So Occupy isn't a Marxist movement

[GiaCat]

Here

So why do they observe May Day and use the language of old time Soviets? Also, if they want jobs, why do they disrupt businesses?

I mean, I don't care if they are Socialist, Communists, or whatever. They can certainly voice their options. But they need be honest about who they are. Don't claim to be the 99% when they are clearly not.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Theyre exhibitionists. If they werent showing their asses for Che theyd show for whomever.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Don't claim to be the 99% when they are clearly not.

No, because there ain't room for the 99% in any one park, is there? But they're honest and fair and accurate in drawing the distinction between themselves and the richest 1%.

 

[KingOrfeo]

So why do they observe May Day . . .

This is why:

Occupy Activists Breathe New Life Into May Day

Peter Dreier

April 27, 2012

Unlike the rest of the world’s democracies, the United States doesn’t use the metric system, doesn’t require employers to provide workers with paid vacations, hasn’t abolished the death penalty, and doesn’t celebrate May Day as an official national holiday.

Outside the US, May 1 is international workers’ day, observed with speeches, rallies, and demonstrations. Ironically, this celebration of working-class solidarity originated in the US labor movement in the United States and soon spread around the world, but it never earned official recognition in this country. Since 2006, however, American unions and immigrant rights activists have resurrected May 1 as a day of protest. And this year, in the wake of Occupy Wall Street and the rebirth of a national movement for social justice, a wide spectrum of activist groups will be out in the streets to give voice to the growing crusade for democracy and equality.

The original May Day was born of the movement for an eight-hour workday. After the Civil War, unregulated capitalism ran rampant in America. It was the Gilded Age, a time of merger mania, increasing concentration of wealth, and growing political influence by corporate power brokers known as Robber Barons. New technologies made possible new industries, which generated great riches for the fortunate few, but at the expense of workers, many of them immigrants, who worked long hours, under dangerous conditions, for little pay.

As the gap between the rich and other Americans widened dramatically, workers began to resist in a variety of ways. The first major wave of labor unions pushed employers to limit the workday to ten, then eight, hours. The 1877 strike by tens of thousands of railroad, factory and mine workers—which shut down the nation’s major industries and was brutally suppressed by the corporations and their friends in government—was the first of many mass actions to demand living wages and humane working conditions. By 1884, the campaign had gained enough momentum that the predecessor to the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution at its annual meeting, “that eight hours shall constitute legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.”

On the appointed date, unions and radical groups orchestrated strikes and large-scale demonstrations in cities across the country. More than 500,000 workers went on strike or marched in solidarity and many more people protested in the streets. In Chicago, a labor stronghold, at least 30,000 workers struck. Rallies and parades across the city more than doubled that number, and the May 1 demonstrations continued for several days. The protests were mostly nonviolent, but they included skirmishes with strikebreakers, company-hired thugs and police. On May 3, at a rally outside the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company factory, police fired on the crowd, killing at least two workers. The next day, at a rally at Haymarket Square to protest the shootings, police moved in to clear the crowd. Someone threw a bomb at the police, killing at least one officer. Another seven policemen were killed during the ensuing riot, and police gunfire killed at least four protesters and injured many others. After a controversial investigation, seven anarchists were sentenced to death for murder, while another was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The anarchists won global notoriety, being seen as martyrs by many radicals and reformers, who viewed the trial and executions as politically motivated.

Within a few years, unions and radical groups around the world had established May Day as an international holiday to commemorate the Haymarket martyrs and continue the struggle for the eight-hour day, workers’ rights and social justice.

In the United States, however, the burgeoning Knights of Labor, uneasy with May Day’s connection to anarchists and other radicals, adopted another day to celebrate workers’ rights. In 1887, Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday, celebrated in September. Other states soon followed. Unions sponsored parades to celebrate Labor Day, but such one-day festivities didn’t make corporations any more willing to grant workers decent conditions. To make their voices heard, workers had to resort to massive strikes, typically put down with brutal violence by government troops.

In 1894, the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, went on strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company to demand lower rents (Pullman was a company town that owned its employees’ homes) and higher pay following huge layoffs and wage cuts. In solidarity with the Pullman workers, railroad workers across the country boycotted the trains with Pullman cars, paralyzing the nation’s economy as well as its mail service. President Grover Cleveland declared the strike a federal crime and called out 12,000 soldiers to break the strike. They crushed the walkout and killed at least two protesters. Six days later, Cleveland—facing worker protests for his repression of the Pullman strikers—signed a bill creating Labor Day as an official national holiday in September. He hoped that giving the working class a day off to celebrate one Monday a year might pacify them.

For most of the twentieth century, Labor Day was reserved for festive parades, picnics and speeches sponsored by unions in major cities. But contrary to what President Cleveland had hoped, American workers, their families and allies, found other occasions to mobilize for better working conditions and a more humane society. America witnessed massive strike waves throughout the century, including militant general strikes and occupations in 1919 (including a general strike in Seattle), during the Depression (the 1934 San Francisco general strike, led by the longshoremen’s union; a strike of about 400,000 textile workers that same year; and militant sit-down strikes by autoworkers in Flint, Michigan, women workers at Woolworth’s department stores in New York, aviation workers in Los Angeles and others in 1937) and 1946 (which witnessed the largest strike wave in US history, triggered by pent-up demands following World War II). The feminist, civil rights, environmental and gay rights movements drew important lessons from these labor tactics.

Meanwhile, May 1 faded away as a day of protest. From the 1920s through the 1950s, radical groups, including the Communist Party, sought to keep the tradition alive with parades and other events, but the mainstream labor movement and most liberal organizations kept their distance, making May Day an increasingly marginal affair. In 1958, in the midst of the cold war, President Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 as Loyalty Day. Each subsequent president has issues a similar proclamation, although few Americans know about or celebrate the day.

In 2001, unions and immigrant rights groups in Los Angeles resurrected May Day as an occasion for protest. The first few years saw rallies with several hundred participants, but in 2006 the numbers skyrocketed. That year, millions of people in over 100 cities—including more than a million in Los Angeles, 200,000 in New York and 300,000 in Chicago — participated in May Day demonstrations. The huge turnout was catalyzed by a bill, sponsored by Representative James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisconsin) and passed by the House the previous December, that would have classified as a felon anyone who helped undocumented immigrants enter or remain in the United States. In many cities, the protest, which organizers termed the “Great American Boycott,” triggered walkouts by high school students and shut down businesses that depended on immigrant workers. Since then, immigrant workers and their allies have adopted May Day as an occasion for protest.

America is now in the midst of a new Gilded Age with a new group of corporate Robber Barons, many of them operating on a global scale. The top of the income scale has the biggest concentration of income and wealth since 1928. Several decades of corporate-backed assaults on unions have left only 7 percent of private sector employees with union cards. More than half of America’s 15 million union members now work for government (representing 37 percent of all government employees), so business groups and conservative politicians have targeted public sector unions for destruction. The past year’s attacks on teachers, cops, firefighters, human service workers and other public sector workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere—the most ferocious anti-union crusade in decades—have catalyzed a tremendous sense of urgency among union workers and millions of other Americans who’ve seen their standard of living plummet while the richest Americans and big business plunder the economy.

The Occupy Wall Street movement’s success can be measured in part by how public opinion has changed about such issues as corporate profits, widening inequality and excessive executive compensation. By last December, two months after the first occupations at Zuccotti Park, 77 percent of Americans—and 53 percent of Republicans—agreed that “there is too much power in the hands of a few rich people and corporations,” according to a Pew Research Center survey. The Pew study also found that 61 percent of Americans believe that “the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy” and that 57 percent think that wealthy people don’t pay their fair share of taxes. Most of these people won’t be found protesting in the streets, but the nation’s changing mood clearly influences what candidates for office and elected officials think they need to do to satisfy public opinion.

This year, in the wake of Occupy Wall Street, and in the midst of a presidential election contest, activists from around the country are ramping up the May Day festivities.

Feeling a new wave of anger and activism among their rank-and-file, unions will be taking to the streets this May Day. In Los Angeles, for example, the County Federation of Labor will augment the downtown immigrant rights rally with a series of protest actions led by different unions and their allies. The Teamsters will sponsor a demonstration at a waste sorting facility owned by American Reclamation, which is infamous for treating its immigrant workers like garbage. The action is part of the Teamsters campaign, in partnership with environmental and community groups, to not only organize workers in recycling plants but also to push the city government to regulate waste collection and recycling. UNITE HERE will bring thousands of hotel workers to Long Beach, where they are organizing several nonunion hotels, to rally and collect signatures for a “living wage” ballot measure. Supported by SEIU, LA’s 8,000 unionized janitors, who will be out in force to demand a better contract from the mega-corporations that own the area’s office buildings, may announce a county-wide strike on May Day. SEIU’s airport workers affiliate will be spending May Day engaged in protest and civil disobedience at Los Angeles International Airport to challenge efforts by major airlines to jeopardize employees health and safety.

In April, a coalition of unions, environmental groups, community organizing networks — including National People’s Action, PICO, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Jobs with Justice, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, SEIU, United Food and Commercial Workers, AFL-CIO, Communication Workers of America, MoveOn, Unite Here, Common Cause, the Steelworkers union Public Campaign, Public Citizen, Health Care for America Now, the United States Students Association, and others—began a series of protest actions major banks and corporations, and trained close to 100,000 new recruits in civil disobedience tactics.

In April they showed up (and some got arrested) at Cigna, General Electric and Wells Fargo shareholder meetings. In the next month, they plan to make their voices heard at Verizon, Bank of America, Hyatt, Tesoro, Sallie Mae, Walmart and other corporate annual meetings. They will commemorate May Day with actions at several corporate headquarters and stockholder meetings as part of this ongoing “99% Spring/99% Power” campaign that will continue throughout the summer and into the election season with demands that corporations pay their fair share of taxes, big banks end the epidemic of foreclosures and reduce “underwater” mortgages to their fair market values, and that banks and Congress unleash college students from unprecedented debt from student loans. By keeping the heat on, and gaining visibility, they hope to inject these issues into the upcoming election season.

The Occupy movement will relaunch its protest actions with May Day actions. Occupy affiliates in some cities have called for a May Day “general strike” to demand jobs for all, immigrant rights, a moratorium on foreclosures, and recognition of housing, education and health care as human rights. Although talk of a nationwide general strike is certainly premature, many Occupy activists will join with unions and community groups this spring and summer as part of broad mobilizations to take advantage of the nation’s growing “99 percent vs. 1 percent” mood.

“It was mostly immigrants who led the first May Day movement for the 8 hour day. Now a new generation of immigrant workers have revitalized and brought May Day back to life,” observed María Elena Durazo, the feisty head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor who enthusiastically embraced the Occupy movement in her city. “Progressives around the country, working on all kinds of issues, have embraced the new May Day movement. It isn’t just about immigrant rights. It isn’t just about workers rights on the job or even about raising the standard of living for all workers. It’s about what kind of country we want to be.

If all that is Marxism, so much the better for Marxism.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Guide to the May Day events.

A Guide to May Day

Peter Rothberg on April 27, 2012 - 3:23 PM ET

For nearly 150 years, May 1 has been an international occasion to celebrate and defend the rights of the working class. This year, with the Occupy movement taking full advantage of May Day’s historic significance, we’re likely to see the greatest explosion of outrage at the excesses of capital since the first mass May Day protest in the United States in 1886, when more than 300,000 workers nationwide walked off their jobs in solidarity with 120,000 laborers striking on behalf of an eight-hour workday.

In her new post, Allison Kilkenny reports on the hopes and ideas behind the day’s action, details the coalition-building that has gone into the many months of planning and preparation and usefully defines what Occupy activists mean when they talk of a “General Strike.”

In New York City, starting at 8 am, Bryant Park will be the site of a “Pop-up Occupation“ featuring free food, a free market, free services, skillshares, workshops, teach-ins, speak-outs, public art, performances, discussions and direct-action trainings. At noon, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello will lead a guitar workshop and rehearsal for the Occupy Guitarmy. At 2 o’clock, activists, led by Morello and the Occupy Guitarmy, are expected to march to Union Square Park. After a concert and rally at the historic site of so many past radical calls to action, participants will leave Union Square at 5:30 for a permitted march to Wall Street with a coalition of organized labor, immigrant rights groups and faith-based activists.

The most militant of the Occupy groups, Occupy Oakland, is planning to occupy the Golden Gate Bridge at 6 am followed by a series of direct actions facilitated at three announced strike stations: the anti-capitalist station at Snow Park, the anti-patriarchy station at 1st & Broadway and the anti-gentrification at 22nd & Telegraph. (There’s also a fourth station that is not being advertised.) All morning pickets, occupations and autonomous actions are expected to leave from these locations from 8:30 am until the reconvergence at noon. The Strike Stations should be active and will offer free sustenance like food, snacks, water, coffee and medical supplies. At 3 pm there’ll be a broad march starting at the Fruitvale BART station.

For a long time, May Day has been a big day for immigrants rights in Los Angeles. That history will color this year’s actions. Occupy Los Angeles is organizing around a “4 Winds” People’s Power Car and Bike Caravan through the urban sprawl of Los Angeles that will culminate with Direct Action in and around the downtown Financial District. The caravans will stop at flashpoints along the way. Flash occupations, food giveaways, and other direct actions targeting the foreclosure crisis and police brutality will be undertaken on a “slow, city-paralyzing, carnival-esque descent” into the center of the city. Check this map to find a “wind” near you.

In Boston, a major coalition will gather at noon at City Hall Plaza; Later people will mass at 7 pm at Copley Square Park to put on costumes, puppets and face-paint and receive instructions on their respective roles in the “funeral procession” that will proceed through areas of wealth and commerce

A major coalition will be assembling at Union Park in Chicago at noon for a march to Federal Plaza.

In Portland, a traditional ‘family-friendly’, permitted event will commence at 3:30 pm at South Park with a march at 4:30, while student activists are planning on rising early and massing at 7:30 am at the headquarters of the Portland Public Schools to protest budget cuts and the falling quality of our schools and to attempt to nonviolently shut down work for the day.

A 9 am march for immigrant rights in Tucson will move from Greyhound Park parking lot to Armory Park for a noon rally with speakers, music, entertainment and info booths.

The Occupy Denver group has created a nifty commercial detailing its plans for May Day in the Mile High City.

This comprehensive directory offers links and info on each of the 126 cities and towns currently planning May Day actions.

No matter where you are, check out The Media Consortium’s group site, mediaforthe99percent.com, on Tuesday. I think it’ll be the best place to turn for careful and comprehensive reporting on what should be the economic justice movement’s spring coming-out party. Featuring a live-stream of the day’s events from Free Speech TV, an interactive map of actions and curated social media coverage, the site will chronicle the day with color, verve and smarts.

Finally, don’t miss this May Day playlist!

 

[KingOrfeo]

City-by-city events guide.

 

[The_Trouvere]

Here

So why do they observe May Day and use the language of old time Soviets? Also, if they want jobs, why do they disrupt businesses?

I mean, I don't care if they are Socialist, Communists, or whatever. They can certainly voice their options. But they need be honest about who they are. Don't claim to be the 99% when they are clearly not.

Marxism has not been fashionable in the United States since the War in Vietnam. Even then it was a minority persuasion.

Right now "Marxist" is a word like "racist." They are words used to defame political opponents, and to suppress a discussion of legitimate concerns.

 

[miles]

Occupy is just another epic failure of the Left. At least they're consistent.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Here

So why do they observe May Day and use the language of old time Soviets? Also, if they want jobs, why do they disrupt businesses?

I mean, I don't care if they are Socialist, Communists, or whatever. They can certainly voice their options. But they need be honest about who they are. Don't claim to be the 99% when they are clearly not.

You're an idiot.

 

[Disgustipated]

Here

So why do they observe May Day and use the language of old time Soviets? Also, if they want jobs, why do they disrupt businesses?

I mean, I don't care if they are Socialist, Communists, or whatever. They can certainly voice their options. But they need be honest about who they are. Don't claim to be the 99% when they are clearly not.

Theyre exhibitionists. If they werent showing their asses for Che theyd show for whomever.

Occupy is just another epic failure of the Left. At least they're consistent.

You're an idiot.

Agreed.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Guide to the May Day events.

You're not.

 

[KRCummings]

You're not.

You obviously don't read him enough.

 

[The_Trouvere]

POLL: Occupy Wall Street Is Now Twice As Popular As The Tea Party

Occupy is just another epic failure of the Left. At least they're consistent.

Business Insider

About half of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Occupy Wall Street protests, making the movement about twice as popular as the Tea Party, according to a Time magazine poll released today.

In the poll, 54% of respondents rated the Wall Street protests positively, with 25% saying they had a "very favorable" opinion of them.

In contrast, only 27% of respondents viewed the Tea Party favorably. Thirty-three percent of respondents expressed an unfavorable opinion  including 24% who said they had a "very unfavorable" opinion of the Tea Party.

Though the Occupy movement is only one month old, the early polling suggests it� is striking a chord with average Americans. Earlier this week, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 37% of adults "tend to support" the Occupy movement, with 18% saying they "tend to oppose" them.


http://articles.businessinsider.com...favorable-opinion-early-polling#ixzz1tdXdcbgz

 

[GiaCat]

This is why:



If all that is Marxism, so much the better for Marxism.

I am well aware of the Labor Movement and it's contributions to making peoples' lives better.

Like I said, I don't care if they are Marxist, Leftist, or whatever. Just don't lie to me about your intentions. If a movement is Socialist, then come right out and say it. Don't dance around words, claiming to be the majority and fighting for freedom. There is nothing 'free' about collectivization.

As far as May Day is concerned; just like how the Christians hijacked the Pagan winter celebrations, Marxists took May Day many years ago and identified it with themselves. It still goes on today May Day in Cuba

I don't by into the Tea Party either for much the same reason. They claim to be Constitutionalist and protectors of individual rights. All the while their ranks swell with fundamentalist Christians. There are no freedoms in a society dominated by any religion.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Like I said, I don't care if they are Marxist, Leftist, or whatever. Just don't lie to me about your intentions. If a movement is Socialist, then come right out and say it. Don't dance around words, claiming to be the majority and fighting for freedom. There is nothing 'free' about collectivization.

Yes, it's so confusing, isn't it?! You are a dishonest idiot, GiaCat; the OWSers, collectively/generally, are not.

 

[mayflowers]

Regular people are frustrated. They have seen communism fail and I think it's fair to say that free markets aint no picnic either. I do not think an answer will be found before "western" currencies fail. The free market makes it possible for a former manufacturing/assembly job to ship overseas for a dollar an hour, there is no way for an American worker to compete. Unless we repeal minumum wage standards. Is that what we want? Like I said I see no answer and no way to get out of the mess we are in. Blaming either party is pointless they have lead us to where we are by working together when it came time to offshore america.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Regular people are frustrated. They have seen communism fail and I think it's fair to say that free markets aint no picnic either. I do not think an answer will be found before "western" currencies fail. The free market makes it possible for a former manufacturing/assembly job to ship overseas for a dollar an hour, there is no way for an American worker to compete. Unless we repeal minumum wage standards. Is that what we want? Like I said I see no answer and no way to get out of the mess we are in. Blaming either party is pointless they have lead us to where we are by working together when it came time to offshore america.

Calm down there droopy. The world is far from over here. We'll work out the kinks once all the adults start talking like adults.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Regular people are frustrated. They have seen communism fail and I think it's fair to say that free markets aint no picnic either. I do not think an answer will be found before "western" currencies fail. The free market makes it possible for a former manufacturing/assembly job to ship overseas for a dollar an hour, there is no way for an American worker to compete. Unless we repeal minumum wage standards. Is that what we want? Like I said I see no answer and no way to get out of the mess we are in. Blaming either party is pointless they have lead us to where we are by working together when it came time to offshore america.

There is no way out till the system collapses and there's no money to pay the systems soldiers and enemies.

George Wshington made the same observation back in 1777. He told Congress that community service gets you part of the way but even Patriots gotta eat and pay bills, and theyll stay in the army so long as the nation pays them fairly.

 

[Sean Renaud]

There is no way out till the system collapses and there's no money to pay the systems soldiers and enemies.

George Wshington made the same observation back in 1777. He told Congress that community service gets you part of the way but even Patriots gotta eat and pay bills, and theyll stay in the army so long as the nation pays them fairly.

So pretty much never?

 

[miles]

Yes, it's so confusing, isn't it?! You are a dishonest idiot, GiaCat; the OWSers, collectively/generally, are not.

You mean like the ones arrested today for plotting the bombing of a bridge in Cleveland?

How do you manage to stick your foot in your mouth so often?

 

[unregistered]

 

[mayflowers]

Why so bitter Vette?

 

[unregistered]

 

[yevkassem72]

Marxists always make me nervous. We anarchists have a bad habit of ending up dead when they come to power.

 

[mercury14]

Like I said, I don't care if they are Marxist, Leftist, or whatever. Just don't lie to me about your intentions. If a movement is Socialist, then come right out and say it.

All you're doing is letting the conservative media define things for you.

The movement isn't socialist or Marxist or whatever smear you chose to believe. It's capitalist. Because in capitalism each individual must be free to reach their full potential. Otherwise the system doesn't work and stops being capitalism.

OWS is a protest against plutocracy.