Power and the illusion of freedom: simple truth from George Carlin

The limits of debate are established in this country before the debate even begins. Everybody else is marginalized, made to seem like Communists or some other disloyal person. Kook, there’s a word! Now it’s conspiracy. They’ve made that something that can’t even be entertained for a minute – that powerful people might get together and have a plan? Doesn’t happen! You’re a kook, you’re a conspiracy buff! – George Carlin

By Craig McKee

George Carlin made it so clear and so simple. That was his genius.
With humour that we could all relate to, he told us the truth about how our world works and how most of us are cattle for the super rich. How we are conned into believing in the very people who enslave us, how we are conned into believing in the illusion of freedom.
He knew and he told us. We laughed, but did we really listen?
Carlin passed away in 2008. At the time I thought it was sad – just like it’s sad when any beloved entertainer dies. But looking back on it, we lost something unique and irreplaceable when Carlin left us. We lost one of the few people capable of telling us the truth in a way that we are willing to hear it.
The following routine, from his 2005 video Life is Worth Losing, explains it better than I could:
“Politicians have traditionally hidden behind three things: the flag, the bible, and children. No child left behind, no child left behind. Really? Not long ago you were talking about giving kids a head start. Head start, left behind… Someone’s losing fucking ground here.
But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never ever, ever, be fixed. It’s never going to get any better. Don’t look for it; be happy with what you’ve got…BECAUSE THE OWNERS OF THIS COUNTRY DON’T WANT THAT. I’m talking about the real owners now…the REAL owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians. 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 state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
They 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. That’s right.
They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? 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 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 from you sooner or later cause 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. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.
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, these are 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. The fact is that Americans will probably remain wilfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream, ’cause you have to be asleep to believe it . . .”