Hi, Dan, I have come off list because I find all the politics of this very unpleasant. But I liked your response (inaccurate as it has turned out to be!!!) and felt that it deserved a reply.
On Sunday 01 May 2016 18:58:57 Dan Hitt wrote: > On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 10:45 AM, Lisi Reisz <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Sunday 01 May 2016 18:13:38 Dan Hitt wrote: > >> (And wasn't May day an American idea originally, which > >> our ruling class wanted to tone down?) > > > > I am speechless!! > > > > "The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with > > the Floralia, festival of Flora" Etc. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day > > > > > > Lisi > > hahahahaha, my bad for sure Lisi!! > > I should have said "Labor Day" instead of "May Day", though. > > Because in fact May 1 was chosen as the date for Labor Day (or > International Worker's Day) because of the murder of four striking workers > May 4, 1887 in Chicago. Not according to Wikipedia. Ah! I see. It is more complicated than that. You confused me by confusing Labor Day and International Workers Day. See my trail below!!! One even has to distinguish between Labor Day and Labour Day!! So it is all a bit circular!! But I find the concepts of "International Workers Day" and "the proletariat" intrinsically unpleasant. I am in sympathy with Eric Blair (aka George Orwell). It is as wrong to murder someone for being an aristo as it is to murder him for being a peasant. Lisi ------------------------------------------------------------------- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day History[edit] Beginning in the late 19th century, as the trade union and labor movements grew, different groups of trade unionists chose a variety of days on which to celebrate labor. In the United States and Canada, a September holiday, called Labor or Labour Day, was first proposed in the 1880s. In 1882, Matthew Maguire, a machinist, first proposed a Labor Day holiday while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union (CLU) of New York.[2] Some maintain that Peter J. McGuire of the American Federation of Labor put forward the first proposal in May 1882,[1] after witnessing the annual labour festival held in Toronto, Canada.[3] In 1887 Oregon became the first state of the United States to make Labor Day an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty U.S. states officially celebrated Labor Day.[1] Thus by 1887 in North America, Labor Day was an established, official holiday.[4] Following the deaths of workers at the hands of United States Army and United States Marshals Service during the Pullman Strike of 1894, the United States Congress unanimously voted to approve legislation to make Labor Day a national holiday and President Grover Cleveland signed it into law six days after the end of the strike.[5] Cleveland supported the creation of the national holiday in an attempt to shore up support among trade unions following the Pullman Strike.[6] ****************************** The date of May 1 (an ancient European holiday known as May Day) was an alternative date, celebrated then (and now) as International Workers Day, but President Cleveland was concerned that observance of Labor Day on May 1 would encourage Haymarket-style protests and would strengthen socialist and anarchist movements that, though distinct from one another, had rallied to commemorate the Haymarket Affair in International Workers' Day.[6][7] All U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the United States territories have made Labor Day a statutory holiday. ************************************8 BUT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day International Workers' Day, also known as Labour Day in some places, is a celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labour movement, socialists, communists and anarchists and occurs every year on May Day, 1 May, an European spring holiday since the late 19th and early 20th century.[1][2] The date was chosen for International Workers' Day by the Second International, a pan-national organization of socialist and communist political parties, to commemorate the Haymarket affair, which occurred in Chicago on 4 May 1886.[2] The 1904 International Socialist Conference in Amsterdam, the Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace."[3] Being a traditional European spring celebration, May Day is a national public holiday in many countries, but in only some of those countries is it celebrated specifically as "Labour Day" or "International Workers' Day". Some countries celebrate a Labour Day on other dates significant to them, such as the United States, which celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday of September. And then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Day > Natural spring didn't originate here, and of course the idea of the > holiness of labor was much earlier (when the Creator labored for 6 days and > rested on the seventh). > > Thanks for pointing out my bug though!! > > dan
