Stop Trident Protest
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March and Rally Saturday, 27 February in London
Plenty of time for us to dust off our old CND Ban the Bomb leaflets/articles and re-edit them into a contemporary comment on this eternal anti-nuke weapons campaign.
We were there. Three members distributed a few hundred leaflets (we didn't bring enough, as usual). Also sold more Socialist Standards than we normally do, probably because of the front cover (March issue) on the centenary of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916.We didn't need a special leaflet as the new, glossy "The Problem is not the Tories … it's capitalism" one mentions Trident saying "The problem is not Trident, it's war" and that "getting rid of Trident makes barely a dent in the global killing machine fuelled by capitalism's wars over our bosses' markets and resources". Many said they agreed with the leaflet's title.
Well done that trio, but no plaudits for the rest of the party. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a8e02dd26d1e5e8b750146c336d3d2daa774e897/0_74_1632_979/master/1632.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=c170f5da37d372fa14a4c64b90da7d03That could have been us if we made more imaginative use of our own slogans and had banners expressing them."Just as we were turning round the corner of Sauchiehall Street two grim stalwarts of the Socialist Party of Great Britain were standing heralding the march with a huge banner and slogan which read: "This demonstration is useless—You must first destroy capitalism" "http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1983/no-946-june-1983/book-reviews-cnd-story
alanjjohnstone wrote:Well done that trio, but no plaudits for the rest of the party. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a8e02dd26d1e5e8b750146c336d3d2daa774e897/0_74_1632_979/master/1632.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=c170f5da37d372fa14a4c64b90da7d03That could have been us if we made more imaginative use of our own slogans and had banners expressing them."Just as we were turning round the corner of Sauchiehall Street two grim stalwarts of the Socialist Party of Great Britain were standing heralding the march with a huge banner and slogan which read: "This demonstration is useless—You must first destroy capitalism" "http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1983/no-946-june-1983/book-reviews-cnd-storyActually, the leaflet did continue the Glasgow tradition (it was based on a Glasgow Branch leaflet) by baldly stating that "A campaign against Trident means support for capitalism, the cause of war" or in full context:
Quote:The problem is not Trident. It's war. Getting rid of Trident makes barely a dent in the global killing machine fuelled by capitalism's wars over our bosses' markets and resources. A campaign against Trident means support for capitalism, the cause of war.We know what this means — as it was edited when published as an article in August Socialist Standard, "A campaign against Trident alone leaves the cause of war –capitalism – untouched") but it is not certain that this is how this passage will be immediately taken by others. The marchers might think they were being denounced as mere supporters of capitalism. And, after all, our intention is not to alienate people who can see that there's something wrong with capitalism but to get them to read on and consider our argument.Still, in the olden days, we sometimes used to call CND the CCW — the Campaign for Conventional Warfare, which I suppose objectively was what it was, though I think we got a better hearing when our leaflets started along the lines of "you are right to protest against nuclear weapons but".
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