It's Labor Day, Charlie Brown!

I'm going to pull an Ann Landers and recycle some old material.

Actually, I'm going to be worse than Ann Landers and not recycle the old material, but merely link to it.

Whenever you talk about Labor Day, you have to talk about May Day. And I've talked about it (at least) three times.

May 1, 2009:

While the majority of readers of my blogs are from the United States, I do get readers from other parts of the world. And most of those international readers are celebrating May Day today.

But in the United States, most of us aren't.

May 1, 2012:

Each of us is undoubtedly influenced by the environment that we encounter throughout our lives. Which is why I, as an American, have a different attitude on May 1 than the attitude held by much of the world.

Many people throughout the world celebrate May Day in different ways. Some attend military parades. Some dance around poles in post-pagan rituals. Some throw sailor hats into the air – well, at least I call them sailor hats.

I do not do any of these things.

May 1, 2013:

In a sense, it's unfair to compare the attitudes of one generation with the attitudes of another. Just because Thomas Jefferson didn't endorse interracial gay atheist marriage doesn't mean that he's a fascist - especially since fascism didn't exist in the 18th century.

But it is illuminating the compare the attitudes of different generations.

Last year at about this time, I wrote a post in my tymshft blog that explained why those of us in the United States don't join in the worldwide May Day celebrations. As part of that post, I quoted extensively from a page at the Massachusetts AFL-CIO web site. This site explains why one of the AFL-CIO's predecessors, the American Federaion of Labor and its leader Samuel Gompers, opposed May 1 labor celebrations.

This begs the question - if I'm such a true red, white, and blue Murican, then why did I write all of these posts on the Commie May Day? Why didn't I write them on the Murican Labor Day?

So follow the links, read the posts, and pretend that I wrote them on a Monday in September.