A new decade... Welfare - not warfare.

Letter to the Glasgow Herald:

We start the decade 2010 – 2020 with elections. With this in mind the recently published book “Democracy Kills: What’s So Good About The Vote” by Humphrey Hawksley makes some telling points. There will be elections here and in the U.S. Whichever political group wins most of the power will remain with the military industrial complexes. The U.S. policy of perpetual war is a world war waged against the rest of humanity.

Lies and deception accompany all wars. Your columns have included many excellent letters ( Ruth Marr, Iain Mann, Ian St-Yves and others) condemning Blair and questioning the Chilcott inquiry. We should accept there were Lies ,and indeed still are ( re Afghanistan ) and concentrate on efforts to oppose the U.S. policy of perpetual war to which our main political parties are committed.

“There is a universality of what people want in any particular situation even ones with different ethnic and religious situations” - H. Hawksley. People want housing, health, education and welfare -not war.

Hawksley also exposes “the double standards of the rich West’s own – and largely still unwon — struggles for economic and social justice on home soil.

We’ll , shortly, be deluged with the double standards in the political manifestos. Politicians will endeavour to ignore or excuse their acquiescence of the policies of war, but even the rich man’s Wall Street Journal acknowledges you can’t have guns and butter i.e. war and welfare. Let’s make it clear to the politicians ordinary people want welfare not warfare and ordinary people are the overwhelming majority.

Ron Mackay,
Campsie SSP