|
|
|
|
|
Anunci :: altres temes |
|
Make Capitalism History - Manifiesto 2005
|
|
|
per Scottish Socialist Party |
06 jul 2005
|
|
Why We Are Socialists |
At the time of the last general election in 2001, intellectuals across the world had proclaimed the 'end of history'.
Socialism was now dead and buried, the world was growing wealthier and more stable by the year, and soon we would all live happily ever after in a global free market capitalist paradise, courtesy of Microsoft, MacDonalds and MTV.
Tony Blair appeared as the living embodiment of the new world and the new Britain of the new millennium. The smiling, happy-clappy New Labour Prime Minister assured us that the class war was over and the old divisions had disappeared forever.
But that was then and this is now. Four years on, and the world has become a darker, more dangerous, more haunted place than at any time for generations.
Yes, we have greater wealth and resources at our fingertips than ever before. Advances in science and technology have given us computers, mobile phones and a vast array of household goods. We have achieved medical advances beyond our wildest dreams. The communications revolution has reduced the world to a 'global village'.
Yet even at this very pinnacle of human achievement, we face a world of fear, war, hunger and disease - a world where the leaders of the western world are dripping with blood from head to toe, a world where 800 million people - 160 times the population of Scotland - go to bed hungry every night.
And while the suits in government, business and the media tell us that there's no alternative, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people around the world disagree - from nursery nurses in Glasgow, to landless peasants in Brazil and bombed-out civilians in Iraq.
In July, up to 250,000 people will march through the streets of Edinburgh to protest against world poverty when the godfathers of global capitalism descend on Scotland for the G8 summit.
This will be a further show of strength by the growing global mass movement that is screaming out against injustice and inequality. The slogan now inscribed on banners in a hundred languages is 'Make Poverty History'.
The Scottish Socialist Party will do we can do build this movement in Scotland and worldwide. At the same, the central message of our manifesto is this: to make poverty history, we will need to make capitalism history.
Here in Scotland, socialist ideas are alive and kicking. Five years ago, the Scottish Socialist Party burst onto the political scene advocating a programme of radical social change. From a few hundred activists at the founding conference in 1998, the SSP now has thousands of members in hundreds of communities across Scotland, backed up by tens of thousands of solid voters.
The SSP has a well-earned reputation as the party that stands up for ordinary people, whether it be offering solidarity to striking workers, campaigning against the injustice of the Council Tax or taking to the streets in opposition to Blair's illegal war on Iraq.
But it's not just action that makes the SSP stand out - it's our ideas. The SSP is the only socialist party in Scotland - the only party that rejects the free market madness of the system we live under, and the only party that dares offer a real alternative.
On the face of it, a "free" market ideology sounds like a good idea. Why shouldn't we have the choice of where we go and what we buy when we get there?
Scratch the surface though, and it's soon clear that the mainstream political parties offer no more choice than the competing burger fast food chains or pizza parlours.
The packaging comes in four separate colours and there are different logos. But the politics are more or less the same.
Day in, day out, Labour, Tory, SNP and Lib Dems spokespersons churn out the same desperate message: "We must grow the economy."
But over the past decade or so, the economy has grown and grown and grown in Scotland, across the UK and throughout the Western world.
But for millions in Scotland and hundreds of millions internationally, this economic growth spurt might as well have been taking place on a far flung planet.
One third of Scots live in poverty, including hundreds of thousands of children and pensioners. Life expectancy for men in Shettleston, one of the poorest areas of Glasgow, is just 63 years, ten years below the national average.
We have the highest prison population in Europe per head of population - with half of the prisoners in our jails drawn from the poorest 12 per cent of council wards. Suicide rates among young Scots men have escalated by 250 per cent in 20 years.
Apprenticeships are a distant memory. Students are forced to work long hours just to pay the rent. Graduates compete for low paid dead end jobs, burdened from the start of their working lives by a vast millstone of debt. To escape drudgery and low pay, thousands of our young people join the armed forces. Some of them, like Gordon Gentle, have laid down their lives fighting a war that they never believed in.
Armies of middle aged men are forced to survive on incapacity benefit, after a lifetime of backbreaking work on building sites, in shipyards, down coal mines. Hundreds of thousands of lone parents face a daily battle to pay the bills and feed their children.
Poverty and inequality aren't just confined to the cities and towns of the central belt either - low pay is endemic across rural Scotland. On the Isle of Mull, rocketing house prices and low paid, seasonal work have left a fifth of the population homeless.
That's where we are in Scotland after eight years of Labour government, and after twelve continuous years of economic growth.
Scotland should be a tremendous country in which to live - a rich country with a wealth of natural resources, a public health system free at the point of use and a well educated workforce.
In reality, though, Scotland is blighted by a fundamental inequality in society, with the vast bulk of our resources owned and controlled in the interests of a tiny minority.
The mainstream politicians might be obsessed with "growing the economy" - but their obsession is not shared by 98 per cent of Scots. A BBC Scotland published at the start of the 2005 general election asked 1000 people their two or three greatest priorities in the general election.
Out of 20 choices, "making the economy grow" came last. Give a straightforward choice between economic growth or redistribution of wealth, 15 per cent chose economic growth. In contrast, 79 per cent chose wealth redistribution.
The Scottish Socialist Party is the party of wealth redistribution. According to the 2005 Sunday Times 'Rich List', the richest 1000 people in the UK have a combined personal wealth worth £250 billion.
Since New Labour came to power in 1997, the richest 1000 have seen their wealth rise by £150 billion. Last year alone, the wealth of this clique increased by £48 billion - more than £132 million every single hour.
The wealth of the UK's richest 1000 is more than the total debt owed by the world's poorest 50 nations. It is more than 4000 times the total sum raised during the recent Comic Relief Red Nose Day appeal. It is the equivalent of the Scottish Parliament's entire spending budget for the next ten years.
On both a local and global scale, capitalism has failed time and again to meet the needs of humanity and has actively contributed to the social and environmental catastrophes we now face.
We live in a world of greater wealth than at any time in human history, yet the gap between rich and poor has more than doubled in the past 40 years - in the 1960s, the richest fifth of the world population had 30 times the wealth of the poorest fifth. The gap is now 74 times.
Despite the dazzling technological advances of the twentieth century, the vast majority of the world's people face brutality and starvation. Across Asia, Africa and Latin America, the endless plundering and exploitation of third world countries have resigned millions to a life of extreme poverty and premature death.
The gulf between rich and poor on a global scale is almost unimaginable. Sierra Leone is a former British colony in West Africa; a state the size of Scotland, it also has a wealth of natural resources, yet it ranks among the poorest countries on earth, with a gross national income per head of just US $140 a year.
Sierra Leone has a shocking health record - life expectancy is just 33 years, while one in three children die before the age of five - yet in 1996, Sierra Leone spent five times more on debt repayment to Western banks than on health care.
Last Christmas, ordinary people around the world watched in horror as the full scale of the Asian Tsunami unfolded - over 100,000 dead, many thousands more missing; entire communities left without water, food, shelter or contact with the outside world.
The tsunami was caused by nature - but the impact was very much man-made. When Hurricane Andrew struck the coast of Florida in 1992, it was the costliest hurricane in US history, damaging or destroying over 125,000 homes.
Yet just 66 people died in Hurricane Andrew, thanks to an effective early warning system that allowed over a million people to flee their homes before the hurricane hit. The bulk of the cost of Hurricane Andrew was met by major insurance firms, while a clean-up operation was underway within hours.
The greatest tragedy of the desperate situation facing millions in the under-developed world is that so much of this suffering is preventable.
Basic rehydration kits cost pennies and could save the lives of thousands of children around the world. Yet, instead of saving lives, the British government spends £75 million a month on the illegal occupation of Iraq.
In total, the government has spent £5 billion on bombing Afghanistan and Iraq - a billion pounds more than they spent on all overseas aid last year. The cost in human misery is greater still; thousands of civilians are dead and thousands more swell the ranks of over 6 million refugees worldwide.
Around the world, capitalism represents a system of inequality and injustice. Women form a majority of the world's population and do two thirds of the world's work, yet they own just one per cent of the world's property. A generation after women's liberation, Scottish women still earn just 81 per cent of men's average hourly wages.
The media sells a vision of a 'have it all' society and bombards young women with distorted images of beautiful people and idealised lifestyles. But in real life, women still do the vast bulk of unpaid housework and care.
Capitalism is a system that breeds division and hatred. It is unable to seriously challenge racism, homophobia and religious hatred, because these problems are rooted in the system itself.
The Scottish Socialist Party is the only party that offers a genuine alternative. We stand for the redistribution of wealth on a world scale; not just to tinker at the edges but to fundamentally change the way in which society is organised.
As socialists, we want to see a society that puts people before profit. A socialist society would be one where goods are produced on the basis of need, not one that pours US $1000 million into the production of a single stealth bomber while entire communities starve for want of basic tools, or where one in three children in the UK grow up in poverty while the government spends nearly a billion pounds a year on private consultants.
Our vision of society is of one where public services such as health care and education are provided to meet the needs of all rather than being driven by budget restrictions, or handed wholesale to private profiteers.
We would take back into public hands the services and industries stolen from us by successive generations of Tory governments, reversing decades of attacks on vital services and infrastructure.
Far from being the end of history, the 'triumph' of Western capitalism may well mean the end of the planet. 2004 was Scotland's second hottest and third wettest year on record, and scientists continue to warn of environmental catastrophe within our lifetimes.
Radical change is needed if humanity is to have a future - and multinational corporations and Western governments have made it clear that they are incapable of moving beyond minor tinkering at the edges of the gas-guzzling, profit driven system they preside over.
The scientific and technological advances of the last 150 years could be used to ensure a comfortable and sustainable future for all; instead, they have been harnessed to create maximum gain for a tiny minority - and without change from below, the legacy will be the destruction of our own planet.
The Scottish Socialist Party stands for a democratic socialist society that gives its citizens more freedom, not less. We have no interest in mimicking the monolithic states of the former Soviet bloc - our aim is to shape anew society based on equality, democracy, freedom and diversity.
We reject the shallow impressionism of those who imagine that free market capitalism is here to stay. For a million years, since our humanoid ancestors first emerged from the jungles of Africa, human society has evolved through a succession of stages: savagery, primitive communism, tribalism, slavery, feudalism.
Measured against the clock of human history, capitalism has existed for just a few seconds. Those who believe that the capitalism will continue to exist from now until eternity fail to understand history and lack imagination. Like infants, they cannot even begin to visualise anything outside their own little world.
The Scottish Socialist Party is not afraid to stand be accounted. We are a socialist party whose aim is to change Scotland and, along with others internationally, to change the world.
We stand for a world free from hunger and disease, where human beings are treated equally and with dignity - and we believe in starting here in Scotland.
Scotland may be a small country, but we can have a big impact. In the 18th century, the Enlightenment started in Scotland and spread radical, earth-shattering ideas about science and philosophy to Europe and beyond, challenging the existing orthodoxies and shaping the world in which we now live.
In the 21st century, an independent Scotland could take the lead in the global anti-capitalist struggle, the reverberations of which would be felt the world over.
A socialist Scotland would be a Scotland run for the people by the people. It would combine public and social ownership of with grassroots democracy
If you are angry with government lies, sickened by barbarity of the illegal war in Iraq, and believe that the massive wealth and resources of our society can be put to better use than supporting the interests of the super-rich, then it's time to join us.
TWENTY REASONS TO VOTE SSP
1) For troops out of Iraq
On January 7 this year, an American plane dropped a 500 pound bomb on a house in a small village, near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The 14 people who were inside the house died instantly.
The US military admitted that it was a mistake. They confessed that the flattened home was not their "intended target", and issued an apology of sorts.
"We deeply regret," they announced, "the loss of possibly innocent lives." Of the 14 who died, seven were "possibly innocent" children who should have been safe, perhaps playing or doing their homework.
The magnitude of devastation Bush and Blair's war has visited on Iraq almost defies the human imagination.
The respected British medical journal, The Lancet, estimates that 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in just over two years.
Even here in Scotland, thousands of miles from the bombed out schools and hospitals of Baghdad and Basra, mothers are mourning their dead sons, killed in a senseless war for the greed and glory of businessmen, politicians and generals.
The Gentle family live in Pollok, on the south western outskirts of Glasgow. Their only son, Gordon, met army recruitment officers while he was signing on at the job centre. After just six months basic training, he was sent to die in Basra.
Like hundreds of other British and American soldiers, and like hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iraqi people, Gordon Gentle died for a lie.
We now know that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction never existed. That was only an excuse, a fiction designed to dupe timid politicians into backing this monstrous misadventure.
The war against Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. Nor was there ever any connection between Iraq and the perpetrators of the September 11 suicide attacks.
The religious fundamentalist, Osama bin Laden and the secular tyrant, Saddam Hussein, had always been mortal enemies.
Equally preposterous is the claim by Bush and Blair that the Iraq invasion was motivated by a desire to bring democracy to the country.
In cities across the world, people face daily repression from weapons stamped 'Made in Britain' or 'Manufactured in the USA' .
When Bush and Blair proclaim themselves as liberators, millions across the Muslim world know that these politicians are duplicitous hypocrites who would install Satan in charge of the Middle East provided he pledged obedience to Washington.
It is now common knowledge that the invasion of Iraq was planned long before September 11 2001.
This war is a war for oil and profit. Profit for companies like security multi-national CACI, who gained contracts worth $66 million in Iraq - including providing interrogators in Abu Ghraib prison. Despite the horrific abuse scandal, they remain officially sanctioned contractors.
Profit for companies like Halliburton, who won over $8 billion in contracts in Iraq in 2003 alone, including the running of oilfields.
And while they're raking in the profits, the UK and US taxpayers are forking out billions. The cost of the war to the British exchequer so far has been £6.6 billion - or £220 for every single taxpayer in the UK.
While the occupation of Iraq continues, the bloodshed and chaos will deepen. The Scottish Socialist Party opposed the war from the beginning. We have played a key role in building the mass anti-war movement which mobilised over 100,000 onto the streets of Glasgow in February 2003.
In contrast to parties like the Lib Dems, we continue to oppose the war and reject the idea that we must see this war through to the end, otherwise we will leave behind chaos.
That was exactly the argument of some liberal Americans to justify the continuation of the Vietnam War through the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was also the justification used by some on the international left to back the continued Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.
In both instances, those who argued that "now we're there we have to stay to the bitter end" were proven disastrously wrong.
In Vietnam and Afghanistan hundreds of thousands could have been saved if the US and the USSR had not continued fighting an unwinnable war for years on end.
We will continue to oppose all other wars under the guise of Bush and Blair's discredited 'war on terror' - whether it's Iran, Syria or whoever is next on their checklist of global domination.
The SSP believes that the problem of terrorism cannot be solved by military action. The whole of history illustrates that violent repression breeds resistance and terror as the damp woodland breeds mushrooms.
Only political solutions can create the conditions for peace. While Palestine is held in chains by the state of Israel, propped up by billions of dollars US military aid, the Middle East will never be at peace.
The SSP stands foursquare behind the Palestinian people in their resistance to Israeli and in their struggle for an independent homeland. We also support those Israeli dissidents who risk jail for refusing to wage war with tanks and bombs against the sticks and stones of Palestinian children.
We wholeheartedly back the Justice4GordonGentle campaign and applaud the courage and determination of Rose and her family. We fully support any soldiers who refuse to fight in this unjust and illegal war - they should be held up as heroes, not treated as criminals.
Likewise, we defend any workers who refuse to handle materials intended to wage war, for instance the Motherwell train drivers who in 2003 refused to transport ammunition which was intended for Iraq.
Our six MSPs have repeatedly tried to bring the war on Iraq before the Scottish Parliament. But the Scottish Executive continues to hide behind the skirts of their Westminster bosses, justifying their silence on the grounds that war and peace is reserved matter.
But the people of Scotland overwhelmingly oppose this war. The SSP stands for an independent socialist Scotland that will never again sent young working class Scots to kill and die in unjust, unnecessary wars.
In the meantime, we will continue to pile pressure on the Scottish Parliament to denounce the Westminster government's complicity in mass murder.
The SSP stands for:
* Troops out of Iraq now.
* Opposition to any further military action by George Bush in Iran, Syria, North Korea or anywhere else.
* Support for democratic and progressive forces across the Middle East resisting imperialism and tyranny.
* Support for the Palestinian people in their just fight for an independent homeland.
* Support for Israeli dissidents and peaceniks.
* Support for the Justice4GordonGentle campaign which is calling for troops to be brought home.
* Support for any soldier who defies orders and refuses to fight in this unjust and illegal war.
* Support for any group of workers who take action to obstruct the war in Iraq.
* A clear-cut condemnation by the Scottish Parliament of the UK government's shameful involvement in this disastrously ill-conceived war.
2) For real independence
On Saturday 9 October 2004 the Queen came to officially open the new Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood.
The four main parties curtsied. The Scottish Socialist Party did not. We organised an alternative event at Calton Hill to call for an independent, Scottish republic.
At this Westminster election we make the same call. Indeed, the case for Scottish independence is greater now than it has ever been. Devolution is a halfway house that nobody believes in. It represented a political advance at the time but it has stalled. It is becoming apparent that further political progress in Scotland is dependent upon independence.
An independent Scotland would be a democratic advance. The Scottish parliament has limited powers. Although the Scottish parliament is in the limelight, crucial political and economic decisions are not taken there.
With independence we can evict nuclear submarines from the Clyde; open up our borders to talent, skills and common humanity; shut down Dungavel detention centre and promote Scottish culture at all levels - cinema, theatre, music, sport and television - and in all our communities.
Being part of the UK state has been a deadly business for many in our communities. Generations of young Scots have died in UK wars: economic conscripts from the poorest areas.
There is a proud, radical tradition of opposing war in Scotland that continues today from the opposition of hundreds of thousands of Scots to the current war in Iraq to the campaign of the Gentle family in Pollok who fight on for justice for their son, Gordon.
The 'democratic deficit' that prompted devolution is even greater now. We are a country with a parliament that has no power to stop our participation in a war that the majority don't believe in.
In this light, smashing the British State is not some radical pipe dream or revolutionary slogan. It is becoming more and more of a practical, peaceful necessity.
While we support independence as a matter of principle, independence alone cannot solve the massive social and economic problems facing most Scots.
While the SSP fight for radical social change, New Labour represents the old order. Tony Blair's leadership has put to bed the old lie that the return of a Labour government at Westminster will bring about social change.
In power, New Labour erode our civil liberties, imprison asylum seekers, wage war at George W. Bush's behest while pursuing a ruthless neo-Thatcherite agenda. Power, not social justice, is the aim of the party of Jimmy Maxton and Keir Hardie.
Jack McConnell and his executive act as a powerless, bland Scottish ginger group to this Westminster venture. In spite of the rhetoric, Labour seeks to belittle Scottish political and cultural aspirations.
Their neo-Tory unionism has failed the Scottish working class. In raising the banner of an independent, socialist Scotland, the SSP seek to break the link between the working class and the party whose vicious agenda most working people do not share.
Likewise we stand apart from the Scottish National Party. Our vision of independence is very different. The SNP still, inexplicably, want the Queen as head of state in an independent Scotland.
We reject monarchism with all its connotations of privilege and inequality. The SNP actively campaign to save Scottish regiments of the British Army. We support the creation of a new Defence Force post-independence. It is a strange kind of pro-independence party that defends British institutions in this way.
We reject the gravy trains of both Westminster and Holyrood. Our participation is a means to an end. Socialist MP's will take a skilled worker's wage in line with current SSP policy as well as the current practice of Socialist MSP's.
The SNP want to be seen as a mainstream party of government whose populist policies sprinkle some sugar over the residents of Springburn and Craigmillar while directly appealing to the financiers and directors on the Mound.
The SNP leadership have long questioned our party's commitment to independence. The reality is that the SSP campaign for an independent socialist republic in the here and now while the SNP is on the gradualist road that seeks to make devolution work. Independence has been put on the back burner. Genuine supporters of independence should do some soul searching at this British general election.
We make no apology for linking independence and socialism. There is no contradiction. We are an internationalist party.
We want for the people of Scotland what we want for all the peoples of this world - social justice, cultural co-existence, freedom from hunger and poverty and war.
All our policies hinge on our vision of an independent, socialist Scotland. It is a vision not a utopia. Socialism and independence will positively affect the way we live our lives, the solidarity we can give to other peoples and, most importantly of all, will change this country from top to bottom.
The SSP stands for:
* A fully independent Scottish republic with full control over defence, immigration, taxation, welfare energy and other areas currently reserved to Westminster.
* An outward looking Scotland that will extend the hand of friendship to the peoples of the world, including refugees and asylum seekers.
* Continued links with socialists and trade unionists across the UK, Europe and worldwide.
* Full support for the Declaration of Calton Hill 2004 and full backing for this to be turned into an annual event.
* The establishment of a broad independence convention to unite all those who stand for genuine independence.
* A nuclear-free Scotland that is outside NATO.
* Opposition to the new European Constitution which could be used to block Scotland's right to self-determination.
* A socialist Scotland based on the principles of equality, democracy, liberty, generosity and solidarity.
3) For serious wealth redistribution
Labour hasn't just failed to tackle the UK's massive wealth gap - they've made it worse.
So much so that the gap between rich and poor is greater now than at the height of the 'Greed is Good' years of the 1980s.
New Labour have made it clear whose interests they represent. The richest one per cent of the population more than doubled their collective wealth from £355 billion in 1996, the year before Labour's landslide election victory, to £797 billion in 2002.
Last year alone, the fat cat executives of the FTSE 100 companies awarded themselves a 16 per cent pay rise, taking their pay to a staggering £1.2 million each.
Meanwhile, in 21st century Scotland, one in three children grows up in poverty, while over a million adults live on the breadline.
Scotland is a rich nation with a wealth of natural resources, yet the five poorest towns in the UK are within a 40 mile radius of Glasgow.
Scotland's health record is notorious; men in Shettleston, an impoverished area of Glasgow, have a life expectancy of just 63 years, compared to 77 years in wealthy East Renfrewshire.
The SSP stands for a radical rewrite of the taxation system, setting an income tax that would redistribute wealth from the super-rich and bring an end to Scotland's shameful record of poverty and inequality.
Redistribution of wealth doesn't mean bringing down the standard of living for the teachers, firefighters, train drivers or other skilled workers.
Under our proposed Scottish Service Tax, 77 per cent of the population would be better off than under the grossly unfair Council Tax.
But those who would be forced to pay more are the tiny minority of the population who possess a vast chunk of the nation's wealth.
Under Thatcher, Major and Blair this elite has grown richer by the day, assisted by extravagant government tax handouts.
Even up until 1988, when Thatcher was still Prime Minister, the highest tax rate was 63 per cent. Under New Labour it is just 40 per cent.
Meanwhile Corporation Tax on big business has been slashed from 53 per cent to just 30 per cent in 25 years. Under New Labour cuts in top rate Corporation Tax amount to £11 billion - over £20 a week for every pensioner in the UK.
The SSP also stands for a clampdown on the £80 billion tax scam that sees the equivalent of three times the total budget of the Scottish Parliament spirited away to overseas tax havens.
Redistribution of wealth also means tackling the poverty faced by those who are unemployed or unable to work.
Benefits for those without children are the same in real terms as they were ten years ago, while many Scots face an old age on the breadline thanks to a pitiful state pension.
A £30 a week uprating of state benefits would cost around £13 billion at UK level, or £1.3 billion within an independent Scotland.
This is almost in line with the tax handouts given to shareholders in New Labour in the form of Corporation Tax cuts, which the SSP would claw back. It is fraction of the tens of billions that is siphoned off in tax scams by the rich.
Moreover, as most economists recognise, if you give money to those on low incomes they will spend it, rather than hoard it, as the rich are inclined to do. That means that increased benefits, pensions and wages for low income workers will have the effect of stimulating the wider economy, especially small local businesses.
Labour have not only failed to reinstate the link between pensions and average earnings, but have led the attack on public sector pensions while corporate bosses plunder their workers' pension funds.
The SSP is Scotland's anti-poverty party. But we recognise that it is impossible to tackle poverty without tackling wealth. In the words of the famous old Labour manifesto of 1974, "we stand for a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people and their families."
The SSP stands for:
* A national minimum wage of £8.00 an hour - two thirds of median male earnings.
* A basic state pension of £160 a week and the restoration of the link between pensions and earnings.
* The abolition of the Council Tax and its replacement with a Scottish Service Tax based on income.
* Restoration of benefits to 16-17 year olds and students.
* The restoration of lone parent benefits slashed by successive governments.
* An overhaul of disability benefits to remove means testing.
* The immediate uprating of all benefits by £30 a week and further annual uprating of benefits in line with inflation.
* The introduction of a two tier VAT system, with luxury goods taxed at 20 per cent, with VAT on all other goods slashed from 17.5 percent to its 1979 level of 8 per cent.
* A reversal of the cuts in top rate taxation and Corporation Tax carried out by the Tories and New Labour.
* No dismantling of public sector occupational pension schemes.
4) For an end to low pay and long hours
Low pay blights the lives of thousands of Scots, trapping workers in a miserable spiral of long hours and mounting debt.
Labour might have delivered a minimum wage, but at £4.85 an hour, it offers just a bare existence.
One in three Scots earns less than £6.50 an hour - and a quarter of those are in the public sector. Unsurprisingly, low paid workers are predominantly female and often young, disabled, or from ethnic communities.
Unemployment may have fallen since the recession of early 90s, but the dole queues have been replaced by legions of workers on part time, temporary or "zero hours" contracts.
Millions now work for a pittance while providing the 'flexibility' drooled over by big business.
Scotland's rural areas top the low pay league. Perth and Kinross - venue for next year's G8 summit at Gleneagles - is fifth in the list, with housekeeping staff at the luxury complex earning just £4.85 an hour for a 48 hour working week.
The SSP calls for a minimum wage equivalent to two thirds of median male earnings. Right now, according to trade unions representing low paid workers, this works out at £7.60 an hour.
This figure has been dismissed as fantasy - usually by company bosses who would not get out of bed for less than a hundred pounds an hour.
We reject the scaremongering of those who say £8.00 an hour would lead to a bonfire of jobs. Only one in ten of those earning under £6.50 an hour work in manufacturing, the sector with the greatest overseas competition.
Most low paid workers are employed in hotels, restaurants, hospitals and government offices - difficult to spirit away on a cash-saving whim.
In fact, a £7.69 an hour minimum wage would save money. As things stand, big business is subsidised through tax credits and other benefits that are handed out to compensate for poverty pay.
Personal bankruptcies have hit record highs in the last two years. Low paid Scots are among the tens of thousands struggling with a mountain of personal debt that now totals £136 billion across the UK.
That figure only accounts for official debt. In Scotland's working class communities, illegal loan sharks thrive on poverty.
Low pay goes hand in hand with long hours and poor conditions. Low paid workers are less likely to be members of occupational pension schemes, creating a lifetime of poverty.
Millions are forced to work long hours to compensate for poverty pay.
The UK has the longest working hours in Europe - 43.3 hours on average compared with 37.7 in France and 38.5 in Ireland and Italy.
The social costs of long hours are incalculable. People working long hours are more likely to suffer physical and mental illness and family breakdown.
Back in 1964, the Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, forecast that, as result of the technological revolution, working hours would be slashed to 20 hours by the year 2000.
Since then, the technological revolution has progressed at breakneck speed with items in everyday use that would have seemed like science fiction back in 1964.
But instead of the working week shrinking, it is growing longer as big business battles to squeeze every last penny of profit from employees.
The SSP supports a maximum 35 hour working week for all workers - creating jobs and ending the epidemic of stress-related illness.
By implementing a universal £8 an hour minimum wage and a 35 working week we can begin to tackle the real roots of poverty in Scotland.
The SSP also campaigns for improved maternity and paternity rights.
We call for statutory 12 months' maternity leave, with full pay and the job held open on return, without loss of continuity of service, promotion or wages.
This should include the right to return part-time or full-time before that, at the mother's request.
We further call for at least one month's paternity leave, to be available at any time covered by maternity leave - and with the right of parents to transfer some of their maternity leave rights to their partner.
We campaign for a minimum five weeks annual leave in line with other European countries and for that leave to be available to all workers, of length of service, age, occupation or size of workplace.
We fully back the call by the STUC for St Andrew's Day to be made a public holiday and will campaign for at least an additional five public holidays a year.
The SSP stands for:
* A national minimum wage, for all workers and trainees over 16, without exception, which is the equivalent of two thirds of median male earnings - or £8.00 an hour.
* A 35 hour maximum working week for all, without loss of earnings, as the first step towards a 4-day, 32 hour working week.
* 12 months statutory paid maternity leave without loss of rights.
* One month's statutory paid paternity leave.
* Five weeks minimum annual leave for all workers.
* An extra five public holidays a year.
5) For the transformation of Scotland's health
Devolution of health policy has failed to protect the Scottish health service from the New Tory ideologues in Westminster.
Within Holyrood, the drive to turn into health care into a commodity to be bought and sold has accelerated in recent months.
Meanwhile communities across the land are in revolt against hospital closures and cuts in GP availability. At the same time, the health gap between rich and poor has widened into a chasm.
A working class man from Shettleston in Glasgow is three times more likely to die before he retires as a stockbroker from the affluent south east of England.
At any given time, around one in five Scots is experiencing mental health problems. Suicide rates, especially among young men, are among the highest in Europe.
Yet in many areas of the country, mental health services remain underfunded and overstretched.
The SSP does not put offer empty promises but solutions. These solutions are not easy and will require to be fought for by millions of patients, families, trade unionists and professionals.
The SSP will campaign not just to defend and extend our existing services, but for emergency action to reduce demands on the NHS.
Pro-health measures from the cradle are necessary to stop people ending up in their graves prematurely.
We want a long term, three generation plan, drawn up by health professionals, nutritionists, health trades unions and anti-poverty groups to turn around Scotland's shocking health statistics.
With the political will backed by proper funding, we can dramatically reduce heart disease, lung disease, cancers, diabetes and other illnesses linked to poverty, smoking, alcohol, drugs and diet.
We propose measures such as universal free school meals with milk and water; free fruit and veg for expectant mums; free admission to local authority fitness facilities including swimming pools and gymnasiums; locally run community supermarkets to sell high quality local produce at the cheapest possible prices; and a total ban on the advertising of tobacco, alcohol and junk food.
We also campaign for free prescription charges. Every year 75,000 Scots go without their vital medicines because they can't afford the prescription charge.
This in turn leads to millions of pounds being wasted in subsequent hospital treatment.
These are not instant panaceas. But they would be an investment in our children's future and their children's future.
In the meantime, we need a radical expansion of existing health services.
Health care has always fallen victim to the priorities of war and armaments. The record investment trumpeted by Blair now is only a record because it's been so poor in the past; lagging well behind most Europe throughout the second half of the 20th century.
Moreover, massive quantities of that investment seep into the coffers of big business: the pharmaceutical companies, the PFI consortia, the private health insurers and providers, the business consultants.
Cuba has a GDP per head just one fifteenth the size of Scotland's GDP. Yet there is one family doctor for every 100 families and another doctor for every major workplace.
That is partly because the Cuban government invests heavily in health; and partly because there are not the same elitist, academic barriers that lock talented people out of medical training in this country.
In our much wealthier land, we have to wait five hours to speak to a nurse in a call centre for out of hours services.
In regions of Scotland with half a million people, only five GPS are available for overnight house calls.
The under-resourced Primary Medical Services Bill that led to this dire situation was opposed in the Scottish Parliament by the SSP.
Lack of direct capital investment and slavish adherence to the dogma of PFI has led to further loss of beds, services and staff. In the last five years 20 per cent of all NHS beds in Scotland have been lost.
Some of those bed losses are a result of the welcome move of many people with learning difficulties or mental health problems out of hospital into the community and other forms of care.
But for far too many, care in the community means too little care or none. As well as a massive expansion in the NHS, we need a massive expansion in social care.
Since Thatcher, swathes of NHS responsibilities, including elderly care have been transferred to local authorities and the private sector.
Instead of society pooling the risks and pooling the costs of health and social care, those facing old age, or burdened by ill health or disabled by society have to bear the burden themselves.
The SSP will fight to implement the founding principles of the NHS, funded by direct, progressive taxation. Under the Scotland Act, control over the NHS is fully devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
But we are caught in the devolution trap. Holyrood has control over NHS Scotland - but does not have control over taxation.
While the NHS and other public services are funded from a block grant allocated by Westminster, the Scottish Parliament is forced to operate within narrow boundaries.
The crisis in the NHS is further evidence of the need to move on from devolution towards an independent socialist Scotland with full control over its own economy.
This would allow us to clear out all private contractors from the NHS, eliminate poverty and create an NHS that would set a model for the rest of the UK and Europe.
The SSP stands for:
* An expanded Scottish National Health Service fully funded by progressive taxation, publicly owned and delivered free at the point of need.
* A democratic Scottish NHS with elected Health Boards and the involvement of trade unions and local communities in the planning and management of health care.
* An end to PFI and the clearing out of all private contractors, such as Sodhexo, from our hospitals.
* A comprehensive mental health service for children, adults and the elderly in all parts of Scotland
* The abolition of prescription charges, eye test charges and dental check-up charges.
* The incorporation of all private medical facilities and resources into the NHS.
* A living wage for all NHS staff including nursing students.
* The establishment of a publicly-owned pharmaceutical industry in Scotland.
* An end to elitism in the medical profession with fair access to medical training for all.
* The incorporation and expansion of holistic and complementary therapies into the NHS.
* Universal free meals with milk and water for all school students.
* Free fruit and veg for expectant mums
* A ban on tobacco, alcohol and junk food advertising.
* Free toothbrushes and toothpaste for all children
* Free admission to local authority fitness facilities.
* Comprehensive sex education and free contraception, including the morning after pill, to reduce the unwanted pregnancies and delayed abortions.
* Support for a woman's right to control her own fertility with an end to the requirement to obtain the signed permission of two medical doctors before terminations.
* Properly funded research into the unprecedented rise in autism.
* The option of separate vaccinations for measles, mumps and rubella as an alternative to the triple vaccine.
* A full inquiry into the Hepatitis C scandal and compensation awarded at levels agreed with the patients and families.
6) For survival of the planet
Socialists and Greens have much common ground. We are both committed to the preservation of the planet, to curbing pollution and using the land to provide good, nutritious food for all.
We have worked together and to great effect in resisting, for instance, GM crop trials in the Highlands and Tayside and the proposed M74 motorway extension in south east Glasgow.
However, the SSP believes that you can only tackle environmental destruction by tackling the causes of environmental destruction.
Initiatives where the onus falls on the individual, for example to recycle more household waste or use less energy domestically, are worthwhile and commendable.
But these efforts are made in vain if we fail to take on the main polluters, the major industries and multinationals, who conspire to promote a culture of over-consumption and waste, all in the name of profit.
Free trade, as advocated by the ruling coalition in the Scottish Parliament, the UK government and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) sounds fair, but isn't.
It is a system that puts the needs of major companies before those of communities, and which puts profit before every other consideration, be it human well-being or environmental sustainability.
Free trade and environmentalism are mutually contradictory. Asking capitalism to protect the planet is like asking a pack of hounds to protect a fox.
Moreover, the battle for the environment is closely tied up with the battle for social and economic justice. Environmental devastation is disproportionately visited on the poor of all countries, including Scotland.
Toxic dumps, opencast mines, incinerators, nuclear waste dumps, major motorway projects are rarely sited in affluent neighbourhoods.
The politics of the environment cannot be separated from class politics. The battle for environmental justice is closely linked to the battle for economic and social justice.
We recognise the threat posed by climate change is real, immediate and far more malignant than any other challenge facing modern society.
Yet market-driven solutions to carbon emissions are invariably slow, lack coherence and infuriate local communities.
We generally support the expansion of windfarm development whilst recognising that transnational corporations like ScottishPower will always act to maximise profit and can never be accountable to local communities.
In the long term, the future of the planet can only be safeguarded by economic and political change and the creation of a truly democratic social system based on the principles of democratic ownership and control over the natural resources of our planet.
In the meantime, the SSP will fight to defend Scotland's environment. We will work together with expert environmental groups from Scottish Environmental Link (including Friends of the Earth Scotland, the World Wildlife Fund, Transform Scotland and Greenpeace) to evolve an agreed strategy which will ensure that we play our part in the international drive to reduce global warming and protect our natural habitats.
We acknowledge the impact of road and air traffic in accelerating global warming. We will seek agreement with environmentalists and transport unions on measures to reduce road and air traffic
But we believe that without cheap, efficient alternative means of transport, attempts to curb aircraft and car pollution will be futile.
That means large scale investment in rail, bus and ferry networks, not just within Scotland, but externally to other parts of the UK and the wider European continent.
That in turn will mean changing the entire ethos upon which public transport is based, from a profit-orientated business venture to a social service like health or education.
The SSP stands for:
* Legislation to make company directors legally liable for the environmental impact of their companies.
* A moratorium on all GM crop trials until research can determine whether GMOs are safe for human consumption.
* A clean-up programme for all identified contaminated land and a tightening of planning regulations to prevent further land contamination.
* A full-blooded Third Party Right of Appeal, to allow local people to resist unwanted planning applications, such as those for TETRA masts and toxic dumps.
* A reduction in fuel poverty through the installation of double-glazing and full thermal insulation in all public sector housing.
* Public ownership of North Sea oil with a proportion of the revenues to be ring-fenced for investment in research and development of alternative energy sources, such as wave and solar power and biomass.
* The establishment of a publicly owned Scottish national energy company.
* A commitment to bring corporate wind-farms into public ownership and to deal retrospectively with any negative impact on the environment.
* No more planning permission for out-of-town shops which encourage car use.
* A major shift of freight from road to rail.
* An end to tax exemption on aviation fuel, with the revenue raised used for public transport including improved ferry services to the Scottish islands and the subsidy of high speed rail links from Scotland to European capital cities.
* Kerbside recycling collections for every household in Scotland.
* All government policy - local, national and UK - to be environment-proofed.
* The phasing out of fossil fuels and nuclear power.
* Work with farmers, shopkeepers, restaurants etc. to shift to locally produced food.
* The establishment of democratically elected bodies to monitor, report and enforce pollution controls, with the power to levy penalties on those who breach guidelines.
7) For resistance to globalisation
On Boxing Day, as ordinary Scottish people celebrated the winter break with their families a devastating tsunami caused carnage thousands of miles away across the Indian ocean.
Across the land rushed to donate money to the disaster fund. By the end of February £30 million was raised - more than a fiver for every living person in Scotland.
It is this spirit of human solidarity that the SSP seeks to emulate in its view of the world. Our vision of an independent socialist Scotland is not narrow or parochial but international and outward-looking. We stand for building strong links with socialist and radical movements across the planet.
From young people suffering the indignity and violence of military occupation in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan to trade unionists facing death in Latin America for organising into trade unions, the SSP promotes concrete action.
We are sponsors of the international boycott of Coca Cola which has been implicated in the assassination of trade union activists in Colombia.
We are affiliated to the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and played a major part in the election of Israeli dissident Mordecai Vanunu as rector of Glasgow University.
We have built links with oil workers and other trade unionists resisting imperialism. We have raised money and developed links with Afghan socialist organisations.
.On every continent of the planet there are peoples struggling for national liberation and recognition of their distinct identities. As socialists fighting for independence from the British state we want to build links with these radical and in some instances left-wing movements.
This summer the eyes of the world will be on Scotland when the political leaders of the wealthiest capitalist states arrive in rural Perthshire for the G8 summit.
Hundreds of thousands are expected to take to the streets of towns and cities across the land to protest against the widening gulf between rich and poor on a world scale.
These mass protests will mark the latest counter-offensive against the forces of war, globalisation, inequality and privatisation.
The anti-globalisation first erupted onto the streets of the Seattle, one of the wealthiest cities in America, in the closing months of the last millenium.
Trade unionists, human rights activists, radical environmentalists, socialists and others coalesced together to create the beginning of a new movement which has since grown into a worldwide movement of millions.
The Scottish Socialist Party fights for an independent socialist Scotland. But we recognise that capitalism is a global system coordinated through organisations like the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the G8.
These institutions represent a tiny minority of powerful and wealthy financial and industrial interests who use their power to shape the world economy to their advantage. The losers are the vast majority of the world's population.
The WTO, for example, controls world trade - forcing individual countries to open their economies to foreign corporations - who then undermine local production by flooding the markets with cheaper goods manufactured on a massive scale.
The IMF is a bank which lends money and allocates resources to national economies. But it is a commercial enterprise which lends only under conditions that favour the interests of the multinational corporations.
When it gives loans, it does so with strings attached. Invariably, these strings involve mass privatisation and draconian public spending cuts.
The World Bank and the G8 - the organisation of the world's richest economies (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United States)- serve the same interests.
Gordon Brown will try to present himself as a champion of the world's poor at the Gleneagles Summit in July 2005. But the reality is that these global organisations exist to represent the interests of capital - not the interests of the poor.
They protect the multinationals who switch their investments back and forth across the world in search of cheap labour; they defend the pharmaceutical companies who use their huge legal budgets to prevent poor countries from producing cheap medicines; they support the oil giants and the owners of industry who pollute the planet and refuse to bear the cost of environmental protection.
The Scottish Socialist Party is part of the global movement for justice, equality and protection of the planet. We will play a major role in the anti-G8 protests in July.
And after the G8 bigwigs have flown off into the sunset in their luxury private jets, the SSP will continue to build the movement against capitalism and globalisation in Scotland and internationally.
The SSP stands for:
* Full support for the mass protests against G8, including non-violent direct action and civil disobedience.
* The closure of the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and other global corporate quangos.
* The immediate cancellation of all Third World debt.
* Democratic public ownership of the major global financial institutions as a step to ending the exploitation of the world's poor by rapacious multinational financiers.
* A 'Tobin Tax' on all cross-border financial transactions
* Solidarity with all those resisting capitalist globalisation, including environmentalists, trade unionists, anti-poverty campaigners, national liberation movements and small farmers and peasants organisations.
* A world-wide alliance of socialist and anti-capitalist parties.
8) For the scrapping of weapons of mass destruction
Two years ago, the UK followed the US into a war on a sovereign state because, allegedly, it had Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Neither of the aggressors appeared to see the irony of waging war over WMD while having, between them, the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world.
One of the supreme ironies of the Iraq war is that more and more countries now believe it is imperative they invest in a nuclear capability - or risk invasion by the world's only superpower.
Despite this, we believe the policy of nuclear deterrent is a failed policy. Since the dawn of the nuclear age, that the number of wars has not declined but escalated.
As a result, entire national economies are skewed towards accumulating weaponry, particularly nuclear missiles, in an arms race that only the richest nation on earth can win.
Furthermore, we are not convinced that nuclear war is an impossibility. If George W Bush gets his way, and the US successfully launches the National Missile Defence system, aka Star Wars, then a limited nuclear war, with Europe, Asia or Africa as its theatre, is a possibility as the American mainland will be shielded.
We, alas, won't be. Against the will of the people of Scotland, we have been forced to live with a devastatingly destructive nuclear arsenal just 30 minutes drive from the centre of Glasgow.
The Faslane nuclear base contains four Trident submarines, each bearing 16 missiles. This in turn amounts to 48 Trident nuclear warheads. Each of these warheads has a nuclear capability seven times that of the warhead dropped on Hiroshima.
This makes Scotland, in particular the dense conurbations in the West, a target for a direct nuclear or terrorist strike Trident is also hugely expensive, at a cost of £1 billion a year.
The SSP has consistently opposed the presence of nuclear warheads on our soil, with members and MSPs alike risking arrest to attend the Big Blockade every year at Faslane nuclear base.
We will continue to work shoulder-to-shoulder with organisations such as Scottish CND and Trident Ploughshares to campaign for immediate, unilateral nuclear disarmament.
The SSP stands for:
* The closure of the Faslane nuclear base and the scrapping of Trident with all jobs guaranteed via a diversification programme.
* Support for non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to disrupt the functioning of nuclear bases.
* Support for those arrested and imprisoned for resisting nuclear weapons.
* Outright condemnation of nuclear testing by other nations, such as France, India and Pakistan, which causes radiation-induced cancers.
* A united campaign across the UK and Europe to halt plans to establish nuclear weapons bases at Fylingdales and Menwith Hill in Yorkshire.
* A ban on the use of weaponry tipped with Depleted Uranium (DU). These have been used on Iraq since 1991, and in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo during the 1990s and are known to cause fatal cancers and birth defects.
* A ban on testing DU-tipped missiles including at the at the MoD's Dundrennan firing range, near the Solway Firth.
9) For strong trade unions
Whose side are you on? That's the point blank question posed to all political parties every time workers are forced to strike, picket or demonstrate in defence of their pay, jobs, pensions and workplace rights.
Whilst others squirm in opportunist twists and turns, the Scottish Socialist Party is unreservedly on the side of working people against exploitation by their employers.
For the SSP, solidarity is not reserved for eloquent speeches on May Day. We have a track record of physical, financial, moral and political solidarity - on the picket lines, in our workplaces, on the streets, in the media, in the parliament.
We sided unconditionally with the firefighters, the nursery nurses, the low paid civil servants in their recent battles against New Labour.
We have stood shoulder to shoulder with workers involved in local battles against sweatshop employers.
We will continue to campaign alongside the trade union movement for the outright repeal of all anti-union legislation, and for the introduction instead of a positive charter of workers' rights
We will fight for the basic legal right to strike without restrictions and without fear of discrimination or victimisation.
The right to strike without victimisation should be extended to solidarity strike action - so-called secondary action, currently outlawed.
This is particularly important since rampant privatisation, which means many workers doing the same jobs - sometimes alongside each other, but employed by different privatised employers - cannot in law coordinate their trade union actions.
The decision to take strike action or other forms of trade union action should be through democratic meetings of union members, without state interference, delaying mechanisms or legal obstacles.
We further back the right of all workers to join a trade union of their choice and for recognition of the union in all negotiations where one or more worker has joined.
Under New Labour, millions are excluded who work in smaller workplaces or have been employed there for less than a year. We support full legal protection from day one of employment, in all workplaces, regardless of the size of workforce.
We will campaign for workplaces free of harassment, bullying, abuse, sectarianism, racism, homophobia or sexual harassment, with full provision of awareness training and trade union monitoring of anti-harassment policies.
We demand workers' control, through their elected union representatives, over health and safety at work, risk assessments and training.
We condemn the killing fields of Scotland's construction industry, which suffers three times the UK average of injuries and deaths at work, and demand statutory sentences for manslaughter for employers whose proven negligence contributes to workers' deaths.
The SSP is proud to be a party rooted in the working class, with powerful and growing influence in the organised trade unions as well as in the communities where working people live.
We want to break the suffocating, undemocratic grip of New Labour over union political funds.
We campaign for trade unions across Scotland to follow the example of the Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT) and the 4,500-strong Scotland No 2 branch of the Communications Workers Union who are both now affiliated to the SSP.
The SSP fights for all measures that would immediately tackle poverty, increase working people's share of national wealth, improve workplace rights, and make life less stressful for millions who are the wage-slaves of a system that screws from them every last penny of profit, regardless of the human cost.
The SSP stands for:
* The scrapping of all anti-union laws, including laws restricting the right to strike, to picket and to take solidarity action.
* Automatic union recognition where one or more worker joins a union.
* The right of employees to choose their own unions for negotiating purposes rather than be forced to accept compliant unions that sign up to sweetheart deals and no-strike agreements.
* Workers control over health and safety.
* Action to end bullying, abuse, sectarianism, racism, homophobia and sexual harassment in the workplace.
* An end to New Labour's near monopoly over union political funds.
* Statutory sentences for manslaughter for employers whose proven negligence contributes to workers' deaths.
10) For fast, cheap, accessible, quality public transport
Between 1994 and 2000, the volume of traffic on Scotland's roads rose by 29 per cent (compared to 21 per cent for the UK as a whole).
The Department of Trade and Industry predicts it to rise again, by 35 per cent, by 2020.
This is disastrous for human health and for the health of our natural environment.
Carbon emissions from cars have been linked, not just to respiratory illness, but even to the development of fatal cancers. Children born near traffic hotspots are two to four times more likely to die of cancer before the age of 16 than other children.
Moreover, in line with the Kyoto Protocol, the UK is required to cut carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2015. This means slashing car use as fuel emissions are one of the main sources of greenhouse gases.
Car use has rocketed partly in response to deteriorating public transport. Decades of privatisation, deregulation and soaring fares have literally driven millions to travel everywhere by car.
Meanwhile, millions of Scottish low income households do not have access to cars and are more isolated than ever before, as car culture spreads with the replacement of local shops, cinemas and other facilities with out-of-town-shopping malls.
The SSP has linked up with others to fight the North East M74 extension through south east Glasgow.
Its projected cost, even before the first bulldozer has moved in, has escalated from £250 million (2002) to £1 billion (2004), making it the most expensive road-building project in Scotland's history.
This six-lane, elevated motorway will attract tens of thousands of extra vehicles into Scotland's already most congested and polluted city, bringing with it light pollution (from the 24 hour lighting running along it), noise pollution, and air pollution.
We will campaign for the money earmarked for this project to be diverted into establishing and maintaining an integrated, publicly owned transport system with cheap fares both for those using busy routes and those dependent upon quieter, unprofitabl |
This work is in the public domain |
Comentaris
|
Re: Make Capitalism History - Manifiesto 2005
|
|
per Clandestí |
06 jul 2005
|
|
Amics del Scottish Socialist Party: aquí a Catalunya el vostre missatge socialista no s'enten. Aquí, els partits que es diuen d'esquerres o socialistes o "verds" el que volen es passar ELLS a la HISTORIA DEL CAPITALISME, mitjançant una "renovació" "revolucionària" del pacte amb les diferents versiones de les democracies cristianes i els seus patrons burgessos. Aquí "l'anticapitalisme explícit" fa por. I es que a Catalunya els bisbats tenen molta mès força que a Scotland els GESTORS DE FONS DE PENSIONS. oi? |
|
Re: Make Capitalism History - Manifiesto 2005
|
|
per 33 |
06 jul 2005
|
|
hahah estas flipant.... |
|
Re: Make Capitalism History - Manifiesto 2005
|
|
per Corriente Comunista Internacional |
06 jul 2005
|
La idea de llevar a Indymedia un debate sobre COMO HACER PASAR A LA HISTORIA AL CAPITALISMO es buena. Como contribucion proponemos 3 preguntas y animamos a que se contribuya a responderlas:
1ª ¿El capitalismo ha agotado ya su ciclo histórico y está en decadencia o todavia puede desarrollar la sociedad?
2ª ¿Quien puede acabar con el capitalismo? ¿Los hombres de buena voluntad o solamente una clase social, el proletariado?
3ª ¿Con qué métodos de lucha se puede acabar con el capitalismo? ¿Con el reformismo, el sindicalismo, las alianzas con fracciones de la burguesía o a través de la lucha directa de masas contra la maquina gubernamental burguesa?
Saludos |
|
|
