It's not even an officially sanctioned holiday in the United States, even though it was founded as a show of solidarity with American workers on the part of their European working-class bretheren. How low has it sunk even today? Instead of commemorating the victims of the extraordinarily violent labor history of the United States of America, we get Mission Accomplished Day, Veto Day, Melting Freeways in the Bay Area Day, "Law" Day, The Great Unwashed Masses Get Their Boxers in a Wad Over "American Idol" Day, Surge Till You're Dead Day ...And on and on. You get the picture ...
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< sigh > yes, i get the whole, sorry, unbelievably sad picture... i grew up in colorado and teethed on stories of the ludlow coal miners massacre, one of the darker episodes in american labor history... it's truly a shame that, as a nation, we cannot join in solidarity with the rest of the world to honor the poor working stiffs that carry the economy of their countries on their backs...
a link to info about the ludlow massacre...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
Yeah, I've never met a single person who had the slightest, tiniest bit of knowledge about seminal events like Haymarket, or the Ludlow Massacre; or even read a book by Eric Foner or Howard Zinn. It would seem that historical memory in this country has been completely wiped clean, like a ratty old chalkboard.
Professor, do you ever have the feeling that things would be so much easier if we could just be ignoramuses like so many are? I know I do.
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