I went to see Ken today. He and his Morris dancing friends got up at dawn, singing and dancing to make sure the sun came up. Thank you, Ken.
But that’s not the May Day I’m thinking oh right now. I’m thinking of International Workers Day, celebrated everywhere in the world except in the U.S. International Workers Day commemorates the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, when (to oversimplify) workers were gunned down while exercising their right to assemble publicly — in a peaceful demonstration seeking the right to an eight hour day. International Workers Day is not celebrated in the U.S. to help everyone forget the Haymarket Massacre, and to forget that ordinary working class people have rights and needs.
And here we are today, with the two dominant political parties pretty much ignoring the working class. I have to give credit to the Republicans, at least they pretend to stand up for the working class. The reason given for Republican tariffs was to bring jobs back to the U.S.; the reason for immigration crackdown was to keep jobs for American working class people. Of course, it hasn’t worked out that way, for neither tariffs nor immigration crackdowns have created jobs; all that has happened is prices have gone up and ordinary working people are worse off than before. The Democrats, for their part, seem to have the forgotten working class completely. They talk about No Kings and letting trans kids play sports — both of which I happen to agree with — but I’m not hearing much talk about decent jobs, support for unions, and pathways for struggling families to make economic progress.
And neither political party seems to think of workers as somehow human. Instead, they treat workers as economic abstractions. To quote Marx: “Political Economy regards the worker like a beast of burden, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being.” Except sometimes I think our two political parties don’t even care if the workers get enough to enable them to work.
I find myself in agreement with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber — the real battle is against poverty. He lays out his arguments in his book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy. The real needs of poor people — who Barber says constitute 40% of the U.S. population — are being ignored by both parties. And those real needs boil down to the words of an old poem for workers: Bread, and roses too. Jobs, and dignity and beauty.
Working people, poor people, are getting left behind. They’re sending out a mayday, and no one’s listening.
