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From: eich@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: 'The Day After' - (nf)
Message-ID: <3915@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Nov-83 22:30:10 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3915
Posted: Thu Nov 17 22:30:10 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Nov-83 04:05:29 EST
Lines: 45

#R:rlgvax:-140500:uiucdcs:29200042:000:2150
uiucdcs!eich    Nov 17 20:00:00 1983

>/***** uiuccsb:net.politics / uiucuxc!odom / 11:09 am  Nov 17, 1983 */
>Have you actually seen this movie?  and what's 
>"liberal/left delirium"??  shouldn't you post
>these reviews to net.movies?  

No he shouldn't have posted that review in net.movies (or net.tv),
because it wasn't a critique of the movie on its dramatic merits.  It
was an attack on the politics of the people behind it.

Of course the only people who have seen the film so far besides its
makers are the freeze groups and test audiences for whom it was
pre-screened.  So what?  However artistically worthy it is (and the
early reports are not encouraging), the politics of the film and
its timing are obvious to anyone honest enough to acknowledge that the
subject of nuclear war and how to avoid it is even debatable.

>one more flame: i thought being informed would mean
>looking at both sides of an issue...in fairness,
>and freedom, why don't you support an effort to produce
>another film on the Glories of the Day After.

This is precisely what he meant by "liberal/left delirium."  You
presumptuously grab the moral high ground by claiming you are opposed
to the Horrors of the Day After, are against nuclear destruction, are
for `Social Responsibility', and that therefore anyone who disagrees
with you *politically* is for these things.  This is an evasion.  No
one supports the coming of the Day After except a few Apocalytic
Christians.  You are dodging a *political* debate by attempting
to reduce it to an incontrovertible moral proposition.

It's plain dishonest to caricature people who disagree with you on
strategy as satans.  There's a lot of this obnoxious moralizing in the
latest pacifism: films with titles like "If You Love This Planet"
(Darth Vader not welcome), and the `Social Responsibility' whim-wham.
And throughout it all, the amusing assertions that the issue is "not
political." Are the rest of us socially irresponsible?  Do we hate the
planet?  Or are we just complaisant, zombiatic, benighted?  The
megalomaniacal moral pretensions are wearing thin.  Why not try
honestly debating, rather than dishonestly baiting?

Brendan Eich
uiucdcs!eich