50th anniversary of the death of CND…(1968)

the death of CND as performed by the Grosvenor Square demonstrators under the direction of themselves alone

(click on title above for pdf)

 

50th anniversary of this confrontation

a Solidarity UK pamphlet from 1968

see also “Rest In Peace”

(a critique of CND and of Greenham Common, written in 1983)

Comments

2 responses to “50th anniversary of the death of CND…(1968)”

  1. James avatar

    “The march has become one of our Great British Institutions”

    I suppose one way of the breaking the stranglehold that the Nation has over proletarian opposition to nuclear technology would be to show that opposition in the context of the international movement against nuclear power and weaponry and the partial victories that the proletariat organised as a class has so far achieved. Read more here:

    http://www.dw.com/en/40-years-of-german-anti-nuclear-action/g-39477046

    For life

  2. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

    This by Charles Radicliffe, from the May ’66 magazine “Rebel Worker 6”, is pertinent:

    A VERY NICE VERY RESPECTABLE VERY USELESS CAMPAIGN

    When the anarchist poet Jeff Nuttall spoke at the final rally of this year’s CND easter march, he added new dimensions to the usual ritual, just as did the giant political puppet theatre which showed politicians as they really are – not just without conscience but small, grovelling men, sustained only by the persecuting knowledge of their own vacant treason to their humanity. By calling for the destruction of the Ministry of Defence, Jeff Nuttall gave intention to an affair which had none of its own. By speaking he let it be known that any number of people saw in CND and its charmless entourage of parliamentary vipers nothing so much as the sell-out of a once genuine popular movement against nuclear war to the so-called immediate imperatives of political relevance and political advance. Since the CND leadership made public its refusal to challenge society – after the Spies for Peace revelations of 1963 – the Campaign has lived on borrowed time. The complex manoeuvres to present a libertarian image while denying to anarchists the right to speak at the rally, the dummy-protests and the dummy-Members of Parliament are not going to save it. CND is doomed. It is time for a young movement which addresses the contemporary reality, a movement which will challenge every tiny aspect of our war-sustained society, even unto the last public utility, which will militarise the dissatisfaction of almost every young person in this country. For dissatisfaction is not confined to politics; it extends into every street, club and classroom. It must be encouraged in its every aspect; its active expression may be welded into a revolutionary weapon which will strike fear into the deepest recesses of our society. Imagine, if every time the police decided to victimise young people they were faced with the united fury of such people, if young people were to turn on their attackers with all the venom their frustration could muster. Then we might talk of protest. Such a movement would support the emotional eruptions of all youth; would learn to sanction the outrages of youth recognising in them a kindred spirit – albeit a bolder one – in the rejection of the spiritual death of a society which has attempted too long and too successfully to postpone the irrefutable logic of its indifference – destruction. This society, if we will it, can drown in its own corrupted blood. It can die in its tracks – on the streets, in the clubs, in the factories. The new revolution may be obscene and blasphemous; it must deface the power structure when it cannot destroy it; the criterion is defiance not discipline. The new revolution must support every last insurrection of the mind and body against this bloodfed society – Our movement is symbolised by the bomb-thrower, the deserter, the delinquent, the hitch-hiker, the mad lover, the school drop-out, the wildcat striker, the rioter and the saboteur. This year 500 anarchists caused a ‘near riot’ in Trafalgar Square, until the ‘platform’ capitulated to their demand for a speaker. Significantly it was Nuttall who spoke on their behalf, rather than an ‘Establishment anarchist’ (as ‘Peace News’ delights to term those comrades who are old enough to have sold out but have not done so). The anarchists were roundly condemned by the national press. The peace movement, as represented by ‘Peace News’, condemned them in more sophisticated fashion. (The dedication of the liberals to respectability has so clouded their vision that they no longer care about the effect of their actions, only that they should not be attacked for them.) The relevance of the action of these predominantly young anarchists is obvious. Their voices and actions exploded their precise consciousness of the fact that respectability finally involves simply this: Clamber into your own arsehole and quietly die.

    CHARLES RADCLIFFE

    -http://libcom.org/files/King%20Mob%20Echo_%20English%20Section%20of%20the%20Situationist%20International.pdf

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.