From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ucbcad:ucbesvax!turner
Newsgroups: net.politics
Title: Re: You can keep your common guilt... - (nf)
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.63
Posted: Mon Apr  4 12:29:24 1983
Received: Tue Apr  5 03:09:19 1983

#R:houti:-24000:ucbesvax:7500001:000:1836
ucbesvax!turner    Apr  4 11:35:00 1983

	I have to agree here.  To accede is not to accept.  I am also
    dubious of the tactic of withholding "war taxes", since this is
    little more than a gesture of protest.  Nothing wrong with that,
    as far as it goes -- it just doesn't go too far.

	As for nuclear weapons being "just weapons", this is true.
    I note, for example, that Teddy Kennedy is able to put out a book
    (written over a couple weekends by his staff, no doubt) decrying
    the NUCLEAR arms race, while still supporting boosts in spending
    for "conventional" arms.  Well, if we already have nuclear overkill,
    and arms races (of whatever kind) lead to war, and war, at this
    point, could escalate into nuclear war, then how is Kennedy doing
    any good as a figurehead of the disarmament movement?  Clearly,
    he is working toward the most efficient way of getting into a
    potentially nuclear conflict.  Thanks a lot, Ted.

	(Cranston is no better: with all his nuclear disarmament talk,
    he still supports funding boosts for military aerospace -- as long as
    it's in California.)

	There is an interesting article in this month's New Republic,
    which looks at the Apocalyptic Consciousness movement on both
    the Right AND the Left.  I don't like this magazine very much,
    but it's important to be made to squirm with discomfort once in
    a while.  This one made me re-think a little.

	Nuclear holocaust is the great deferred spectacle of our time.
    We should be wary of attempts to capitalize on a vision of the
    future which paralyzes reason.  Herman Kahn is, I think, no less
    guilty of this kind of showmanship than Helen Caldicott.  My
    sympathies are more with Helen than Herman, but that doesn't
    mean I'm going to open myself to being manipulated by either.

	Michael Turner
	ucbvax!esvax:turner