Sunday, March 29, 2015

Why your vote for socialism is vital

  
On Saturday four members set up an election stall in Folkestone, including the local SPGB candidate Andy Thomas and Max Hess who will be running in the local council election, which is held on the same day as the general election.

The town was very busy, and the comrades were assisted by a nearby street trader who, unprompted, announced their presence over his public address system. About 400 election leaflets were distributed around the town centre and several items of literature sold.  The party got a good reception, in some instances quite enthusiastic. The weather was problematic, being very windy. Later it rained and the stall was packed up about 3pm.

We were also out in Oxford, basically testing spots for a regular stall for the rest of the campaign but, as in Folkestone, the weather wasn't on our side. All the same, four of us gave away leaflets at two different places, one in Oxford East in the morning, the other in Oxford West in the afternoon as well as investigating the pitch at Cowley Centre where TUSC hold a regular weekly stall. They seem to want to live off Bob Crow's reputation as both of the leaflets they were handing out carried his photo.

Passing through the main street in the centre (Cornmarket) from our first pitch to the other we were surprised to come across some members of the EDL handing out leaflets for their planned protest next Saturday against "Muslim grooming gangs in Oxford" proclaiming "Control immigration from Islamic countries for a start". Nobody was objecting, though there was a discreet police presence not too far away presumably in case they did. Instead of trying to kick their heads in we gave them a socialist leaflet. The only political discussion we had in Oxford West was with someone who said they were going to vote tactically LibDem to keep the Tories out. Work that one out if you can.
Next stall is planned for Thursday 9 April at 5pm in the city centre

“The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity.” -Eugene Debs

Working people must vote together as a united class in support of the Socialist Party, the party that represents them as a class, and when they do, the state will pass into their hands and capitalism will fall; private ownership will give way to social ownership, and production for profit to production for use; the wage system will disappear, and with it the ignorance and poverty, misery and crime that wage-slavery breeds.

The Socialist Party has declared class war upon the capitalists and their system. We say: Arise, you workers! It is in your power to put an end to this system. Wipe out the wage system, so that you can walk this earth free men and women! We only know that the principles of socialism are necessary to the emancipation of the working class. The attitude of the Socialist Party toward the trade union movement broadly endorsing and commending it, but stopping there, and allowing it to manage its own internal affairs is, without doubt, the correct one, as any interference or meddling must result in harm with no possible hope of good. The Socialist Party beseech you to get in touch with your fellow workers and to become conscious of your interests, your powers and your possibilities as a class. You need to know that as long as you are indifferent, as long as you are apathetic and unorganised, you will remain exactly where you are. You will be exploited; you will be degraded, and you will have to beg for a job. You will get just enough for your slavish toil to keep you in working order, and you will be looked down upon with scorn and contempt by the very parasites that lives off your sweat and unpaid labour.

If you are to receive respect you have got to begin by respecting yourself. Rise up from your knees. Turn your back on the corrupt Labour Party and the still more corrupt Tory Party— both lackeys of the ruling class. We say a party is either a capitalist party or it is a workers’ party. If a party serves the capitalist exploiter it is at the expense of his exploited victim, and if a party serves the exploited worker it is at the cost of his or her economic master. As long as you permit the 1% to own the sources and means of wealth, the tools of production, they will be in power. You will be in servitude. You will produce the wealth and they will have it under whatever government you may have. They will do nothing and you will have that – nothing. The plutocrats now in power cannot rule honestly. They must rule corruptly. They are in the minority. They have not the votes of their own to put them in power, but they have the money with which to control the electorate. They have the money with which to corrupt the politicians and to buy the media. They have the power to do this because they have the money, and they have the money because they own the means of production and distribution. In the competitive system the politician sells himself to the highest bidder, the same as the worker does. Who is the highest bidder? The corporations, of course.

The working class have not yet learned how to unite and act together. The capitalists are perfectly willing that you shall organise, as long as you don’t do a thing against them; as long as you don’t do a thing for yourselves. You cannot do a thing for yourselves without antagonising them. If you continue to support a system in which you are degraded, then you have no right to complain. You must submit to what comes, for you yourself are responsible. As individuals you are helpless, but united you represent an irresistible power.

And those on the vanguard Left would have us believe that because we have no “intellectual” leaders we would have no movement. They seek to be our shepherds and we are their flock of sheep, fit only to follow these self-appointed saviours into the land of milk and honey. They do the thinking and you do the voting. The average person imagines that he or she must have a leader to look to; a guide to follow, right or wrong; that without a leader we are lost and we therefore instinctively look to a leader.  You have depended too much on that leader and not enough on yourself. The Socialist Party don’t want you to follow us. We want you to cultivate self-reliance and independence so that you rely only upon yourselves. As long as you can be led by an individual you will be betrayed by an individual. That does not mean that all leaders are dishonest or corrupt. Some are sincere but still ignorant of capitalism themselves.  The blind leading the blind. Perhaps, the most dangerous leader is not the corrupt leader, but the honest, ignorant leader who is just as fatal to your interests as the one who deliberately sells you out for a paltry bribe.

The Socialist Party propose that society in its collective capacity shall produce, not for profit, but in abundance to satisfy all human wants. We are not going to destroy personal possessions. We are going to so establish a society where person will have all the possessions necessary keep him or her in comfort. Most people have little or no property of any kind today. The 1% have got it all. They have dispossessed the people and it is our position that when we get into power we will dispossess them in turn. On the 7th of May, on polling day, the time has come for you to use your brains in your own interest. Your vote is your voice. Make it heard.

Your Candidates in May 2015
Bill Martin - Islington North;
Danny Lambert – Vauxhall;
Brian Johnson - Swansea West;
Steve Colborn – Easington;
Kevin Parkin - Oxford East;
Mike Foster - Oxford West and Abingdon;
Robert Cox – Canterbury;
Andy Thomas - Folkestone and Hythe;
Howard Pilott - Brighton Pavilion;
Jacqueline Shodeke - Brighton Kemptown.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Is that STRUUGLE as in apfel struugle?