Another in our
series of past election addresses which once again draws attention to the fact
that your masters seek your votes because upon their control of the political
machine their class supremacy depends. While pretending to be in deadly enmity, they are
united as one against you when you try to better your lot. If you are to change
the conditions under which you work and live, you must fight to get control of
the machinery of government. In that fight you cannot take sides with any
section of the capitalist class, because it is to their interest to maintain
this system which means luxury and privilege for them. Your interests, being
opposed to those of the capitalists, must lead you to ally yourself with a
working-class political party waging an uncompromising battle against all the
forces ranged in opposition to your class. The Socialist Party is the only
party in this country that consistently works for this end: the realisation of
socialism.
DON'T BE A MUG – VOTE FOR YOURSELF FOR A CHANGE
Politicians Need Mugs
Somewhere
in Islington there is a family of voters who believe everything the politicians
say. When the Labour candidate says that he will make life better for the poor,
Mr Mug agrees with every word, believing that people were never allowed to
suffer poverty under the last eight Labour governments. When the Tories tell us
to work harder, pull in our belts and be loyal little wage slaves, Mrs Mug nods
approvingly, saying that the only way to become a millionaire is to work hard
and do what you are told. When the Tories and the SDP say that we need bombs
which can blow up the planet as the only way to achieve peace, young Johnny Mug
is proud to vote for bombs which will wipe him out and everyone around him in
defence of the nation which he neither owns nor controls. Mr Mug supports the
Labour policy of building up more and more "decent", old-fashioned
conventional bombs like they used in the Falklands war.
The Mugs
will all be voting for leaders on election day, because they believe that
democracy means that the majority must obey MPs who sit in parliament dancing
to the tune of the Stock Exchange.
The Mugs
hope that the vast number of social problems facing and threatening us all -
poverty, mass unemployment, homelessness, crime, war - will be solved if
politicians pass the right laws.
The Mugs
believe that the way we live now is the way we must always live. "There is
no alternative: the rich and privileged are in permanent possession of the
world; the wealth-producing majority can hope for no more than a few more
crumbs from the cake which we have baked."
The Capitalist Madhouse
Socialists
do not regard our fellow workers as mugs who are only fit to follow leaders.
Most people are tempted to fall for the big lie that the present system of
society can be run in the interest of the majority, but the hard fact is that,
regardless of which government administers it, the profit system can only
"run well" when the capitalists are getting rich at the expense of
the workers who produce all the goods and services of society and live
second-rate lives.
You do not
need The Socialist Party to tell you that there is something badly wrong with
the way society is organised at present.
WHY should tens of thousands of workers be homeless and poorly housed
while there are thousands of empty houses and half a million unemployed
building workers?
WHY are millions of workers thrown on to the scrapheap of the unemployed
while so much useful work needs to be done?
WHY are thousands of pensioners left to die of the cold each winter while
coal and electricity production are cut due to "lack of demand"?
WHY must vast numbers of workers suffer or even die waiting for hospital
treatment while there is no shortage of resources being allocated to the armed
forces which exists to kill not cure people?
WHY is food locked away in cold storage or dumped in the sea while around
the world 40,000 children starve to death daily?
WHY do those who work hard doing useful jobs find it hard to make ends
meet while millionaire gamblers on the Stock Exchange live in parasitical
luxury?
WHY? Because we live under a capitalist system where profit for the few who
own and control the means of wealth production and distribution is more
important than the needs of the majority.
This crazy
way of running society only carries on because the majority has been persuaded
to vote for it - conned into believing that there is no other way, that
capitalism run by leaders of the left, right and centre is the only option.
The
present social madhouse will not last forever. Workers whose political support
has upheld the system can be persuaded to withdraw that support.
What You Can Do
Unlike
the pathetic promises being thrown at you by our political opponents, The
Socialist Party promises that it will do absolutely nothing for you. If you
want to change society you can do it yourselves.
The
socialist alternative will only be achieved when a majority of workers bring it
about by our own conscious and democratic action. But what is socialism? What
they have in Russia or China? What Labour governments have done? Certainly not.
Socialism is about people - all of us, regardless of age, race, gender or
sexuality - owning and controlling the resources of society in common and
producing goods and services solely for use, not profit. At last society will
belong to the people who inhabit it, with all of us having free access to the
abundant goods and services which society can produce.
If you
think that the socialist objective is worth registering your support for,
rather than casting another wasted vote for capitalism or not voting at all,
then vote for Steve Dowsett, the
genuine Socialist candidate in this election. Do not vote for Dowsett if you
want a leader to put things right for you or simply because you can't stand the
other candidates; The Socialist Party wants only socialist votes, and plenty of
them so that we can show those who uphold this rotten system that there is a
growing number of workers seeing through it.
More
important than voting, The Socialist Party wants you to find out exactly what
we stand for. Come along to our election rally; send off for a free pack of
literature telling you about our principles and policy.
Don't just
vote, think; don't just think, act.
June 1987,
Islington South & Finsbury
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