Turning a Happy Corner

For one thing, The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear has sold more than 8,000 copies in 4 months, and we have made enough money to buy a bigger press for Access. You didn't know dear readers, but every time you wrote "Use bigger type," "Make it longer", "Use a format that can be filed" in the suggested changes column at renewal time, you were turning a knife in a wound. The size of the newsletter already exceeded the nominal capacity of our old (very old) press.

No longer! Now Access is filable as standard format, the type is 25% bigger, and with the increased area, the contents will be some 20% longer.

But even more joyful is the lopsided defeat of the anti-nuclear Luddities. Colorado trounced them close to 71 to 29%; Arizona 70 to 30%, Ohio 68 to 32%, Washington 67 to 33; Montana 58 to 42; and even Oregon, the "ecological" state that decrees what kind of bottle thou shalt suckle, gave them the boot by 58 to 42 - in no small measure, we suspect, thanks to the long and hard work of Bill Dawkins, one of the stars of the nuclear defense.

With California, 20% of the US population have now voted on nuclear power. All of the 7 states have rejected the superstition mongers, most of them by a margin of 2 to 1 or better.

The utilities and big corporations bough the elections by massive spending, say the anti-nukes now, and we savor their whimpering with sadistic glee.

They are kidding themselves, of course. On might be tempted to point out that in California they were left with $500,000 in unspent money, or that in Colorado the Public Service Co. contributed $9.31 per shareholder, whilst the anti-nukes raked in $25,000 per rock star; but the real point is this: Money can do no more than buy publicity, and the scaremongers got that in virtually unlimited amounts for free. Even now the brainwashing campaign by the networks and the national press continues: They characterize the defeat as a "setback for the environment" when, in fact, nuclear power is incomparably more benigh to the environment than any other - not excluding solar energy.

Money! How much money would you have to spend to turn voters against the vaccination of children or against X-rays or against air travel (none of which is without risk)? The tide was not turned by money, but by volunteers who used an old election gimmick - the truth.

They were ably assisted by their adversaries - the GE defectors who put their incompetence on public display, the physicians oblivious to public health, the Project Survival fanatics blind to the needs of people less well heeled than they are, the political activists ruthlessly clawing their way to power.

The mass of the voters, we suspect, still does not know what an emergency core cooling system might be, but they saw the Hubbards and Pollards and other ex-engineers unable to answer the question what type of power is safer than nuclear; they- sensed that solar power is, as yet, a rich man's toy; they saw a bunch of hypocrites talking about safeguards but meaning a total ban; talking about letting the people decide, but meaning more power to a narrow layer of affluent- intellectualoids talking about morality and leadership but meaning the sacrifice of human lives, energy dependence, failing behind the rest of the world, and dismantling American industry.

They will be back, of course. And the odds will be on their side again their pervasive influence in the information, education and entertainment industries; the ease with which the fear of the unknown can be exploited by the scaremongers, the skill with which they masquerade as the righteous and downtrodden before the young, the inexperienced and the impressionable.

Against this, the defenders of public health and economic muscle have but one weapon - the truth. It is a thorough weapon, but also an agonizingly slow ones and there is no time to lose. There was too much complacency after the California referendums and as late as early October. the Colorado polls ran 2: 1 in favor of the Luddites. A politician can be turned out again in 2 or 4 years, but give an inch on energy or technology and the country is doomed to backwardness for decades.

So give the Luddites no respite. Expose their half-truths, their deceit, their hypocrisy Beat back their underhanded attack on technology and the system that has kept America strong and free.

Beat them good, as we beat them in Colorado.