Olympia Mayday?

I'm from Portland and live in Olympia for college.
Because I grew up in P-Town, I'm a little spoiled about activism. I look on the images from the Portland Mayday with nostalgia.

Here some of what happened in Oly:
A bunch of students marched around, without any age diversity and labor presence. Then there was a street party. There was no plan and the entire group somehow ended up in the street in front of the Capitol.

A couple of high-school mock Legislature kids came out and asked "Hey are you protesting the war?"
Someone answered "uh, not exactly"
"The giant organizations of neoliberalism? Bush's policies"
"No...um...."
"Then what?"
"Well, we're showing solidarity by taking back the street"

then the high-school kids had to go "We're passing a mock resolution to pull out of the WTO! See ya!"

*Sometimes, I feel like it's the early Sixties and I'm waiting for the Effective movment to rise.The olympians mean well, but they don't understand coallition-building, yet.

Oh, well....

Yeah, that was pretty much what happened in Olympia. There was some good tactical stuff done, like the convergence of four separate marches into one march which successfully took over any Olympia street that it chose. But for what?
The reason that people historically have marched is to get to a place and do something there, as in 'march to the Bastille and open the prison doors.'
While it was fun, marching for the sake of marching, whether in Portland or Olympia, has lost much of its appeal. As has stopping traffic for the sake of stopping traffic.
And, as always, the state recognizes what is truly dangerous and attempts to stop it. They were pretty relaxed, if not amused, in Olympia, until the point that the march went to City Hall to demand the release of one of the march organizers who had been arrested. Her release was negotiated (I was told this on May Day, but have not been able to verify it), and the crowd withdrew.
We need holidays. Genuine holidays rather than those created by the needs of consumer capitalism. But we should be clear about calling them holidays and not mistaking them for actual political movement.
Happy May Day till next year.

There was one great party in Olympia on May Day. It was in a vacant lot & featured live music (free), vegan & veggie food (free and tasty), dancing, a maypole, a tent city to call attention to issues affecting the homeless -- and tons of people, young and old, hippies, punks, students, parents, kids. It got almost no press -- maybe because there was only one run-in with the police and then they backed off. It was quite a crowd, though. A Reclaim the Vacant Lots Party, maybe.