Spider Robinson's essay: "Carry On, Singing."

[politicat]

Found here: http://www.spiderrobinson.com/carryon.htm

For anyone familiar with his writing, we could have predicted that something like this would flow from Spider's pen. (For those of you who aren't.... Gosh, how lucky you are to look forward to it!) The message, though, to "Carry on, singing" is balm for my soul.

We have a golden opportunity, right now, and we shouldn’t waste it. Take your attention away from the disaster reports on TV and radio and internet for just a moment…and take a surreptitious look at the people around you.

The racists and classists are just having too much damn fun to keep their masks on straight.

Take notes. It’s like a litmus test for scumbags. A Gagger-Counter. If you see anyone in America who is looking at that sea of universally dark-skinned faces in the Superdome, is listening to accounts of people whose loved ones died waiting for help that never came—and does not look sick and ashamed and shaken—then you know that person is a piece of shit. If you hear anybody making jokes about the refugees—and don’t give me any static about that word: they are refugees from a country they thought they were citizens of, that left them to die—you’ll never again mistake him or her for human. If you hear some jackass yammering about the blame for this tragedy belonging to a governor or a mayor, to a state or a city, you’ll know you’re almost certainly listening to a fink, who stools for Dubya and the rest of the Scudderites.

And conversely, those around you who have kindness in their true hearts will be just as unable to conceal or restrain their compassion and love. Take even better notes. Or do you already know too many kind people?

[LunaSea]

1. nice...

thanks.

[tkmorris]

2. Robinson is the man

If anyone hasn't read his stuff, try his Callahan's series. You won't be disappointed.

[artemisia1]

3. Kicked and nominated. This is priceless, especially coming from

a conservative/libertarian. I caught the references to Heinlein the novelist and Nehemiah Scudder, one of his characters who turns the U.S. into a fascist theocracy.

[mcscajun]

5. It'd be tough to call him a Libertarian Or a Conservative purely on

literary references within his work.

There's a lot more about his use of Heinlein in this interview from December 2004, but here's the discussion on his own political views:

OA ­ And what about you? Your work seems very light-hearted and full of fun. What¹s your social-political options and how does it influence your work?

SR
I'm afraid I don't know how to answer, with anything shorter than a novel.

I am not aware of ANY political party or school of thought that comes close to representing me. The best I can do is choose, year by year, the one I find the least offensive at the moment--which fluctuates so randomly that it's pointless to keep records. Heinlein's character Manuel Bernardo de la Paz in THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS defined the position he called "rational anarchism." In those terms, I guess I'd say I am an irrational anarchist.

I will say this: I think that regardless of what political philosophy he claims to represent, George W. Bush has overseen the destruction of most of the things that made America great, the corruption of its most fundamental principles, and the greatest disgrace it has earned in three centuries--with the eager cooperation of an appalling HALF of the population. Half of America does not even know what it was supposed to be--or care. The America that Robert Heinlein loved and fought for no longer exists: in its place is a country of smug thugs that detains people indefinitely without charge, counsel, visitation or due process; tortures prisoners as policy; attacks nations that have offered it no offense, on grounds known to be lies; pisses on the very concept of an international community; and has the unlimited power to suspend its own Constitution and Bill of Rights internally, any time it feels like it. A country too cheap and mean to feed its hungry, to house its homeless, to heal and medicate its ill.

I did not move to Canada for political reasons. But if I were living in America now, I would move to Canada for political reasons. I believe in my heart that America will recover its soul one day, not too far in the future, and become again what it used to be. But as Paul McCartney said, in his great song "Tug of War," "It won't come soon enough, soon enough for me."

It needs great leaders. Right now, just about every one of its leaders and potential leaders is exactly what Sting called them in one of his better songs: game show hosts.

http://tinyurl.com/8gh8l

[artemisia1]

17. Thanks for the info, I didn't know this. nt

[politicat]

7. Try "For Us, The Living."

Heinlein wasn't always a reactionary old libbie... for about half of his life he was a Socialist Dem who worked on the Upton Sinclair - EPIC (End Poverty In California) political movement. He was fond of social credit (an economic theory -where the math works- that truly puts the money in the hands of the people who own it - us), and was always socially liberal. The change came about because he truly believed that the threat of a fascist dictatorship with the Bomb was worse than anything else.

And I'd call Spider a Humanist first. (So does Ben Bova.) Try his books... they're not conservative, and only socially libertarian when it's logical. (I'm socially libertarian when it comes to marriage laws, consenting adult laws, and the like.)

[artemisia1]

4. kicked again. Needs one more nomination to appear on "Greatest".

It deserves to be there, because now we know who will ABSOLUTELY defend these people no matter what they do or how obvious their failure.

Please keep kicking this so the morning crowd gets to see it.

[mcscajun]

6. Another important passage...

But that’s not what I want this entry to be about. That stuff is personal. There is some genuinely gruesome and tragic shit going down on this continent just now. America is starting to realize that the karma driving slowly but relentlessly up its ass with outsize tires is a big old gas-guzzling brute of an SUV, driven by a smirking jackass it elected twice. The chickenshit has come home to roost. Thousands are dying because the MREs that were intended to feed them, and the National Guard that signed up to deliver those MREs, and the infrastructure they would have used to do it, are presently around the other side of the planet, being used to kill strangers for no rational reason anyone has yet managed to articulate. Babies are floating in dirty water in New Orleans, and we can all see what colour the stranded faces in the Superdome are. I honestly believe white America would have shown desperate black Americans more compassion back in the 1950s. The couple of dozen or so real terrorists that actually live on this planet (nowhere near Iraq) must be laughing their asses off as we do their work for them: the monsters are due on Maple Street. This is not a time to brag about stars I’ve met.

But it is time for all of us to heed those stars, and the message they still embody after forty years.

Teach your children well. Their fathers’ hell will slowly go by. Feed them on your dreams. Please.

http://www.spiderrobinson.com/carryon.htm

[GeorgeBushytail]

8. Please put your ass on the line. 9/11 Build Bushville, DC - bushville.org

On 9/11 survivors of Katrina will perform an act of NONVIOLENT Civil Disobedience by setting up camp on the Washington, DC Mall.

Bushville, DC will remain as long as it takes to get answers and change.

Visit http://www.bushville.org and spread the word.

We will camp on Bush's doorstep and make him face us every day until he is driven from power.

Push this website hard, please. Help make history.

Email a plug for www.bushville.org to 10 of your friends.

[kimpossible]

9. Powerful

That song always brings me to the edge of tears.

[SeanQ]

10. So true!

[Arkham House]

11. God Bless You, Spider

I read his first story in *Analog*...his first Callahan's story...and knew even then here was somebody special. Ever since, he's become someone who's been sort of a personal touchstone for me...I find that if I get too far from him, or he from me, then something's wrong...seeing him rip this lunatic regime is something more than reassuring. And his piece on NO...God. *Nobody* has gotten to the point more cogently than this,,,
And Heinlein. Yes, he went more "right" as he got older...but he never lost his idealism, his true love of this country, and his deep belief in libertarian ideals. I think he was one of the true giants of 20th century America...and he made one interesting point. In his predictions for the future he wrote in 1950--which have held up better than any other predictions, by the way--he wrote, "it is absolutely impossible that the US will fight a 'preventive' war". Little did he foresee this "administration"...

[reprehensor]

12. Thanks.

Woulda missed that.

[hunter]

13. Thank you for posting this!

If you see anyone in America who is looking at that sea of universally dark-skinned faces in the Superdome, is listening to accounts of people whose loved ones died waiting for help that never came—and does not look sick and ashamed and shaken—then you know that person is a piece of shit.

Direct and to the point.

[politicat]

14. my one and only kick

I did post this very early in the morning... What I get for having insomnia, I guess.

[ralps]

15. Thanks for the link politicat, Spider Robinson (IMHO) is one of the great

writers of the last 35 years. I love his Callahans stories & this is a great column. :hi: :loveya: :hug: :pals: :woohoo:

[GregW]

16. Don't forget "Telempath"

Great book - though probably should have stayed a novella.