"Robert A. Heinlein - Take back your Government" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

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 What he did have to contribute was honesty, patriotism, and a willingness
to strive for what he thought was right it made him boss of a key county in a
key state - when he was past seventy and broke.
I digress. This book will have many digressions; politics is like that, as
informal as an old shoe, and the digressions may be the most important part.
It is sometimes hard to tell what is important in the practical art of politics.
Charles Evans Hughes failed to become president because his manager was
on bad terms with a state leader and thereby failed to see to it that the
candidate met the local leader on one particular occasion in one California
City. The local campaign lost its steam because the local leader's nose was
out of joint over the matter.
Mr. Hughes lost the state of California; with its electoral vote he would
have become president. A switch of less than nineteen hundred votes in the
city in which the unfortunate incident occurred would have made Mr. Hughes
the wartime president during World War I. The effect on world history is
incalculable and enormous. It is entirely possible that we would have been in
a League of Nations (not the League - that was Woodrow Wilson's League);
it is possible that Hitler would never have come to power; it is possible that
World War II would never have occurred and that your nephew who fell at
Okinawa would be alive today.
We cannot calculate the consequences. But we do know that world history
was enormously affected by a mere handful of votes, less than one percent
of one percent -less than one ten-thousandth of the total vote cast.
An active political club6 can expect to deliver to the polls on election day,
through unpaid volunteers driving their own cars, as many votes as the
number that swung the 1916 presidential election. It could be your club and
an organization you helped to build.
Which is why you must now telephone the local club secretary. It may be
your chance to prevent, by your own direct and individual action, World War
III!
The club secretary, Jim Ballotbox, will not give you the brush off. Even if it
is a tight machine organization, founded on graft and special privilege, an
honest-to-goodness volunteer who is willing to work is more to be desired
than fine gold, yeah, verily! If it is that sort of a club, presently you will be
offered cash for your efforts, anywhere from five dollars per precinct per
campaign on the west coast, through five dollars per day during the
campaign in the middle west, to a sound and secure living month in and
month out on the east coast.
(These figures do not refer to the Republican Party, as such, nor to the
Democratic Party. They refer to the Machine, no matter what its label.)
Don't take the money. Remain a volunteer. You will be treated with
startled response. Every time you turn down money you will automatically be
boosted one rung in the party councils. And the progress is very fast.


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 But, no matter which sort of club it is, you will be welcomed with open