George Carlin, GOOD American

[DFW]

A few years back, some right-wing whack job made up a neo-fascist rant, and, being too cowardly to sign his name to it, falsely attributed it to comedian George Carlin, calling it "George Carlin, bad American." Carlin denounced it soon afterward, but it still circulated among right-wing extremists on the internet for quite a while after that. Here is the REAL George Carlin (RIP), trashing both Republican robots and the interests that so expertly pull their strings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI&feature=related

After seeing so many insane, almost deliberately misinformed right wing rants and "tea" parties, it seemed appropriate to listen to this again.

[zbdent]

1. one of the best clues of GC being a non-RWer ...

his opposition of school uniforms being mandatory ... said it was tried before ... in the 1930s in Germany ...

[IntravenousDemilo]

2. I can't help getting the impression...

... that since the United States began, every single President has had a clandestine meeting some time during his first day in office, maybe in the wee, small hours of the morning, with a group consisting of the most powerful business interests of the country, who told him in no uncertain terms exactly how much power the President doesn't have, and that he'd better be careful who he pissed off. "Yes, it's fine to make promises to the people, but don't imagine for a moment you're in charge."

[DFW]

5. Not inconceivable

Since after Jefferson (and definitely after Lincoln), anyway,
although I can imagine that Teddy Roosevelt would have more
than one shouting match with them, if this is at all true.

[Zomby Woof]

12. Lincoln was a corporate lawyer

He defended the railroads and other powerful business interests for years before the White House. This mindsest didn't change as president. Fitting that the first Republican president was just as much of a tool as the ones following him. This inconvenient truth gets obscured because of the war he presided over.

[MADem]

3. George Carlin, Dead American....I still really miss that guy. NT

[DFW]

6. Me too!

Carlin was to unchained political commentary what Howard Dean is to civil political commentary.

[Echo In Light]

4. Here's the longer, more controversial version of that clip...

...where at the beginning he denounces consumerism, and at the conclusion states that "Americans will remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGyObuH3WTY

Also, yes, He hated that sappy "Good American" bullshit...and here's more:

George Carlin on American Bullshit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf7gxxLYij8&feature=PlayList&p=430A1770F9CE9D11&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=32

"no one questions things in this country"

And Carlin on 9/11 inside job ("they don't investigate themselves in this country:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pow5_UYKaJ8

[Echo In Light]

7. Bump

[Deep13]

8. I knew it wasn't him when I got the e-mail.

No one that funny can write anything that stupid.

[DFW]

9. Good point. I remember what he said when asked about Clinton

" If there were only one cherry pie in the world, and Bill Clinton owned it,
I might get a piece of it. If Bush or Reagan owned it, you'd have to kill
them to get a piece of pie. "

Once you knew THAT was the real George Carlin, you also know he never had
anything to do with that right-wing garbage falsely attributed to him.

[Richard Steele]

10. He pretended to be a comedian, but HISTORY will remember him as a philosopher.

He was a brilliant man, and this world was diminished by his passing.

[DFW]

11. A philosopher! You might be on to something

My German wife saw his routine on "Stuff," and remarked that he was an astute observer of
society. She found his routine funny, but wasn't aware that he was primarily known as a
comedian until I explained who he was.

[Richard Steele]

13. In its purest form, HUMOR is TRUTH...

...only FASTER.

I've been saying he was a philosopher for YEARS now.
And I'm certainly not the only one.

Sure, he started out as a COMIC...some of that stuff he did
back in the '70s was just a bunch of throwaway one-liners.

But he found his VOICE, he became experienced at the ebb and flow
of "audience control" that we call SHOWMANSHIP,
and he used all that
to provide some genuine INSIGHT into the human condition.

And he did it so well that I once INJURED myself
from laughing so hard:
"Tell your 'Captain' that Air Marshal Carlin says GO FUCK HISSELF!!!!"
OMG, that rib still twinges abit on cold days.




Hey, totally off-topic, but something I've wondered about:
if your wife is German, could she tell me if "Farfugnuugen"
is really a WORD, or is that some crap that VW Admen invented
to foist onto us stupid USA consumers?
I've always wondered.

[DFW]

15. Well, your spelling is a little unorthodox, but....

Fahrvergnügen is indeed a word (my German is pretty much fluent, and she's in bed already).
It translates out roughly as "pleasure of driving."

It is NOT a word I would use to apply to VW cars, though. After a truck demolished my wife's
car last fall (with her in it, but she managed to crawl out of the wreck intact), we started
looking at replacements. I like Toyotas, but for some reason the ones they had here were crap.
So we went to check out mid-range VW stuff, Passat and Audi. Passat has some new environmental
model, so we asked to look at it, but no one could get their hands on one. Pass. My wife was
interested in Audis, and had heard from friends who had them and liked them. So we tried out
the A3 and A4, both sedan and station wagons. They looked nice and had fancy gadgets but drove
like crap. We were pretty much shocked, as we had been led to expect much better machines. We
ended up spending an extra 20% and going back to the brand she had before, as it drove like a
dream: Fahrvergnügen for real. Plus, if another drunken truck driver decides he wants a rematch,
she'll again have a fighting chance of surviving the encounter.

My wife's mother lives in a tiny village in the flat farm country in the northwest of Germany,
one of the few places that is not accessible by bus or train. So she drives up to see her mom
frequently. The cemeteries up there are FULL of 20-somethings who drive drunk at 120 mph on
the tiny country roads there, and I'm scared shitless every time she drives there (including
when I go with her).

*on edit--I have driven with a guy who owns an Audi 8, and THAT is one HELL of a car. But it
is too big for what we want, and at 100,000 euros, ever so slightly out of our price range.

[Richard Steele]

16. Thanks so much. My tiny brain has one LESS question bouncing around inside it now.

And with a brain like mine, every little bit helps!

I owe you one. :thumbsup:

[DFW]

19. I'll never remember to cash it in. Consider this one a freebie!

[Echo In Light]

14. Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, & Carlin all used the medium as a form for social critique

And hence all sang well above range for having done so.

[Richard Steele]

17. Yup. Do you remember what Lenny Bruce said FIRST to the sold-out crowd...

...at his performance the day after they killed JFK?

The NATION was in mourning, the crowd was SOMBER...

Lenny walked up to the microphone and said:
"Wow.... Vaughn Meader is FUCKED!"

And he was right. Who the hell even remembers
who Vaughn Meader was, nowadays?
But every standup philosopher worth listening to
knows who Lenny was.

[DFW]

18. I, for one, remember who Vaughn Meader was

And Lenny Bruce was right. The whole "First Family" thing dissolved into nothing after November 22.

[Echo In Light]

22. Had to look him up. Thanks for the heads up on it...

That was 6 yrs before I was born, and even though I discovered Lenny Bruce as a teenager via George Carlin, I was unaware of his revealing statement re the JFK impersonator.

A favorite:

[B Calm]

20. Give a man a fish, he will have food for a day. Give a man religion

and he will die from starvation praying for a fish.

[alcynic]

21. What's the difference between a thief and a conservative christian?

The thief will rob you to feed his children, The conservative Christian will murder you, steal everything of value you have, sell your children for slave labor and boast that he is the moral victor.