Mayday!

Besides being May Day, the first of May is the start of outdoor fucking International Workers' Day, which is widely regarded as a commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, which took place in the context of a general strike demanding an eight-hour workday. Oddly enough, even though it stemmed from events taking place in the U.S., May Day is typically not celebrated here (our Labor Day is in September), being an unholy stew of paganism and pro-labor demonstrations the Wikipedia article expresses these beautifully as the "Green Root" and the "Red Root"... can't have that shit in 'Murka.

Of course, "conservatives" in this country like to denigrate unions, and the role of unions in providing for the eight-hour workday (which is rapidly disappearing in the U.S.) and five day work-week (like your weekends off? thank the unions!) has been ignored in the media. Generally, the value of labor has been denigrated (unless it's used as a cudgel to belabor the poor underclass, yet another example of right-wing cognitive dissonance). Latter-day GOP politicians would never get behind the rhetoric of beloved Republican and noted Commie bastard Abraham Lincoln:


Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.


How about a good Socialist folk song, a love song to labor, if you will?





Here's an English translation, for all the non-francophone Workers of the World in the audience:





Heh, indeed... here's Billy Bragg's English version:





Now, get back to work, ya buncha slackers!