Passing Haymarket

Turn on the radio
Nah, fuck it, turn it off
Fear is your only god on the radio
Nah, fuck it, turn it off
-Rage Against the Machine, "Vietnow"

It's really too freaking bad I'm so damn busy right now.  I want nothing more than to write and I know exactly what I want to write about: Chicago.

Specifically, I want to write about that which defines the essence of Chicago.  It comes down to one word: Haymarket.

Yesterday was May Day.  Friday is the 126th anniversary of the Haymarket "Riot."  Yesterday's May Day labor rally and parade went right past the memorial at Haymarket Square, which was once a monument to the heroism of the police who opened fire in the dark on a (mostly) peaceful crowd and mostly managed to kill themselves.

Chicago was once the heart and soul of the labor movement.  There's a reason that Upton Sinclair set The Jungle in Packingtown.

Anyway, yesterday was May Day.  I posted this picture:




In a bit over two weeks, we have this:




NATO is coming to Haymarket.  I've already witnessed someone -- specifically someone with authority in the CFD -- connect yesterday's extremely peaceful and orderly May Day rally to the expected NATO rallies a "the insanity that started off yesterday."

I also received the official "It's Time to Start Panicking" warning from building services that include all the beefed-up security procedures and warnings not to associate with the protesters, lest they, I don't know, kill me or something.

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Meanwhile, yesterday morning I read "The Butcher of Anderson Station," a prequel-ish short story to Leviathan's Wake.  I read it right after finishing Mira Grant's Countdown, a novella prequel to the Newsflesh trilogy.  After that I started re-reading Feed.

I consider my recent reading choices extremely timely, here in the space between Haymarket and NATO.

Comments

[Janet]

Reading through that wiki article on the Haymarket... mess... What good is a free press when it abuses its freedom to deliberately sow hysteria? Why do people let public opinion polarize their thinking. I suppose I have never experienced real grief and fear, if I do not yet understand how hatred can poison a person's mind.