Robert Heinlein: REVOLT IN 2100.
The man who condones the sin because he enjoys the results of the sin is equally guilty of the sin.
Successful revolution is big business – make no mistake about that. In a modern, complex, and highly industrialized state, revolution is not accomplished by a handful of conspirators whispering around a guttering candle in a deserted ruin. It requires countless personnel, supplies, modern machinery and modern weapons. And to handle these factors successfully there must be loyalty, secrecy, and superlative organization.
I think perhaps of all the things a police state can do to its citizens, distorting history is the most pernicious.
…Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy… censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy its motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked: contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything – you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
http://www.quotableheinlein.com/
(the typos are mine, not bob’s)
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“I think perhaps of all the things a police state can do to its citizens, distorting history is the most pernicious.”
The day of realization that we live in a police state is frightening. Texas School Board, anyone?
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That is why Heinlein needs to be taught to today’s kids. The reason why i don’t have THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS and A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND to reread now is because it is at my Mom’s, on a bookshelf in the basement where all her grandchildren hang out about twice a year. I occasionally tell them that those are books that they really, really need to read sometime and that they will enjoy the books.
I hope they read this stuff. Maybe Heinlein is what I need to give them for Christmas too. Or at least one of them. The most Bush-like of all of them.
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LOL
Go vote, uni. We’ll still be here. ;->
We don’t have early voting, here, or I would have done it already. There’s zero chance I’ll change my mind. I can’t understand how anyone can be undecided, at this point.
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it is over for me
I simply have very little emotional investment in this election. I don’t like either party, one is only slightly worse than the other.
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To reward myself for voting, I bought an ice cream sandwich. While I was doing that, some crop-haired fella needed to know how to get to Leavenworth. I told him “You going to see those masters of war, are you?” He balked at that.
And told him how to get there. He was nice.I mean, the reality is that no one is enlisting, recruitment officers are committing suicide, and war is not popular at this point in time. Bush will be the end of our strong military as we know it to have once been.
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Icy and all,
You have got to listen to this podcast:
Courtney Brown, Emory University.
http://www.courtneybrown.com/classes/podcasts.htmlScience Fiction and Politics
Scroll down to THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, parts 1,2 and 3.Fascinating stuff, especially when viewing this election.
Is the tea party a way of preparing the masses?
Questions:
Is Freemasonry in place to implement revolutions should the need ever arise?
Do we need to increase their numbers? They still don’t allow women, so they must not really need the numbers.
But don’t you think we need to boost the strength of that org to implement revolutions should we ever need it in this country?
I find Heinlein really quite supportive of the Freemasons, at least what I have read so far, and from what I remember from my Heinlein reading binge decades ago. -
Just listened to it on an iTunes podcast.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/riggenbach4.1.1.html
Was Robert A. Heinlein a Libertarian?
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According to that podcast, with the link of it transcribed above, or the podcast read the article, Heinlein’s politics was pretty much defined, so says Asimov, by his wives. I have alway thought of Heinlein as an early feminist. But now, Asimov casts doubt on that. Maybe Heinlein just catered to the ladies in his life just to get some. Who knows?! I would certainly be attracted to that brain. But I do know that Heinlein did not believe in monogamy.
http://www.quotableheinlein.com/html/home.html
Welcome to Quotable Heinlein
From politics I have come to believe the following:
(1) Most people are basically honest, kind and decent.
(2) The American people are wise enough to run their own affairs. The do not need Fuehrers, Strong Men, Technocrats, Commissars, Silver Shirts, Theocrats, or any other sort of dictator.
(3) Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them don’t want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit them to raise families in decent comfort without fear of the future. They want the least government necessary to this purpose and don’t greatly mind what the other fellow does as long as it does not interfere with them living their own lives. As a people we are neither money mad nor prying. We are easy-going and anarchistic. We may want to keep up with the Joneses — but not with the Vanderbilts. We don’t like cops.
(4) Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and constitutions. It is a living, dynamic process which must be worked at by you yourself — or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remains.
(5) One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbors prefer it that way — prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs. Hitler’s government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.
(6) Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented by the human race. On the record, it has worked better in peace and in war than fascism, communism, or any other form of dictatorship. As for the mythical yardstick of ‘benevolent’ monarchy or dictatorship — there ain’t no such animal!
(7) A single citizen, with no political connections and no money, can be extremely effective in politics.
Take Back Your Government – A Practical Handbook for the private citizen who wants democracy to work.By Robert A. Heinlein.
Copyright 19962 by Mrs. Virginia Heinlein.
The preface indicates that the book was completed in April, 1946.
The quote is from the Chapter 1 (pages 3 and 4 in the Baen Paperback edition published August, 19962.)
Submitted by Robert A. Henlein in Take Back Your Government – Bill Nelson on bill.nelson@mail.sprint.com.
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Heinlein wrote, in REVOLT IN 2100:
“…The index of a word isn’t fixed like the twelve inches in a foot; it is a complex, variable function depending on context, age, sex and occupation of the listener, the locale and a dozen other things. An index is a particular solution of the variable that tells you whether a particular word used in a particular fashion to a particular reader or type of reader will affect the person favorably, unfavorably, or simply leave him cold.Given proper measurements of the group addressed it can be as mathematically exact as any branch of engineering. We never have all the data we need so it remains an art – but a very precise art, especially as we can employ “feedback” through field sampling.”
Words matter.
Bush never really used the best words for the situation. Or if he did, he was merely singing to the choir, and not as persuasion. And his choice of words, for me, was extremely off-putting. He never once resonated with me. He just had the wrong words.
Oh heck, sometimes I regret learning about Alfred Korzybski. And sometime I think he was god.
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