ALFRED MARQUART state due to the critique t,hey had to make of present conditions and due to ruling class reactions to their activities. All CAG's surely do not rally around a flag with a demand for total change in society written on it, but the CAG movement does carry the seed of doubting and of rupturing the present system in it. The more strongly the state reacts against the expression of citizens' interests, the more citizens refuse the violence emanating from the state. This can be seen most clearly in the anti-nuclear movement, for example on banners with "If you still believe in the state by now, they must have stolen your brain" written on them, or in an interview in which members of a CAG in Lichtenmoor (North Germany), where atomic waste was to be deposited, said "Why should we take part in elections? Each of the parties is trying to swallow up our movement. We have learned that defending your own interests directly rather than delegating power, is the only right thing to do".(10) * * * Citizen's action groups are always searching out direct contact with their fellow citizens. They see their main task in informing the public so that it will support their goals and the means necessary to reach them. ''This policy is successful in regards to the danger of government attempts to co-opt or stabilize the movement, but not because we use information as propaganda to "expose" the state as it carries out and protects capitalist interests; rather, our method makes it possible for a large number of people to participate actively in the defense of their interests and to resist against all that works against these interests. Repression used against this movement makes the state "expose" itself in its true form. Nothing is more destructive of illusion on the one hand, nor creates a more radical commitment on the other, than the experience of government violence made by people who have come together for a just cause. "(11) While some CAG's, due to their own experience, become very critical of the state and act against the system of parliamentary (10) quoted from Koiner Sladtanzeiger, September 1976. (11) Kursbuch 48, p. 168. 68
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