
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 27, 1995                   TAG: 9506270034
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN POE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOLLYWOOD'S SCHOOL FOR PARANOIA

AS A MEMBER of Generation W (post-hippie ... pre-preppie), I would like to suggest that the militias (and any other conservative group, according to Time magazine) shouldn't have to take full credit for the distrust of government today. In case you have forgotten, Hollywood has been marketing paranoia for years.

Here's a small list of paranoia plots:

"The Andromedia Strain": Government scientists screw up on biological-warfare experiments and lots of innocent citizens pay the ultimate price.

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind": Government elitists decide to make ordinary citizens look like buffoons rather than let them in on their communications with aliens. They even kill animals and force evacuations from phony natural disasters to guarantee their isolation from any publicity.

"E.T.": Big, mean government elitists play hardball to capture and control fun-loving, ugly aliens who like Reese's Pieces.

"Sneakers": While Robert Redford blames George Bush for all the social ills of the world, he also belittles honest citizens and encourages the belief that the world revolves around whoever possesses the best security system.

"J.F.K.": Oliver Stone (definitely not your militia-supporting, gun-toting conservative) blames everybody's uncle and brother in the government for killing Kennedy. Personally, I think Marilyn Monroe did it. She faked her death and, after having plastic surgery done on her breast from a doctor who once made traffic cones for the highway department, she resurfaced as Madonna.

"Die Hard [1 and 2]": Government officials are Buffoons with a capital B. And the ones who aren't Buffoons are secretly members of ultraright dictatorial death squads.

"Three Days of the Condor": Government infighting results in interdepartmental gunslinging and massacre. The government controls the press, too!

I could go on (and on and on and on), but the point is that for years we have marketed the distrust, incompetency, stupidity and evil of government. Add to that some real situations, mixed with a whole spread of tabloid doggie dodo (which presidential candidate will the aliens support in '96?), and it's no wonder we as a public have little confidence in our elected officials. To blame some particular group for what we've been breeding for years is just plain paranoia.

Ben Poe is a computer-systems engineer at Virginia Tech.

by CNB