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From: eich@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.tv
Subject: Re: The Day After - (nf)
Message-ID: <4004@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 20-Nov-83 15:50:21 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4004
Posted: Sun Nov 20 15:50:21 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Nov-83 02:32:03 EST
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#N:uiuccsb:12300020:000:1914
uiuccsb!eich    Nov 16 20:37:00 1983

/***** uiuccsb:net.tv / ut-sally!riddle /  5:24 pm  Nov 15, 1983 */
I haven't seen "The Day After" and I certainly can't speak for freeze
opponents, but some freeze proponents say that the opponents' disconcertion
at the airing of the show reveals their true colors:  if those who believe
in a buildup of nuclear weapons really did so because they thought that it
was the best way to insure peace and because their overriding concern was
a fear of war, they would be quite happy to see a show which made clear the
horrors of the war they intend to avoid.  If instead they suffer from the
old Cold War mentality which unites the ostrich and the hawk, they would
prefer to go on ignoring just what their weapons can really be used for.
----
Prentiss Riddle
{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
riddle@ut-sally.UUCP
/* ---------- */

See the National Review of two fortnights back for just such a plug
of `The Day After' as an argument for deterrence (it was an ironic
fillip, to be sure, but a few over-earnest right-wing readers 
took it as an example of creeping hegemony or something).

Who's more struthius, proponents of deterrence who dislike the
pacifists' tactic of frightening with nuclear gore pornography
those whom they can't persuade by rational argument, or the freezers
who trumpet a `mutual', `veriafiable' solution with blind faith
in easily foiled `National Technical Means' and no comment on the
Soviet refusal, from the Baruch-Lilienthal proposals onward, to
accept on-site verification?

As the date of airing approaches, more notes will doubtless be
posted.  Shouldn't they either confine themselves to the artistic
merits, or else be directed to net.politics?  Especially if they must
lumber us with Jonathan Schell, or can't avoid totemic utterances of
Falwell's name as a warding sign, or try to close the question of
deterrence, as Mike Kelly's note did?

Brendan Eich uiucdcs!uiuccsb!eich