The following text is taken from a leaflet I'm
producing copies of (double sided A4, full colour with
some photographs, on recycled paper), for distribution
before and during the events around the time of the G8
summit in the first week in July.

I will also put the leaflet contents on the websites
specified soon.

In solidarity,
Steve.



REVOLUTIONARY PLATFORMS of the Scottish Socialist
Party and Democratic Socialist Alliance

Websites: http://www.revolutionaryplatformofthessp.org
and http://www.g8summitworldwidegeneralstrike.org

Discussion forums at: http://groups.yahoo.com:
revolutionary-platform-of-the-ssp,
revolutionary-platform-of-democratic-socialist-alliance,
g8-summit-worldwide-general-strike,
g8-summit-worldwide-school-students-strike,
g8-summit-worldwide-college-students-strike and
g8-summit-worldwide-university-students-strike

Leaflet produced by Steve Wallis:
http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk, 07739 904924


Launch a worldwide general strike at the time of the
G8 summit (July 2005)!

Many anti-capitalist demonstrations have taken place
in recent years. These are often called
“anti-globalisation” protests by the media, but it is
big business and the governments and institutions
which support global capitalism that we oppose, and
globalisation of culture should be welcomed. I took
these photos in Genoa in 2001.

On the first day demonstrating in Genoa, there were
rumours that two demonstrators had been killed by the
police. We later heard that they had killed just one
demonstrator: 17-year old Carlo Giuliani. However, a
magazine of the British anti-capitalist organisation
Globalise Resistance later showed a picture of a dead
body with Carlo’s name under it – a boy of about five
had also been murdered by the police! Obviously there
was a massive cover-up by the Italian state. It was
also revealed that 50 fascists had infiltrated the
Black Bloc who had clashed with the police.

The G8 is composed of the world’s eight most powerful
countries. In the past, important capitalist meetings
took place in major cities, but due to our strength,
they now occur in small places that are difficult (if
not impossible) to get to. The next G8 meeting is at
Gleneagles, near Edinburgh, between Wednesday the 6th
and Friday the 8th of July.

Many events have already been planned for the run-up
to or during the G8 summit. On the previous Saturday,
the 2nd of July, there will be a “Make poverty
history” mass demonstration in Edinburgh. On the
Sunday, there will be an “alternative summit”, also in
Edinburgh, with speakers including Carlo’s mother
Haidi and Scottish Socialist Party member of the
Scottish parliament Tommy Sheridan (who was the
Scottish leader of the anti-poll tax movement). Phone
0131-228 1155 for advance tickets, or visit
http://www.g8alternatives.org.uk for more information
about the alternative summit and other events.

The police have announced that Gleneagles railway
station will be open on the Wednesday (6th of July)
and there will be a demonstration assembling there at
12 noon. However, it is likely that many more people
will want to protest on that day than will be able to
travel to Gleneagles, due to lack of space on trains,
the police erecting roadblocks and the difficulty and
cost of travelling there. I am therefore proposing
that demonstrations are also arranged in cities and
towns across Scotland, the UK and even elsewhere in
the world – and that workers go on strike and students
leave their schools, colleges and universities in
order to attend.

A general strike and school, college and university
students strike at the time of the G8 summit would
inspire working class people around the world to fight
back, and give the impoverished masses in the
so-called third world hope that there is a way out of
the nightmare of famines, deaths from preventable
diseases and civil wars.

If it is only a symbolic strike on the 6th of July
that would be great, but if this call for a worldwide
general strike gets taken up in a big way then the
whole capitalist system could be under threat. If
workers go on strike earlier in the week, particularly
key workers like air traffic controllers, then it may
be possible to prevent some of the world leaders from
travelling to Gleneagles. If it continues, strikes
could become indefinite general strikes in some
countries, with the working class taking over
production and distribution of goods leading to
socialist revolutions.


Really make poverty history – drop the Third World
Debt and introduce fair trade

The original Band Aid song “Do they know it’s
Christmas?” was released in 1984, but little has
changed since and tens of millions of people are
predicted to die in Africa in the next few decades, as
pointed out by Oxfam (if world capitalism continues).

Blair claims to be trying to “make poverty history”,
but debt reduction measures put forward by capitalist
governments would be full of strings, such as
privatisation. The stock markets force the prices of
raw commodities down while Western products are
expensive. Fair trade is impossible under capitalism –
world socialism is essential!


Save the environment – stop climate change and
decimation of the rainforests

In the second live TV debate with Senator John Kerry,
George W Bush said that he didn’t sign the Kyoto
treaty on climate change because it would have cost
1.3 million jobs in the US. Compared to the population
size, that is tiny, and Kerry revealed that Bush gave
tax incentives for companies to invest overseas
causing mass unemployment!

Kyoto was forced on governments through pressure from
ordinary people and would only slow down global
warming, not stop it. Because the Green Party limits
itself to demands for reforms under capitalism, it
underestimates the effects of climate change, saying
that it will take decades for a one or two percent
increase in global warming, making it a very middle
class organisation. Repeated huge storms in the
Caribbean and Florida (completely different from
before, when they had not returned to the same
Caribbean country) and the tsunami indicate that
serious climate change is a reality now. I believe
that those events, coupled with the fact that a single
village in Cornwall (Boscatle) had a huge amount of
flooding, at a time last year when nowhere else had
any at all, indicates that big business controlled the
weather! I believe that the tsunami and more recent
earthquake near Aceh in Indonesia, were to create
moods of national unity cutting across movements for
independence in Aceh and by Tamils in Sri Lanka – the
two countries hit most by the tsunami were Indonesia
and Sri Lanka.

Rainforest destruction has been mainly for hardwoods
(boycott mahogany!), for grazing land for beef to be
sold on Western markets, and to produce paper. [But it
is more economical for big business to grow trees
neatly in rows and plant new ones when others have
been chopped down – nevertheless, I use recycled paper
if convenient; it is scandalous that is more expensive
and hard to get hold of, and that a lot of paper is
put in landfill sites.]


New Labour has no mandate – demand democracy in the UK

In the general election on the 5th of May, New Labour
only received 36% of the vote with a mere 22% of the
electorate voting for them. Many of those voted Labour
to get Gordon Brown in power, yet Blair is under no
obligation to step aside in favour of Brown in the
near future. Furthermore, Brown would be no better in
power and could even be worse – his Thatcherite
economic policies underlie New Labour and keep big
business happy, and he made it clear that he fully
supported Blair on the issue of Iraq. Many more people
believed the New Labour lie that 10% of voters not
voting for them would let the Tories in – that was
roughly the fall in their vote and they still have a
66 seat majority! They got fewer votes than the Tories
in England, but won over 50% of the seats there!

I have set up the Campaign for Democracy in the UK,
arguing for proportional representation by single
transferable vote among other things. Voters must
have the ability to indicate preferences on their
ballot papers, so that there is no longer any need for
tactical voting. It is also vital that enough MPs are
elected per constituency to allow smaller parties to
get representation – the Liberal “Democrats” are in
favour of the same system but want small
constituencies to benefit themselves at the expense of
socialists. For more information about the Campaign,
visit http://www.democracycampaign.org.uk or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/campaign-for-democracy-in-the-uk.


Unite the left – in Revolutionary Platforms of broad
socialist organisations

I am a member of Glasgow Shettleston branch of the
Scottish Socialist Party (Rosie Kane MSP’s branch).
However, since I have been a political activist in
Manchester since 1989 (joining the 18 million strong
mass non-payment campaign that defeated the poll tax
and got rid of Margaret Thatcher) and revolutionary
socialist in Militant (which led that campaign) since
1990, I will also continue living in Manchester. Note
that I prefer non-violent methods. I am helping
organise a launch meeting in Manchester of the
Democratic Socialist Alliance on the 11th of June.

I am fighting for a democratic socialist world run for
people not profit – free from poverty, unemployment,
homelessness, discrimination, famines, deaths from
preventable diseases, war and environmental
destruction. A “revolutionary” believes sudden and
complete change is needed, important though fighting
for reforms is.

The SSP is already led by revolutionaries, in the
International Socialist Movement platform (formerly
Scottish Militant Labour), but to unite the left
further and undermine big business infiltrators, we
should unite in a single platform. This would also
make the SSP and DSA more attractive to new people and
non-violent anarchists.


--
Steve Wallis (http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk).
Manchester International Socialist Mailing List
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manchesterism).
Launch a general strike at the time of the G8 summit in July
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/g8-summit-worldwide-general-strike).

Proposer of Revolutionary Platform of the Democratic Socialist Alliance
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revolutionary-platform-of-democratic-socialist-al\
liance).
Member of Glasgow Shettleston branch of the Scottish Socialist Party
(http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org) and initiator of the Revolutionary
Platform of the SSP (http://www.revolutionaryplatformofthessp.org,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revolutionary-platform-of-the-ssp).

Initiator of the Campaign for Democracy in the UK
(http://www.democracycampaign.org.uk;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/campaign-for-democracy-in-the-uk) and Campaign for
Sanity in the NHS (http://www.health-service-sanity.org).