Welcome to Our New State of Being
May 1, 2020—Here it is—another glorious First of May. Workers the world around are standing up for their rights—generally at a safe distance. Here in the U.S., of course, it’s traditional to ignore International Workers Day; and by traditional, of course, we mean perverse. The day, after all, was chosen to mark an American massacre of workers, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, on May 4th, 1886. The selection of that particular event could be seen as almost arbitrary. That entire stretch of American history, from the Civil War to Armistice Day, could accurately be described as a slow-motion massacre of American workers. The winners …