heinleinblog

From just about every newspaper in America:

ON THIS DAY IN 1907 — Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein is born. He’s a four-time winner of the Hugo Award for best SF novel of the year and one of the giant figures in the history of the genre.

My friends at The Heinlein Society* Heinlein fans** are throwing one Hell of a birthday bash in Kansas City. Because I have to work, I can’t go. I’m not as active a following of Heinlein fandom as I once was. The job throws a kink into my social calender, and the blog soaks up a tremendous amount of time.

But I never forgot the important role the works of Robert A. Heinlein played in shaping my opinions. As I’ve written about before, I grew up in a family of Kennedy Democrats. My grandmother was a Kennedy delegate in 1960, for crying out loud. My youthful politics were liberal. I’ve stood there like an idiot with signs proclaiming that we ought to just give peace a chance.

Heinlein would have wanted to slap me upside the head and tell me to wake up. In a way, he did just that. My first Heinlein book was “Friday.” I didn’t buy it because I was impressed with all the glowing reviews of this and other Heinlein works. I bought it because the cover showed a busty blonde chick wearing a blue jump suit unbuttoned down to there. I was in junior high at the time, and the sexy passes left me flustered. The heady political commentary no doubt festered in the back of my brain.

You see, that’s how insidious Heinlein is. You read his stuff becauseit’s so damn much fun — all that violence and action — and you end up being taught tot hink for yourself. I remained a liberal Democrat for the next 15 years or so, but in retrospect, I have to admit there was always a little tinkle, a buzz, really, that was telling me that people really ought to be more self-reliant, and that I ought to not be supporting candidates who want to take away folks guns.

As much as Heinlein put the ideas in my head, it took having to work for a living for a few years that really soured me on the Democratic Party. The final straw came during the 1988 impeachment hearings for Bill Clinton, when members of the party I supported (including the years I worked as a reporter) fawned all over a man who was as far from the Heinlein heroes I respected as a man could get. Feh.

Still I knew I wasn’t a Republican or a conservative.

I came across a passage describing Heinlein as “libertarian,” so I visited a few Libertarian Party Web sites and decided I found a home. I left THAT home after 2001 when I heard LP standard bearer Harry Browne blame the United States for causing the terrorists to attack us. Heinlein would have slapped Browne silly - figuratively speaking, of course. Whether or not a more libertarian-minded foreign policy prior to Sept. 11, 2001, would have gotten the terrorists mad at us or not is debatable, but there’s no debate in my mind on what should have happened after Sept. 11, 2001. And it isn’t sitting around hoping that they don’t get mad at us again. “Starship Troopers” told us what Heinlein would have thought about that idea.

So, Heinlein left me a man without a political party to call my own. Which is where any person with a working brain ought to be.

So, Happy Birthday, RAH. Thanks for the presents.

*As commenter Audry Gifford noted, the bash was organized by autonomous group, although no doubt most are members of the Society.

** I know for a fact that several members of THS were deeply involved in centennial celebration activities. I know because before I essentially gave up Heinlein related activities due to lack of time, etc., I attended one or two online planning sessions.

[tags]heinlein,robert a heinlein[/tags]

Hey, don’t take my word for it. Read what the New York Times’ William Safire has to say in this column about the language of the Blogopshere:

So that was the coinage, right? Wait — a late entry comes in from Matt Rudary of the Heinlein Society, which has a concordance of the works of the pioneering sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein. In his 1947 short story “Space Jockey,� he named the third stage of a rocket to the moon the Moonbat, and in another story a year later, “The Black Pits of Luna,� one Heinlein character was the scoutmaster of the Moonbat Patrol.

[tags]William Safire,Moonbats,The Black Pits of Luna,Space Jockey,Heinlein[/tags]

Heinlein Society member and alt.fan.heinhlein regular Tian Harter is running for the U.S. Senate from California. He’s running on the Green Party slate.

A message from the Heinlein Society:

Dear fellow THS members,

I hope all is well with each of you. I’m writing because I have an
urgent need for help with an upcoming blood drive.

We will be running the Robert Heinlein ‘Pay it Forward’ Blood Drive at
Minicon for the second year. The convention is located in Minneapolis
and takes place over Easter weekend, April 14 - 16, with the drive
being on Saturday the 15th. I’m looking for volunteers to help with
the drive. It’s a great opportunity to get together
with other THS members and to tell others about the society while
helping to save lives.

If you are available to help for one or more days, or you know someone
reliable who can, please let me know as soon as possible. We plan to
staff the table from about 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

Please don’t let this drive fail for lack of staffing!

Thanks for paying it forward.

Regards,

Mike Sheffield
Blood Drive Chair

[tags]blood drive,minicon,pay it forward,heinlein[/tags]

Via the Heinlein Society:

The Heinlein Society (www.heinleinsociety.org) announced today that its panel of judges for the Robert A. Heinlein Award for outstanding published work in hard science fiction or technical writings inspiring the human exploration of space has chosen Mr. Larry Niven and Dr. Jerry Pournelle to be the 2005 recipients.

Sixteen years ago today, Robert A. Heinlein died. He remains the greatest science fiction writer ever, even though he is not the household name as is Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury. RAH fandom is notoriously fervent in their admiration. Many, including myself. Consider him some sort of guru.

I got most of my political beliefs from Heinlein.

Heinlein’s politics baffled many. And they baffled me, at first.

He was a liberal who campaigned for socialist Upton Sinclair in the 1930s. He campaigned against a ban on nuclear testing in the 1950s and for Barry Goldwater in the 1960s.

He advocated free love in “Stranger in a Strange Land.”

He seemed to advocate letting only veterans have the power to vote in “Starship Troopers.” That book earned him an undeserved reputation as a “fascist,” an opinion held by ignoramuses who don’t understand the true meanign of the term.

His novel “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is a primer in libertarian philosophy. He would have been disgusted by modern members of the Libertarian Party, who recently seem to blame America itself for the attacks against us. Heinlein would have enlisted on Sept. 11, had he been able.

More than anyone else, Heinlein is responsible for my evolution from a liberal Democrat into a libertarian. It didn’t happen all at once, of course. I read his books because I enjoyed them, but was disturbed by some of the radical ideas. I tried to not read any more, but doggone it, the first one was so much fun, I had to pick up another. Then another.

I made a pact with myself: I would read every single thing the man wrote, but I would not let them change my mind about anything. Nosiree. I was a liberal and I knew that was the right position because anything not liberal was conservative, and conservatives were bigots, they wanted to keep the work class down and were pro war.

So I read and enjoyed. After Heinlein died, I could only re-read his stuff. I began to admit to myself that a lot of what he was saying made sense. He certainly didn’t seem like the hateful conservative monster my parents warned me about. I read an interview in which Heinlein described himself as essentially a libertarian.

I was baffled. Wasn’t the Libertarian Party those strange people who based their campaigns on legalizing drug use and prostitution? Oh, yeah, they want the government to stop interfering with people’s lives.

Heh. ‘In a perfect world, sure,’ I thought. ‘But we need the government to help us.’

The older I got, the more I realized that the government isn’t helping.

I think it was during Clinton’s second term in office when I realized that the party for which I had been voting since I was able to do so was every bit as bad the Republicans, and that both parties were more concerned about staying in office than in living up to their principles. Besides, two decades of paying taxes so that others get rich or at least avoid their own responsibilities had taken their toll.

I joined the LP. Of course, I quit two years later after 9/11 because the LP’s position on the War on Terror is that it’s all America’s fault. Screw ‘em.

Heinlein would have punched Harry Browne in the nose if he could.

Heinlein hated to be considered anyone’s guru. His books were designed to make people think and to ask questions about what they really think about what is wrong or right. They were also about fun.

But make no mistake: If more people read Heinlein’s books and paid attention to what he was trying to say, then the world would be a better place.

Heinlein set his stories on the Moon and Mars, in the future and in alternative universes. But, they were about politics, culture, society, family, religion and sex (lots of sex). In the end, readers come away with a simple philosophy: Assume responsibility for yourself, let other people do the same, and things just might work out for the better.

It’s certainly a small-”L” libertarian system of belief. It certainly had its effect on me.

Don’t take my word for it. Go down to your bookstore and see for yourself.

You won’t get brainwashed. But it might brush away some of those cobwebs in your brain.

What’s the matter? Afraid you might learn something?

UPDATE: I cannot think of a better essay on why Heinlein is important that this article by J. Neil Schulman, posted on the Heinlein Society Website.

Geo Rule tells alt.fan.heinlein that there are some new articles at the Heinlein Society site. They include:

David Silver on “The Long Watch”

A review of Methusaleh’s Children.

Robert and Rex Heinlein at the Naval Academy, collected & compiled by D.H. Rule and G.E. Rule.

And, for devotees of our “Upcoming Additions” on the Updates page, please note J. Neil Schulman, Spider Robinson, and Tom Corbett on the horizon.

First, The Heinlein Society site just added a gallery of Bonny Doon pics.

Second, James Gifford’s site:RAH also added sections to the Heinlein FAQ page, as well as nice essay.

Nice to be back, BTW.

BWAHAHAHA!

My master plan went into effect today.

On the last of a three-day-long substitute teaching assignment, I nonchalantly asked the class: “Anyone here like to read science fiction?”

“Yes!” One teenage girl answered. “I like the older stuff.”

“Really?” I said, twirling my mustache is a Snidely Whiplash fashion. “I just *happened* to be reorganizing my bookshelves yesterday, and I found that I had more than one copy of these books …” I placed five paperbacks on the desk — “Tunnel in the Sky,” “Time For the Stars,” “Orphans in the Sky” “Double Star” and “Starman Jones.”

“You can have any of these or all of them if you like,” I said, hiding my sinister enthusiasm. “Heinlein is one of the masters of the golden age of science fiction. He’s won a ton of awards — this one won a Hugo — and they’ve done some movies of some of his work, although the books are much, much better.”

She grabbed them all, which is what any real science fan would do.

Later on, I mentioned that she could visit http://heinleinsociety.org if she wanted to learn more.

Now I must visit the used book store and restock. I went and gave away my last copy of Starman Jones.

I keep this up, soon every student in Central Illinois will be reading Heinlein! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

AUGUST 27, 2003 - The trustees of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize
Trust pledged that they will match contributions to the Heinlein Society for
the remainder of 2003 up to a total of $15,000.

Between August 27 and September 1 the Heinlein Society has raised a total
of $3,400, leaving more than $11,000 in the matching funds pledge.

We have until the end of December. Please help us gain the full benefit of
the Heinlein Prize Trust’s generous offer.

Pay it Forward!

Contribute Now

(Hat tip to David Wright)