Occupy Wall Street Brings May Day to America

Occupy Wall Street Brings May Day to America

| By FRANKIE EDOZIEN| April 30, 2012, 6:00 am Comment


An Occupy Wall Street activist shouts slogans against government
during a protest in Lower Manhattan in New York on Apr. 27.

NEW YORK — For decades, workers in Europe, South America and China
have been celebrated with an official holiday on May Day.

The United States, however, has not followed suit. (And Britain and
Canada have tried to wash out the holiday's leftist hues.) Even though
the day's origins date to a riot in Chicago in 1886 known as the
Haymarket massacre, labor is celebrated Stateside in early September.

Socialists and trade union movements have long used May Day as a
protest day. And on Tuesday, May 1, the Occupy movement will attempt
to bring 125 U.S. cities to a standstill in commemoration of
International Workers Day.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is orchestrating what its supporters
hope will be a nationwide general strike with students, workers and
everyone who is an employee skipping work.

Their lofty goals also include urging people not to buy anything that
day. It has been billed as "A Day Without the 99 Percent."

The protesters are pressing for economic justice while railing against
large corporations that are perceived to not pay their fair share of
taxes, an example which of Charles Duhigg and David Kocieniewski
detailed in The Times on Sunday.

The Occupy movement, which began late last summer, remained boisterous
through the fall until many occupiers were ejected from parks around
the country and it became too cold to continue to camp outside. Now,
rising temperatures are drawing more and more of the disgruntled out
of hibernation.

For the Big Apple, numerous protests and marches are planned to
disrupt business as usual on Wall Street. New York's billionaire
mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, said Sunday that the city's police force
is ready and city officials are prepared to protect the rights of
demonstrators.

But he warned: "They don't have a right to disrupt other people and
keep other people from protesting or just going about their business,
and we will do as we normally do — find the right balance."

The mayor, who made his fortune on Wall Street before founding
Bloomberg L.P., advised demonstrators to try being entrepreneurial.
"Go out and try to do something and make it better. Help kids get a
better education, start a business. There's a lot of things — lot of
ways you can volunteer and help make this city better and this country
better."

Protest organizers, who say they are leaderless, didn't immediately
respond to Rendezvous' request for comment, but they are putting
together a slew of educational workshops Tuesday billed as the "Free
University."

University lecturers are being asked to move their classes to a
Manhattan park as part of the skills-building process.

The May Day actions will kick off other demonstrations, most notably
around the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit meeting in
Chicago. Some 28 world leaders are expected at the NATO gathering a>
on May 20.

Antiwar groups and other protesters had hoped for a chance to have
multiple protests while the world's eyes are on Chicago, when it was
first announced that a Group of 8 meeting would precede the NATO
conference.

But President Barack Obama has moved that the G-8 summit meeting to
Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. Occupy supporters
will also head there.

Whether the plan succeeds or flops, it remains unclear if it will
spark any change.

More:
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/occupy-wall-street-brings-may-day-to-america/

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy



--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.