George Carlin - Who Really Controls America

Cheap shots are the only ones people can score on and off-line :smiley: (and they never do any damage.) I was hoping I’d get someone to step up and explain to me why “The Man” is running things. The book I’m reading seems to lean heavily in the favor of “The Man”, but it seems to be making good sense.

My mom’s a hippy, so I know all the George Carlin lines of arguement. My ma works at one of the worse (possibly thee worse) school in Milwaukee. She’s also worked at the prison school just outside of Milwaukee (with teen murderers and stuff.) I’ve watched my mom try to make a difference her whole life (and she has with select individuals), but things aren’t going to change with an army of folks like me ma. <-Random side note :smiley:

That video will get viewed by a bunch of people… and then what? Maybe google George Carlin. He could have links on his website to other websites that teach you how to rise above it all, but does he? Nope, just tries to sell more of his crap.

He seems to be all talk and no action. Even if he is 100% correct in what he’s saying… so? Bitching about it does nothing but make a bad situation worse. All he needs is a little bread with that circus.

I didn’t think he was funny 40 years ago and I don’t see that he’s changed.[/quote]
"Here’s the Hippy Dippy Weatherman with all the Hippy Dippy Weather…MAN!"

Carlin pretty much peaked out right there.

Cake…go back to Lyndon LaRousche for your anti-USA sources…much funnier.

[quote=“TainanCowboy”]
Cake…go back to Lyndon LaRousche for your anti-USA sources…much funnier.[/quote]

no Lyndon LaRouche sources or anti-USA sources from me. only anti-USA government, official government documents and progressive media sources

[quote=“cake”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]
Cake…go back to Lyndon LaRousche for your anti-USA sources…much funnier.[/quote]no Lyndon LaRouche sources or anti-USA sources from me. only anti-USA government, official government documents and progressive media sources[/quote]
Good Lord!..and you believe them?

Is it just me or are others really starting to hate seeing this word preface just about every half-baked nonsensical theory known to pot-addled Leftists who “care?”

Is it just me or are others really starting to hate seeing this word preface just about every half-baked nonsensical theory known to pot-addled Leftists who “care?”[/quote]
Add…“Peace and Justice” to that list…

This is funny, I just happened to watch this entire video tonight. What an ass. This is the same man that starts off his routine explaining pussy farts, and trying to tell us that if women want equality, they should try to kill themselves more often. I used to like Carlin back when I was a teenager and he was doing drugs. I’m not sure what changed, either I grew up or he got straight and decided to go into politics.
Of course this is the same man that in 1995 did a routine about not needing any security at the airports.

Carlin is just a professional ranter these days. Entertainment. Nothing more. I find him entertaining but I don’t take him too seriously. He used to be much funnier.

Not like that Fred Smith character. I believe every word he says. And he’s ALWAYS funny.

[quote=“canucktyuktuk”]Carlin is just a professional ranter these days. Entertainment. Nothing more. I find him entertaining but I don’t take him too seriously. He used to be much funnier.
.[/quote]

I think that is the fine print right there people. Carlin is helping the blue collar workers and the middle class blow off steam. Of course he isn’t funnier, like in his alcoholic and druggie days. Nor is Robbie Williams. But you know what America ain’t what it use to be. It doesn’t have evident stupidity that can be mocked. There are landmines because now people who could be mocked can do serious damage to your career, to your life. PCdom has become the 21st century version of Mc Carthism.

[quote=“miltownkid”]
Firstly, I think education is trash everywhere in America. I’ve attended an elite private school, your usual public school and an alternative school. Of the three I enjoyed my stay at the alternative school the most (and learned the most there.) But that was a program that only had 100+ students in it at any one time.[/quote] I also went to this elite school Yet, that doesn’t qualify me on determining how the quality of education is in America.

[quote]Secondly, because public schools are run by government, that means they’re going to be even more trash. No one profits from taking the time to choose the BEST math book (when it comes time to find new books) so no one cares. Now you could call the people who make those garbage books greedy, but I wouldn’t. They’re doing their best to make a book that might win the government contracts, which means they can’t invest a bunch of money on hiring the PIMPEST OF THE PIMP math champions to write it. No matter how one slices it you’re going to get garbage because the government is only willing to spend so much (just enough to break the utter shit line and cross over into garbage.) You could tell me about pay-offs and things that get people these contracts, and I’m not saying they don’t happen. It’s just that pay-offs and dirty tricks aren’t the only (or even main I’d guess) reason why education in America is ass.
[/quote] Wrong there about profits. Companies don’t profit by persuading schools by using their textbooks. Those decision are made by adminstration. If they do have an persuading abilities it’s by offering incentives(free supplies) and addition teacher books that normally a school would have to dish out for. When it does come time to find new books, administrations take this seriously as they have a budget to consider as well as state/federal test standards to meet. There are no ‘government contracts’ as you want to put it. Unless this is the case in Milwaukee. Education is “ass” in America because of government spending/cuts. Do the research. What are these ‘contracts’ you are speaking of? You make it sound like schools are done like Lockhart.

[quote]
Why do they only spend enough for garbage? They do that because they have to keep the cost low because they provide school for free 'til high school. Making school free allows everyone to get “educated” (even the poor) but at what cost? Now I’m just 50 pages into a book on economics, and don’t really know much of anything. What I do know is that some simple explanations of how economics works has changed my view of things I thought I “knew.”[/quote] Fred, where are you on this. You should be lambasted for not addressing this. :raspberry: :smiley:

[quote]An example of free in the book… There was a part of a courty (somewhere) that gave it’s people free electricity and food. What did they do with that subsidy? Did they cherish and try to minimize their uses as to not put too much of a burden on the government? Nope. They invited friends over, left lights on, played Xbox to the wee hours of the night, etc. Government kills that subsidy and electricity use “magically” comes back down to a regular level. [/quote] What subsidies are you talking about? It’s a case by case issue when it comes down to government funding. If a Congressional person is thinking that subsidy isn’t producing results it was designed for, then it will be cut. That is at the discretion of the Congress. Don’t like it, take up with your congressional leaders.

Maybe that’s because yours didn’t produce an Oscar winning actor. Maybe I should have said education is trash everywhere in America for hyperactive kids in the top 1%. Was it good for you?

Wrong there about what I was reffering to. I was reffering to the people that choose the books. Because they don’t profit from textbook selection, they don’t care. If they do profit from textbook selection, it’s in the form of bribes.

[quote=“USA Today”]The U.S. Department of Education’s internal watchdog has opened a preliminary investigation into possible mismanagement of President Bush’s $1 billion reading program amid complaints of conflict of interest.

[snip]

Advocates say Reading First has helped students in thousands of schools by training teachers and paying for new materials. But opponents say it has all but forced schools to buy textbooks and related materials from a handful of large publishers, several of which have retained top federal advisers as authors, editors or consultants.

Robert Slavin of the Success for All Foundation, a non-profit research group that has developed its own reading materials, requested the investigation in May, saying Reading First officials have discouraged schools from using his materials despite evidence they are effective. He says Reading First relies on the work of “consultants with major conflicts of interest.”

(continue article)[/quote]

I was just guessing about the contracts, but these seem to be similar to the contracts I speak of. It also seems to me like companies are profiting.

My comment was more about a story I read in Richard Feynman’s autobiography. He was asked to help with the selection process of textbooks for California public schools. Read on…

[quote]One book in particular drew his attention. It was one out of a three book series. During a meeting he was asked by some of the other committee members what he thought of the book. He responded that he really couldn’t say, that he hadn’t received it. One of the members continued to press for an answer. After Feynman repeated himself a second time, a book depository employee piped up and explained that he had elected not to send the book on to the committee members. The publisher had missed the deadline and substituted a book with blank pages instead. They had included a note explaining that the book would be ready in time and hoped it could still be considered.

The amazing part of this story is that several of the committee members had nominated the book for inclusion on the approved list!

Feynman went on to talk about the unsolicited gifts he received from the publishers.

(whole thing here)[/quote]

Those committee members were the people I was talking about who don’t profit. Because they don’t profit (from selecting books) they don’t care and do a shite job. A private school is profitable, and when it comes time to select books, they know they need the best to continue getting those private school tuitions. Public schools need a books with pages (and maybe some words.)

I tried finding the story I was reffering to in the book but couldn’t, maybe tomorrow. It didn’t have anything to do with the US, other than as an example of how economics “works.”

Maybe that’s because yours didn’t produce an Oscar winning actor. Maybe I should have said education is trash everywhere in America for hyperactive kids in the top 1%. Was it good for you?[/quote] What are you even saying? Didn’t produce an Oscar winning actor? Who needs that when there are Nobel Prize winners teaching there. :loco:

What about the rest of the post? I made some random comment about the “elite school” because the “elite school” wasn’t the point of what I posted (though it’s what you focused on.) The point was that I attended 3 different kinds of schools through highschool and it is that experience that “qualifies me on determining how the quality of education is in America.”

Here’s a desciption more detailed than “School in America sucks.” For middle school (grades 6-8) I attended what was suppose to be the (public) school for the “gifted and talented.” This school probably did have a higher percentage of gifted and talented kids. This school also had some REALLY cool teachers, like “The Great PHEOC” Mr. Al Stawicki. The problem for me was my head was ALWAYS riding the ceiling (the educational ceiling) and the current system doesn’t do much to accomadate kids like me. So I’m going to be biased and say it sucks.

At Marquette, the ceiling riding wasn’t so bad, but dress codes, no girls, theology, and authority was. I also found out money can buy spots on the soccer team (since talent didn’t get my spot and should have.) I ended up getting asked to leave because I didn’t get along with the theology teacher (or something like that.)

That brings me to another year at a regular public school and back to ceiling riding and bordom (and getting in lots of trouble.) The best part about being at that school was getting on the soccer team.

The 2 years at the alternative school was cool because I actually learned some stuff. At this school I’d do an hour or two in class work and the rest of my time was in the community learning “on the job.” I got to work at a non-profit, a desktop publiching place, and go to college for a year (to try to fix that ceiling problem.) I would not say this school sucked, or Marquette, or the public schools. I guess they were all OK, but in terms of education I think OK sucks.