Ray Bradbury hates big government: 'Our country is in need of a revolution'

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Los Angeles Times:

Ray Bradbury is mad at President Obama, but it's not about the economy, the war or the plan to a construct a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City.

“He should be announcing that we should go back to the moon,” says the iconic author, whose 90th birthday on Aug. 22 will be marked in Los Angeles with more than week's worth of Bradbury film and TV screenings, tributes and other events. “We should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever."

The man who wrote "Fahrenheit 451," "Something Wicked This Way Comes," "The Martian Chronicles," "Dandelion Wine"and "The Illustrated Man" has been called one of America's great dreamers, but his imagination takes him to some dark places when it comes to contemporary politics. “I think our country is in need of a revolution."

“There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people.”

The native of Waukegan, Ill., has never been shy about expressing himself -- he described President Clinton with a word that rhymes with "knithead" back in 2001-- nor is he timid about correcting people when it comes to his own perceived legacy. Bradbury chafes, for instance, at the description of his work as science fiction -- in the past he has pointed out that, to his mind, "Fahrenheit 451"is the only sci-fi book in his vast body of work -- and despite his passion for more national space projects, he is not technology obsessive by any means.

“We have too many cellphones. We've got too many Internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.”

Bradbury wrote darkly about bookburning in "Fahrenheit 451," but he sounds ready to use a Kindle for kindling. “I was approached three times during the last year by Internet companies wanting to put my books" on an electronic reading device, he said. "I said to Yahoo, 'Prick up your ears and go to hell.'"
________

Ray Bradbury goes into cranky old man mode.

[Argyle58]

Since I am known as the office curmudgeon because I still insist on using books to do my legal research, and I hate cell phones and most of the "things" folks insist they need these days, I have to say "HOORAY" for Mr. Bradbury's opinions in these matters.

 

As for his opinions about Zero, apparently a majority of the American people feel the same. We need more "cranky old men" to speak out.

[Geee]

I am not completely sure-but I think that Bradbury is a lib.

[Argyle58]

I am not completely sure-but I think that Bradbury is a lib.

 

If he is, we need more libs like him. I don't know that he has ever made a public comment about his political leanings, but his novel Farenhiet 451, published in 1953, warned of the dangers of political correctness 30 years before the term was even coined, as well as the folly of allowing liberal tendencies to become national policies.

 

As a writer, Bradbury's social commentary is very much Orwellian, although more subtle. Whatever his private thoughts, those ideas that he has put forth in his professional career are anything but liberal.

[Geee]

Boy was I wrong. Ray Bradbury quotes:

 

[George W. Bush is] wonderful. We needed him. Clinton is a s***head and we're glad to be rid of him. And I'm not talking about his sexual exploits. I think we have a chance to do something about education.... It doesn't matter who does it -- Democrats or Republicans -- but it's long overdue. (Salon.com, August 29, 2001)

 

The great thing is our counter-revolution that occurred in the polls a few weeks ago. I think it's great. All the Democrats are out and the Republicans are going to have a chance in a couple of years. It doesn't make a difference what party you belong to--it's a chance for a fresh start. It's very exciting. (Speaking about the "Republican Revolution" of 1994)

[Sanguine]

I am not completely sure-but I think that Bradbury is a lib.

 

Well, I'm a liberal, too. Of the classical sort, and untainted by "progressivism".