Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

But the battle is not over. The victory was partly bought by pre-empting the Initiative hoax through state legislation, which is free of the two-thirds obstructionism and is repealable, but is incongruous in that it imposes stricter restrictions on safer power. And California is not the end: Colorado, Oregon, and up to possibly 10 other states will vote on science vs. superstition. It takes hours to explain the truth about a false charge made in 10 seconds; and the truth will need patient and dedicated defenders.

Nor is nuclear power the only target of the demagogues. While Robert Redford has been raving against nuclear power, his partner Paul Newman and other financiers have founded Citizens for Energy Action, a well-heeled lobby that plans to get not more energy, but the blood of the oil companies.

It is said that every actor is at his best when he portrays his own self. The Newman-Redford team made its name as a couple of con men, and the work of con men is exactly what comes to mind on reading the Energy Action panhandling letters. Elections are coming, and there are votes to be had for a little lynching; and there is free publicity as the vast multitude of TV networks, all three of them, pitch in for the divestiture of the oil companies, none of which has more than 9% of the market. The details of Energy Action are many, and all ugly, but it boils down to this: What Newman, Nader and other knights of nonsense want to con the consumer out of is the system in which he is king by voting with his dollars; what they want to con him into is, in Energy Action's words, "getting energy policy made in Washington," that is, more legislation, controls, regulation, regimentation and redistribution.

With Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on the planning board.