Here is the history of the Labor Day Federal holiday in the US, should you have an interest beyond throwing out hackneyed self affirming European stereotypes 
Five US states established the September holiday in in 1887, twenty-five more states soon after followed and it was subsequently made a peaceful Federal holiday in 1894. Canada followed the US 3 months later, using the same September date. Meanwhile the socialists declared their own ‘international’ day of protest (not a legal holiday) in 1889, more or less in parallel, and eventually countries like e.g. Russia (1918), Germany (in 1933), Sweden (in 1939) and France (in 1947) adopted May 1st as a holiday under national law. Unfortunately in some of those countries May 1st was then famously used as a tool to reinforce some of the most horrific regimes in human history. I think western European countries wishing to distance themselves from violence and repression when picking their date in the 20th century would have done better to choose September, like the US and Canada decades before.
In the US, the Labor Day holiday has for 130 years marked summer’s end just as the Memorial Day holiday marks its beginning, and has a very comfortable and well established fit into the rhythm of US life, like MLK Day and all the rest. Ladies don’t wear white clothing after Labor Day, or so the old tradition goes…
Is it an European stereotype that in early capitalism police (US included) was heavily used against workers (firearms included) who protested requiring better working conditions and decent payment? Only to fulfill the requirements of factory owners, representing clear example of corruption of the politicians influenced by people with money. It’s just a historical fact and it doesn’t have anything with political beliefs.
The rest of your post is classical whataboutism “repressive regimes used that date for their purposes”. Well, it’s not about that. It’s about intentional denying what happened on May 1st 1886. Peaceful holidays against violent ones
You’ll note that the US and Canadian state governments initiated their Labor Day holidays in 1887, within a year of that particular event, not half a century later. By 1894 Labor Day was a national holiday in both countries, first in the US. That is the exact opposite of denial and corruption.
I think the belated 20th century misuse of Labor Day by repressive communists and population murdering European dictators should have resulted in countries with the opportunity to do so choosing the earlier-established September date when they finally got around to establishing their own national holidays. Unfortunately in the European tradition, they instead bought the BS of authoritarian rulers who perpetrated violence and stupidity while manipulating their populations into rejection of those governments and peoples who had a better and more democratic approach. May Day, focusing on one particular event not the issue as a whole, was picked up as a tool in the propaganda tool box used to that end.
In this instance European populations suffered as a result of their poor judgements, eventually recovered after yet another 50 years and learned the error of their ways with the help of outsiders. Now as a face saving measure they criticize those who rescued them from their poor judgment and had the right idea all along.
PS Thanks for moving this thread tangent where it belongs.
Silvaire wrote:
the BS of authoritarian rulers who perpetrated violence and stupidity
Considering the political scene in the US today, that statement is somewhat ironic.
I see it exactly the opposite. Europeans once again, and as always, are currently becoming victims of authoritarian propaganda and state sponsored quasi-religion. That then has created economic weakness in the EU and attracted war. Meanwhile we in the US, as always, fight democratically to stop the same trend developing here, using the EU’s “progressive policies” as a counter example to what will work effectively in the US. Deja vu all over again, but I hope in this case US leadership will only be on the basis of showing what actually works, by example and not via another direct intervention.
The fortunes of private aviation, as always, are a leading indicator and provide a useful basis for comparison.
When was the last time you were outside Europe, Vic?
I came from Europe and I’m married to a European from a different country. We both left, but I’m there for several weeks twice a year. Looking outside your own world does lead to clarity, and my perspective is that Europeans (not all but a great many) have been trained to look inward, not outward. That came from the need for post-war unity, but the narrow and easily led popular perspective has its downsides.
Silvaire wrote:
Deja vu all over again, but I hope in this case US leadership will only be on the basis of showing what actually works, by example and not via another direct intervention.
By which example? This or something else? The world’s history is complicated and oversimplification to good guys and bad guys leads nowhere. However, USA is still much better place to live than huge number of countries in the world but it’s far away from being leader in democracy and human rights. Avoiding responsibility for involvement in war crimes, executing illegal aggression against Iraq based on fabricated information on weapons of massive destruction, illegal detaining and torturing POWs and civilians captured across Middle East, protecting US citizens who committed war crimes and at the same time requiring extradition of Julien Assange who leaked info on these crimes, supporting genocide in Gaza… there are lot of bad things that can be put to US account… Yet there are a lot of good things (I believe more) that can be written about the same country.
The US is a paragon of freedom and human rights when viewed against the alternative: the USSR. The Czechs would have given anything to be in the US sphere in 1947 (it would have been a free country, hard working people, great potential) instead of being run by the drunken gorrilas of USSR/Russia which has turned to s**t every country which it has touched and whose only skill – with rare exceptions like writing poems, antivirus software, and reverse-engineering the VAX11/780 – is stealing (recently honed with washing machines) and general destruction of everything which has any value.
Has any democratic country (of relevant size) done better? Not really. Well, there are little places in Europe which regard themselves as wonderful examples of socialism, not to mention “neutrality” (which was always largely bogus, under the table) but they have achieved it only under the US nuclear umbrella which stopped Russians conquering and destroying the whole continent.
Assange is on the same moral level as Kim Philby. Philby was much more successful (sent hundreds to their deaths) due to his position and the reliance of British security on recruiting people from the old fart network. Assange is just a low grade twat who published a ton of politically embarrassing stuff which anybody in the business knew was going on anyway.
