Monday, May 01, 2006

The Capitalist System

Long Live May Day

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IWW, MayDay

Sex Workers Want A Union

Sex Workers across the world are protesting today demanding the right to unionize. It's May Day.

India
Kolkata sex workers seek recognition as labourers

Taiwan

Prostitutes to ride for more rights

OLDEST PROFESSION: Sex workers will appeal to the government today to decriminalize their way of earning a living and will announce the formation of a labor union

Sex workers call for an end to policemen 'fishing'

Canada
Canadian prostitutes bought, sold and forcibly moved, study shows

Also See:

Legalize & Unionize the Sex Trade

Whose Family Values?

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No tanks, no commisars, finally Russia has a real May Day. And real workers and commies celebrating and demanding the end of Mafia Capitalism.
Ivan Klyuchenko, a 17-year-old starting university this year, said: "Our industry is in ruins and wages are pitiful. A lifetime of work is not enough to buy a room in a Moscow suburb."
Trade unions, Communists march through Moscow on May Day

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Carnival of Investing

Ah shucks what can I say I posted my article; Income Trusts are a Ponzi Scheme to Canadian Capitalist and he has kindly published it in his 20th edition of the Carnival of Investing.

Call it contributing my two bits worth. And rather ironic that a lefty gets published in a Capitalist Blog.

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Census 2006 Count Me Out

In the 1980's a scandal erupted that Census Canada/Statistic Canada had given information to the RCMP as part of their spying on Canadians operation.

This was the time when the RCMP were exposed for infiltrating unions, burning barns, infiltrating the left and anti-war movements, universities and the Quebec nationalist movements. The Canadian Census was supposed to be secure and confidential. And it was a crime not to fill in your census form.

Well I refused, and when I got called from the irate bureaucrat from Stats Canada informing me that I had to comply I replied I would be happy to if he in writing could assure me that my information was secure and not subject to being handed to the RCMP. Well all a fluster he informed me my information was secure, and I assured him I would only believe him when I had it in writing. Suffice it to say he did not provide me with that assurance in writing. Nor did he press charges.

Today Statistics Canada has contracted out its data collection to Lockheed Martin, yes that Lockheed Martin the company that advertises on US television about how it is Defending America.

This means our data is not secure. Vive Canada.ca has launched a campaign to halt this contracting out and failing that are calling for Non Participation in the 2006 Census.

Count Me Out!

Lockheed Martin (the biggest U.S. weapons contractor and in fact the biggest weapons contractor in the world) is working on the next Canadian Census. That's because Statistics Canada chose to contract out the part of the census dealing with software, hardware and printing to Lockheed Martin--despite the fact that Stat Can promotes itself at home and internationally as a leader in information gathering.

What this means is that your tax dollars for the census will go to a non-Canadian corporation. It means that Canadian jobs will be lost due to the automation of the census. And it means that a large part of the census will be handled by a corporation that makes weapons of mass destruction. A corporation that reaps huge benefits financially from the war in Iraq, a war that Canadians rightfully oppose. A corporation that works behind the scenes to influence U.S. public policy to help maximize its own profits. A corporation that is leading the development of the Star Wars missile-defense program for the Pentagon. A corporation that is consistently rated one of the worst corporations in the world for various reasons including human rights abuses. And a corporation that might invade your privacy.

Say no to Lockheed Martin's involvement in the Canadian census. Say yes to Canada. Join Canadians across the country and BOYCOTT the census.

We offer suggestions for several different actions you can take, from sending an email form letter, to simply completing only the paper census rather than the online census, to a full boycott. To find out how you can take action, just click here: census.vivelecanada.ca

To access only the email form letter, click here: census.vivelecanada.ca/letter.php

For more information on the issue, visit: The Census Issue

And please visit our partner site on this action, CountMeOut.ca

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Stats-Canada,, Census, Census2006,, Lockheed,, contracting-out,, RCMP,, security,, privacy,, Canada,, government

Carnival of Socialism is Out

The Carnival of Socialism is now online here. Enjoy

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Marxism,, , Socialism,, , carnival,, , France,, , Nepal,, , post, modernism,, , Maoism,, , CPE,, , class, consciousness,, , Newton’s, law

Workers Control

When the bosses go bust the workers take over. And such has happened at a unionised pork processing plant in Saskatchewan. When the bosses shut down the factories, the workers need to take over and make them work.

Such is the current situation in Newfoundland with the closing of the FPI fish processing plants. There the communities, which are the plant workers, need to take over these plants and run them for themselves. And the recent history of workers control in Quebec shows they can do it more profitably.

Of course it is only when the bosses give up and move out because the plants are not 'productive' that is not profitable due to lower wages and other cost reductions available abroad, that workers are offered the opportunity to run the plants themselves. In reality we run our plants, schools, hospitals, etc. all aspects of capitalism for ourselves already, the captialists, shareholders, and managers are parasites who live off our labour. We can libe without them they cannot live without us.

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The Origins and Traditions of May Day

I wrote the Origins and Traditions of Mayday in 1997. Yes way back then, it was one of my first web postings. It was used to launch MayDay on the Web and the Edmonton May Week celebrations that have continued since.

Here it is again and the original web page is here.

An Australian labour historian used it as the basis for his article on May Day which expands on my points.

THE ORIGINS AND TRADITIONS OF MAYDAY

By Eugene W. Plawiuk


The international working class holiday; Mayday,
originated in pagan Europe. It was a festive holy day
celebrating the first spring planting. The ancient
Celts and Saxons celebrated May 1st as Beltane or the
day of fire. Bel was the Celtic god of the sun.

The Saxons began their May day celebrations on the eve
of May, April 30. It was an evening of games and
feasting celebrating the end of winter and the return
of the sun and fertility of the soil. Torch bearing
peasants and villager would wind their way up paths to
the top of tall hills or mountain crags and then
ignite wooden wheels which they would roll down into
the fields

The May eve celebrations were eventually outlawed by
the Catholic church, but were still celebrated by
peasants until the late 1700's. While good church
going folk would shy away from joining in the
celebrations, those less afraid of papal authority
would don animal masks and various costumes, not
unlike our modern Halloween. The revelers, lead by the
Goddess of the Hunt; Diana (sometimes played by a
pagan-priest in women's clothing) and the Horned God;
Herne, would travel up the hill shouting, chanting and
singing, while blowing hunting horns. This night
became known in Europe as Walpurgisnacht, or night of
the witches

The Celtic tradition of Mayday in the British isles
continued to be celebrated through-out the middle ages
by rural and village folk. Here the traditions were
similar with a goddess and god of the hunt.

As European peasants moved away from hunting gathering
societies their gods and goddesses changed to reflect
a more agrarian society. Thus Diana and Herne came to
be seen by medieval villagers as fertility deities of
the crops and fields. Diana became the Queen of the
May and Herne became Robin Goodfellow (a predecessor
of Robin Hood) or the Green Man.

The Queen of the May reflected the life of the fields
and Robin reflected the hunting traditions of the
woods. The rites of mayday were part and parcel of
pagan celebrations of the seasons. Many of these pagan
rites were later absorbed by the Christian church in
order to win over converts from the 'Old Religion'.

Mayday celebrations in Europe varied according to
locality, however they were immensely popular with
artisans and villagers until the 19th Century. The
Christian church could not eliminate many of the
traditional feast and holy days of the Old Religion so
they were transformed into Saint days.

During the middle ages the various trade guilds
celebrated feast days for the patron saints of their
craft. The shoemakers guild honored St. Crispin, the
tailors guild celebrated Adam and Eve. As late as the
18th century various trade societies and early
craft-unions would enter floats in local parades still
depicting Adam and Eve being clothed by the Tailors
and St. Crispin blessing the shoemaker.

The two most popular feast days for Medieval craft
guilds were the Feast of St. John, or the Summer
Solstice and Mayday. Mayday was a raucous and fun
time, electing a queen of the May from the eligible
young women of the village, to rule the crops until
harbest. Our tradition of beauty pagents may have
evolved , albeit in a very bastardized form, from the
May Queen.

Besides the selection of the May Queen was the raising
of the phallic Maypole, around which the young single
men and women of the village would dance holding on to
the ribbons until they became entwined, with their (
hoped for) new love.

And of course there was Robin Goodfellow, or the Green
Man who was the Lord of Misrule for this day. Mayday
was a celebration of the common people, and Robin
would be the King/Priest/Fool for a day. Priests and
Lords were the butt of many jokes, and the Green Man
and his supporters; mummers would make jokes and poke
fun of the local authorities. This tradition of satire
is still conducted today in Newfoundland, with the
Christmas Mummery.

The church and state did not take kindly to these
celebrations, especially during times of popular
rebellion. Mayday and the Maypole were outlawed in the
1600's. Yet the tradition still carried on in many
rural areas of England. The trade societies still
celebrated Mayday until the 18th Century.

As trade societies evolved from guilds, to friendly
societies and eventually into unions, the craft
traditions remained strong into the early 19th
century. In North America Dominion Day celebrations in
Canada and July 4th celebrations in the United States
would be celebrated by tradesmen still decorating
floats depicting their ancient saints such as St.
Crispin.


Our modern celebration of Mayday as a working class
holiday evolved from the struggle for the eight hour
day in 1886. May 1, 1886 saw national strikes in the
United States and Canada for an eight hour day called
by the Knights of Labour. In Chicago police attacked
striking workers killing six.
The next day at a demonstration in Haymarket Square to
protest the police brutality a bomb exploded in the
middle of a crowd of police killing eight of them. The
police arrested eight anarchist trade unionists
claiming they threw the bombs. To this day the subject
is still one of controversy. The question remains
whether the bomb was thrown by the workers at the
police or whether one of the police's own agent
provocateurs dropped it in their haste to retreat from
charging workers.

In what was to become one of the most infamous show
trials in America in the 19th century, but certainly
not to be the last of such trials against radical
workers, the State of Illinois tried the anarchist
workingmen for fighting for their rights as much as
being the actual bomb throwers. Whether the anarchist
workers were guilty or innocent was irrelevant. They
were agitators, fomenting revolution and stirring up
the working class, and they had to be taught a lesson.


Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engle and Adolph
Fischer were found guilty and executed by the State of
Illinois.

In Paris in 1889 the International Working Men's
Association (the First International) declared May 1st
an international working class holiday in
commemoration of the Haymarket Martyrs. The red flag
became the symbol of the blood of working class
martyrs in their battle for workers rights.

Mayday, which had been banned for being a holiday of
the common people, had been reclaimed once again for
the common people.


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Beltane, pagan, paganism, Green-Man, Diana

May Day Headlines

And now your headlines from the class war.

Capitalism does not go unopposed even in the heart of the Beast; Immigrants across the United States down tools for MayDay

And in Europe workers as of May Day are 'free labour' able to cross borders for jobs. New EU country workers get wider chance to seek jobs

Gee someone should tell all these cops and governments that unions are irrelevant.......

May Day Demonstrators Rally Across Asia
Workers across Asia rallied Monday to press for better conditions, often encountering a heavy police presence and, in some places, outright resistance.

May Day demonstrations quelled by massive police presence in Cambodia capital
- A leading trade union leader was arrested Monday as thousands of police brought the capital to a virtual standstill during a government clampdown on unauthorized May Day demonstrations, an opposition leader said. Chea Mony, leader of the Free Trade Union, was arrested by police and detained for two hours on grounds that he was organizing unauthorized demonstrations, said Sam Rainsy, leader of the opposition.

Indonesian police out in force for nationwide May Day rallies

Demonstrations were planned in major cities across Indonesia, with up to 50,000 people expected in the capital alone to protest government plans to revise a labor law -- cutting severance packages and introducing more flexible contracts that would chip away at worker security. "Don't change the law," thousands of laborers chanted at Jakarta's main downtown roundabout, as others arrived in buses and trucks, waiving green, yellow and red flags and banners expressing their demands.

High alert for Philippine May Day

Strikes to follow May Day: Cosatu SABC News

And this is why MayDay is still relevant and important even today.

EUROMAYDAY 006

Europe marks May Day

'Preserve May Day significance'
Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana urges workers and employers to preserve the significance of the world May Day celebrations to be observed on Monday. In a statement ahead of the celebrations, the minister said it was important for everyone to think of those who were still denied basic worker rights. "On Monday South African workers, as part of the global community, will be joining their counterparts around the world in celebrating the achievements and fruits of the struggles that were waged by their forefathers more than 100 years ago."
As we will be celebrating, it is important to note that this year's celebration coincides with the 60th anniversary of the historic mineworkers' strike of 1946. It is the struggles of this nature that led to the current improvements in our working conditions," he said. It was important for people not to treat the May Day holiday as an ordinary public holiday, the minister said. "The freedoms that we enjoy today resulted from attempts by the government and its social partners to ensure the realisation of those struggles and I would therefore like to remind our fellow countrymen and women that as we celebrate, we should pause to spare a thought for those who are yet to enjoy these basic conditions."

And here is why workers still need a union.......

No happy May Day for 350 Govt workers
Bangalore: It's May Day on Monday. But as workers around the world are celebrating their special day, 350 government employees in Bangalore have little to rejoice. They have been working on contract for more than a decade, and now, the Supreme Court has said that they have no right to regularisation. A case in point is B C Karunakar, who has been working as a typist at the Commercial Taxes department for over 20 years. But despite working here for two decades, he isn’t a permanent employee just like his colleague, T Govindaiah who has put in 22 years of work in the organisation.They've worked for 20 years without increments, medical facilities, and privileged leave. And now they will now retire without pension.

And in Montreal workers kicked off May Day early with a protest against the Charest Neo0Liberal agenda. May Day comes early to Montreal

And check out these sites.

LabourStart for up to the minute May Day headlines.

The Daily Bleed May Reference Page:

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LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment