Happy Loyalty Day Everyone!  

Did you hear about this?  Trump has declared May 1 “Loyalty Day.”  

This is not the first attack on this special day.

My loyalty is not with a state created by and for the capitalist class.

My loyalty is not to a nation that plays lip service to the people, while serving the oppressor.  

My loyalty is to the working class, the cash poor, the wage slaves.

My loyalty is with the water protectors, the fractivists, the occupiers. 

My loyalty is to the society we live in today, built on the backs of the the people, but to the future we will build together.

My loyalty is not to the criminals in that building over there. (the IL Capitol)  

Or the ones a few blocks down.  (Springfield City Hall)

My loyalty is not  to the criminals in Washington DC.

My loyalty is to those of you who came out tonight.  To those of you who know democracy doesn’t happen  in a ballot box, but in between elections.  

My loyalty is, and will remain, with my brothers and sisters, neighbors and co-workers.  

In short, to my comrades.  


My loyalty is to the people putting it on the line, not the people lining their pockets. 

My loyalty is not simply to the destruction of what we have no, but more importantly, to the creation of something better for us all.

The whole idea behind a proclamation of loyalty is the protection and deification of the status quo. 

But who could be loyal to this world we have now?


How many of you worked today?

I worked an eight hour day.

Thank you by the way to the generations of revolutionaries, organizers, and workers who for that right.

That an eight hour work is when you are done. 

(If you are lucky!  At this point I couldn’t read my notes and this acknowledgement was skipped.)

Thank you to those who are still fighting.

Maybe someday it will be a six hour work day.

Maybe one day we will have Fully Automated Gay Space Communism. 

One can only dream.
 
What started as me riffing on Trump’s declaration of a “Loyalty Day” has led me to a realization.

While not what Trump intended, the truth is (well, he would call it an alternative fact) 

That today…

May Day

IS a recitation of our loyalty.

Not our loyalty to the things that Trump wants fealty to, but to the things that the Haymarket Martyrs fought for, a century ago.

And what we continue to fight for today.  

For a common dream for a world that works for the many, not the few.

To a common vision for a tomorrow that is better than today.

Movements and revolt are rarely finite things,

With a definite beginning and end.

The sources are blurred and tied to a common condition.

The echos of past victories and defeats are with us today.

They inspire and educate.

Warn us and guide us.

The revolts of the present and the the revolts of tomorrow are not disconnected outbursts.  

The martyrs,w hose bravery brings us here today, 

are inseparably linked to those who inspired them to action 

and those who are called to action today and those who will follow in our footsteps. 

We are not alone in this struggle.

We have the ghosts of those who came before us.

And we have the promise of those who come after us.

We are loyal to this lineage of comrades,

To each other.

And to the common goal of building something better than we have today.

Arm in arm.

Shoulder to shoulder.

We are the future.

May Day is a day of loyalty,

But it is not a day of loyalty to the capitalist class. 

To the oligarchy.

It is a day of loyalty to the common man, and the common worker.

Chris Blankenhorn

Dr. Richard Gilman-Opalsky at the 2017 Springfield Haymarket Festival