I forgot to wish all my commie friends out their a happy May Day. Unfortunately, in some places it wasn't very happy. Specifically, in Seattle, the celebrations got a little out of hand.

CNN:

A May Day protest in downtown Seattle turned violent Wednesday night, with police saying they resorted to pepper spray to disperse demonstrators who pelted them with whatever was at hand.

Seattle Police said the crowd tossed rocks, bottles, metal pipes, fireworks -- and even a skateboard.

The clashes left eight officers with injuries, and police said they arrested 17 people, on various offenses including property destruction and assault.

The injured officers suffered mostly mostly bumps and bruises with the exception. One officer, however, was struck in the knee by a fist-sized rock, Seattle Police said.

During the clashes, police deployed flash-bang grenades and tackled unruly protesters to the ground.

Other demonstrators ran through the fog created by tear gas wearing masks and holding protests signs.

A woman who was driving by the protest scene was wounded, slashed by glass, when a protester hurled a glass bottle at her car, shattering her window, police said. She was treated by a medic at the scene.

"Things have quieted down for the night. Officers will continue to patrol ," the department tweeted early Thursday morning.

The clashes came after a day of peaceful marches in the city, CNN affiliate KING reported.

Hundreds of thousands of people across the globe take to the streets on May 1 to demand better working conditions during what is known as International Workers' Day.

In Washington on Wednesday, two May Day groups, with differing views, fought in Lafayette Park near the White House, police said.

The skirmish, between a group calling itself the White Student Union and another, the May Day Workers, escalated as combatants threw bags of urine and flag poles at each other.

One person was arrested, U.S. Park Police said.

"We were here to protest communism and to stand up for the blue collar working class. And then I got urine thrown on me," said Matthew Heimbach, president of the White Student Union. "So it shows really how tolerant these people are."

No more than he deserves, I would say.

Still, there are ways to stand up for the working class without throwing rocks at police. But don't tell the Occupy Whatever crowd - their heads might explode.

May Day never got off the ground in the US. Fledgling labor unions, terrified of being identified with communists, refused, for the most part, to celebrate a workers' day on May first and opted for a date in September instead.

Except that today, the stigma of being identified as a communist has mostly disappeared so they really come out of the closet on May Day. Perhaps we can rename May 1st as "Class Warfare Day." That's pretty much what the marchers were protesting all over the world; income inequality, workers' rights (including the right to a job for life), free cradle to grave goodies, and a 30 hour workweek.

This is all reminiscent of how it is in France - except France is falling apart and President Hollande can't tax the rich enough to pay for everyone else's goodies. So we have that to look forward to if we adopt all of these ideas about benefitting "the working class."