George Carlin's Final Words To The World

[sandinista]

George Carlin on "The American Dream". The greatest 3 minutes of his career, and I think the final 3 minutes of his career.

Good stuff, too bad it has to be comedians who need to point this out. Politicians only exist to give the illusion of "choice". Democracy my ass.

It's called the american dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

[Toontown]

...said the aging leftist, nearing the end of his American dream, once again affirming himself as just another rich, pampered, whiny, hollywood bitch.

All in all, just another brick in the wall.

[charlou]

The best comedians are keenly observant and great social commentators.

[Hermit]

Carlin telling it like it is - bluntly and directly. It's not something that happens a lot since political and social activism began to lose appeal in the 1970s. The reason? Here is a hint. When the Whitlam government was sacked by the Governor general in 1974, demonstrations ensued. Whitlam, of course, encouraged them, by exhorting the voters to "maintain the rage". The size and frequency of those demonstrations diminished soon enough because - to use the words of some wit - people became too busy trying to "maintain their wage".

I also like how Carlin makes no pretense trying to be a comedian in that clip, yet his audience was very appreciative of what he said. Yes, just a drop in the bucket, but it's possibly a (re)start.

[Trolldor]

The problem with Carlin is that he goes way over the top.
Cut back what he says with a little bit of reality, and yes then he makes a valid point.
Politicians aren't an illusion, they're willing stooges.

[sandinista]

over the top how?

[Trolldor]

Americans fund and empower corporations. They, with the exception of a very small percentage of areas, have a wide variety of competitors to choose from. As consumers, en masse, they can dictate how companies operate by refusing to use a service, or puchase goods, that do not meet their standards.
But they don't because they don't care.

Carlin blames everyone but those who are at fault. The real owners of the country are those who vote in elections and who pay for products and services and who provide the labour on which these companies depend.
But the real owners are lazy, stupid and selfish. Partisan hacks who vote on ideological grounds, like you and like Toontown.
The American populous could change things for the better, and they would suffer for some time as a result, and because they would suffer they refuse to do so. They want a magic wand to fix things.

[Toontown]

The best comedians are keenly observant and great social commentators.

Observant, yes. Not great social commentators, in general, because they tend to gross exaggeration.

They apparently achieve all-knowingness when they become rich, pampered, and drugged. Or so they would have us believe.

All in all, they're all just bricks in the wall.

[sandinista]

Americans fund and empower corporations. They, with the exception of a very small percentage of areas, have a wide variety of competitors to choose from. As consumers, en masse, they can dictate how companies operate by refusing to use a service, or puchase goods, that do not meet their standards.
But they don't because they don't care.

Carlin blames everyone but those who are at fault. The real owners of the country are those who vote in elections and who pay for products and services and who provide the labour on which these companies depend.
But the real owners are lazy, stupid and selfish. Partisan hacks who vote on ideological grounds, like you and like Toontown.
The American populous could change things for the better, and they would suffer for some time as a result, and because they would suffer they refuse to do so. They want a magic wand to fix things.

I agree to an extent. Where you are wrong is that there is only an appearance of "choice" most areas of importance. The media for example. http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main
"partisan hack"...yah, OK. I also rarely vote at all. I disagree with putting the blame on citizens in general. Propaganda is a very powerful tool, especially for those who own the mass media.

[Trolldor]

Propoganda is only effective on a population willing to bend to ideological grounds.
The opposition to Health Care reform in America was, for the most part, simply because it was Government-Sponsored.

[Trolldor]

I would also like to point out the hypocrisy in refusing to vote, but complaining about those in power.

[Toontown]

Americans fund and empower corporations. They, with the exception of a very small percentage of areas, have a wide variety of competitors to choose from. As consumers, en masse, they can dictate how companies operate by refusing to use a service, or puchase goods, that do not meet their standards.
But they don't because they don't care.

What a vapid collection of misplaced electrons.

"Sheeit! This beer sucks!", mutters Joe Sixpack. "But I'm gonna to buy me another case of it anyhow. I don't know why. That's just the way The Mad Hatter says I am."

But the real owners are lazy, stupid and selfish. Partisan hacks who vote on ideological grounds, like you and like Toontown.

Don't tell me, let me guess. You assume you know how I vote because I despise neoprogs. Well, I also despise various other kinds of fanatics. Same disease, different fixations.

The American populous could change things for the better, and they would suffer for some time as a result, and because they would suffer they refuse to do so. They want a magic wand to fix things.

But...but...but there's always been a magic wand whenever we've needed one. Do you mean to say we're all out of magic wands?

"They", you say? May I assume, then, that you and your "populous" have suffered sufficiently to "change things for the better" for all of you? And you are now all living in a utopian paradise, whereas I and my "populous" are living in the bowels of hell?

OK...I nominate you to be the Head Sufferer. We need somebody to show us how it's done. You, apparently, know how it's done, having presumably done it along with your peers. So show us, Mad Hatter. Show us how to suffer to make things better. Because we never have done anything like that.

[Trolldor]

You're a partisan hack, a fanatic. You can't even see the idiocy of using the term 'Neo-Progressive'. So I suppose you prefer the 'Old-Progressives' to their contemporary counterparts.


Who does make up the Old Guard of Progressives, by the way.

[Hermit]

Carlin blames everyone but those who are at fault.

You are attempting to blame the victims. As Carlin says: The game is rigged. The victims are led to believe that they too can become rich and powerful one day, if only they work hard and work smart. It's a con trick they fall for, and that is why they embrace the system such as it is portrayed to them. They become the "aspirational classes", and get sucked in as such. They vote for the system that oppresses them because it has been drummed into them, basically since they went to kindergarten, that they too can finish up on top of the heap. What is shoved under the carpet, is that as long as there are some people who are obscenely rich and powerful, there must be masses who must by definition be not far removed from being barely able to subsist. As long as the rulers succeed pulling the wool over people's eyes with this three-card-trick, I won't be so quick in blaming the victim.

[Trolldor]

Oh?
And yet there are millions of individuals, all who express the same sentiments.
And yet, when the time comes to vote, the same people are placed in power again and again.
They buy iphones and shop at woolworths and then complain about corporate monopoly.

I'm willing to blame the victim because I've yet to see any substantive evidence that demonstrates a populous is so uneducated and isolated as to be incapable of making an informed decision.