday.  It’s ironic, considering the whole thing started in Chicago.  In response, president Grover Cleveland designated the first monday of September as “Labor Day”, fearing a May 1 date might strengthen the socialist movement in commemeration of the riots.  It’s funny how things turn out.

Today, May Day holds little significance to the layperson.  Most of us don’t have cows to send out to pasture, nor suffer inhumane working conditions.  But I pose to you, dear reader, the challenge of celebrating this occassion to bring a little cheer to your day.  Be it, a nice graze out in Laie, or a workplace disruption against inequality.  In commemeration of International Workers Day, I suggest we strike for a chocolate milkshake.  And some french fries, I’m starving…

Two nights ago I had a dream in which I was floating on over-turned Victorian furniture in a large room that was flooded with barracuda-infested water. The barracudas were small (the size of a bass) and they would jump out of the water and try to bite, so we had to be careful to stay on the furniture (“we” in this case is vague, since there were other people in the room but they were all composites and it wasn’t clear who they were). When one of the barracudas jumped at me, I tried to swat it away with my hand and instead it chomped my hand and wouldn’t let go. I tried to shake it loose and bang it against the side of the table I was floating on, but it wouldn’t let go. I realized that it was slowly eating my entire hand and I couldn’t really do anything about it. It didn’t hurt, but I started to think about how I would go about the rest of my life with only one hand. And then the dream ended. Thoughts about this dream were the inspiration for the doodle above. Clearly this has something to do with my childhood. Maybe it represents pent-up terror and embarrassment from the time I went swimming in the public pool when I was 8 and my swimsuit fell off in front of everybody and then from out of nowhere a barracuda came by and ate my brother.

Yes, it’s true. I used to hang with Communists.

But don’t stone me just yet.

If only we had found WMD’s in Iraq.

If only we had found OBL right away.

If only . . .

But no.

And the more the war in Iraq dragged on the more I wondered just why we were there.

Then to hear how we may have been duped in the run up to the war, the angrier I became. If we had just focused on Afghanistan and worried about Iraq later, (if ever) BUT NO.

So I exercised my freedom of speech and started going to peace vigils.

PUT DOWN THAT ROCK, I see you.

There was no one on the Evangelical or conservative side calling for anti- war demonstrations. The only conservatives saying anything along those lines were the conservatives in the far right alternative parties demanding Bush be impeached. But no peace marches.

But there I was, a token “Jesus Freak” out there with my sign that said,

“Support The Troops, Bring Them Home Now!”

The peaceniks welcomed me with open arms. They started inviting me to all kinds of things. And I wondered just what in the world had I gotten myself into.

(“Happy, I don’t think we’re in Schenectady anymore”)

The last straw was the most telling. They invited me to “Workers Rights” Day. That sounds allot like “Workers of the World Unite!” doesn’t it? And sure enough WRD is on May 1st.

May Day!

May Day is celebrated in Havana and Beijing. It’s the birthday of Communism, the start of atheist religious tyranny in Russia.

They say politics makes strange bedfellows. But when it comes to hanging out with God hating communists and anarchist woman that brag how they can pee outside standing up, (Long story-you don’t want to know) that’s where I draw the line!

I still don’t understand why our country is so polarized, but I guess that’s just the way the American pie crumbles. In retrospect I believe George W. Bush and company saw what a big threat Islamic Fundamentalism was becoming and they felt after 9-11 the best thing to do was to get boots on the ground in Iraq, ASAP, no matter what the cost. Even if that meant stretching the truth or even telling lies to do it.

Who knows? If it hadn’t been for the economy going bad John McCain may have won instead of BAMA.

In the end I don’t regret my time with the commies because it taught me allot. Now I really see what the roots of the peace movement are. There were others saying it, but I just had to see it for myself.

If we are really polarized as a nation, I’ll chose the side for for freedom and democracy. There’s other ways to deal with my doubts.

Like praying, for one thing and blogging for another, AND knowing where to go for the right information helps too!

It’s Labor Day! Let’s have a picnic! Let’s go to a ball game! Or, let’s just take it easy!

In the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, Labor Day is a national holiday. It is celebrated on the first Monday in September. Because of this, Labor Day has become a symbol of the end of summer.

The idea for Labor Day probably came from a carpenter names Peter McGuire. At a labor union meeting, McGuire suggested that a special day be set aside to honor working people. This new holiday was first observed in New York City on September 5, 1882.

Many countries celebrate a special day for working people. In New Zealand, this day is called Labour Day. It is celebrated on the fourth Monday in October. In Australia, the date of Labour Day, also called Eight-Hour Day, varies from state to state. And in Europe, many countries celebrate Labor Day on May 1.

Labor Day is often a time often a time for parades, picnics, and special events. But many working people like to use their special day as a time for “taking it easy.” ~ Angela Adams

There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. ~ Edmund Burke

Labor Day for 2009 is Monday, September 7.

All work merits respect. We should treat other working people with respect. How we treat other working people is a mirror of the extent to which we respect ourselves.

( The picture above was taken by Danny Cornelissen for the portpictures.nl website.)

Here is a history of Labor Day from the U.S. Department of Labor. 

From that history–

“Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.”

Here is the web home of the AFL-CIO.

Here is an American labor movement history timeline from the AFL-CIO.  

Here are a number of women’s labor history links from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. It is a very good list.

Here are black labor history links from AFSCME.

The history of labor in the United States is your history. Work is the time and effort of their lives. We need the wages we earn at work to be able to live decent lives. 

There is also an International Labor Day.  International Labor Day, or May Day, marks the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1886. Please click here to learn more about the Haymarket Riots and the Haymarket Trial. 

Respect for working people involves understanding that the goods you buy must be sold for a fair price if the people who make and sell those goods are to receive a fair wage and good benefits. Selling these goods at a fair price also helps your employer stay in business.

Respect for working people does not stop at the American border. Cheap goods we purchase in America are often produced by underpaid and poorly treated workers in other nations.

Labor Day is, for many at least, a time to get a break from work.  It is also a time to reflect upon what it means to be a working person in a nation and a world where the rights of workers—to they extent they exist at all—are under ceaseless strain.   

( Photo above by Holger Hubbs.)

1985’s ‘A View To A Kill’ featured May Day- one of the most underrated Bond characters, but also one of the most stylish.

May Day: m'aidez= (you) come help me

Played by Jamaican-American slasher (singer/actress/model) Grace Jones, May Day was a completely new kind of Bond girl whose appeal lay in her savage beauty and androgynous style. It could be for this reason that there was zero chemistry between her and Bond; Roger Moore Bond a.k.a James Bland doesn’t seem the sort to appreciate a woman who can lift a man above her head.

Hale and hearty doesn't begin to describe her

Q was right when he said she must take a lot of vitamins

Bodily, Grace Jones as May Day is amazing: muscles that look like they’ve been hewn from stone and prominent cheek bones set off by a charming snub nose and round, plump lips. Her clothes, crafted by eminent fashion designer Azzedine Alaἴa, make the most of her unique physique by exaggerating the hard curves with bold tailoring and strategic draping and enhance her skin tones magnificently by combining flashes of bright colour with more subtle shades like black and brown.

Not everyone can work a g-string leotard

A key look for May Day is the soft hood, usually paired with a leather jacket. Pinned to the crown of her head behind fantastic, sculpted hair formations, the hood forms an interesting contrast with the severity of her cheeks and the almost manly breadth of her padded shoulders. The hooded (jersey?) top and bulky leather jackets are typically paired with slim-cut cropped pants, spike heels and bangles. The whole picture has a distinctly 40s edge in terms of silhouette and and cut (e.g. the big shoulders and cowl neck) and is rather on trend this year a la the interpretations of the 40s by Prada, Balmain and Roland Mouret in Fall ‘09 collections.

So very Gucci F/09!

After 5 done May Day style

Purple cowl with matching azure and purple bangles

Note the cut-outs on the sleeves

Not one to be afraid of being inappropriately attired, May Day mixes practical- short, explosion-defying hair, leather (the villain’s uniform)- with unexpected pretty: I found the artfully-moulded hair and fabric drape reminded me a lot of ultra-feminine 40s hair, like the victory rolls or pompadour of a pin-up model. Make-up is as bold and bright as the clothes and usually matches, but even with pink eyeshadow, May Day can still kick your ass hard-core. And even though her clothes are tight and her shoes are high, she can still push a car or subdue a champion race horse.

A new kind of beauty

Can drown British agents without even needing to touch up her makeup!

Lame and cliched Bondian name aside, May Day stands out from her fellow Bond girls for her sharp and serious style that’s still as fierce 24 years on. With her exemplary taste in clothing earning her a 9.5/10 from me, I can only reflect that it’s a pity the producers didn’t let her take care of the theme song too!

May Day has the monopoly on fierce

I think this type of photo might be the most honest portrait that one can have of one’s significant other.  A blurred sense of presence is perhaps the best one can ever achieve.

I guess it must be my time for revisiting older photos.  Here is one from May, 2008.  It was actually the May Day festival in China.  I was visiting at the home of one of my education students as part of the celebrations for both the May Day festival and her birthday.  One of the events planned for the day was to ride in a motorcycle taxi to visit a park just outside of the village about an hour’s drive from my apartment in the city.  The photo shows a blurred reflection of my wife in the motorcycle’s mirror.

Just how well can we know our significant others?  I wonder as I struggle to come to grips with who I am, how one can ever claim to know anyone all that well.  It seems that the closer one gets, the more the other becomes a mystery.  I think this even gets more confusing when projections begin to be withdrawn.  Long years of being together has given a person some sort of idea who this significant other is.  Yet, as one or both begin the quest for self discovery, then the image of the other shifts like some shapechanger.

Who is this stranger?  Are you ready for your eyes to be wide open, to risk seeing more clearly, to risk the relationship?  Or, will you retreat into past patterns, will you choose to get stuck?

..il giro di boa è quando ormai è inutile tornare indietro, ma puoi solo andare avanti..speriamo bene… che il “piano c” prenda vita..!