Nuclear Power: The Public Reaction

A news report about the anti-nuclear protest movement, followed by a short conversation with actor and producer Michael Douglas about his film The China Syndrome, which dramatized a nuclear meltdown. Produced for the live documentary Nuclear Power: The Public Reaction.

00:28Copy video clip URL Narration about the recent protest against atomic energy over footage of demonstrators. The narrator discusses the possible future of the anti-nuclear movement.  

01:00Copy video clip URL Activist Sam Lovejoy of the Clamshell Alliance discusses property destruction and tactics he employed that were once considered too extreme by the rest of the anti-nuclear and environmentalist movements. 

02:13Copy video clip URL William A. Rusher of the National Review characterizes the anti-nuclear movement as “hysterical” and hypocritical for also opposing the pollution caused by fossil fuels. He implies that the environmentalist activists chose their cause because they had nothing else left to protest after the end of the Vietnam War. He criticizes Daniel Ellsberg and Jane Fonda. 

03:40Copy video clip URL Marjorie Stamberg, a socialist activist belonging to the Spartacist League, criticizes the protests for not being forward looking. 

04:15Copy video clip URL A report from Nick Demartino in front of the Capital Building in Washington, D.C. Demartino speaks with activists about the anti-nuclear and environmentalist movements. 

06:44Copy video clip URL Demartino contextualizes the anti-nuclear protesters within other protest movements of the 1970s and speculates that the debate may foreshadow the politics of the 1980s. 

07:19Copy video clip URL End of video. 

07:32Copy video clip URL A reporter asks actor Michael Douglas about the development of the film The China Syndrome, a thriller about a nuclear meltdown. He discusses trying to address a large audience with an “entertaining picture” rather than making an overly activist film.

10:56Copy video clip URL End of video.