[politics] Happy May Day

(picture courtesy of the Marxists Internet Archive) Why is this imporant? Well, much of the latest information suggests that fewer and fewer Americans (who are fully employed) regularly work 8 hour days. Well, in 1886, in Chicago, a labor rally (in favor of among other things, the 8 hour workday) in Haymarket Square was bombed and the police opened fire into the crowd. Many workers and seven policemen were killed; eight anarchists were arrested, though it is widely suspected that Pinkerton detectives actually bombed the rally. Of the eight arrested, only one was actually at the rally, and he was addressing the crowd when the bomb exploded. After a show trial with zero evidence, all were convicted: four were hanged, one committed suicide, and the rest were pardoned in 1893 in a move by authorities to quiet a new round of civil unrest. May Day - the real Labor Day.