Cheering the May Day Radicals

Ah, May Day. Pagan fertility rights as comely lads and lasses dance around poles; memories of Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg and the house-trained variety of Marxists; red flags and the Internationale; official start of the allergy season in New York ("Sneeze for solidarity!"); and worldwide excuse for a thousand demonstrations — our topic for the week.

Despite the happy coincidence of a date, there is perhaps something a bit forced about throwing all the May Day demos into the same catch-all net. Trade unionists in Zimbabwe don't obviously have much in common with prisoners' relatives in Turkey...