May Day has begun!!

[mindsword]

Suggested things you can do:


General Strike (1 month) - No work, private sector or government. Make everything stop.
No shopping, no banking, no spending.
Fasting; less consumption.
Organize, study, teach & build with others.
Go off the grid: Leave modern society for a while, go hiking, tenting or mountain/nature trip with friends family. No Internet or mass media.
Involve someone else! Numbers is power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Activism_by_type
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Protests_by_type
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Revolutionary_tactics
Discuss below!


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Do something!!
:star::hammersickle::reda::blackA::star3::cursing: :ninja::trotski::che::castro:

What do you plan this May 1.st?

[DOOM]

Suggested things you can do:


General Strike (1 month) - No work, private sector or government. Make everything stop.
No shopping, no banking, no spending.
Fasting; less consumption.
Organize, study, teach & build with others.
Go off the grid: Leave modern society for a while, go hiking, tenting or mountain/nature trip with friends family. No Internet or mass media.
Involve someone else! Numbers is power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Activism_by_type
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Protests_by_type
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Revolutionary_tactics
Discuss below!


Why?
Do you really believe the capitalist machinery will stop, when we stop to consume?

[mindsword]

Why?
Do you really believe the capitalist machinery will stop, when we stop to consume?
If many enough people did it, at a large enough / organized scale, it would certainly be a blow felt by the system, yes.

[Per Levy]

Suggested things you can do:

General Strike (1 month) - No work, private sector or government. Make everything stop.

how one person can do that and not get fired is beyond me. or do you think members of this forum controll unions to declare a 1 month general strikes?


No shopping, no banking, no spending.

well that is easy enough, 1. may is a free day here and that means all of the above is not possible today anyway.


Fasting; less consumption.

oh goodness, now the may the first is a religious day with fasting?


Organize, study, teach & build with others.

or just enjoy a free day, wich is way nicer.


Go off the grid: Leave modern society for a while, go hiking, tenting or mountain/nature trip with friends family. No Internet or mass media.

says the person who gives out all these "suggestions" on the internet on may day instead of being far aw in the mountains and far away from the inet.


Do something!!

i am, i am relaxing and let my hurting body heal for a day, sounds good enough to me.


What do you plan this May 1.st?

most certaintly not posting lifestyle suggestions on an internet forum.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

oh goodness, now the may the first is a religious day with fasting?

Yes.

You must also flog yourself for your sinful thoughts about items you would like to possess, instead of living in holy destitution.

[mindsword]

fasting is strictly religious now...? gandhi threw out the british by fasting. (and some other stuff too ofc. fasting was a bonus)

they are ideas, you dont have to do them.

jeez louise, i thought there'd be more enthusiasm about the most important day of the year for the working class. at a marxist forum. so basically your tacticts for empowering the revolutionary movement on the main traditional proletarian holiday are: to do absolute shit.

congrats, i feel absolutely overpowered by you moral high ground. lets hope there are no casualties over in turkey.

(id go out, but my county has 3000 people in it, spread over an area of 4000 square kilometers....... id throw a molotov on a state empolyed moose if i knew it would help.

and you can cut out the sarcasm. i know you people are not idiots. are you????? no. (one more spiteful comment, and im notifying the thought police. no youre right, im not very fun right now. watcha gon do?)
NOW CAN WE PLEEEASE TALK ABOUT MAY DAY? THANK YOU.

[Red Commissar]

NOW CAN WE PLEEEASE TALK ABOUT MAY DAY? THANK YOU.

I guess it might be better next time to not start a thread with those kinds of suggestions. It probably would've been more relevant to suggest joining events and such if we're talking about Labor Day.

User cyu is posting pictures in the plastics/ graphics arts forum, though they are mostly press photos right now. We'll have to wait a bit for what people've posted. A major issue like all years is that right-wing unions and parties also organize events. In Russia United Russia always runs one and over in France the National Front mutters host an event too.

There isn't much going on in the states since it's not recognized as Labor Day. Consequently nothing here, though some cities will have political rallies for issues like immigration reform. The largest and better known of those has been in Los Angeles and they are set to repeat that (http://latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-80071447/). The gathering here in Dallas is for the same reason but I don't think it'll be as large. It's hard to take off work for these events since it again is not a recognized holiday.

It seems the big police response occurred in Turkey, among other things demonstrators were not allowed to gather in Taksim Square in Istanbul as police blocked entry into it. I've recalled in the past few years they've rallied there, especially since the ban on gatherings there was lifted a few years ago. That originated from the aftermath of a massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taksim_Square_massacre) perpetrated by the government.

[Taters]

NOW CAN WE PLEEEASE TALK ABOUT MAY DAY? THANK YOU.


Yes, let's get back to it. May Day needs to die.

[FSL]

It's hard to take off work for these events since it again is not a recognized holiday.

This is funny and sad at the same time.

[mindsword]

the us has a habit of legally banning and hunting down socialist organizations as they pop up, i wouldnt expect them to have a socialist holiday officially recognized.........

black friday is still not an official holiday right? i mean who would stand in the counter

[Ele'ill]

permits to celebrate how unbelievably fucked we are

[Tenka]

I already work as little as possible but I suppose for solidarity's sake I can forgo shaving and brushing my teeth today. It is May Day, after all. I never shop, either. Sadly I just had a large lunch so I missed my chance to fast (I never knew Gandhi single-handedly threw out the British employing this method!) and if I went off the grid I'm pretty sure I'd starve or die of heatstroke--I'm not the rewilding type. 3 out of 6 isn't bad. Thanks for involving me in doing something!

[Red Commissar]

Some videos I've dug up. I'll preface this with point out that some of these demonstrations will have elements that are more nationalist in mind (again, like my previous points about France and Russia). These groups are not afraid to use the day to their own ends.

General


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Spain

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France

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Germany

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Russia (government has coopted it for their own ends, KPRF is unsurprisingly going along)

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Greece

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Turkey

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India

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Malaysia (GST is goods and services tax, recently introduced)

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Indonesia

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Hong Kong

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Philippines


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Cambodia (police breaking up rally)

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Cuba

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I'll see if I can dig up the Los Angeles one later, it's just starting now. It's unfortunate with labor day in the US, seeing as the impetus for the creation International Workers Day from the international was in response to the Haymarket affair.

I've noticed an increasing tendency for far-right groups to co-opt the holiday in some countires. I suppose with disillusionment from socdems and weak trade unions who generally lead these they're trying to fill the gap there.

[Ele'ill]

don't misunderstand me though, I go to may day events but because the amount of obnoxious people, cops, agents, cameras, chanting, sloppy black bloc confused people, obnoxious people, obnoxious people, bad politics, reactionary piss heads, guy fawkes masks, liberals, is like a drug after an hour my central nervous system is literally tingling, my heart is beating like a gatling gun, and my muscles are involuntarily convulsing and the tremors don't stop until some time the next day

alternatively, if I need an instant better than benzos downer I show up extra early to the speeches and the wobblies singing solidarity forever again

[consuming negativity]

gandhi threw out the british by fasting. (and some other stuff too ofc. fasting was a bonus)

:laugh:

Yeah I'm gonna go grab something to eat. Have a good day everyone!

[Bala Perdida]

I'm at school and I got a Hugo Chavez shirt on. I don't like him, but I decided to pull a Zizek since this is the most anti-capitalist shirt I got.
Also Cinco de Mayo is on Monday and a**holes at my school like to bring American flags and paraphernalia to counter the Hispanic cultural vibe. Not that I like the Hispanic nationalism either, but they're not trying to discriminate or agitate.

[DOOM]

I'm at school and I got a Hugo Chavez shirt on. I don't like him, but I decided to pull a Zizek since this is the most anti-capitalist shirt I got.
Also Cinco de Mayo is on Monday and a**holes at my school like to bring American flags and paraphernalia to counter the Hispanic cultural vibe. Not that I like the Hispanic nationalism either, but they're not trying to discriminate or agitate.

The guys from the Oxford Dictionary should totally add this phrase to the vocabulary.

[Sinister Intents]

Happy May Day everyone :) I wish I could do something in my area... There is nothing going on

[Prometeo liberado]

Im boycotting the not 1,2 but three different marches on the SAME street today because they dont get along. My neck just hurts from shaking it in disgust.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Happy May Day everyone :) I wish I could do something in my area... There is nothing going on

Yeah, trapped in the suburbs...

In any case, hope you all had a good, or at least tolerable, day!

[rylasasin]

Yes.

You must also flog yourself for your sinful thoughts about items you would like to possess, instead of living in holy destitution.

Aww dammit, I still need to prepare my "sacrifices" to Slaanesh.

Ah well. Perhaps I'll just get a cold and call it a sacrifice to Nurgle instead.

[Sea]

Numbers is power.Do something? Okay. On May 1 I'm going to correct your grammar.

[Bala Perdida]

I ended up going to one of the few Marches around SF. It was mostly pro-immigrant but I still took my sign with a :blackA: . I'm on taptalk so I hope that worked. Still nice to march with the oppressed masses.

[blake 3:17]

There were a couple of thousand people at the rally and march this evening. Managed to connect with a couple of folks I wanted to meet, and saw some old friends. Too many over long speeches. Ditched the march a couple of hours in to walk at a picket line nearby.

[Sea]

Still nice to march with the oppressed masses.Very true. We wouldn't want to leave them in a cake-eating situation...

[ckaihatsu]

Minnesota May Day march demands drivers licenses, no more deportations

By staff

http://www.fightbacknews.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/article-lead-photo/May%201%20MNCapitol.jpg

Saint Paul, MN - On May 1, International Workers Day, around 2000 people marched two and a half miles from the Governor’s Mansion to the State Capitol. The march raised four demands: drivers licenses for all, workers rights, just immigration reform, and no more deportations.

Most of the immigrant rights movement in Minnesota is united behind the push for drivers licenses for all. A drivers licenses bill at the capitol is near passage, but the legislative session is almost over and the bill is being blocked by Speaker of the House Representative Paul Thissen. That gave an urgency and focus to the May 1 march to the capitol.

The demand for drivers licenses rang out strongly throughout the march. The demonstration arrived at the capitol and , after several speakers, the marchers streamed into the capitol building and filled the rotunda with booming chants, demanding that the legislature approve the bill for drivers licenses for all this session. The demand for drivers licenses resonates deeply because 2 million people have been deported since 2009. A large number of them are first detained for driving without a license.

The demand for “no more deportations” was also prominent at the march. Because so many people are being deported, it is an issue that has touched almost all immigrant families and their communities. The Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) organized a No More Deportations contingent to press this demand with banners, flags, posters, flyers and chants.

The St. Paul march was led by immigrant rights organization Mesa Latina along with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee and around 30 other organizations including unions such as AFSCME Locals 3800 and Local 34, UNITE HERE Local 17 and organizations including Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL), MORENA-Minnesota, Centro Campesino, Occupy Homes, Chicano Studies departments at the University of Minnesota and at Saint Cloud State University and many others. Many students came to the march from the University of Minnesota, Saint Olaf, Saint Benedicts, and high schools including Washburn, Harding and others.

The march in Saint Paul wasn’t the only May Day action in the Twin Cities. A church-based immigrant rights group, Asamblea de Derechos Civiles, blocked traffic in downtown Minneapolis to demand action on deportations and immigration reform.

On May 3, Freedom Road Socialist Organization is hosting a May Day Dinner and Celebration featuring speakers from important local working class struggles. The celebration is at 5:00 p.m. at 4200 Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis.

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]






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[ckaihatsu]

LA May Day march demands: No more deportations, legalization for all

By staff

http://www.fightbacknews.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/article-lead-photo/SCICbanner.jpg

Los Angeles, CA – On the afternoon of May 1, a powerful May Day march, organized by the Southern California Immigration Coalition (SCIC), took place in the heart of downtown as many garment workers were leaving work. The highly spirited 1000-plus crowd was made up mainly of working class Latinos, union members from Roofers Union Local 36 and United Teachers L.A., street vendors, daily laborers, families and high school students. Also joining the march and helping to carry the lead banner were the women and men of the homeless shelter Projecto Pastoral in Boyle Heights.

The SCIC is composed of dozens of groups including the International Action Center, Community Service Organization, Union del Barrio and Bayan USA. SCIC is an independent grassroots coalition that receives no government or foundation funding.

The many speakers called for Obama to stop the deportations and demanded legalization for all. Many denounced the police/ICE abuses such as detentions, deportations and deaths at the border.

Bayan USA denounced U.S. imperialism and its intervention in the Philippines and other counties. Ramon Mendez, a member of Roofers Union Local 36, spoke about being harassed and exploited at work, and when he filed a grievance the boss called the ICE on him. Mendez had to live away from his family until others came to his aid, pressuring ICE to respect a labor neutrality agreement with the Labor Department that protects workers who are in disputes with employers. He is now out on bail, fighting his deportation. The MECHA students talked about the need for legalization and better schools.

Carlos Montes, a veteran Chicano revolutionary, stated that the fight for legalization is part of the struggle of self-determination for the Chicano/Mexican people and equality for Latinos. He noted that May 1 had been revived in the U.S. by the massive 2006 immigrant rights marches led by Latinos.

The spirited march included flags from Latin American countries, including the Chicano nation of Aztlan.

Two other May Day marches took place in Los Angeles on May 1.

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]






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[ckaihatsu]

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/977.php


Socialist Project - home
The B u l l e t

Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 977
May 2, 2014

Socialist Project - home


May Day in Istanbul a Battle Ground

Sungur Savran

After the people's revolt last summer, after the immense crisis of the state caused by the breakup of the Islamic power bloc in December 2013, after the local elections that gave a new lease on life to Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and his AKP government, May Day in Istanbul became a battle ground between the government forces, on the one hand, and the vanguard of the working-class and the forces of the left, on the other.

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/b977.jpg
Proceeding to Taksim Square. [Photo: Holly Pickett]

At the heart of the conflict was the dispute over Taksim square. Traditionally the centre of the city in every sense of the word, just like Times Square in New York, the Zocaló in Mexico City, the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, Syndagma square in Athens or Tahrir in Cairo, Taksim has also been for almost half a century now, i.e. ever since the workers’ and socialist movement has become a mass phenomenon, the Mecca of working-class and socialist demonstrations. This has especially been true since 1977, when, during a huge rally of the workers’ movement on May Day, secret service provocations and sniper activity left at least 33 dead. Ever since then, Taksim square has become a bone of contention between the advanced sections of the working-class movement and the socialist movement, on the one hand, and the repressive forces of the bourgeois state, on the other.

May Day Tradition

The military dictatorship of the 1980s was successful in closing the square to left-wing demonstrations (while all other kinds of demonstrations, ranging from sports celebrations to Islamist and fascist rallies were tolerated, if unofficially). The supposedly democratic governments of the 1990s and the early 2000s took this practice over as a “gain,” so to speak, of the ruling classes and continued to apply the same ban. Starting from 2007, the 30th anniversary of the 1997 May Day massacre, the advanced sections of the working-class turned their gaze once again to Taksim. On May Day 2008 and 2009 there were pitched battles in the whole area around Taksim, as we were trying to enter the square while the police were adamant in banning the square. 2010 brought a small victory to the workers’ and socialist movement, when both due to stepped up pressure and its search for additional support for the constitutional referendum that was going to take place that autumn, the government declared May Day a national holiday and opened Taksim square for celebrations. Three years of jubilant celebrations followed. These were occasions during which hundreds of thousands came together, including the more backward elements of the trade union movement, in a festive mood but in an atmosphere of reconciliation to the government and to capitalism.

Then came 2013, again a turning point. This occasion was in effect the prelude to the Gezi Park events and the people's revolt. Citing the fact that Taksim square was a construction ground due to the overhaul as a result of the plans geared to turning the park, adjacent to the square itself, into a shopping mall, the government banned Taksim for demonstrations once again. We battled but lost. However, as everyone knows, only a month later, on the night of 31 May 2013, under the unstoppable pressure of a mass people's rebellion, the government had to withdraw the police and leave the whole square and Gezi Park to the movement. We all settled there, established a tent city, formed the Gezi Commune, so to speak, and kept the police out for a fortnight. That was the heyday of the people's rebellion, popularly known internationally as the Gezi movement.

The Ghosts of Gezi Visit Erdogan

This year there was no construction on the square. But the phantom of the people's rebellion is still hovering over Turkey! Erdogan was thrice defeated by the Gezi rebellion. Locally, i.e. at the level of Istanbul because he had to waiver his plans to totally restructure Taksim square by building a shopping mall in place of the Gezi Park and a mosque nearby (which would have been a great symbolic move in representing the liberal Islamism of the AKP). Nationally, because he had to drop his plans to overhaul the constitution, turning the traditional parliamentary system of Turkey into a presidential or semi-presidential one and then climb to the presidency himself. (He may still become the president of the republic, not the president in the U.S. sense, but with much more limited powers than he was dreaming of.) Internationally, because one of the major moving forces of the people's rebellion being the Alevi minority, whose brethren are under threat of massacres in Syria from the Sunni fundamentalists supported by Erdogan, the AKP government had to forego any plans it may have had for kindling war with Syria.

The people's rebellion was also the ground out of which grew the tumultuous rift in the Islamist power bloc moulded in the early 2000s, out of which came the AKP government with its reign now running into its 12th year. The imam Fethullah Gulen and his community scandalously abandoned Erdogan, using the clout in the police and the judiciary they had been granted by the self-same Erdogan to expose the utter corruption into which the AKP government had sunk during its years in power.

So Erdogan fears a re-edition of the Gezi people's rebellion as the plague. This is why he declared on the eve of May Day this year that Taksim was banned forever. All demonstrations were to be held in a strip of land that has been added to the cityscape as a result of the filling in of the sea. This is a place in the middle of nowhere, where the masses can only touch the hearts of the legendary seagulls of Istanbul and chant toward the beautiful Princess Islands!

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/b977b.jpg

Naturally, the workers’ and socialist movements did not relent. The result was a prolonged battle around Taksim square that lasted for hours and hours and extended not only into rather distant working-class neighbourhoods, but also into the posh bourgeois areas north of the city.

Notwithstanding the fact that we were not able to take Taksim we are all happy, knowing that we have done our duty and will certainly gather the fruits of this struggle in due time. Let no one forget the following fact: on May Day 2013 it was the police who kept us outside of Taksim square. A tactical victory for them and a tactical defeat for us. On the 1st of June 2013, a month later to the day, it was us who had kicked out the police form that very square. A tactical victory for us and a tactical defeat for them, one would symmetrically, but deceptively be inclined to say. No, a strategically important defeat for the police, the AKP and Erdogan. For some time to come, nothing will ever be the same in the class struggle in Turkey. This was demonstrated, if need be, once again today. Whereas last year the resistance put up by the movement was much weaker and meeker, this year the whole movement fought much more courageously and much more numerously.

It is the working-class and its vanguard that will overcome eventually! •

Sungur Savran is based in Istanbul and is one of the editors of the newspaper Gercek (Truth) and the theoretical journal Devrimci Marksizm (Revolutionary Marxism), both published in Turkish, and of the web site RedMed.

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[ckaihatsu]

IUF News

May Day celebrations in Pakistan, Korea, Indonesia and Philippines mark IUF campaign against PepsiCo (http://www.iuf.org/w/?q=node/3325)

Posted: 05 May 2014 01:54 AM PDT

http://www.iuf.org/w/sites/default/files/Karachi3.jpg

The IUF affiliates in Pakistan, Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines showed their solidarity with the ongoing struggle of PepsiCo warehouse workers in India during May Day marches and actions.


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