Word: paranoia
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Like the nuclear arms race, the space race is characterized by rhetorical half-truths, hysterical warnings and a sizable dose of governmental paranoia. Robert Jastrow, founder of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goodard Institute for Space Studies, has asserted in a recent New York Times Magazine article that "since Sputnik, Moscow has undertaken a massive military space program that appears designed to do nothing less than control space." But apart from shadowy references to a 1957 speech by then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Jastrow's case against the USSR relied mainly on speculation...
...poison and paranoia have mostly gone out of the issue of race in Alabama. (Look for them more in South Boston, say, there in a cradle of abolitionism.) The countryside is peaceful now along the route from Selma to Montgomery, through Dallas County and "bloody Lowndes," the old Black Belt over which so many gusts of racial violence have passed. But still one looks across the cotton fields at the tall, deep Alabama forests that are primordially rich and inviting and sinister...
Tough being a cow. Since 1969 there have been 10,000 killed and mutilated in the Western states. That is documented. Thereafter, speculation begins. Is this the work of religious cults? Little green men from Mars? Endangered Species opts for paranoia. It is all the product of a right-wing conspiracy that needs livers to test chemical-warfare agents. If you take the sensible view that any plot requiring more than three people to keep their mouths shut is bound to fail, this premise will seem far fetched. For as the story develops, we see that hundreds are involved...
...paranoia conveyed by Blade Runner's setting should argument the film's theme: The enemy has infiltrated our society and cannot be distinguished from us. This premise, which worked so well in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, fails miserably here. The dazzling effects and set are the entire movie; plot and characterization are virtually nonexistent. Scott, director of Alien, should know how to make believable sci-fi by now. For Blade Runner, he teamed with special effects magician Douglas Trumbull, of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the dashing Harrison Ford, star of last year's smash Raiders...
...free world desperately wants he Jews to have a country. That is why we have for so long encouraged their nationalism. Unfortunately, they are now going beyond nationalism. They are paranoid, thinking they have no allies. If they continue in their aggressive drive, their paranoia will come full circle. Their worst fears will be realized...