HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: LET'S DISCUSS NUCLEAR ENERGY!
Date: 12 Jan 93 17:11:16 GMT
Organization: NCR Engineering and Manufacturing Atlanta -- Atlanta, GA

In <1678600059@igc.apc.org> dmcmillen@igc.apc.org (Dale McMillen) writes:


|>Chernobyl was a long string of incredibly stupid moves.  Starting with a
|>brain dead design, followed by an assinine decision not to build a
|>containment vessel.  You can get more radiation from a couple of chest
|>x-rays than was released at Three-Mile Island.
|>
|>Can we guarentee that there will never be another accident.  No of course
|>not.  Can we demonstrate, that when the entire life cycle is taken into
|>account, nuclear power is safer than the alternatives, Yes.

|Safer than solar?  Corn ethanol?

Solar thermal, or solar electric.
Solar thermal is very benign, except that it often increases the amount
of building material needed for a structure.
There are a lot of nasty byproducts from the making of solar voltaic cells.
Also since solar will never provide more than a fraction of the power
needed, we will still need some other forms of energy.  What do you
propose?

Corn ethanol.
Of course it has to be grown.
Fertilizers?
Pesticides?
Then it has to be transported,
turned to ethanol,
and transported again to the site of use.
Each of these steps involves the potential for accidents to happen.
Finally the burning of ethanol produces lots of nasty byproducts.

|>|Don't you think the government's real purpose for promoting nuclear
|>|energy to convince us that there is a peaceful use for the nuclear bomb?
|>
|>I'm sorry Dale, but this question just doesn't make any sense.  What
|>relationship is their between nuclear weapons and nuclear power?
|>Do you think there are little bombs going off inside those plants or
|>something?

|That wasn't my point, but rather don't you think it's a more than a
|coincidence that the by-product of nuclear reactors is used for
|nuclear bombs


I don't think its a coincidence, because it is not true.
Unless it has been designed to produce plutonium, the amount of
plutonium produced by the average power plant is miniscule.  The
type of plutonium is also not suitable for bomb making.
Weapons grade plutonium is made in specially designed reactors in
which the fuel rods are deliberately short cycled in order to minimize
the production of the unwanted isotope of plutonium. (The two isotopes
in question are Pu-239 and Pu240, I forget which is wanted for bomb
making.)

|and it's the same folks in government and industry
|who promote both?

Only so far as the DOE has been placed in charge of both programs.
Do the same people within the DOE work on both bombs and power
plants.  No.

|Oh, but maybe I am just too paranoid about
|conspiracy theories.

This does seem to be a rational explanation for your postings.

|Dale
-- 
Mob rule doesn't become any prettier, just because the mob start to call itself
a government.
It ain't charity if you are using someone else's money.
Mark.Wilson@AtlantaGA.NCR.com
From: miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Michael Ballard)
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 18:56:24 GMT

What are property rights?
What is property?
What property is created and what property is found in nature?
Who produces the property which is created?
Is property creation a human right?
What is a human right?
Is the act of buying or selling a human right?
Is a green eco-system compatible with buying and selling?
Can humans live in a society which sees the environment as a thing
of beauty and life and not as a commodity to be sold to the highest
bidder by its owner?

-- 
Complain yes; but organize!
Join the Wobblies.  Phone (415)863-WOBS
From: tilley@kodak.com (Dave Tilley)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Date: 4 Jan 93 18:12:40 GMT
Reply-To: tilley@kodak.com (Dave Tilley)
Organization: Image Processing Algorithms Laboratory, Eastman Kodak Co.

In article <1678600011@igc.apc.org>, dmcmillen@igc.apc.org (Dale McMillen) writes:
|> But, I am wondering why we hear so little about this type of life-
|> style from the mainstream media and politicians?  Why don't we get
|> more opportunities to learn about these low-impact life styles and
|> to learn the skills, which you noted, required to organize them?
|> We certainly hear lots about sexy sports cars, high powered Wall
|> Street careers, and the "Life Styles of the Rich and Famous".
|> Could it be that this media bias is part of the system which only
|> values us for our labor and purchasing power?
|>  
|> Dale

	I keep hearing about "media bias" from the right and from
the left and from the libertarians and the main stream religions
and from the non-main stream religions etc.. My take is that "the media"
and "the politicians" are:

	1) ignorant
	2) lazy
	3) in want of more money

Because of that they play to "regular people" that are:
	1) ignorant
	2) lazy
	3) dull

Face it. Most people liked or at least watched "laverne and shirley". I
hated it and refused to watch. But the mass of folks did support it.
"90210" gets more viewers than McNeil/Lehrer weeek after week.

News coverage is mostly Murder,Sex crimes, weather and sports.

The media will cover things that:
	1) they understand
	2) is easy to find out about
	3) will be watched by lots of people

people will watch things that:
	1) requires little thought
	2) requires little thought
	3) shows some skin or violence

So this puts the work on us. We can not expect the media or politicos
to work hard and care about the fringe. If you want change then you
must show people that it is in their interest to change and this
requires education which requires the work of educators (read: you and me).


Dave
From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 07 Jan 93 21:55 PST
Subject: Re: save the earth - ridiculous!
Nf-ID: #R:1993Jan6.194324.13459@beaver.cs.:1812685772:cdp:1678600066:000:569
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  7 21:55:00 1993


> This arrogant fool Tekiahyu thinks it is just a question of who can
> make the most bombastic assertions.
 
John McCarthy,
 
You do not engender our respect by name calling.  Besides, I do think
there are many who DO believe that the resources of the planet are
infinite.  We may have a calm intellectual discussion about the
theoretical carrying capacity of earth, but unfortunately many others
are acting as though there is no tomorrow.  Anyway, don't you think
the risk is kind of big for us to continue to promote the mythology
of endless material growth?
 
Dale

Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: amck@rowdy.mcc.com (Alan McKendree)
Subject: Re: PLEASE SIGN IN!
Organization: MCC, Austin, Texas
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 23:04:57 GMT

I'm a computer programmer at MCC, with a bachelor's in math and
another in drama.  I think the "environmental" movement is essentially
(not necessarily in any one detail, but in essence) an unsubstantiated
scare tactic designed to persuade people to give up their current
standard of living and the expectation of improving it, and the Green
Party an attempt to introduce increased governmental regulation and
economic deprivation, both not only unnecessary but positively
harmful, in the name of "the environment".  I subscribed to get a
horse's-mouth sample of just what's going on in the movement.  As a
rational capitalist, it's good to know what the other side's up to.
It's sort of like an atheist (which I am) watching televangelists for
entertainment (which I do).

$ and kisses,

-- 
Alan McKendree          Opinions posted by me are mine, only.
amck@rowdy.mcc.com         Who/Little Feat/racquetball/Rand
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis)
Subject: Re: Long-term leases?
Organization: Precipitating Pendulums Postal Party Poopers
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 01:04:55 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.223313.2223@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> scasburn@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Steven M Casburn) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.183723.26699@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington
>.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes:
>>
>>[...]
>>I am sceptical (to put it mildly) of legislative solutions to
>>anything, believe that human ownership of land should be abolished and
>>replaced by long term leases [...]

>     Please elaborate on what you meant, Paul. I'd be interested in reading 
>what you have to post.

I don't wish to bore those here who have already read this over in
talk.environment, but ...

My ideas are essentially an extension of Henry George's ideas relating
to land use. I start from the observation that ownership ultimately
should derive from labor, and that no human has ever worked to produce
land (other than to reclaim it from the sea).

Humans seem to me to be entitled to own their modifications to land,
their additions to it, and things they make from it. They have no
claim on the land itself, which existed before they arrived, and will
continue to exist in some form once they are gone. I favor a system in
which leases are granted by a community to use the land. Subject to
constitutional limits on the power of the majority, I see local
democratic politics setting up the terms of those leases, which
include what types of modifications are acceptable in the long term.
These are not "permit" type arrangements: leaseholders would be left
alone completely as long as they are not doing things to the land that
are believed to be detrimental in some particular way to its
longevity. The status of land can change over time when new
consensuses form about ecology, economics, justice and personal
values.

In this sense, human communities own land, but no individual humans
do; individual humans continue to own the efforts of their labors and
those things they exchange with others.

If you want to discuss this further, send me e-mail. If others would
like to discuss this in this forum, let me know, and I'll expand as
necessary. 

-- paul
-- 
hybrid rather than pure; compromising rather than clean;    | Militant Agnostic
distorted rather than straightforward; ambiguous rather than| I Don't Know
articulated; both-and rather than either-or; the difficult  |   and You Don't
unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion. |   Know Either
From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 04 Jan 93 10:49 PST
Subject: Re: Community based economy?
Nf-ID: #R:C08BAo.HAG@fiu.edu:581783607:cdp:1678600023:000:1610
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  4 10:49:00 1993


> I'm glad to see that Dale believes that community-based economics
> should be offered and encouraged, not enforced.

John Ladasky (and the rest of y'all),

What did I ever say to make you think I wanted to force absolute localism
down your throats?

Regarding your example about needing a world-wide market for alternative
techonologies, I do not see this in conflict with community-based
economics.  The point is that the more a community can provide for its
local needs, the stronger (and more socially just and ecologically
sustainable) it will be, up to a limit.

Perhaps we should start looking at some sort of community product
index like the GNP.  Maybe we could call it the CPI.  What percentage
of the CPI should be locally based, what percentage regionally based,
and what percentage national or international.  I would agree that
100% locally based would not be a good idea.  As you mentioned, this
would preclude development of your AIDS devices.  It would also tend
to make the community unbearably parochial.  But, would you agree
that 100% internationally based is not desirable either?

It would seem to me that the goal should be that the more the item
is essential for everyday living (housing, clothing, food, heating),
the better it would be to produce it locally.  The more the item
is knowledge or information based, the more desirable it would
be to have a mixture of local and global interaction.

Dale

P.S.

Region 11 of GPUSA is the Mid-Atlanic Region (NJ PA DE MD DC VA WV).
What type of on-line access did you want?  I have posted some stuff
in the topic "NEWS ABOUT THE GREENS"
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:46:54 GMT
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO

In article <1993Jan05.032449.17620@microsoft.com> leecr@microsoft.com (Lee Crocker) writes:
>In article <JMC.93Jan4081611@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>>
>> Now, while workers are still exploited...
>
>It is unsubstantiated empty rhetoric like this that gives leftists
>a bad reputation.  In a free capitalist society, where a worker is
>free to choose whether or not to accept the conditions of employment
>offered to him, no working man can be said to be "exploited" by
>his employers.  No man in history has ever gotten rich without making
>everyone around him rich as well, except by slavery; and slavery
>must be maintained by force of law to work.
>
It is rhetoric like this that gives Libertarians a bad name.  When a
person must choose between bad and worse to survive, that person may
very well feel exploited.  To say that noone has gotten rich without
making others around rich (except slavery) is an incredible statement
that hardly deserves refutation.  It does show why most Green
candidates outpolled Libertarians in their first election.
>-- 
>Lee Daniel Crocker    | Free minds; free bodies; free trade.
>leecr@microsoft.com   | Libertarian Party  1-800-682-1776


-- 
==============================================================================
	Dean Myerson			dean@vexcel.com
==============================================================================
From: tonyz@hpwrce.mayfield.hp.com (Tony Zugates)
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 00:13:03 GMT
Subject: Re: San Diego Greens
Organization: the HP Mtn.View Resp. Cntr.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens

It doesn't happen to be next to "The Black", does it?



-a resettled Obecian
From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 03 Jan 93 06:26 PST
Subject: NOT LEFT NOR RIGHT BUT UPFRONT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1678600013:000:1385
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  3 06:26:00 1993


Greens have a slogan: "We are neither right nor left, but upfront."
 
When I recently said in this discussion I consider myself a leftist,
some in The Greens may feel that enough to disqualify me.  Others, on
the other hand, would feel that Greens really are a part of the left.
Fortunately, the vast majority of us are broad enough in our thinking
(Note key value: "respect for diversity"), to acknowledge the validity
of both approaches.  In fact, we have members who have come to The Greens
from both a strong Libertarian background as well as from various groups
on the left including the Democratic Socialists and Socialist Labor Party.
Most of the rest of us probably just came into The Greens because we simply
were so disgusted with the politics-as-usual coming from the two existing
parties.
 
Having given this background, I would like to start a discussion about
what people think about "the left", "the right", or possible third
approaches.  How do you identify which ideas come from the left or the
right?  What might be the benefits or drawbacks of each?  Why do you
think people are so prone to choose sides to do ideological battle?
Is there a better way?
 
It is my sincere desire that this will be principled and thoughtful
discussion.  Let's try to understand each other before responding,
and avoid knee-jerk reactions and flaming.
 
So, what d'y'all think?
 
Dale
From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 06 Jan 93 20:15 PST
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Nf-ID: #R:1hs8brEINNfle@uni-erlangen.de:-1634168734:cdp:1678600045:000:507
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  6 20:15:00 1993


> Actually, the biggest problem this planet has right now is people.
> Get rid of all the people and things'll straighten out just fine on
> their own, in fifty thousand years or so.
 
I know that many from the deep ecology movement have entertained
misanthropic (human hating) notions.  It should be stated very
clearly that The Greens are not among those.  While many of us
(myself included) feel very inspired by deep ecology, we are very
clearly a movement for social justice as well as ecology.
 
Dale

Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: LET'S DISCUSS NUCLEAR ENERGY!
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<1993Jan7.155433.9707@hasler.ascom.ch>
Date: 7 Jan 93 19:21:18

There are several points.

1. The actual waste from nuclear reactors is fission products.
Uranium and plutonium atoms split into two atoms of about
half the atomic weight.  The amount of fission products produced
per kilowatt hour is the same whether the reactor is a breeder
or is conventional, because the 200Mev per fission is the
energy that runs the turbines to generate electricity.

2. The two French SuperPhenix breeder reactors had some problems
and are being fixed.  Naturally, the Greens like to predict
they won't be fixed.  They never produced a quarter of France's
electricity.

3. Because of abundant uranium supply for the present, breeder
reactors aren't an urgent need.

4. Last I heard, the French were preparing to store their fission
products in tunnels in granite in France.  There is no rush, because
the longer you let it cool, the less radioactive the waste becomes,
and the easier it is to handle.

5. Everyone is entitled to suspect everyone else's motives.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: leecr@microsoft.com (Lee Crocker)
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Date: 07 Jan 93 03:28:57 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <C0EBCw.11E@techbook.com> gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane) writes:
>
>The idea that Capitalism is the system that guarantees workers the
>"exclusive right to the fruits of his/her labor" is astonishing, and
>certainly would be a revelation to all the workers in this country that
>struggled to feed their families on starvation wages and were beaten,
>shot and thrown out of work by the goon squads hired by the companies
>that actually owned the fruits of their labor.  Even the simplest
>American history course should reveal the idiocy of suggesting that
>capitalism -- at least as it is actually _practiced_ -- is anything but
>heartless and immoral.  Whatever benefits/kindnesses are practiced by
>corporations today were forced on them by the collective action of
>workers, NOT by any inherent virtue in capitalism.

You miss the point entirely--those terrible conditions were anything
but capitalism; they were state-supported criminal enterprises with
no respect for individual rights.  The fact that no one in human
history has ever practiced true capitalism should be all the more
argument in favor of it.  All governments in human history have been
opressive of the working class, because none of them respected the
absolute inviolable human right of each individual to his own life,
liberty and property.

Businesses in the US today--which is the closest to capitalism we've
got even though it's not very close--provide benefits to their
workers because if they didn't, companies that did would steal them
away, or workers would strike, customers would boycott, and many
other free-market solutions would bring them back in line.  That's
what freedom is all about--each man has the right to choose where
he works.  If he still "feels exploited", well, though.  That's the
way nature made the Earth--you have to work to eat.

The idea that a worker isn't keeping the fruits of his labor because
some "rich executives" are siphoning it off is naive and ignorant of
economics.  Those rich executives are as necessary to the functioning
of the company as the riveters and mail sorters.  Without the Wall
Street traders and CEO's there wouldn't be the loading dock job to
have, so yes, that worker is getting what he's worth.  Prices and
wages don't come from thin air--they come from supply and demand.  If
a worker can make a dollar more somewhere else, he will.  If an
employer can make a extra 10 cents by hiring somebody else's workers
for a dollar more than they make now, he will, because his pocket
money depends on it.

Anyone who honestly believes that workers are exploited in the US,
or even more ludicrously, that they would be exploited more under a
true capitalist economy, needs to go back to economics 101.
-- 
Lee Daniel Crocker    | Free minds; free bodies; free trade.
leecr@microsoft.com   | Libertarian Party  1-800-682-1776
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: lchsu@cantor.math.uwaterloo.ca (Leon Hsu)
Subject: Political Greens
Keywords: greens, broccoli and nuclear responsibility.
Organization: University of Waterloo
Distribution: alt
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:22:19 GMT


And here I thought this news group was to discuss soon-to-be-ex-president
Bush's dislike of broccoli and the ramafications thereof. Teaches ya
to never trust the name of a newsgroup before subscribing to it!


:)


-leon.

Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: LET'S DISCUSS NUCLEAR ENERGY!
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:48:05 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.153306.18896@hasler.ascom.ch> steinman@hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch writes:
>Case in point: liability limits for nuclear accidents *allow* nuclear
>power to exist. (It was nearly still-born, because the insurance industry
>refused to cover it at any price, but Uncle Same stepped in and said "No
>problem, if there's a catastrophic accident, we'll give everybody ten cents
>on the dollar for their losses. Doubt me? Look in *your* homeowner's policy
>under "nuclear".)

That's misleading.  NO industry has liability for all conceivable
damages; that's as true of solar as it is of nukes.  In most cases we
simply say "we'll take everything they have if things go wrong" but
the anti-nuke folk wanted more.  Since it's rather easy to generate a
semi-infinite "possible damage" figure, the obvious response is to say
"no, we're not going to play that game" with a statute, as was done in
this case.

>Case in point: most states require that auto fuel taxes be invested in auto
>infrastructure. Other countries invest their fuel taxes in public
>transportation infrastructure of all kinds, thus allowing the most efficient
>energy source to be used.

Thus ignoring the fact that there are costs other than transport
energy.  So much for "true cost" accounting.  (BTW - I notice that the
"true cost" folks don't bother to count taxes that go into the general
fund....)

>(Ever hear of the Swiss train system? I can take a train to Zurich and
>back -- two hours of travel -- for about half the cost of a tank of gas.

And, if they upped the subsidy, it would be even cheaper to the consumer.
That doesn't prove anything.

>Case in point: many electric utilities have deep discounts to heavy users.

So?  Heavy users are cheaper to supply.  They'll also agree to certain
things that make supplying them even cheaper.  There are economies of
scale.

-andy


--
From: ct533@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark S. Nelson)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: PLEASE SIGN IN!
Date: 12 Jan 1993 17:26:38 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


My name is Mark Nelson.  I was very active in the California
Green Party during the registration drive and afterwards.  I am
not currently active because of various philisophical problems
with the current state of the Green Party.  However, I have not
yet given up hope.  I still believe in the Green ideal, though
I am more of an anarchist.  
I live in Humboldt County, in northern CA.  I am also active
in drug-related issues and student politics and organizing.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens