Jane Fonda and An Example of Unintended Consequences

Annie

Diamond Member
Nov 22, 2003
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One would hope that people would learn, but they don't:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/m...r=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=print

September 16, 2007
Freakonomics
The Jane Fonda Effect
By STEPHEN J. DUBNER and STEVEN D. LEVITT
Nuclear Energy

In the movie “The China Syndrome,” Fonda played a California TV reporter filming an upbeat series about the state’s energy future. While visiting a nuclear power plant, she sees the engineers suddenly panic over what is later called a “swift containment of a potentially costly event.” When the plant’s corporate owner tries to cover up the accident, Fonda’s character persuades one engineer to blow the whistle on the possibility of a meltdown that could “render an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable.”

“The China Syndrome” opened on March 16, 1979. With the no-nukes protest movement in full swing, the movie was attacked by the nuclear industry as an irresponsible act of leftist fear-mongering. Twelve days later, an accident occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in south-central Pennsylvania.

Michael Douglas, a producer and co-star of the film — he played Fonda’s cameraman — watched the T.M.I. accident play out on the real TV news, which interspersed live shots from Pennsylvania with eerily similar scenes from “The China Syndrome.” While Fonda was firmly anti-nuke before making the film, Douglas wasn’t so dogmatic. Now he was converted on the spot. “It was a religious awakening,” he recalled in a recent phone interview. “I felt it was God’s hand.”

Fonda, meanwhile, became a full-fledged crusader. In a retrospective interview on the DVD edition of “The China Syndrome,” she notes with satisfaction that the film helped persuade at least two other men — the father of her then-husband, Tom Hayden, and her future husband, Ted Turner — to turn anti-nuke. “I was ecstatic that it was extremely commercially successful,” she said. “You know the expression ‘We had legs’? We became a caterpillar after Three Mile Island.”

The T.M.I. accident was, according to a 1979 President’s Commission report, “initiated by mechanical malfunctions in the plant and made much worse by a combination of human errors.” Although some radiation was released, there was no meltdown through to the other side of the Earth — no “China syndrome” — nor, in fact, did the T.M.I. accident produce any deaths, injuries or significant damage except to the plant itself.

What it did produce, stoked by “The China Syndrome,” was a widespread panic. The nuclear industry, already foundering as a result of economic, regulatory and public pressures, halted plans for further expansion. And so, instead of becoming a nation with clean and cheap nuclear energy, as once seemed inevitable, the United States kept building power plants that burned coal and other fossil fuels. Today such plants account for 40 percent of the country’s energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions. Anyone hunting for a global-warming villain can’t help blaming those power plants — and can’t help wondering too about the unintended consequences of Jane Fonda....
 
K, this reminds me of how, during the Reagan years, liberals managed to knock out confinement of mentally ill folks. When they all ran loose, liberals then blamed Reagan for failing to deal with the homeless problem.

A big problem with liberalism is that it cannot accept a less-than-ideal situation without demanding that it be overhauled or tinkered with, EVEN IF THAT LEADS TO BIGGER PROBLEMS. In other words, they never have the maturity to say, well, this isn't perfect, but messing with it will cause even more problems, so let's just leave it alone. Another example: Yes, capitalism has problems. But communism is the cure that killed the patient.
 
Another example of a celebrity with an opinion being torn apart by an idiot without a thought of their own.
 
K, this reminds me of how, during the Reagan years, liberals managed to knock out confinement of mentally ill folks. When they all ran loose, liberals then blamed Reagan for failing to deal with the homeless problem.

A big problem with liberalism is that it cannot accept a less-than-ideal situation without demanding that it be overhauled or tinkered with, EVEN IF THAT LEADS TO BIGGER PROBLEMS. In other words, they never have the maturity to say, well, this isn't perfect, but messing with it will cause even more problems, so let's just leave it alone. Another example: Yes, capitalism has problems. But communism is the cure that killed the patient.

I agree. There were many reasons for my divorce, all good. However, probably one of the most important was my mother-in-law's mental illness. She called her husband and son, my husband constantly at work. They were able to block her calls. I was not. There were days she called over 40 times. I'd try to talk her 'down', it would work, for minutes. Then she'd call again.

We tried to have her committed, but since she was ruled not dangerous to herself or others, no go. Then she tried to stab my father-in-law. Then they committed her for 72 hours, got her on meds, then released her. So it went, then she died.
 
Nope. Just thoughtful and reasonable. Practically everyone else seems to be nuts and reactionary.

On the other hand, you are just everybody else?

Have an opinion, don't spout an idea and then devil it, bad form, no one knows where you stand except for me nutter.:razz:
 
In other words no major or critical accident has occurred in the US except in the 1950s at a small military site in Idaho? And further we have even more secure and protection systems today.

Remind me how many accidents have occurred in France and taren't they heavily into Nuclear power?

And K you missed the part where California has not built any new power plants in over 20 years. They had rolling ( may still) just a couple years ago because no one would sell them more energy, they tried to get the Feds to force people to sell them energy and they have also tried to steal water from neighboring States. Remind who runs that State.
 
In other words no major or critical accident has occurred in the US except in the 1950s at a small military site in Idaho? And further we have even more secure and protection systems today.

Remind me how many accidents have occurred in France and taren't they heavily into Nuclear power?

And K you missed the part where California has not built any new power plants in over 20 years. They had rolling ( may still) just a couple years ago because no one would sell them more energy, they tried to get the Feds to force people to sell them energy and they have also tried to steal water from neighboring States. Remind who runs that State.

I think RetiredthickGysgt you are forgetting you are supposed to be the united states.:D
 
In other words no major or critical accident has occurred in the US except in the 1950s at a small military site in Idaho? And further we have even more secure and protection systems today.

Heh, we also don't have that many...could be why.

And K you missed the part where California has not built any new power plants in over 20 years. They had rolling ( may still) just a couple years ago because no one would sell them more energy, they tried to get the Feds to force people to sell them energy and they have also tried to steal water from neighboring States. Remind who runs that State.

And what exactly fixed this problem...if you think the cause of it was nuclear power, since the problem is largely gone, they must have built many nuclear plants in the past few years, right?
 
Heh, we also don't have that many...could be why.



And what exactly fixed this problem...if you think the cause of it was nuclear power, since the problem is largely gone, they must have built many nuclear plants in the past few years, right?

It isn't fixed, They still haven't built new power plants.
 

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