Re: Phonemes

I have been going over this thread and I would like to attempt a summary
of what has been said so far between myself and Peter T. Daniels, the
questions asked and the questions answered/not answered, and my further
comments.

Peter T. Daniels: Heinlein is superficial.

David Wright Sr: I didn't originally ask about this one. I would suggest
that he read Bill Patterson and Andrew Thornton's, _A Martian Named Smith_,
Nitrosyncretic Press and any of the articles in The Heinlein Journal or
attend any of the discussion panels on Heinlein at the conventions to see the
falsity of this claim. Also, there is something to be said about an author
whose works are actively being discussed in a number of venues, 17 years
after his death and 66 years after the publication of his first story.
Check out alt.books.isaac.asimov and compare the number of posts and the
number of people posting on it vs. alt.fan.heinlein.
----------------------------
Peter T. Daniels: He expressed his right-wing nutcase-hood in Starship
Troopers and in "The Roads Must Roll" and the other stories in that
collection.

David Wright Sr: The only claim that I am aware of for _Starship Troopers_
being 'fascistic' is that supposedly 'the government was controlled by the
military'. I made a sarcastic comment to this and pointed out how it was
not true. PTD made no reply to that. (See my comments below on this subject).
----------------------------
Peter T. Daniels: His utopian futures were clearly fascistic.

David Wright Sr: I asked him to point which stories were about 'utopian
futures' and which, if any, were deemed to be 'fascistic' other than in the
special case where RAH wrote 'against' such. No response.
----------------------------
Peter T. Daniels: He discovered sex.

David Wright Sr: I made no comment with respect to this. I have heard this
many times and have never received any answer to as to what it even means.
PTD could do us all a favor by giving his interpretation.
----------------------------
Peter T. Daniels: He failed to handle the paradox of the 'letter never
written' in "By His Bootstraps". Asimov would never have made that mistake.

David Wright Sr: I pointed out the fallacy in this, PTD made no further
comments on the subject.
----------------------------
Peter T. Daniels: Doesn't try to talk about the subject, but instead
claims that attempts to clarify the subject by quoting Dictionary
definitions is the last refuge of the 'argumentless'.

David Wright Sr: I offered common definitions of the term 'fascism' and
asked him to show how any of RAH's stories would fit any of those
definitions. He didn't respond at all to that and simply said I was
'argumentless" for giving those definitions. I asked him for his
definition.
----------------------------
Peter T. Daniels: He uses the definition of 'fascism' to be "... the total
merger of corporate and government interests."

David Wright Sr: Given his definition, I asked him again to name stories
which fit that definition. BTW, Anyone who has read _Starship Troopers_
will fail to find any aspect of that book which fits this definition. The
sole mention of any corporate interest in the book was Emilio Rico's
reference that his company had been asked to bid on military components
before the final outbreak of hostilities.
----------------------------
Peter T. Daniels: He 'knows' about the 'Peace Corp' loophole in _Starship
Troopers_.

David Wright Sr: I asked him to clarify this. No response.
----------------------------
Peter T. Daniels: He talks about having had the experience of listening to
some radio talk show person who liked Heinlein and promoted his ideas. He
doesn't like this person because, (apparently in addition to liking
Heinlein), he also narrated a motion picture that he, (Daniels), thought was
terrible.

David Wright Sr: I asked him what any of this had to do with 'fascism' and
Heinlein. No Response.

==========================================================================
Due to PTD's mentioning of "The Roads Must Roll" in connection to his
definition. I came up with the following:
--Begin of Quote---
"See?" said Gaines, with more animation in his voice, "See? That is the
real purpose of the United States Academy of Transport. That is the reason
why the transport engineers are a semi-military profession, with strict
discipline. We are the bottle neck, the sine qua non, of all industry, all
economic life. Other industries can go on strike, and only create
temporary and partial dislocations. Crops can fail here and there and the
country takes up the slack. But if the roads stop rolling, everything else
must stop; the effect would be the same as a general strike--with this
important difference: it takes a majority of the population, fired by a
real feeling of grievance to create a general strike; but the men that run
the roads, few as they are, can create the same complete paralysis.

We had just one strike on the roads, back in 'sixty-six'. It was
justified, I think, and it corrected a lot of real abuses--but it mustn't
happen again."

"But what is to prevent it happening again, Mr. Gaines."

"Morale--esprit de corps. The technicians in the road service are
indoctrinated constantly with the idea that their job is a sacred trust.
Besides which we do everything we can to build up their social position.
But even more important is the Academy. We try to turn out graduates
engineeers imbued with the the same loyalty, the same iron self-discipline,
and determination to perform their duty to the community at any cost, that
Annapolis, West Point and Goddard are so successful in inculating in their
graduates."
---End of Quote---

Accepting only for the sake of discussion, that the United States Academy
of Transport is, in fact, the same kind of government institution that
Annapolis, West Point and the fictional Goddard are, there is absolutely
no indication that such a relationship exists between *any other* form of
industry and the government. It exists here only because of the extreme
importance of the industry. Actually, there is no strict evidence either
for or against the notion that the USAT is a government institution. The
only textual evidence that we have is that it is run along the same lines
as the government academies and tries to achieve the same type of results.

Nowhere in this quoted text nor in the rest of the story is there any
indication of "the total merger of corporate and government interests".

"The Roads Must Roll" is stereotypical of the Heinlein 'What If..' story
based on the technique of taking some change(s) in technology or society and
extrapolating what the consequences might be. Here he postulates a method of
getting around a severe limitation on the oil supply to the point that only
the military would have access to it for defense purposes, the invention of
the sun-power screen and the moving beltway and tries to suggest some results
of that 'what if' situation.

BTW, it is interesting to note that Lazarus Long in _Methusaleh's Children_,
speaks disgustedly about the 'worst dinosaurs that the human race had saddled
it self with', the 'moving roadways'.

Oh yes, one other thing. This story proves that Heinlein was anti-union
since he brought 'military' force to quell the 'strikers'. It is clear that
RAH did no such thing. The bulk of the union was represented by Harvey, a
founder and well-respected member of the transport worker's union and who was
killed by the 'strikers'. It was also made clear that this was a very small
group of dissidents who had been collected together in one place to get
sufficient strength to carry out their threat. There was no general strike
nor sympathy with any of the unions with this action.

None of the other stories in the first volume of "The Future History",
_The Man Who Sold The Moon_, has any reference to either the dictionary
definitions that I quoted, which PTD disdained, nor to that given by him.

There is also no hint in the entire "Future History" stories that any of
the future societies are 'utopian'. All of them had normal warts just like
present day ones.

One might claim that Heinlein is anti-authoritarian. In fact, I have heard
that. Look at the number of works which deal with 'rebelling against
authority'. _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_, _Between Planets_, _Red
Planet_,"Logic of Empire", "The Long Watch", "If This Goes On...",
MacKinnon in "Coventry", even Sam and Max in _Starman Jones_, and others.
However, it must be conceded that most of these 'authorities' *needed* to be
rebelled against and that the rebels were 'the good guys'.

I have also heard the claim that he is authoritarian, Note: "lifeboat
rules" in _The Number Of The Beast_, and _Farnham's Freehold_ where
absolute obediance to authority was required.

He is said to be 'militaristic'. Note: _Starship Troopers_.

He is said to be 'anti-militaristic'. Note: _Space Cadet_ where it is
quoted that the purpose of the Space Patrol is to keep WMD out of the
hands of the military. BTW, the graduates of the Space Patrol Academy were
indoctrinated with the same kind of importance to duty as that of the 'road'
workers and engineers.

He is said to be 'socialistic'. Note: _Beyond This Horizon_ and _For Us,
The Living_, where money is created based on productivity and doled out among
the population.

He is said to be 'capitalistic'. Note: _Time Enough For Love_ and the
LL's control of the money supply on New Beginnings.

He is said to be jingoistic. Note: The justification for expanding through
the universe in _Starship Troopers_.

He is said to be non-jingoistic. Note: The speech of Bonforte's in _Double
Star_ where he speaks of dealing honestly and non-belligerently with
non-humans.

He is said to be anti-feminist. Note: His 'women' are all 'beautiful' and
serve only as 'sex objects', unless they are among the large number of
old, fat, complaining biddies. His so-called 'competent' women are
'unbelievable'. (This of course ignores the fact that his wife Ginny served
as the model for his 'unbelievable' women and could actually do many of the
things that his fictional 'competent' women did.)

He is said to be feminist: He has women characters who are all smart, and
competent, except for a lot of old, fat, complaining biddies.

And so on and so on, ad nauseam.

I would be interested in seeing if Mr. Daniels can provide textual proof for
any of his claims.

I have no objection to someone who doesn't like Heinlein. There are a lot of
authors whom I don't like. What I do object to is making up or repeating in
public false claims as the basis for that dislike.

David Wright Sr.
.

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