[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
Mick28 wrote:
He was anti business, anti war (all wars) anti capitalism except when it came to his outrageous fees. He was even left of Obama…
Anti-business? How the hell is being anti-government-HELPING business anti-business? How is that LF position anti-capitalist?
Carlin was anti-everything.[/quote]
Especially in the end
[quote]swivel wrote:
"George Carlin’s “The Planet Is Fine”
We’re so self-important. So self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.”
And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t learned how to care for one another, we’re gonna save the fucking planet?
I’m getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I’m tired of fucking Earth Day, I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths.
People trying to make the world safe for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. They don’t care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in?
A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great.
Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years.
Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…
Hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!
We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.
You wanna know how the planet’s doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet’s doing. You wanna know if the planet’s all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week.
Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic.
The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” Plastic…asshole.
So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that’s begun. Don’t you think that’s already started? I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat.
Something to be dealt with. And the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet?
How would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let’s see… Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh…viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed.
Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.
Well, that’s a poetic note. And it’s a start. And I can dream, can’t I? See I don’t worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we’re part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order.
Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron…whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn’t punish, it doesn’t reward, it doesn’t judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while."[/quote]
That should have been a religious sermon, but some one would criticize that as well
[quote]wirewound wrote:
You mean compared to the way health care is run now? Every drug has two names, some of which sound very similar. Cost of care is through the roof due to the uninsured.
[/quote]
Uninsured… Fuck the uninsured… that’s me by the way.
This notion that we PAY for our health care is skewed by the paying of insurance. I pay for my health care due to the fact I have no insurance that picks up my tab… If you wish to fix the health care issue of cost then put the burden on the people who use the service… If the Docs and hospitals were getting paid and not having to fight with the insurance companys and forced to pay for those that will not or can not pay and having no insurance they end up having to hire more and more personnel; driving the cost up and up. with out the added and ever growing overhead the cost would go down…
Greed is a very large part of the problem but by removing all free market forces there will be no end in site till we put them back…
The Gov will not make the cost go down. It will raise the cost by taxes. Service will not go up but go down…
nothing till they need money when they fall short… Oh and by the way FedEx and UPS do not deliver post, only packages. (and they are usually cheaper and WAY more reliable)
don’t believe me? Ok. If you needed to get a document or a item to someone and if it did not get there a loved one was going to die would you use the US Post office? Go for it…
[quote]GreenMountains wrote:
If the mail system was totally privatized and worked like the medical system people in Montana would be paying $600 to send a postcard to Texas and $50 a day service charge to get a mailbox full of junk mail.
[/quote]
good one… uh never owned a business did you? If inefficiency and ineptitude, the hallmark of Government jobs, are removed things get cheeper not more expensive…
[quote]inthego wrote:
GreenMountains wrote:
If the mail system was totally privatized and worked like the medical system people in Montana would be paying $600 to send a postcard to Texas and $50 a day service charge to get a mailbox full of junk mail.
good one… uh never owned a business did you? If inefficiency and ineptitude, the hallmark of Government jobs, are removed things get cheeper not more expensive…[/quote]
The fact that junk mail exists is a pretty good indictment of the Post Office.