mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein) (09/12/86)
I find it a little strange that people are trying to use what an author has a fictional character say, to indict the author's character. Does this mean that, if someone writes a story where a major character is a terrorist, the author is one also? If you truely wish to discuss Heinlein's political views, the place to start would be where Heinlein actually states his views. To quote from "Expanded Universe" by Robert A. Heinlein, pp. 145-146: ...The general public is just as dangerously ignorant as to the significance of nuclear weapons today, 1979, as in 1945 - but in different ways. In 1945 we were smugly ignorant; in 1979 we have the Pollyannas, and the Ostriches, and the Jingoists, who think we can "win" a nuclear war, and the group - a majority? - who regard World War III as of no importance compared with inflation, gasoline rationing, forced school-busing, or you name it. There is much excuse for the ignorance of 1945; the citizenry had been hit by ideas utterly new and strange. But there is no excuse for the ignorance of 1979. Ignorance today can be charged only to stupidity and laziness - both capital offences. I wrote nine articles intended to shed light on the post-Hiroshima age, and I have never worked harder on any writing, researched the background more thoroughly, tried harder to make the (grim and horrid) message entertaining and readable. I offered them to commercial markets, not to make money, but because the only propaganda that stands any chance of influencing people is packaged so attractively that editors will buy it in the belief that the cash customers will be entertained by it. Mine was not packaged that attractively. ... But I continued to write these articles until the USSR rejected the United State's proposals for controlling and outlawing atomic weapons through open skies and mutual on-the- ground inspection, i.e. every country in the world to surrender enough of its sovereignty to the United Nations that mass weapons war would become impossible (and lesser war unnecessary). The USSR rejected inspection - and I stopped trying to peddle articles based on tying the Bomb down through international policing. I wish that I could say that thirty-three years of "peace" (i.e. no A- or H- or C- or N- or X bombs dropped) indicates that we really have nothing to fear from such weapons, but because the human race has sence enough not to commit suicide. But I am sorry to say that the situation is even more dangerous, even less stable, than it was in 1946 ... If this isn't proof enough to end this silly charge against Heinlein, I can quote more. -- Michael V. Stein Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation - Technical Services UUCP ihnp4!dicome!meccts!mvs