I used to try to celebrate Beltane, but it just felt sort of strange to me. When we lived in the Midwest, or the South, I was so completely in the wrong latitude that it was just...wrong. Now, living close to 45 degrees latitude, and being a hobby farmer, it makes much more sense. However, I don't have any animals that are due to give birth, at the moment, and my first planting was a week ago.
I thought I'd share with any readers the first spoke in my own idiosyncratic holiday wheel.
Happy Workers Rights Day!
The Occupy people have a bunch of things planned for today. I wish them much luck in their endeavors. I won't be going to any of their rallies this year, maybe another time. At the moment I'm much more interested in celebrating the ancestors of the movement.
In recent years, Unions have gotten a bad reputation in many places. But, let us remember that they were the people who brought us the weekend.
The WEEKEND! That most sacred of all American institutions. Before the Workers Rights Movement, the workday was much longer. Sunday was for church, if your were lucky.
If you are over 30, you grew up with the idea that Saturday was a day when you got to watch cartoons for half the morning, then spend your time goofing off. If you have a job that makes you work Saturdays, its considered kind of sucky. And, usually you get some kind of brownie points for working a Saturday. Sometimes even get paid extra.
That's all thanks to the International Labor Movement!
Those OSHA signs you see everywhere in the workplace? The ones that tell you about health and safety rules? Those are also thanks to the Labor Movement. Lots of people complain about the "Nanny State" without seeing the results of an unregulated workplace...They're called sweatshops.
Those shiny "Exit" signs? Over fire escapes that actually open? Bathrooms that actually work? Lunch breaks?
Woo Hoo! I am very excited about those things. So, I'll light a candle and listen to a few Union songs.
Yeah! Does your preschooler have all ten fingers? Wow, none lost in a mill! All the folk songs from Joe Hill or the speaches from Chicago and the Haymarket and the many many people who were killed bgy the police for demaning to not work 7 days a week, 16 hours a day, in deadly conditions, with maybe even health inasurance and a living wage - I don't know their names, there were so many the police killed in thre name of big business, but it pisses me off when people bitch about unions. It's like when a young woman says "i am not a feminist" and I say "oh, so you want your husband to be legally be able to rape and beat you, not have your own income or property, or vote? Why?"
ReplyDeleteNodding. Absolutely.
ReplyDeleteMy kids go to school! I haven't lost any of my kids in the mine! Happy dance! Not even kidding.
My grandfather died of lung cancer. He was a coal miner, no big surprise. Interestingly, the Welsh people are the ethnicity with the lowest rate of lung cancer *once they leave Wales*. Because, it used to be, kids with weak lungs died before they reached reproductive age. They started in the mine as young as 5 or 6.