campaign IN THE RUN UP to the Abortion Amendment opponents will be pulling out all the stops for a NO vote.
Eddie Conlon, who is the national organiser for the anti-amendment campaign, says 'the issue is really about whether women should be driven back to the home and tied forever to the kitchen sink. We are challenging the church and state who try to control our bodies and our lives.
"We are challenging the ideas which have led to the amendment and the vicious attacks which are now going on against workers' living standards. Voting NO is saying we have a right to control our lives.' A year ago it would have been inconceivable that the amendment could have been defeated. But in the last couple of months, opinion has shifted. The argument that the Catholic church should not assume moral responsibility for the entire nation has gained ground. The debate has opened up opportunities for socialists and feminists to explain more clearly the relationship between the church and the state, and in favour of a woman's right to choose whether to have children or not. September, IT'S high time the left-wing of CND went on the policy decisions of mobilise labour movement support demands of no cruise, no Trident, no Pershing, no bases and no weapons in Britain, building on the anti-Trident and anti-cruise vote and developing the case for unilateralism?
must joking Top priority for Bruce anc Joan has become the suppression of the sections playing the importance of mass action, from the labour movement ILS demands so that the focus shifted awa tron unilateralism and towards 'nuclear priority for campaigning.
Let's just look for moment at the question of the influence of socialists within the Campaign as a whole. Bruce Kent in nu latest editorial in Sanity draws his balance sheet of the general election saying that 'We have to avoid tac MOTE alienate than convince'.
Which Lactics have alienated support? The mass demonstrations over the last three ycals the 60,000 strong YČND Rock last CND the Against the Bomb festival in May at Brockwell Park, the activities O1 which through pressure helped the unilateral nuclear disarmament become tor Or LIC LaDOul perhaps Bruce is talking about those 'uncontrollable' women Greenham Common who the bourgeois press are doing such a wholesome job on al lne present illic portraying them as unloving mothers, hippies, political druggies etc?
We would take strong issue with the suggestion that these mass actions did anything to damage CND's cause. Women clue une contrary, every mass action taken and particularly ones sucr organised UVCI world on 24 May of this year reach out to new people, win more supporters for CND, more supporters against the false that we are protected is we are protected by The bono. so ravine more of them will keep us even ed these sections They have helped build the mass alliulis What a dreadful crime! 'Seek them out, try and make them pariahs, try to CND on a "respec. table" course, for we have to go further now and be. prepared much more basic fixations chouons People Have been made more fearful of possible aber deter want to defended.' (Sanity September 1983)
Argue can't argue for unilateralism if you bend the argument somehow the 'British nadune needs be defended. 'There 1s evidence to justify the Tories' pro paganda on this point. Rather than talking about 'alternative defence' systems the CND leaders should go on the offensive against Thatcher, pointing out that as members of the with its "first strike' strategy, we are likely to start a nuclear war - a war lal no or dinary person in Has any Inlerest in waging and one that is impossible Lo Will But this of course taking a political stance, breaking with the idea of CND as being a 'nice little pressure group? that involves 'nice concerned people' and going out ana mobilising the labour movement to stop the bomb.
Wave HES WACK IC CND leaders have fallen down most decisively this new paign. The support of the demands of CND has been massive but its potentia has never been tapped. ine last TUC was mandated to initiate European wide action • U1 Hiroshima day but 110ve implement this resolution was made. Nor have the CND leaders or TU CND been particularly dynamic pushing At the Transport General Workers Unior Man there was not one official CND meeting onmeeting, only the Greenham Common CDs Were there to it Case CND', says Bruce Kent, 'are seen as all-or-nothing eople. This must change Vithout the slightest los of vision or principle we have to highlight measures which immediately possible and which, when carried out, will make further steps possible. Vision This s is the anti-cruise not the proach spirit that swept across Britain a year ago. It is not break viar the nuclear break nuclear spiral that calls for It is the admittance of defeat and its rationalisation by a weary priest.
The rank and file of must organise against this mealy mouth view by building October 22nd as a labour movement event. Leaders should be accountable in every movemenl The witch hunting must stop and the case against the bomb must be made more forcerully with this government in power.
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offensive against the backtracking leaders of the Campaign. What have we seen Bruce Kent and Joan Ruddock do since the general election? Act on the
Crime So these sectins, of