wy MAY DAY Ithough the United A States, unlike many countries in Europe, doesn't celebrate May Day, the holiday's origins are deeply tied to American labor his- tory, as well as to the radical demand for an eight-hour workday that originated here. In 1866, the General Congress of Labor in Baltimore issued a call for an eight-hour work- day one month before a similar resolution was adopted at the Geneva Con- gress of the First International. Karl y ©Marx affirmed these demands in the first volume of Capita/, and the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions enshrined their connection to May 1 in 1884, resolving “that eight hours shall constitute [a] legal day's labor from May First, 1886.” On that day, nearly half a million workers across the United States participated in a massive wave of strikes. Especially militant ac- tion took place three days later in Chicago, where at least eight people were killed in a chaotic confrontation that has come to be known as the Haymarket Affair. The American Federation of Labor revived the campaign for an eight-hour workday in 1888, planning another nationwide strike for May 1, 1890. This call was echoed by the Second Inter- national, which amplified the ac- tion to an international strike and simultaneously declared May 1 as International Workers’ Day. —Evan Malmgren NSMAY DAY Red Rosa ay Day gained a new kind of sig- nificance in the early 20th century, when it be- came a symbol of international working-class solidarity in times of tense national division and an ascendant reactionary right. In. an article written before May Day in 1913, Rosa Luxemburg hailed the holiday as an occasion for workers around the world to act in unison, beyond their local state structures and above the artificial borders that divide them: “The brilliant main idea of the May Day celebration is the inde- pendent action of the proletarian masses...the political mass action of the millions of workers, who otherwise can give expression to their own will only through petty parliamentary action, separated by State boundaries and consist- ing for the most part only in vot- ing for representatives.” —Evan MalmgrenLacaning America or years, right-wing ideologues from Paul Ryan to Nigel Farage have driven a reactionary politi- cal project whose only purpose is to destroy whatever is put forward by others. But as recent history shows, the basis of their politics—a desire for negation—is undone by their ascent to power. To quote Slavoj Zizek, “desire must have its objects perpetually absent.” If a dog catches a car that it chases, the car ceases to exist as an object of desire. As Gary Younge describes at right, the same holds true for the British and American right, which have pushed narrow agendas that only bear meaning in relation to liberal formations like the Affordable Care Act and the European Union. Without the dominance of liberal institutions, oppositional right- wing programs lose all substance. In the writing of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, the objet petit a stands for an unattainable object of desire; the more you possess it, the greater the lack. We can only hope that Ryan, Farage, Donald Trump, and their friends find something to fill the vacuum that power has created inside them, and perhaps a good thera- pist as well. —Evan MalmgrenFAIR AND BALANCED The American Journalist Today ashington Post \ \ media critic Marga- ret Sullivan recently cited a 2014 report, “The Ameri- can Journalist in the Digital Age," in defense of her claim that the traditional press has moved “too far to the left." The report doesn't actually indicate a significant leftward media shift—a misin- terpretation that Eric Alterman debunks here—but it does show a Sizable dip in partisan self- identification among journalists overall, down from 60.5 percent in 199? to 35.2 percent in 2013. The report also serves as a subtler indictment of other as- pects of the modern newsroom. Analyzing over 40 years’ worth of survey data, co-authors Lars Willnat and David H. Weaver found that US journalists have grown “less satisfied with their work, less likely to say they have complete autonomy to select stories,” and “more likely to say that journalism is headed in the wrong direction.” Further noting that journalists now express a greater degree of caution in their reporting, the professors paint a grim portrait of an aging, de- pressed, pessimistic, constrained, and submissive media culture. —Evan Malmaren THE lS DIGITAL AG 5 ia eo ——— ee ee mo eyDATA COLLECTION Your E-Mail and Trump i) nacted three years be- fore the Invention of the World Wide Web, the Electronic Communications Pri- vacy Act of 1986 is woefully out of touch with how we share and consume Information In 2017. The ECPA considers online com- munications to be “abandoned” after 180 days, meaning that government agencies can obtain our personal information without a warrant after six months. Glven that companies like Facebook and Google retaln our data for years, we are powerless to protect the bulk of our unen- crypted communications from unjustified search and selzure. With the Justice Department now under the sway of Donald Trump and his handpicked ap- polntee, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, there has never been a more urgent tlme to reform these flimsy protections. Thank- fully, the Email Privacy Act provides a glimmer of hope. This bipartisan legislation proposes to update the ECPA, Includ- ing a new requirement that government agencies obtaln a warrant before seizing online communications more than 180 days old. The Email Privacy Act Is currently In the Senate after easily passing the House of Rep- resentatives for the second year in a row. —Evan Malmgrenty ee a Ta by Indiana in 2015 as aresult of a statewide Reli- gious Freedom Restoration Act that then-Gover- nor Mike Pence signed into law that year “Oh what fresh bell is this?” Trump's executive- order draft, which would roll back protections for LGBTG Americans —Evan MalmgrenTHE CABINET NORMALIZED Mike Pompeo. Trump's new CIA director, is a rad- ical Islamophobe who supports the legalization of torture, He was confirmed with the backing of 14 Senate Democrats, including Senate minor- lican, Rand Paul. breezed through his Senate confirmation hearing with the support of several Democrat senators, including nominally progressive firebrand Elizabeth Warren. The Department of Housing and Urban Develop- ment secretary-designate has gone on record arguing that “poverty is re- ally more of a cholce than anything else.” James Mattis, Trump's new defense secretary, wes opposed by a single sena- tor, Kirsten Gllllbrand—the only Senate Democrat to vote agalnst virtually all of Trump's nominees. On January 29, Gillibrand tweeted her support for the national pro- tests that erupted in opposition to Trump's racist immigration ban: “I'm with you. | support you. And I'll never stop fighting for our immigrants and refugees,” During Obama’s first slx years In office, the Senate blocked executive nominations more times than It did In the preceding 28 years combined. —Evan Malmgren