I think I first saw George Carlin when I was about 10 on the Ed Sullivan show.  It was before he grew the long hair and showed the audience who he was and what he believed in.  I can't think of many people in our celebrity culture who had the staying power he had.  Nor can I think of many who had such a loyal and grateful following. 

George was hysterically funny, incredibly intelligent, creative, insightful and he was also radical as hell.  He said things that most of us believe but never verbalize or rarely do and he certainly said things on the air/on the record that almost nobody else in his position would ever say.  He was able to do it because he had courage and he used his venue in a way that he was protected from the usual criticisms of society. 

In his biting, razor sharp humor was often a grim truth that made us laugh but also drew us in so that we could share in George's anger and express our outrage at the state of the world but particularly the state of this country.  As he grew older, George Carlin was less and less interested in being nice about his political insights.  Instead, with the wisdom of his years he let loose the unvarnished truth in all it's harsh ugliness and confronted us with the actual state of things as they are and our own role in it. 

The fact is, though he might have breached some social boundaries that would have made the nuns who taught him in parochial school blush, it was impossible to argue with what he had to say simply because he was telling the awful truth.  I'm glad he did.  None of his views have become dated whether from 5 years or 10 years or 35 years ago.  We would do well to heed his words.  He would taunt the audience and the entropy he saw in the population of people who ought to know better, in my opinion, hoping to prod them into action of some kind. 

If you understand, as he did, that our system is rigged then you need to defy it.  If you understand, as he did, that the owners of the country are part of a club to which none of us little people will ever belong then you need to quit identifying with the club members and start realizing that you're little more than a servant or, as the IWW would have reminded us, a wage slave. 

As George pointed out to us, they call it the American Dream "because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q&feature=player_embedded