May Day is Our Day

newspaper boxes in the streets!

From Puget Sound anarchists dot org

A Decentralized Callout

submitted anonymously

A year ago, when the Covid-19 pandemic first made itself felt, some anarchists on occupied Duwamish Territory (Seattle) put out calls for decentralized actions on May 1st, the fighting holiday of the working classes.

We return to that idea with new perspectives and experiences. Taking up the call: “This May Day we invite organizations, crews, and individuals to take the initiative and plan actions reflecting our diverse and interconnected struggles.”

Pandemic-life magnified and fully exposed the traumas of the settler-capitalist system. An insurrection showed us ways to fight it.

Well-off Karens raged over working from home or wearing a mask. Meanwhile, “Essential Workers,” whose vital jobs were often the subject of racist, patriarchal, or classist derision shortly before, were given a gold sticker. A pat on the back. Then they were sent off to face the pandemic at the same poverty wages.

Who was condemned to face Covid-19’s worst ravages? Incarcerated people already brutalized by America’s vast police and prison industrial complex, the plantation which never died.

Seattle is in a years-long, declared “Homelessness state of emergency.” Now mass-evictions are on the horizon. More and more people fall behind on rent. Moratoriums won’t last forever. Courts open. Sheriffs ready to evict, police to sweep.

May Day is a day where we fight our interlocking struggles together. Contact your friends. Get with your fellow organizers. Speak up at meetings to plan actions and events for the holiday. Past May Days have seen pickets of abusive fast food restaurants, bloc parties outside Youth Jail contractors, car caravans, attacks on banks and political symbols, and mutual aid efforts. Learn from the past, learn from this last year.

Whether heavily publicized or a careful secret, make plans across time and space. Consider gathering outside the heavily-policed downtown core. What needs doing in your own neighborhood or suburb?

Does a nearby encampment need support? Be friendly, ask what they need. Help supply or feed them and begin building bridges with your neighbors. Get some friends together to help even more.

Organizing in your workplace? Many people have to work on the holiday, which makes it a great date for that workplace action they’ve been planning. Or perhaps the day to finally break the ice with some coworkers about making some changes.

The struggle to abolish the police has not been won. Many liberals are eager to reinstate their own vision of Law and Order. Take to the streets and fuck the police.

If safe to get together in person or securely, plan a small direct action at night. With a bit of forethought and awareness in the moment, you can accomplish a lot in even a couple minutes.

Create memes, art, music, writing, tags. Cover the city, flood the web.

May Day is our day!

1. Our actions are autonomous and will be undertaken in the broad spirit of tearing down racism, capitalism, colonialism and the cis-het patriarchy.

2. We suggest observing the St. Paul Principals in regard to other actions that happen this day

3. We will engage in direct action rather than merely symbolic action

We encourage folks in other communities to put out similar calls and plan actions that align with your local struggles!

Find us at @MayDaySea2021 on twitter

There are 6 Comments

Respect to this group for their callout, and I wish them success. My only criticism would be that they have not made an effort to challenge the dominant narrative that Covid-19 represents a great threat to society at large, which it clearly doesn't, given the fact that the vast majority of deaths or serious medical complications have always been among the elderly or those with other pre-existing health problems, and even there, the fatality rate has hovered around 2% - hardly justification for a worldwide panic. Once the Italian government instituted their first lockdown last year, politicians in other countries quickly followed suit, and are now so invested in that failed strategy that they refuse even to discuss the possibility that they may have been wrong, and try to silence or villify any dissenters.

So now we face a future of enforced mask-wearing, "social distancing", medical ID cards for travel or even everyday socializing in public venues, and repeated lockdowns, instead of investing in the health and well-being of all those who are truly vulnerable - the elderly, prisoners, health-care workers, etc. The hypocrisy of our current US administration, which firmly opposes socialized health care, is stunning.

Found the far-right Q-anon neo-nazi conspiracy theorist, you guys...

is just denying individualist perspective on the matter, clearly covid was pretty terrible for certain people, however i definetly would classify the giant authoritarian reaction to COVID (do you remember that???) as an over-reaction, largely created by this pompous belief in citizenry and morality which is promoted by the right and left.

But i guess there are nazis hiding in the booshees!! We'll never know dude, the correct Qanon prediction is just right around the corner!!

I think most people have been pushed around by this whole thing one way or another...a "decentralized callout" would be everyone makes a callout. That's basically american society in a nutshell, this is not a holiday, lol. Goooo Karen!

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