An Old-Fashioned May Day

For quite a few years, May Day was big among Communists. Every May 1, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Socialist Republics and some of his henchmen would be in Red Square, watching a procession of ICBMs and goose-stepping Red Army soldiers pass by. Those were the days! Communism collapsed, and for a while we would snicker at the few remaining countries that were benighted enough to cling to their socialist pasts–Cuba, North Korea, Albania. Now, even Albania is no longer Communist. So the glory days for Communist parades on May 1 are gone, right?
Not quite. Zombie documents an extraordinary May Day display in Los Angeles, where unions, most prominently the Service Employees International, teamed up with the Communist Party USA and other Commie groups. I love the “from Wisconsin to Libya” theme:

Note the innocuous-looking “PLP” on that poster. It stands for Progressive Labor Party. Quite a coincidence: I noted within the last day or two that long ago, I used to hang out in PLP circles. I had no idea the party still existed. In my day, it was known for believing that Mao’s China wasn’t radical enough.
Here is another PLP member; note the large SEIU banner just behind him:

As labor unions become increasingly marginalized, they have gotten radical to the point of parody. It seems like a good way to ensure their continuing irrelevance and likely extinction.