May Day Riots in S. Korea, Macau, Istanbul ...
From Thomas Paine dot com:
"Over much of the world , May 1 is international workers’ day, or labor day. Parades, speeches, picnics, resolutions—the usual. But not here, which is interesting, because May Day originated in the United States.
It was anti-socialist labor leader Samuel Gompers who chose May 1. “In the early 1880s,” says the labor website, Workday Minnesota, “the Federation of Organized and Labor Unions, which would become the AFL, simply declared that on May 1, 1886, it would usher in the system of an eight-hour working day in the United States.”
One of the 1886 rallies, dominated by anarchists, took place at Haymarket Square in Chicago, where someone threw a bomb. Eight prominent anarchists were rounded up, tried on sedition charges and sentenced to be hanged. May 1 marches in following years were used to commemorate the Haymarket Martyrs, as they were called.
...
So, what do we get on May 1? In 1958, President Eisenhower proclaimed May 1st as Loyalty Day and as Law Day. In other words, a dual holiday, devoted to preserving and enhancing a police state. Therefore, President Bush has reminded us of today’s significance and invited Americans to “celebrate the Constitution and the laws that protect our rights and liberties.” I’ll let you gape at the cruel irony of it all.
footnote:
The camera catches VP Dick Cheney, apparently in a momentary reverie of what it must be have been like in the good 'ol days when you could hang someone for sedition. yuk, yuk, yuk.
