It’s May Day in Seattle, and as good an excuse as any for another ruckus in the streets. It’s also a time for celebrating workers by, well, not working I guess. This (illegal) immigration march was called by the organizers the “9th Annual”, but it was only the 2006 march where things really hit their high point with about 25,000 marchers in Seattle. Last year it was about 8,000, while this year it was only about 6,000.

I also have galleries of the April 10th, 2006 march, the May 1st, 2006 march, and the May 1st, 2007 march.

There’s always some kind of street theater at these things, and this year a crowd pleaser was the globe. As we were going down the hills in the march I kept a wary eye on it in case it got lose and started flattening people. And notice the “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt. I wonder if that is Barack, Hillary or John? As far as any immigration reform, this year it might as well be “none of the above.”

The march was put on by El Comite Pro-Amnistia General y Justicia Social (The Committee for General Amnesty and Social Justice) and their slogan for this year is “We are not undocumented, we are not illegal, we are workers!” They began in Judkins Park with an address by Seattle Catholic Archbishop Alex Brunett, then ran through downtown on 4th all the way to the Seattle Center. This was during rush hour, which didn’t endear them to many trying to get home that day, but it is Seattle, so there were plenty of guilty white liberals who lined to streets to applaud.

Here are some crowd shots to see the size of the march.

I’m going to dispense with the usual shots of the communist/marxist/socialist/blah-ist groups. They come to every march or protest and attach themselves like tumors to the various causes and peddle their propaganda. There are a few shots of the usual suspects in the full gallery of pictures linked to below. Instead I am going to just let some of the signs speak for themselves.

The sign reads “My immigrant vagina is angry.”

The words on these t-shirts say “They Can’t Deport Us All.” The first one is a parody of the Home Depot logo.

A modified U.S. Constitution was there.

Lots of flags. Anybody see something wrong with one of these pictures?

Of course there was one Palestinian supporter, complete with keffiyeh. And of course, plenty of Che.

We finally made it to the Seattle Center, where they had a hip hop band playing.

The rhetoric from the lead singer was very disturbing, and I found the racist overtones offensive. Sorry for the trouble with the place names below. I couldn’t make out the references, and I certainly couldn’t find any of these places on any credible map.

This land is NOT America! This land will NEVER be America! This land NEVER was America! This land is (Anawok?). This is (Turtle Island?). This is (Los ??)… It really is the brown people that made this country! The only ones that can really claim this country!

When I say “Where are my brown people at?” You say “Right here!” When I say “Where are all my African people at?” You say “Right here!” When I say “Where are ALL my people at?” You say “Right here!”… Whose land this is? (Our land!) Whose? (OUR land!) That’s right, this ain’t never going to be America!

I think she is about 232 years late with that one.

You can see the full gallery of photos here.