Standing up to the brainwashers

Yes, we can.

To write an effective letter to the editor takes both knowledge and time. It is easy for the de-industrializers to dream up monstrous charges; it is often quite difficult to refute them. 150 years ago, the scaremongers opposed the railroads: The human body, they argued, could never withstand speeds of 25 m.p.h. Could you, with only the knowledge of the 1830's, have refuted the charge? (It is acceleration, not velocity, that affects the human body; we are, at this very minute, going round the sun at better than 67,000 m.p.h.) An honest scientist can help you draft your letter.

In our last issue we belly-ached about being unable to write such letters for readers. In reply, we received one of most heartening and welcome letters. It came from the Scientists for Accuracy in Media, 1034 LaBrea, Pocatello, ID 83201, a group of six scientists headed by chemist P.A. Anderson, concerned with insuring that information about technology is factually accurate and objectively reported in the media. "If people continue to send you articles requesting that you refute them," they write, "you are welcome to refer them to us. In most cases we will assist the individual to draft his own letter, and in some cases we will write a letter for him. Lester Berkowitz has a similar group, Committee for Scientific Truth in the Public Interest, 1511 Denniston Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Our group was inspired by their report.

So there you have the first two groups to help you in not letting a single lie pass unchallenged. Keep the letters cool, factual, sharp and, above all, short. Each published letter is another nail in the coffin of Tom Brokaw's only ally.

But the Idaho and Pennsylvania groups above cannot possibly handle the flood that we would like to see. We therefore appeal to all honest scientists and engineers to form such groups and to pass the ammunition to the citizens manning the little guns. Help them and help yourselves; don't stand by as the truth is being gagged and censored.

This newsletter, for its part, will print the addresses of these scientists' truth squads; if we can get a few of them in each state, we can turn the tide.

More and more opinion leaders will listen, for you and I are not blind lackeys of any industry, nor prisoners of an ideology, nor religious fanatics.

We are simple servants of the truth.