george carlin,american dream,education,ignorance,ron paul George Carlin - Please Wake Up America
Comments 
playlists with this video George Carlin by eric3579
who voted for this video Grimm
- siftbot
x68 - srec
- Stormsinger
- qualm
- SlipperyPete
- EndAll
- curiousity
- MrFisk
- Djevel
- petpeeved
- eric3579
- doogle
- jimnms
- NordlichReiter
- NetRunner
- Bruti79
- cracanata
- shole
- vaporlock
- GoodAttorney
- chrisyf
- kceaton1
- squeak
- TheFreak
- necrontyr
- Xehn
- radx
- steroidg
- jdbates
- sirex
- Ursapolar
- conan
- Issykitty
- rasch187
- Fred_Chopin
- ctrlaltbleach
- Ryjkyj
- Almanildo
- boblobblaw
- dedstick
- brycewi19
- DarkMatter
- enoch
- Kevlar
- mj0lnir
- guitarwolf
- dirtythirtyix
- drattus
- gwiz665
- atara
- Qazme
- Janus
- erikwdavis
- JesseoftheNorth
- kwaran
- nibiyabi
- pho3n1x
- justusshaft
- swedishfriend
- schmawy
- rougy
- garmachi
- UsesProzac
- MikesHL13
- finch451
- rembar
- NadaGeek
- Razor
- dingens
- notarobot
- arekin
who has this post bookmarked SpaceOddity
- EndAll
- 9567
- 8867
- Fred_Chopin
George Carlin - Please Wake Up America Related Videos
| 
Stumble This
Mike Gravel is the only one who seems to agree with what Carlin says here, but ofcourse he wont win till hell freezes over, and even if he did, probably couldnt make that much of a difference. Or he might have an accident.
Stop and think [about American ] education -- it's a joke. Thirty percent of American children do not graduate from high school. That's an embarrassment. How is it that Finland, Sweden, Denmark, can take a child from down here all the way up to PhD, and everything's paid for by the government? Why can't we do that? Is something wrong with us? We're too busy carrying the yoke of the military-industrial complex, that's what's going on. We Americans have been drugged with fear, and we got to stop!
Very, very few people (businessmen, politicians, whatever) would want to see poor education so they can have a workforce of obedient idiots. To the extent that the education system is a failure, it's a failure because the people running it don't know how to do it better and because the expectations placed on it are unrealistic. Does someone legitimately believe businessmen are lobbying to - I don't know - lower education funding so that the sheeple are easier to control with their vast media machine?
I've dealt with high placed business people and seen high-level business strategy meetings and documents. It does not match the image of corporate America seen in movies, TV, or rants like this. It just doesn't. Unless the TV show you're talking about is "The Office".
The first, biggest misconception is that the super-rich are only interested in becoming more super-wealthy at whatever human cost. Certainly there's some out there who are only interested in more and more wealth - but in many cases the trend reverses the higher up you look. As a business owner reaches a certain point of wealth, quite often the focus shifts to ego: "How can I be remembered as a great guy?", "What can I do to impress my rich friends?", or "How can I help my son's business without actually cheating by giving him money?".
For example, the common idea that the Iraq war was engineered for money is ridiculous - it's not even looking in the right direction. GWB and the ruling cadre have plenty of ways to get money; what a guy like GWB desperately wants is to be remembered as the president who saved the free world. Glory. And he's pursuing that earnestly, making decisions that he honestly believes are correct. Sure there are profiteers, but they're peripheral to the actual motivation.
I think somehow people prefer the idea that the country is run by an elite cadre of power-hungry super-villains. The alternative, the reality - that it's run by well-meaning but over-confident, incompetent jocks - is scary in a way that people don't seem to want to accept.
If there was one dangerous meme that could actually threaten the slow march of progress, it's the idea that this video conveys: that people are powerless, and that political choices are meaningless. I see the next American election as a crucial choice in terms of foreign policy and basic human freedom. If young, energetic, change-seeking Americans stay home because they buy into conspiracy theories about how everything is fixed and rigged and unchangeable, then I think that's a real loss.
Just look at the history of the Tobacco industry, the Oil industry, the weapons industry or the health industry, its always the same. Individuals may, and do, care, but companies dont.
I certainly don't mean to suggest there isn't problems. What I would say, though, is that generally politicians, deep-down, want good things. They want to make things better. They want better education. The problem is that many of them have wrong ideas about how to get there, or don't have the skills and intelligence to run things well. Or allow personal ambitions to distract them from more important goals.
This video says "you have no choice, you have owners". If people actually believe that, it could become true. The truth is that politicians aren't just puppets or figureheads. They have power, and voters have power over them. It's absolutely critical to pick smart politicians that will make positive changes.
I feel like there's a movement now where young, energetic voters that have historically motivated government towards positive change are instead dissociating themselves from effective, real political movements and into a kind of pathetic, hopeless, paranoid whine. And I think that's tragic.
Upvote for an outstanding post.
You haven't gone high enough. Carlin is referring to people and organizations like Cheney / Haliburton, Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank directors, etc.
"Does someone legitimately believe businessmen are lobbying to - I don't know - lower education funding so that the sheeple are easier to control with their vast media machine?"
Not the ordinary President or CEO of your average mid-sized company, no.
But the guys mentioned above? Oh hell yes.
Wake up indeed - the fact that most people don't even know this goes on is the whole point of the video. *sigh*
UPVOTE FOR IRISHMAN'S COMMENT.
But that's not what Carlin's saying. He's saying "Everything's screwed, you have no power." And that's what I'm disagreeing with - it's a wrong, dangerous idea. The person who made the video says "Wake up". Carlin is saying "You have no choice".
By the same logic, you should probably shut up and listen to Bush or Cheney - or anyone else older than you. Carlin is a comic, and he's exaggerating for comedic and dramatic effect. But people are taking this stuff seriously. If people really believe that all politicians are just figureheads, put in place to pacify the crowds - then people may lose the power they do legitimately have.
Halliburton is a medium-sized company (market cap ~$40 billion) - I've dealt with CEOs of companies the same size. That said, it's in a sensitive sector, obviously, and that does make it somewhat special. I've never dealt with anything defense related (I'm Canadian, for one), and I'm sure the political ties are odd with a company like that.
Anyways, I'd agree that Cheney would love to see Halliburton do well; even though he's mostly disconnected from it in a financial sense, he's still connected to it on the level of ego (that is, unless he doesn't like the new CEO). But, again, I think people make too much of this kind of connection - or at least they oversimplify it. Cheney is not going to get rich by starting wars so Halliburton can get bigger.
Regardless of wars, Cheney - IF he ends up wanting more money than he already had coming into office - will be able to cash in on a great CEO position after his term. If anything, his specific political actions have hurt his long term money-making ability. If he wanted to make a lot of money, he would have kept his nose clean, kept his popularity high, and maybe cut some taxes.
I'm not saying Cheney hasn't screwed up. All I'm saying is that if you want to understand or predict Cheney all you have to do is look at him, what he's done, and remember that he's a human. Trying to picture him just through the lens of money is going to give you a distorted picture.
Moving on, to the extent that there is corruption at the World Bank, etc, it needs to be rooted out and dealt with. It's a big problem. I'm not denying that. I think the way the UN in general works makes it prone to breeding corruption. The point I'm trying to make is that it's not an untouchable group of super-villains who can't be brought to justice, and if you think of them like that then you give them power.
In reality, the corruption is on petty, human scales. Look at Enron - a bunch of guys thought they had a real smart scheme to make a bit of money (though not, in grand terms, all that much). But they didn't have endless political friends to save them when the scandal broke. They perhaps didn't go down hard enough, but they went down. Look at Clinton: as the most powerful man on the planet he couldn't get "serviced" in private.
Again, I'm not saying there isn't problems. I'm saying that the problems can be dealt with. There isn't some unaccountable group pulling every string and hand-picking the president. There is choice. Don't give into a vague hopelessness.
Just what power are you refering to? To make the choice between Democrat or Republican?
To vote Nader?
This country is still the best on earth in my opinion. But Carlin is right. This system was bought and paid for a long time ago. "The entire systen is balanced on an intricate and ever growing web of lies. To introduce the truth would bring the whole thing crashing down."
I truly believe that.
Maybe if you'd acknowledge a problem instead of whitewashing it with folksy advice and pat comments. Reminds me of President Bush.
The right administration could fix most of the problems in the US fairly quickly (or at least set things moving in the right direction). While I understand there's complaints of stolen elections and vote fraud, I think it's paranoid to believe that an honestly popular, change-oriented candidate couldn't compete and win. And make changes.
Look at Ron Paul - not at what he's saying, but the fact that he exists. There's no power machine holding him down and hiding him because he wants to change things (and he seems to want to change a lot of things).
Similarly, there's nothing stopping "candidate you agree with" from entering the race and winning. Ron Paul is getting more funding than many of the "mainstream" candidates that are supposed to be the product of huge political machines. And it's not any of the current crop of choices is insurmountably popular (or even well funded).
The barriers to entering the political arena are lower now than they've probably ever been in history. A powerful, right idea could spread faster than ever.
But it's not happening. The energy that used to pervade politics seems to be drained - young people seem to have accepted this fatal pessimism that everything is the worst it has ever been and that it won't get better. Ridiculous. It's like everyone wants to point fingers, but nobody wants to take responsibility for the fact that things aren't going their way. It's easier to sit back and say it was hopeless from the beginning. "I didn't lose, the game was fixed".
If people are asleep and dreaming, then this is the dream they're having: that they can't make a difference. If there were someone pulling the strings, and if they could choose one message to send out, then it would be: "You have no options".
1. The economy and political system are not bad.
2. Angry young people are railing at nothing.
3. The economy and political system are not bad and this proves... the economy and political system are not bad.
4. Disadvantaged people don't want to take responsibility for their position.
I'd like to repeat JMZeroes words:
"I feel like there's a movement now where young, energetic voters ... dissociating themselves from effective, real political movements and into a kind of pathetic, hopeless, paranoid whine. And I think that's tragic"
1. The political system (and here I mostly refer to the US) is not broken. If people are motivated, and support candidates with good ideas, then they can produce real change.
2. The idea that people have no options, and that the political process can't bring about change, is dangerous - because it keeps energetic people who should be working for change out of the political process (which is the only way change is actually going to come).
Again - I think the only way things will change in America is if voters take more notice of critical issues, and elect candidates who will make responsible decisions. If people abdicate that responsibility because they believe that all the parties are the same, nothing can be done, or that politicians are all powerless puppets of some complex - then that change won't occur.
The other stuff I talked about probably distracted from my point, but basically I was just trying to establish that there isn't some shadowy group of untouchable power-monsters that control everything. Rather, businesses and countries are controlled by people with human motivations and frailties, and generally a desire for the general good (even if they're misguided in how they plan to get there).
In short, I agree with the video's end - the "Wake Up" part. What I disagree with is the hopeless, paranoid tone of the remainder of it.
Hopefully that's more clear.
I would just like to go on record as saying that: I don't think having these thoughts makes people paranoid.
Sometimes the truth is hard to accept. Sometimes you have to embrace the hopelessness of a situation. You can't fix everything. And it doesn't mean you have to be depressed about it either. In fact, it can be pretty liberating.
What's more insiduous than anything else in his rant wasn't mentioned and hasnb't been mentioned here either: the polarization that keeps happening. The Powers That Be don't care if you're educated nor do they care if you're active. What they care about is if you're alone or not. You want to give money to the poor? Learn the truth? Cast a ballot? Run for office? Change something? They are fine with that. Take your best shot. But you want to organize other people to do the same? They will start to care. A unified people is a culture in charge of itself. United society is powerful society.
The whole message of "pull yourself up on your own" and "personal responsibility before charity" and "no interference on behalf of others" is the worst crime ever in our society because it's infusing the notion of "I got mine jack" and pushing people away from each other. All this individualism crap - argh it's pathetic. One can be an individual and still be a part of an active vibrant society that looks out for its members. But the Powers That Be have convinced a very powerful subset of society that being unified and tolerant and patient and diverse will somehow result in their personal downfall. I am sad every time I see some otherwise nice decent person go off on a parroted spiel about "personal responsibility" because I know what they're really saying: I'd rather society fall apart than have to share with others.
Adding video to channels (Conspiracy, Talks) - requested by SlipperyPete.