25^th October, 2002

Huge Glasgow Rally Signals Growing Scottish Opposition to Iraq War

Last Saturday a huge crowd at a march and rally in Glasgow, organised by the Scottish Coalition for Justice not War, again underlined the growing strength of the opposition in Scotland to war against Iraq.

The number of those involved in the march through the city centre streets was estimated at over 10,000, and was so great that those at the front of the march, returning to their starting point in George Square, had to stop and wait until the end of the parade left the Square.

At the rally which followed, speakers from political, trade union and community organisations gave a sustained critique of the publicly stated US/UK rationale for the war. Rozanne Foyer told the crowd that the Scottish Trades Union Congress’s opposition was unequivocal. MSP John McAllion wondered what kind of democracy we had in this country when Holyrood was not even being allowed to discuss the issue and Westminster was not being allowed to vote on it. (Holyrood is the seat of the Scottish Parliament, which has no controlover foreign policy) He gave strong support to the pledge, which he had signed himself, to engage in civil resistance should Iraq be attacked. Andrew Murray, of the English and Welsh Stop the War Campaign, urged everyone to participate in the day of action on the 31st October.

A Scottish CND spokesperson commented

“Quite apart from the sheer size and diversity of this crowd today you could sense the growing confidence there is that ordinary people can do something to stop the oil crusaders from killing more innocent people. It was so encouraging to see lines of people queuing up at the end to sign the civil resistance pledge and to hear of demonstrations, meetings and direct action being planned here, there and everywhere. We will not be ignored.”

For more on Scottish CND go to  http://www.banthebomb.org

Seattle to Brussels

The Seattle to Brussels Network is a pan-European NGO network campaigning to promote a sustainable, democratic and accountable system of international trade which benefits all. The S2B network was formed in the aftermath of Seattle to challenge the corporate-driven agenda of the European Union and other European governments for continued global trade and investment liberalisation. The network has issued a new booklet entitled Investment and competition negotiations in the WTO: What’s wrong with it and what are the alternatives?

The booklet comprises contributions from Attac France, Berne Declaration, 11.11.11, Corporate Europe Observatory, For the Welfare State, Friends of the Earth Europe, International Coalition
for Development Action (ICDA), Oxfam International, SOMO, Third World Network, World Development Movement and World Economy, Ecology and Development (WEED).

The booklet is available for download at http://www.s2bnetwork.org

Global Alternative

The Moscow-based Institute of Globalization Studies, run by Spectre’s old friend Boris Kagarlitsky, has launched a new online magazine. Global Alternative covers issues of globalisation and social justice from a critical perspective, aimed at searching for alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation. In depth articles and news briefs are available in English and Russian. http://www.aglob.ru/en/

Growth
 
“You hear it almost daily. "Growth first half year has fallen to less than 0.3%" or "Economical growth has to increase if we are not to..." or "We have to have steady growth or we have nothing to distribute". Except for the obvious reply "Why don´t we distribute, more fairly, the wealth we already have?" (and the fact that the wealth added by economical growth is generally distributed with something like 10% to the poor, 20% to the middle classes and 70% to the already wealthy), there´s a fundamental flaw in the growth philosophy: Everlasting growth is dependent on everlasting supply. The producers might be able to con people into buying almost everything in these days of murdering sales promotion and ads but unless they have the raw materials nothing will come out of the machines. And the raw materials are limited!” Read the rest of The Greatest Deception of All Time: The Blessings of Growth by Jerre Skog at http://www.counterpunch.org/skog1011.html