Vodafone Ad. London’s Heathrow Airport, November 7, 2018
The Great George Carlin
The late George Carlin was a genius with words, a deft dasher of conventional logic, and a master observer (and master-baiter!) of American cultural paradoxes.
I don’t always agree with everything he says, but I always listen…
Given the nature of our current Administration, I thought it timely to revisit what George said years ago (Back In Town HBO Special, 1996) about American politicians and the American people who elect them.
He pretty much smashed the nail squarely on the head.
The only part I would take with a block of salt is the last in which he explains why he doesn’t vote. Apparently, his last ballot was cast in 1972–for McGovern.
I disagree with this no voting idea.
Personally, I think we still need to hoist our fannies perpendicular and hike ourselves to the ballet box for all elections. Every time. Local elections, special elections, and mid-terms, especially. Your vote is what determines the direction this Great Ship America will turn.
(Yes, I know, the USS America is a humongous, gargantuan behemoth, and the rudder very, very, very small, but we can still make it sloooowly turn to a certain general heading if we all pile our [intelligent] votes in the wheelhouse. Add in a bit of effective protest and it might even turn a bit faster.)
The video:
Video Transcript – In Defense of Politicians (George Carlin, 1996)
“Now there’s one thing you mighta noticed I don’t complain about: politicians.
Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from some other reality.
They come from American parents, American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, American universities, and they’re elected by American citizens.
This is the best we can do, folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces. Garbage in…garbage out.
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens…if you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re gunna get selfish, ignorant leaders. And term limits ain’t gunna do ya any good. You’re just gunna wind up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans [leaders].
So, maybe…maybe…maybe it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here. Like…the public. Yeah, the public sucks! That’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: “The public sucks! Fuck hope! Fuck hope!”
Because if it is really just the fault of the politicians then where are all the other bright people of conscience? Where are all the bright, honest, intelligent Americans ready to step in and save the nation and lead the way?
We don’t have people like that in this country. Everybody’s at the mall, scratchin’ his ass, pickin’ his nose, takin’ his credit card out of his fanny pack and buyin’ a pair of sneakers with lights in them.
So, I have solved this little political dilemma for myself in a very simple way. On Election Day, I stay home. I don’t vote. Fuck ’em! Fuck ’em! I don’t vote.
Two reasons. Two reasons I don’t vote. First of all, it’s meaningless. This country was bought and sold and paid for a long time ago. This shit they shuffle around every four years? Pfft! Pfft! [masturbation gestures] It doesn’t mean a fucking thing.
And secondly, I don’t vote because I believe if you vote you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around, I know. They say, ‘Well, if you don’t vote you have no right to complain.’ But where’s the logic in that?
If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people and they get into office and screw everything up, well, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem. You voted them in. You have no right to complain.
I, on the other hand…who did not vote…who did not vote…who, in fact, did not even leave the house on Election Day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain as loud as I want about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.
So, I know that a little later on this year you’re gunna have another one of those really swell presidential elections that you like so much [Bill Clinton v. Bob Dole]. You enjoy yourselves; it’ll be a lot of fun. I’m sure as soon as the election is over your country will improve immediately.
As for me, I’ll be home on that day, doing essentially the same thing as you. The only difference is, when I get finished masturbating, I’m gunna have a little something to show for it, folks.”
Watching the video and reading the transcript are, interestingly, two different experiences. Reading the text, it sounds like a reasonably serious essay…well, sort of. But, listen to George’s delivery in the video and it comes across much more as stand-up humor. Isn’t it a bit ironic, though, that the audience is laughing at all this when, essentially, Carlin is saying to them, directly to their faces, that they are stupid? So, it may seem like stand-up comedy, but I suspect Carlin is deadly serious.
Oh, and I can’t finish without recommending the routine Carlin calls his Incomplete List of Impolite Words. Yes, all the words are quite impolite. It goes WAY beyond his famous Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television (also classic). So if you are easily offended don’t click the link. But, the Incomplete List highlights his exceptional understanding of, love for, and talent with language, sound, and rythmn. It’s almost a poetic rap.
[FINAL NOTE: If you want to dig deeper into Carlin’s brilliant mind vis-à-vis comments on politicians and the doublespeak they are prone to use, check out The Consultation Institute’s George Carlin on the language of politics.]
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