Remember those enemy combatants caged up in Guantanamo? Looks like the Pentagon thinks it unpatriotic for anything they say to ever be released. They are, as always, absolutely correct.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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And remember, they are watching you. Could someone explain the difference between the Stasi and Homeland Security? Even their names are the same
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Loyalty day? Ok; I thought 7 BNP councillors in Burnly was bad but I suppose at least there's virtually no chance of them ever getting into actual power here. I cannot understand how any country could begin to repeat the mistakes of the last century. Nationalism on this scale is extremely worrying.
quote: "The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"?
I keep expecting Bush to say "The war against Terror is not a religious war, but God is on our side"
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
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He also signed the US Declaration of Independence, but I wouldn't recommend attributing quotes from it to him, either.
Registered: Mar 1999
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So how long has this Loyalty Day schtick been up? A cursory web search revealed declarations thereof from the past three years, but I got bored on my way through the .gov sites and didn't track the entire history of the Day.
I also hit a random link about the Governor of Georgia declaring the State version of this day in '58. Was that where it got started? Or is it as old as Roosevelt's fireside chats or Washington's slippers, and simply gets extra attention every time patriotism becomes fashionable, or loathsome, or both?
It's origins stretch back to the original Labor Day, which was May 1st.
On May 1st, 1886, the American Federation of Labor declared a national strike to demand an eight-hour work day and 350,000 workers across the country responded.
When police attempted to disperse a peaceful rally in Haymarket Square, Chicago, a bomb was tossed into their midst, wounding nearly 70 officers, some mortally. Firing randomly into the crowd, police wounded 200 citizens, killing many.
Police arrested eight revolutionary labor leaders, seven of whom had not even been present in Haymarket at the time. In the absence of any evidence linking them to the bomb, the "Chicago Eight" were tried solely on the basis of their political beliefs. All eight were sentenced to death; most were eventually executed.
News of the trial electrified labor groups everywhere; protests were held around the world. In 1889, the Socialist International declared May 1st a day of demonstrations, and since 1890 these have been held annually worldwide by a variety of labor movements, in many cases eventually forcing official recognition of the holiday. Soon, labor advocates in the United States, too, pressed for a national holiday recognizing workers.
Some states chose to hold their holiday on May 1, others opted for September. Eventually, the September date won out.
The idea of a "Loyalty Day" began to take root in the 1930's, along with other related festivals.
In 1932 some patriotic organizations were encouraged by the Loyalty Day concept and wanted to do something more to inspire loyalty to the nation. So, the concept of Americanism Day came into being to be celebrated on the same day of the Loyalty Day. The first Americanism parade was held in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1932. (As I've said before, I used to work in Uniontown.)
In 1947, the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars renamed May 1st "Loyalty Day" and a joint session of Congress later made the pronouncement official. (At least part of the idea was to take crowds away from Socialist and Communist events, some of which were still taking place on May 1.)
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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So, what does all that about the labor strikes have to do w/ anything, except that the original Labor Day was on 1. May?
Registered: Mar 1999
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So, in a nutshell, May 1st started out as a worker's day; individual states then decided to have their own ones in September, for whatever reason; the official Labor Day was eventually created in September precisely because May Day was by then associated with commies and pinkos and subversives. And I've never seen a lot to indicate Labor Day was especially concerned with workers in any way other than the name. . . So isn't it just the government and corporate America paying lip-service to the idea?
quote:Originally posted by TSN: So, what does all that about the labor strikes have to do w/ anything, except that the original Labor Day was on 1. May?
The original strike that led to all this was on May 1, which is why the original Labor Day was May 1.
Registered: Mar 1999
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![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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