Remember folks, George Carlin told us about the "American Dream" a few years ago:

[originalpckelly]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGyObuH3WTY

It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it, well, right now people are starting to wake up in tent cities. Maybe this time we'll actually do something to stop this bullshit?

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying ­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else."

"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

"You know what they want? Obedient workers ­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."

"This country is finished."

[originalpckelly]

1. One can only imagine what he would have said about this financial crisis...

if he'd lived. It's really very sad, though at least he made it to 71, that's still fairly young these days.

[Donnachaidh]

2. In a very real sense, I don't think George would have wanted to see where we are now.

He'd be weeping. He probably is, if he can see the shitstorm from where he is. He care enough to say things that needed to be said.

[originalpckelly]

3. This is a compilation of his views:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2iCo645eZk

[originalpckelly]

6. He is so right about the illusion of choice.

It really goes on, and it's scary. What happens is that the rich people give money to those people whom they agree with, and not the ones they don't. The money then publicizes the people the rich like, and that culls the choices the people get. It's just that simple. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy, it is simply a bunch of people having their interests represented.

[Sal Minella]

4. I'm glad he's not here to see it. He wanted so much for us to prove him wrong

and we didn't make the grade.

[originalpckelly]

8. Do not be hopeless, we may yet prove him wrong.

After all, what will take the place of America?

[Sal Minella]

11. I haven't given up hope (or donating to ACLU etc.) but I have given up expecting.

Carlin hadn't given up hope really either, or he wouldn't have worked so damned hard trying to convince us.....He's my hero, and while I'm bitching I'm still trying.

[burythehatchet]

5. hey, why is it that when I say the same thing a mob with pitchforks comes after me?

:shrug:

[originalpckelly]

7. Not anymore.

We'll be rid of this system.

[Echo In Light]

9. When Carlin says it people listen. If an average poster says this, however...

All the cocksure naysayers would post big heap denials and accusations of "chicken little-fear mongering," and "conspiracy theorist," etc. Hysterical

More and more people will eventually realize this illusory "democracy" experiment is, as Carlin pointed out repeatedly, long over.

[TahitiNut]

10. The most bizarre part of that is that so many might call it "comedy."

:shrug:

[originalpckelly]

13. I think it's something that's comedy...

because laughter is like the blue screen of death for the mind. When you hear something that just doesn't compute, you start laughing.

[FlyingSquirrel]

12. Carlin ain't in it?

I would've thought everyone with big money is in the club, regardless of whether or not he approves of it.

Kinda like, even if we disagree with what our government is doing abroad, we're still getting the benefits of the things it is doing and so although we can protest mightily and try to change things, we're still part of the "America" club.

At some level, those of us who are aware enough and honest enough to admit this feel guilty about it. Unpopular sentiment I know, sure to draw some flames. I ain't judging anyone (including Carlin), just stating what I believe to be true. By my own inaction I am partially complicit. Carlin probably feels guilty as well - probably feels there is more he could do, and that he benefits from the system that is screwing those of us that he is speaking to.

His heart is in the right place though.

[originalpckelly]

14. No, we aren't in the club. 70% of us work in the bureaucracy...

or servicing the bureaucracy of a hegemonic empire, paycheck to paycheck. Carlin was not a part of the club, he was an artist, and artists get used by the club, despite having nice lives.

We do take benefits, but we're still not free. We're living in a nice company town.

[FlyingSquirrel]

15. Dangit

I keep forgetting he's gone.

:cry:

[Sal Minella]

16. I have his book, "Brain Droppings," sitting on the shelf in front of my nose,

so I feel like he's not really gone -- just here in a different form.

Between the vids and the books, we still have what's best of him. And he meant it to be that way I think.

[BeFree]

17. Land of the free, and home of the brave!

Free to ignore what's happening, and brave enough to keep acting like nothing bad is happening.

[originalpckelly]

18. YeS!