CARLIN ON POLITICS

In 1941, the editor Edward Dowling wrote: "The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it."

George Carlin, recently passing away, put this viewpoint in his own, inimitable style. So, as a tribute to one of the great social commenter's and observers of our generation, here is George Carlin's take on politics. Hold onto your hats (and sorry for some of the less than socially acceptable language, however I didn't feel worthy to paraphrase Mr. Carlin).......

"The politicians are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea 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 state houses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media, so they control just about all the information you get. 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 that are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting screwed by a system that threw them overboard 30-fucking-years ago. They don’t want that.

"You know what they want? Obedient workers. Obedient workers: people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly-shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re coming for your social security money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And they'll get it, because they own this fuckin' place. It's a club, and you ain't in it, and I ain't in it..."...Good, honest, hard-working people -- white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on -- good honest hard-working people continue, people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all...at all...at all. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care."That’s what the owners count on."