Yoshie:
> > 3. With the exception of people like James Heartfiled, very few > > leftists today express the kind of optimistic faith in > > industrialization untempered by environmentalism that socialists > > before Chernobyl could entertain.
me:
> I don't think I've ever known any socialists who weren't > environmentalists (except perhaps those in the CPUSA).
Yoshie:
Well, you are a boomer. By the time you came of age, optimistic faith in industrialization had already faded among leftists.
the point is that this fading occurred before Chernobyl. On the other hand, I once read a paper by a CPUSA economist arguing for nuclear power (under regulation of the International Atomic Energy Commission. The attitude back then was that anything the SU did had to be ducky. In 1978 or 1979 (when was it Michael?), I had a conversation with some Cubans in Havana about the building of nukes there. I pointed out the shoddiness of Soviet-made products. They said: well, Soviet _military_ technology is pretty good. Yeah, right. -- Jim Devine / "it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be." -- KM
