CITIZEN'S ACTION GROUP party or organization - ties. Ther£:fore they can be instrumental in increasing each individual's participation in the decision-making process of daily life."(26) While trade union leadership provides broad support for the government energy program and works together with business against the citizen's action groups, various union members and officials have begun expressing an opposing opinion. On the one hand, the DGB took position in favor of atomic energy in April, 1977; on the other, opposition against this point of view and support for the CAG's has increased in spite of considerable pressure from union officials in favor of the DGB position. This is particularly true of younger union members: at the DGB May Day demonstration in Hamburg, Federal Research Minister Matthofer was forced to interrupt his speech in favor of atomic power because of the protest of tens of thousands of his "dear brothers and sisters". But atomic power opponents who are organized in trade unions are constantly exposed to slander from within the ranks. H.E. Brand writes in an article: "Whoever attempts to resist system repression by participating in any organization like the citizen's action groups is bound to be called an enemy of democracy, a chaos-maker, a communist, a machine-breaker, an so on." * * * It is hard to evaluate the CAG movement as a whole because of the many different tendencies within it, but I will nevertheless make an attempt to do so here. It is only when we realize just what processes of learning have begun that we can really understand the value and significance of this movement. These processes have to do with "a critique of the state, parties, laws and courts, the press, churches, research and researchers, the roles of women and of men, together with the beginnings of a general critique of culture and capitalism ",(27) and also lead to "the (26) Die Quelle, 10/76. (27) Kursbuch 48, p. 171. 77
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