Happy Labor Day!
I glanced at a news headline today that said something to the effect that we celebrate Labor Day despite the fact that the thing it celebrates began with loads of violence. Curious, that. I took a look at the list of official US government holidays and discovered that all of them are, in one way or another, celebrations of violence. Here is my (unofficial and nonscientific) rankings of government holidays in terms of the violence they directly or indirectly represent, briefly annotated on the outside chance that the violence they reflect isn’t immediately obvious:
- Columbus Day (genocide of an entire continent—and Columbus himself was pretty much personally responsible for wiping out the indigenous population of Hispaniola).
- Independence Day (war, duh!)
- Memorial Day (war, duh!)
- Veteran’s Day (war, duh!)
- Thanksgiving (the mythological day it celebrates was originally proclaimed in honor of the safe return of a group of armed thugs that had just massacred 700 Pequot men, women, and children—really, you should read a book—and there’s probably a bit about smallpox in there too).
- Labor Day (the fight against inhuman labor conditions, worker strikes that turned deadly, corporate assassins, etc.)
- MLK Day (a famous guy who took a bullet—just one of many—and hundreds of others who took the toothy end of a police dog or the business end of a government firehose)
- President’s Day (two presidents: one was a celebrated war general, the other presided over the civil war and died by a bullet to the head)
- New Year’s Day (watch out for drunk drivers and rednecks’ bullets returning to earth)
- Christmas (Black Friday mobs—at least 10 confirmed dead and hundreds wounded since 2006)
Considering that the US was built on a foundation of slavery and genocidal colonial conquest, and that it continues to exist only through the constant application of violence and the threat of violence, it is not surprising, perhaps, to find such a close affiliation between violence and our official government holidays.