Daily Nebraskan
Pago 5
'Logic of madness': nuclear survivability
Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen,
Just when the script was getting stale,
we are offered a new act in the
National Nuclear Follies. A hearty wel
come, please, for "FEMA and The
Farmers."
m I Goodman
When last heard from, you may
recall, the Federal Emergency Man
agement Agency was hoofing it up on
center stage with plans for evacuating
our cities. In case of nuclear war, their
theme song was: Pack up your troubles
in your old family buggy and drive,
drive, drive. Each urban dweller was
assigned a rural destination and a
welcome wagonr
Well, fans, FEMA is back. TheyVe
taken on the farmers and they're talk
ing food. They have assessed the post
nuke food situation and are here to tell
us. that the survivors are all gonna
make it if there are enough cans to go
around.
FEMA produced its new script as a
briefing paper for theCabinet last
year. It was going to be a private
showing, but Rep. Tom Harkm, D-Iowa,
put it into our national repertoire.
Once again, the theme is upbeat A
large-scale nuclear war wouldn't
devastate American agriculture.
In part, the planners are counting
on the availability of migrant labor.
There would be plenty of urban
migrants hanging around to help with
the harvest, they say. No more help
problems, no more illegals. Everyone
will pitch in with the picking.
They are also counting on dimin
ished appetites. The pressure to feed
the survivors will disappear pretty
quickly, along with the survivors. Fol-
Policy. . .
In countering gestures
to this big boost for the El
Salvadoran government,
the Administration has
denied an entrance visa
to Roberto d'Aubuisson,
the leader of the rightist
ARENA political party
and source of right wing
death squad activity, has
announced efforts to
crack down on secret
funding of the para
military death squads by
the El Salvadoran exile
community in Miami;
and has had ambassador
to El Salvador Thomas
Pickering deliver a stern
lecture on the govern-,
ment-fiar.ctbr.2d killing.
None of these gestures
could have much effect
in reducing the terrible
campaign cf k2ag ia El
Salvador murder
which has reached to El
Salvador's archbishop
Romero and the families
of rebel soldiers, Amer
ican nuns and cer.terict
According to human
rights groups affiliated
with the Catholic arch
diocese, more than
37,000 civilians have
been murdered by d'Aub
uisson's death squads
and the El Salvaderan
National Guard during
the last four years.
And sermons are not
going to stop the killing;
the best and the only
thing the VS. can do is to
cut off military and econ
omic aid to El Salvador's
corrupt and weak govern
ment. Ronald Earesn al-;
reasly has rejected that
lowing an attack which would elimi
nate half the population, FEMA notes,
"those who are doomed to die will be
consumers for (only) part of that
time." No problem.
Now I dont know about the rest of
the civil defense audience out there,
but I have a feeling that these people
could have cribbed their script from
"The Day After." The best scene in the
film was the wonderful meeting be
tween the bureaucrat and the farmers.
The bureaucrat, speaking from in
structions probably produced by
FEMA fantasists, tells the farmers to
go out into the fields and scrape up the
fallout and the contaminated top soils.
This is a little like skimming a ten-mile
oil slick off the ocean with a teaspoon.
Only this time, we're talking dead dirt.
Frankly, I hate to pan such a sincere
troupe. Lord knows, they win points
for imagination. More to the point,
FEMA and the farmers were just doing
their job of post-nuke planning. In an
era when we name a nuclear missile
The Peacekeeper" and talk freely
about first-strike scenarios, FEMA is
just a doo-wop chorus for a headliner
like Edward Teller.
But I keep remembering the words
of Robert Jay Lifton, the Yale professor
of psychiatry who has written about
the "logic of madness" in our nuclear
thinking: "Civil defense is part of the
fundamental illusions about a nuclear
war. The illusion of surviving. The illu
sion of recovery. It's massive denial."
Lifton's point of view is that of a
nuclear theater critic. "In itself (civil
defense) seems like a natural and
appropriate thing to do. But it in
creases the possibility of nuclear war
by making it more acceptable. That's
why it's immoral"
In fairness, the FEMA predictions
may be accurate. If Carl Sagan's group
of scientists is right, 10 percent of the
nuclear arsenal can create an ultimate
Nuclear Winter. In that case, there
would indeed be plenty of food for the
number of people: none.
1EC3, TL Cotton Globe Newsp&per
Company
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