George Carlin Was A Liberal


I woke this morning to the sad news of George Carlin’s passing. I’ll leave it to others to chronicle his career and analyze his impact on the world of comedy and our culture. What I’m interested in at the moment is setting the record straight. George Carlin did not mellow as the years wore on. He complained, whined and ranted on issues that ran the gamut from white guys wearing baseball caps on backwards to the absurdity of organized religion. He railed against people who spoke of bad-hair days and the hassle of going through airport security. He despised the hypocrisy, apathy and complacency of the aging baby-boomer generation. He did not, however, become a right wing conservative. One only needed to go to his website or snopes.com to find a litany of screeds erroneously or deliberately ascribed to him in order to give them some sort of street “cred.”

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, a vicious email appeared in my inbox that blamed the victims for not evacuating and was purportedly written by George Carlin containing (in part) the following:

A mandatory evacuation means just that…Get the hell out.
Don’t blame the Government after they tell you to go. If they hadn’t said anything, I can see the argument. They said get out… if you didn’t, it’s your fault, not theirs. (We don’t want to hear it, even if you don’t have a car, you
can get out.)

The government isn’t responsible for giving you anything. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave, but you gotta work for what you want. McDonalds and Wal-Mart are always hiring, get a job and stop spooning off the people who are actually working for a living. President Kennedy said it best…”Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Snopes had not yet debunked it, but I knew those words couldn’t have been written by him. A quick Google search turned the transcript from his recent appearance on Bill Maher’s cable program. Here then is how George Carlin really felt about the government’s mishandling of the aftermath of the hurricane:

“It shouldn’t be a surprise that rich, white men don’t care about poor, black people, period. So they’re not high on their list.”

“…who are in charge of things in this country: the owners. Forget these foolish elections. The owners of this country don’t care about the poor, in general.”

“Listen, politics – these elections are a charade; they’re a charade.”

“The real looting in this country takes place in the transfer of the wealth from the poor to the rich. I’m sorry that you don’t like class and the truth, my friend, but you’re stuck with it. Class is class - and the poor have been systematically looted in this country. The rich have been made richer under this criminal, fascist president and his government. “

“Yeah, I have something I want to mention. First, I would just preface it by saying “Governor Bush” – and I call him that because that’s really the last thing he was elected to - “Governor Bush,” he – when he reaches – when he reaches his Christian heaven, he’s going to have a lot to answer for. Second, what I want to say is this: I think [guest James K. Glassman] Jim is a good – is doing a good job of demonstrating – and this show is – the difference between left and right of center. It originated in the French parliament. The people left of center were liberals; the people right of center were conservatives. Broadly speaking. And generally speaking, people on the left of center – on the right of center, I’m sorry – the conservatives, the right of center – are interested in property values, property, property rights. The rights and the rights of property. “

“And generally speaking again – it’s all generalized – the left-of-center people are more concerned with humans and human beings and human concerns; to the care of humans, not the care and worry about property rights. That’s generally been true. And Bush is pushing this country farther down the hill, faster than anyone has before.”

Love him or hate him, agree or disagree, but know this: George Carlin was a liberal until the bitter end. I’ll leave you with a clip from Keith Olberamann’s Countdown from October 2007.

Possibly Related Classroom Projects From DonorsChoose.org Powered by Social Actions

Information and Links

Join the fray by commenting, tracking what others have to say, or linking to it from your blog.

Information
June 23rd, 2008
Comments
Feeds and Links
Comment Feed
From This Author
Del.icio.us
Digg
Technorati
Categories
Uncategorized

Other Posts
Squeaking and sqawking with the animals
On the symbolic nature of a broken air conditioner: In The Heat Of The Night and the rise of the New South

Readers

Shop newcritics

Featured books:


Viewing 10 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, he was discharged on 1957.
    • ^
    • v
    I received an email, just a couple of weeks ago, in which, among other things, "George" exhorted me to "pray more."

    But it's all okay. George is in Heaven now.

    Jesus was a liberal, too, by the way.
    • ^
    • v
    I am a huge Carlin fan. His early work must have inspired Robin Williams -- fast, witty, wacky -- with a point. He stopped doing characters and, Like Jean Shepherd, focused on the minutia of life -- becoming a philosopher of the everyman. In other words, he joked about the stuff that really matters to an intelligent, curious human being. He said things that most people just thought about, or spoke of in private company. I think his TV show could have been a success had the writers let him be Carlin instead of the innocent, clueless regular guy character they wrote for him. There was one episode where he receives a large package of pot by accident -- and he isn't sure if it's real or not. Yea, right. I almost met him at a scheduled book signing, but his wife died and he canceled. He will be missed. One album that is often overlooked is "One The Road" from '78. I grew up with that one. It shows Carlin at the peak of his powers.
    • ^
    • v
    I suppose there's any number of academics "deconstructing texts" or whatever, and of course Chomsky (agree with his politics or not) pointing out the many ways that language is misused and manipulated in order to deceive the public and conceal misdeeds by the government. But nobody did it like Carlin. I learned a lot, sure, but I also laughed like hell. I think with the help a list of the album tracks I could still probably recite FM & AM in its entirety. ..... And a quick additional thought: George was great not only in taking government to task but in pointing out our own bullshit. Wasn't lettin' NOBODY off the hook. Good man.
    • ^
    • v
    You gotta love a guy who made his living telling Americans how stupid we are.

    One thing's for sure, he was never going to run out of material.
    • ^
    • v
    Thanks very much, Viscount. I was astonished this morning to see commenters at Sadly, No! describing him as apolitical. He frequently derided politicians and the dirtiness of politics in general, but that doesn't mean he was simple-minded enough to say "a plague on both your houses" and leave it at that. I agree, he was a liberal, something the conservative blogs, with their sniffy response to his death, seem to understand quite well.
    • ^
    • v
    I hadn't thought of him as a liberal per se. But I would never have believed he sided with the government versus the poor people of New Orleans. More in keeping with what he often said would be: if the government tells you go, better stay put. Thanks, nonetheless, Viscount, for making it known that people were using his name for their ugly attitudes.
    George Carlin was funny and to me always made sense, because he ranted against the powers that be but should not be.
    • ^
    • v
    I've already discussed my appreciation of Carlin over on my blog. As I mentioned over there, Carlin was instrumental in helping me to learn how to think critically about social norms, about the relationship between wealth and power, and more crucially, how to laugh at some of the absurdities of the English language, many of which are also tied to issues of power ("go tell 'the captain' that Air Marshall Carlin said to go f^&% himself").

    And, no he did not mellow with age. If anything, he became even more acerbic, more critical of the abuses conducted by the Bush administration.
    • ^
    • v
    "Liberal" = Free. And angry? HELL YES! If you're not "angry" or "free" then you haven't been paying attention! And shame on you for that! Our Constitution is in tatters, we came a hairsbreath away from losing habeus corpus, rendition, torture, warrantless wiretapping, massive debt, homlessness... and the rich keep on geting richer and the poor well screw them right?

    Like I said - Liberal as defined by Websters means free.

    —Synonyms 1. progressive. 7. broad-minded, unprejudiced. 9. beneficent, charitable, openhanded, munificent, unstinting, lavish. See generous. 10. See ample.

    open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.

    • ^
    • v
    He was an angry liberal - but what a talent. He certainly had a very real affect of American language...
 

Trackbacks

(Trackback URL)

close Reblog this comment
Powered by Disqus · Learn more
blog comments powered by Disqus