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Viva los Hay Market Martyrs - it is May Day, Doggs
Rankenphile
Passersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
Passersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
It is May 1st, which is recognized as May Day, probably one of the most forgotten and least appreciated holidays of all. But what is May Day?
Well, that depends. There are several holidays that are observed today. The most recognizable is the one based on the old pre-Christian Pagan summer festival. May 1st was regarded as the first day of summer, which is why the Summer Solstice is regarded as mid-summer, which has its own traditions. This version of May Day is where we get the pretty-much-dead traditions of the May Pole and the May Basket, in which baskets of sweets are left anonymously on neighbor's doorsteps.
The second holiday celebrated today is a Catholic holiday, probably instituted to usurp the Pagan holiday as so many Christian holidays do. It is recognized as Mary's Day, and May as Mary's Month. Figures and statues of the Blessed Virgin are often adorned with wreaths of flowers.
May 1st is also the optional Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. The feast was established by Pope Pius XII in 1955 in order to Christianize the concept of labor and give to all workers a model and a protector.
Yet another holiday, only recognized in the United States, is Loyalty Day, in which we are supposed to regognize our freedoms and blessings we are granted for living in the US. This, very likely, came about because of the next holiday.
Which brings us to the day in which we commemorate the execution of the Haymarket Martyrs, who were arrested adter the Haymarket Riots of 1886.
the following comes from Wikipedia and covers the events surrounding the Haymarket Riots of 1886.
In 1884 a convention of The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada set May 1, 1886 as the date by which the eight-hour work day would become law. The FOTLU, and the International Working People's Association (IWPA) began preparing for a general strike. The Knights of Labor opposed the strike. On Saturday May 1, 1886 rallies were held throughout the United States. The largest was in Chicago, where an estimated 90,000 people participated. There were an estimated 10,000 demonstrators in New York and 11,000 in Detroit. Albert Parsons, an Anarchist and founder of the International Working People's Association, with his wife Lucy Parsons and seven children, led people down Michigan Avenue. In the next few days, 350,000 workers nationwide went on strike at 1,200 factories.
On May 3 striking workers met near the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. plant where a fight broke out on the picket lines as replacement workers attempted to cross the picket line. Chicago police intervened and attacked the strikers, killing four, wounding several others and sparking outrage in the city's working community.
Local anarchists distributed fliers calling for a rally at Haymarket Square, then a bustling commercial center (also called the Haymarket) near the corner of Randolph Street and Des Plaines Street in what was later called Chicago's west Loop. These fliers alleged police had murdered the strikers on behalf of business interests and urged workers to seek justice.
The rally began peacefully under a light rain on the evening of May 4. August Spies spoke to the large crowd while standing in an open wagon on DesPlaines Street. According to many witnesses Spies said he was not there to incite anyone. Meanwhile a large number of on-duty police officers watched from nearby. The crowd was so calm that Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., who had stopped by to watch, walked home early. Some time later the police ordered the rally to disperse and began marching in formation towards the speakers' wagon. A bomb was thrown at the police line and exploded, killing policeman Mathias J. Degan. The police immediately opened fire. While several of their number besides Degan appear to have been injured by the bomb, most of the casualties seem to have been caused by bullets. About sixty officers were wounded in the riot, as well as an unknown number of civilians. In all, seven policemen and at least four workers were killed in the riot. There is no accurate count of the latter, as those injured were afraid to seek medical attention for injuries, fearing punishment for their part in the riot.
Eight people connected directly or indirectly with the rally and its anarchist organisers were charged with Degan's murder: August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden and Oscar Neebe. Five (Spies, Fischer, Engel, Lingg and Schwab) were German immigrants while a sixth, Neebe, was a U.S. citizen of German descent.
The trial was presided over by Judge Joseph Gary. The defense counsel included Sigmund Zeisler, William Perkins Black, William Foster and Moses Salomon. The prosecution, led by Julius Grinnell, did not offer evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing but argued that the person who had thrown the bomb had been encouraged to do so by the defendants, who as conspirators were therefore equally responsible.
Albert Parsons' brother claimed that there was evidence linking the Pinkertons to the bomb.
The jury returned guilty verdicts for all eight defendants, with death sentences for seven. Neebe received a sentence of 15 years in prison. The sentencing sparked outrage from budding labor and workers movements, resulted in protests around the world, and made the defendants international political celebrities and heroes within labor and radical political circles. Meanwhile, the press published often sensationalized accounts and opinions about the incident, which polarized public reaction. Journalist George Frederic Parsons, for example, wrote a piece for the Atlantic Monthly articulating the fears of middle-class Americans concerning labor radicalism, asserting that workers had only themselves to blame for their troubles.
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Illinois, then to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the defendants were represented by John Randolph Tucker, Roger Atkinson Pryor, General Benjamin F. Butler and William P. Black. The petition for certiorari was denied.
After the appeals had been exhausted, Illinois Governor Richard James Oglesby commuted Fielden's and Schwab's sentences to life in prison. On the eve of his scheduled execution, Lingg committed suicide in his cell using a smuggled dynamite cap which he reportedly held in his mouth like a cigar (the blast blew off half his face and he survived in agony for several hours).
The next day, November 11, 1887, Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were hanged together before a public audience. Taken to the gallows in white robes and hoods, they sang the Marseillaise, the anthem of the international revolutionary movement. Family members including Lucy Parsons who attempted to see them for the last time were arrested and searched for bombs. None were found. August Spies was widely quoted as having shouted out, "The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today." Witnesses reported that the condemned did not die when they dropped, but strangled to death slowly, a sight which left the audience visibly shaken.
Well, that depends. There are several holidays that are observed today. The most recognizable is the one based on the old pre-Christian Pagan summer festival. May 1st was regarded as the first day of summer, which is why the Summer Solstice is regarded as mid-summer, which has its own traditions. This version of May Day is where we get the pretty-much-dead traditions of the May Pole and the May Basket, in which baskets of sweets are left anonymously on neighbor's doorsteps.
The second holiday celebrated today is a Catholic holiday, probably instituted to usurp the Pagan holiday as so many Christian holidays do. It is recognized as Mary's Day, and May as Mary's Month. Figures and statues of the Blessed Virgin are often adorned with wreaths of flowers.
May 1st is also the optional Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. The feast was established by Pope Pius XII in 1955 in order to Christianize the concept of labor and give to all workers a model and a protector.
Yet another holiday, only recognized in the United States, is Loyalty Day, in which we are supposed to regognize our freedoms and blessings we are granted for living in the US. This, very likely, came about because of the next holiday.
Which brings us to the day in which we commemorate the execution of the Haymarket Martyrs, who were arrested adter the Haymarket Riots of 1886.
the following comes from Wikipedia and covers the events surrounding the Haymarket Riots of 1886.
In 1884 a convention of The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada set May 1, 1886 as the date by which the eight-hour work day would become law. The FOTLU, and the International Working People's Association (IWPA) began preparing for a general strike. The Knights of Labor opposed the strike. On Saturday May 1, 1886 rallies were held throughout the United States. The largest was in Chicago, where an estimated 90,000 people participated. There were an estimated 10,000 demonstrators in New York and 11,000 in Detroit. Albert Parsons, an Anarchist and founder of the International Working People's Association, with his wife Lucy Parsons and seven children, led people down Michigan Avenue. In the next few days, 350,000 workers nationwide went on strike at 1,200 factories.
On May 3 striking workers met near the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. plant where a fight broke out on the picket lines as replacement workers attempted to cross the picket line. Chicago police intervened and attacked the strikers, killing four, wounding several others and sparking outrage in the city's working community.
Local anarchists distributed fliers calling for a rally at Haymarket Square, then a bustling commercial center (also called the Haymarket) near the corner of Randolph Street and Des Plaines Street in what was later called Chicago's west Loop. These fliers alleged police had murdered the strikers on behalf of business interests and urged workers to seek justice.
The rally began peacefully under a light rain on the evening of May 4. August Spies spoke to the large crowd while standing in an open wagon on DesPlaines Street. According to many witnesses Spies said he was not there to incite anyone. Meanwhile a large number of on-duty police officers watched from nearby. The crowd was so calm that Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., who had stopped by to watch, walked home early. Some time later the police ordered the rally to disperse and began marching in formation towards the speakers' wagon. A bomb was thrown at the police line and exploded, killing policeman Mathias J. Degan. The police immediately opened fire. While several of their number besides Degan appear to have been injured by the bomb, most of the casualties seem to have been caused by bullets. About sixty officers were wounded in the riot, as well as an unknown number of civilians. In all, seven policemen and at least four workers were killed in the riot. There is no accurate count of the latter, as those injured were afraid to seek medical attention for injuries, fearing punishment for their part in the riot.
Eight people connected directly or indirectly with the rally and its anarchist organisers were charged with Degan's murder: August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden and Oscar Neebe. Five (Spies, Fischer, Engel, Lingg and Schwab) were German immigrants while a sixth, Neebe, was a U.S. citizen of German descent.
The trial was presided over by Judge Joseph Gary. The defense counsel included Sigmund Zeisler, William Perkins Black, William Foster and Moses Salomon. The prosecution, led by Julius Grinnell, did not offer evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing but argued that the person who had thrown the bomb had been encouraged to do so by the defendants, who as conspirators were therefore equally responsible.
Albert Parsons' brother claimed that there was evidence linking the Pinkertons to the bomb.
The jury returned guilty verdicts for all eight defendants, with death sentences for seven. Neebe received a sentence of 15 years in prison. The sentencing sparked outrage from budding labor and workers movements, resulted in protests around the world, and made the defendants international political celebrities and heroes within labor and radical political circles. Meanwhile, the press published often sensationalized accounts and opinions about the incident, which polarized public reaction. Journalist George Frederic Parsons, for example, wrote a piece for the Atlantic Monthly articulating the fears of middle-class Americans concerning labor radicalism, asserting that workers had only themselves to blame for their troubles.
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Illinois, then to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the defendants were represented by John Randolph Tucker, Roger Atkinson Pryor, General Benjamin F. Butler and William P. Black. The petition for certiorari was denied.
After the appeals had been exhausted, Illinois Governor Richard James Oglesby commuted Fielden's and Schwab's sentences to life in prison. On the eve of his scheduled execution, Lingg committed suicide in his cell using a smuggled dynamite cap which he reportedly held in his mouth like a cigar (the blast blew off half his face and he survived in agony for several hours).
The next day, November 11, 1887, Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were hanged together before a public audience. Taken to the gallows in white robes and hoods, they sang the Marseillaise, the anthem of the international revolutionary movement. Family members including Lucy Parsons who attempted to see them for the last time were arrested and searched for bombs. None were found. August Spies was widely quoted as having shouted out, "The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today." Witnesses reported that the condemned did not die when they dropped, but strangled to death slowly, a sight which left the audience visibly shaken.
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Seeing as there are only 365 days in a year and all.
Secret Satan
History! *teaching emoticon*
But yeah I see all the Wiki stuff on that now.
It's one of the few things I remember from one of my history classes this past semester.
Edit: Yes, history is awesome.
I was actually a card-carrying Wobbly for about a year.
Rock the fuck on little duder.
Rock the fuck on.
or socialism/anarchism
this has both
he's like a shark to fried chicken
is all I'm sayin
I went to a Wobblie bar on saturday. It was fucking awesome. $3 pints and revolution all in one go.
Because I am.
Meissnerd: That's not irony. I don't think it even counts as Alanis irony.
I'm not really following you here.
Sorry dudes
But I messed up my chance.
I mean, if we were to pass a law requiring anarchy, that might be ironic.
but... yeah. You're on your own here.
Yeah the government can really suck a lot of the time, but not having one at all is very bad idea dudes
twice
If we're talking about anarchy as it relates to a system of government, then you're right...it isn't irony.
But in the vernacular, "anarchy" equals chaos and disorder, in which case an organization dedicated to it would definitely be ironic.
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I've kind of come out of the super-idealistic phase where I thought anarchy was ever a really good idea, and came to realize that, yeah, people are pretty much too stupid and greedy to ever make it work. In a perfect world we could live without social hierarchies, but people are just too different. And having social programs to help assist management of a population of hundreds of millions spread across millions of square miles is pretty helpful.
But that doesn't mean our current government isn't fucked completely to hell and back.
By being stupid.
It means that what goverment there is is minimalist, not coercive or centralized, and that most duties normally delegated to such a body are instead expected to be carried out by individuals or groups working in completely voluntary cooperation.
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Oh, I wholeheartedlty agree. The system as a whole needs a major overhaul. But scrapping it completely? Not smart.
I think paradoxical fits a little better.
I mean, shit dog, I've never been to a meeting that didn't start at least an hour late... motherfuckers.
Okay, so under the anarchist model, what exactly does the government do?
county laws
state laws
federal laws
Can we just have one fucking law?
sphinctersayswhat?
lern 2 Etymology.
Webster's would beg to differ, my friend. Maybe that's the current rationalization of anarchist activism but the word literally means chaos.
EDIT: WTF! Callius and I in sync? Now that is ironic!