Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site whuts.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuts!orb
From: orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: "Russia: Love It Or Leave It"
Message-ID: <536@whuts.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Feb-86 10:01:31 EST
Article-I.D.: whuts.536
Posted: Thu Feb 13 10:01:31 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Feb-86 21:14:38 EST
References: <1691@bbncca.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 42

> This week PBS' "Frontline" program features "Russia: Love It Or Leave It",
> a candid look at the USSR.  Frontline's camera crews eluded official
> escorts and surveillance and shot footage of various activities the
> authorities didn't want filmed.
> 
> In Boston it airs tomorrow, Tuesday (2/11/86), 9 pm, on channel 2.
> 
> 					Ron Rizzo

It was an interesting show though I had the impression that "eluding
the authorities" was more similar to smuggling joints into a rock 
concert than romantic views of "international espionage".
One wonders why the Soviets would care whether such footage was
filmed or not(!??) But that is the nature of control - to try to
control everything whether it can be controlled or whether it makes
any sense to control it or not.
 
I found it most encouraging that the Peace activist who had been
arrested for distributing literature in Red Square and the
Russian who liked to befriend foreigners both had Nuclear Freeze
posters in their apartments!  Apparently sentiments for a 
Nuclear Freeze are more international than we might think.

Finally, before we get holier-than-thou about Soviet peace activists
being arrested for distributing literature we should remember that
the New York Supreme Court just recently ruled that anti-nuclear
activists distributing literature in malls in New York State could
be arrested for trespassing.
In New Jersey I have personally been threatened with arrest at several
malls for distributing literature.  Only after threatening a
suit by an ACLU lawyer have the malls backed down because New Jersey
courts, unlike New York, have supported people's rights to political
expression in malls. So that, yes, we *do* have the rule of law
in this country and protected political rights.  But one must fight
for them at every turn or powerful economic interests like Prudential
who owned the mall in New York, will take those rights away in
an instant.
The ultimate irony for me, is hearing "libertarians" defend Prudential's
"right" to arrest people for distributing political literature!
 
 See the Frontline, it is interesting!
          tim sevener   whuxn!orb