Happy May Day

Today is May Day which is also known as International Workers' Day. It was chosen as that by the Second International which was an organization of socialist and labor parties. Perhaps its most notorious member (or illustrious depending on your view of Communism) was none other than Vladimir Lenin himself.

May Day Poster, 1930

It used to be the day that you saw big parades of Soviet tanks and missile launchers in Red Square. Under the other Vladimir - Putin - that has been moved to World War II Victory Day on May 9th. The Russians plan to unveil their new main battle tank, the Armata T-14, at the massive parade.

May Day, Red Square 1964

And finally, in the stuff you find when looking for something else category comes this. I was following a link posted by Prof. David Yamane at his Gun Culture 2.0 blog about Jennifer Dawn Carlson's article in the Wall Street Journal. Carlson is a sociologist at the University of Toronto who has written a well received new book on those who carry, open and concealed, entitled Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline. This, in turn, led me to the location of one of her recent talks about her research.

How appropriate that one of the universities most associated with the left-wing has a research institute dedicated to the study of "the right-wing".

The mission of the Center, which is housed at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI), is twofold: first, to identify right-wing movements, flesh out their twentieth-century histories (how they aligned and how they survived) while isolating their novel aspects in the 21st century; and second, to develop and apply principles of how right-wing thought, ideology and organizational capacities operate to understand the state of the contemporary Right and identify its likely directions and successes.

Their research collection includes files on the NRA, the Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners of America, and the Second Amendment Sisters. This is in addition to those other notorious right-wingers such as Cowboys for Christ, the PTL Club, and the Cato Institute. I guess Christians, cowboys, televangelists, and libertarians are all part of the mix they consider "right-wing".