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May Day is the people’s day

Published May 4, 2005 5:24 PM

As the Iraq war continues to lurch from disaster to disaster, from scandal to scandal, and from puppet to puppet, people are beginning to see the futility of this mad scheme to remake other nations in our image. As more and more people from more and more social strata see the futility of this imperial grab for lands and oil, it becomes clearer and clearer that people must join together and resist.

May Day 2005 presents a perfect opportunity for us to do so. It is a time chosen by American workers over a century ago to mark the triumph of an eight-hour work day with a full day’s pay. The setting aside of May Day as International Workers Day reflected a real social gain of the workers’ movement and the realization that the working class exists in all nations, and that the world was our home.

It is precisely that sense of internationalism that is needed now, to reclaim that high-water mark of social activism and to turn away young folks from the mindless struggle for empire. As capital is globalized under the WTO and the IMF, the poor and working people, the majority of the people of this earth, must be globalized in internationalism, and in defense of the many not the few. What is necessary for this to prevail is the realization that this mad war in Iraq is, in reality, a war against the future generation here. A war against education. A war against decent health care. A war against decent housing. And a war against good jobs which pay living wages.

The bombs may burst and the mortars may fire over there, but the human wreckage, the social dislocation, the destruction of communities and the decimation of civil and constitutional rights is happening right here, in the heart of the empire. It is therefore imperative that we join together, across our perceived boundaries, against the empire of eternal war. It is in our own self-interest to do so.

Millions upon millions of people took to the streets in a valiant and historic attempt to stop this madcap dash to war. They were right then, they are right now. It is time to come back together, to fight against the war against life. We can do it and we must do it to change the course of this imperial messianic militarism.

Let us give a new birth to the meaning of May Day as a day of wide and deep solidarity against the empire. Those who will follow us will one day look back to us and ask, “What did they do when the empire went mad?” We must be able to say we did everything in our power. We organized ourselves, we worked together, we stood against the madness of empire. This is what we must say. And that is what we must do to insure a livable future for later generations. When we fight against this mad imperial enterprise, we fight for ourselves, our real selves, as workers, as builders, as fathers, as mothers, as brothers, as sisters, as the human family.

Let’s unite and fight against empire for May Day and everyday.