DALLAS/ FT. WORTH, TEXAS — This year’s May Day was a huge success. Nearly 50 people attended PL’s annual May Day BBQ here. The highlight of the event was the speech-skit that young leaders and new members organized and performed in both English and Spanish. It got the audience engaged on a level not seen at previous May Day events.
We began with a reading of the history of May Day. The history was accompanied by images ranging from the first May Day to recent PL May Days.
Our program was performed as a four-act play.
In Act I, we demonstrated how capitalism exploits the working class. We used a pie and showed that if society was truly equal then the pie would be evenly divided among everyone — without the bosses. Young children in the audience participated and played the role of the workers. Once they got their even slice, the capitalist pig (who literally wore a pig mask) took the stage and declared that it was “time for my profits!” One by one the capitalist pig took their slices and left them with only crumbs.
In Act II, we showed the role of elections. The narrators proclaimed that capitalism is a dictatorship of the bosses which they hide with elections. Participants playing Romney and Obama entered. They shook hands with the capitalist pig who gave them money and U.S. flags. He then sent the politicians out into the crowd to steal cards that read “Medicaid” and “college readiness programs” from the audience. These social programs were added to the capitalist pig’s feeding trough. Obama and Romney told the crowd to blame immigrants and terrorists for the problems, but audience members yelled back “those are racist lies!”
In Act III we passed out posters among the crowd. Each one contained maps and graphics showing the history and impact of imperialism in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Audience members participated by reading about the horrors imperialism has brought to workers worldwide.
In the final Act we declared the need for a party to organize the working class to put an end to capitalism and imperialism once and for all. We declared that CHALLENGE is a weapon against the bosses’ racist and sexist ideas. We handed out CHALLENGES to the audience and asked them to join us in the fight against capitalism. At that moment dozens in the crowd stormed the stage and attacked Obama, Romney and the capitalist pig, beating them with rolled-up CHALLENGEs.
We ended our performance with a history and singing of the Internationale.
While not all of the people we invited could attend, we did give several new workers CHALLENGE as part of the process of inviting them to May Day. In all about 20 new workers received CHALLENGEs for the first time! In the weeks and months ahead we will continue to discuss the ideas of the Party with these new readers and bring the message of May Day to them!