worker's day

As I write this sitting at my desk I wish I was in Pasadena. I should be there but work keeps me stationary. And Friday traffic, which can be quite abysmal, miserable and sometimes...non-existent. The mysteries of LA. I know for fact that every day there is a magic hole in the traffic that lets you zoom through, despite the odds. Last week I've found it, I made it in 35 minutes from Universal City to Santa Monica in the thick of the afternoon. I was prepared for stop-and-go and went 65 with an extra half hour to kill upon arrival. Where else do they give you back time? As far as I know though nobody has ever really found out when or where to find the hole in the traffic. So I can't risk going on a freeway now. I am too late already.
I digress. Pasadena. May First. International Labour Day. Where I come from this is a nice little holiday at the beginning of spring. Schools, banks, stores, offices are closed, obviously - we celebrate the hard work of the working class. It deserves its day off. Lots of demonstrations and union rallies, opportunities to show those capitalists that the people they have working for them are watching and organizing and making sure it is all fair and dandy. Or complaining that it's not. Ah the good old European ways where the workers find strength in numbers, fight exploitation, poverty and inequality. The street belongs to them and that is good, on that day. It relates to a tradition of socialistic ideas, that as far as I can see, are in today's climate just that, ideas and ideals of a more just society. An important asset in the dialogue about how to distribute the wealth generated in each community of a nation. Nothing unusual and with a history of societies whose attempts at real existing socialism failed without doubt, no one raises an eyebrow over the idea as such.
Now I live in a country that has its own weird idea of socialism. I think when people say socialism here it has nothing to do with anything in existence but a lot with some dusty ideas of people who are immune to history. Whatever socialism is synonymous for to them plays formidably into the hands of people who like to make lots of money without payback to those who put their sweat into it. So the Pasadena Patriots are probably quite indicative of that particular subgroup of Americans who have socialism-panic. They are using, right now, this May Day for a rally to protest the "current path to socialism" they see in this country and the state of California. "The Pasadena Patriots encourage citizens to join the Pasadena May Day rally and fight for capitalism, a free-market, lower taxes, lower regulations, less government and freedom of the individual." Now there's a rally invitation you could not get away with in Kreuzberg (which is a district in Berlin with its own 22 year old history of May 1 rallies, a very peculiar ritual which often requires throwing rocks at policemen in riot gear).
But the funky fresh take on Labour Day would not have made me want to watch those patriots in Pasadena. Neither the odd out-datedness of their concepts. It was the last sentence on the invite: "Participants are encouraged to dress like your favorite Communist dictator." Whou-hou! Pretty funny those Republicans under threat of Socialism. Too bad, would have liked to photograph that. Bummer. Hope my work day is off soon...