For Socialists, Every Day is May Day

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There is a new feeling this May Day. Though not exactly a haunting specter, there is sense that the world may be on the brink of something new and significant. In one short year, we have witnessed the near total collapse of a global financial system once so dominant that it motivated calls for “the end of history.” Capitalism is failing – drowning in a sea of its own debt, unable to direct the monumental strands of individual greed and unwilling to submit itself to the kind of emergency surgery it underwent in the 1930s. And now it is May Day again, a day for the victims of capitalism to gather strength through their free association and common desires for justice.

The severity of the economic crisis can be measured by the outburst of discussion about socialism on a nearly daily basis in the mainstream media. Much of this has been fueled by Conservatives who have creatively discovered socialism inside of every movement of the Federal Government no matter how wasteful. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has led this charge by tagging Barack Obama “the world’s best salesman for socialism” and hailing the creation of “the Union of American Socialist Republics.” B-movie actor Chuck Norris boasted of thousands of right-wing cells preparing to curtail the march toward socialism.

In progressive circles, conversations have been less bombastic but equally searching. The Nation presented the choice as either “Reforming Capitalism” or “Re-Imagining Socialism” and took some tepid steps away from their electoral support of Obama. Newsweek took a more direct approach declaring that “We are all Socialists Now.” However, their version of socialism amounted to little more than state intervention fueled by a non-descript “populist rage.”

Thankfully, May Day is about something besides the speculations of pundits. On this day workers who directly suffer under the worst impositions of capitalism claim public space to speak out about their common condition. This tradition was born as a commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket massacre in Chicago. From this point forward, the holiday served as a symbolic means to link working people across national borders in a common struggle to cast aside the social and economic limitations enforced by capitalism. Gatherings big and small – in jails, public squares and city streets – have pronounced the simple truth that working people are prevented from reaching their full human potential by a parasitic employer class.
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http://socialistwebzine.blogspot.com/2009/04/for-socialists-every-day-is-may-day.html