The newer version with improved introduction
Up front:
Take Back your Government by Robert A. Heinlein (
2012 version,
1992 version) deserves a much better, more in depth review, with action points spelled out for others to c&p.
However, I apologize, I don't have time to reread it before tomorrow's event, so I'm going to hack together reviews by others and additional information to hopefully encourage you to at least get the 2012 Kindle edition and enjoy a folksy read that wants YOU to step up, as Bernie keeps asking us each to do for the sake of democracy's survival.
Written in 1946 and sadly unpublished until 1992, after Heinlein's death in 1988, Take Back Your Government is meant as a hands-on practical guide to doorbell ringing, stamp licking, and other effective grassroots strategies and tactics.
Heinlein is a master of English writing, engaging the reader with word choice and structure that keeps you turning pages. Caveat, you'll need to put on those peril sensitive sunglasses that you wear when engaging with loved ones that come from a different era or political mileau, as some of the personalities that he describes are portrayed in ways that would not fly in the 21st century. Example, "women vote like their husbands do" -- still true in parts of America, but doesn't address the new reality that women might vote unlike their wife does. Seasoned readers of Heinlein know that he wrote in detail on the merits of even more radical structures for consensual family building, so again apply some filters to your reading about his observations of what he knew in 1946 to be accurate.
And if you like this book, you might dig his science fiction. I started with The Number of the Beast and couldn't put it down, and ran through most of his other post-Stranger in a Strange Land books, while skipping here and there through his earlier novels.
To provide a bit of context about Heinlein as a politician, this is from the 2012 forward by William Patterson:
By 1964, this Wellsian socialist and practicing Democratic politician was working for Barry Goldwater's Republican presidential campaign--and then went on the very next year to write the strongest of all statements of the modern libertarian vision, in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (published 1966).
[Wellsian socialism: developed by H.G. Wells, of
War of the Worlds fame. And then there's the socialist/Goldwater/libertarian streak -- pretty much every flavor, right? Ok, maybe not Green. When did the Green party get rolling?]
The Amazon reviews for the 1992 version point out that the introduction by Jerry Pournelle is rather debbie-downer, this can't work anymore, etc. Pournelle's notes & edits only go halfway through the book, in a rush to publish while Ross Perot was running. The Patterson intro to 2012 is more thoughtful and encouraging, and 30 years fresher, with keen understanding of populist outrage, including Occupy Wall Street.
The reviews on Amazon for the 1992 and 2012 editions are distinct, and each set is worth skimming for more details on how Heinlein suggests actionable steps you (and anyone else at a Bernie'n-Down-The-House party) can take to add value to the potluck of grassroots campaigning.
And now, a direct invitation for you, from Heinlein himself:
If you have a gnawing, uneasy feeling that you should be doing something to preserve our freedoms and to protect and improve our way of life but have been held back by lack of time, lack of money, or the helpless feeling that you individually could not do enough to make the effort worthwhile, then this book was written for you.
The individual, unpaid and inexperienced volunteer citizen in politics, who is short on both time and money, can take this country away from the machine politicians and run it to suit himself—if he knows how to go about it.
This book is a discussion of how to go about it, with no reference to particular political issues. I have my own set of political opinions and some of them are almost bitter in their intensity, but, still more strongly, I have an abiding faith in the good sense and decency of the American people. Many are urging you daily as to what you should do politically; I hope only to show some of the details of how you can do it—the mechanics of the art.
Note: Heinlein's book is not to be confused with another book from 2012 with almost the exact same title by
Morgan Carroll, Colorado State Senator, nor with this other one by
Daniel Rice that includes Heinlein's title at the end of the main title.
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