Seven New Dirty Words for a Painful Point in Our Nation's History

Posted by Tula Conell, Firedoglake at 4:04 AM on July 25, 2008.

Most people are familiar with comedian George Carlin's seven dirty words.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled they couldn't be uttered on network television. But here are seven even dirtier words -- and the chances are good a majority of the members on the current Supreme Court would think they're just fine:

Greed.
Corruption.
Indictments.
Convictions.
Apathy.
Short memories.
Injustice.

The president of our Alaska AFL-CIO state federation, Vince Beltrami, suggested this new set of seven dirty words as those working families need to remember this November. Beltrami writes a column for the Anchorage Daily News, and his riff on Carlin is worth quoting at length:

Carlin did a special not too long ago that featured a bit called "The American Dream." It wasn't funny. It was brooding and cynical, but I saw it as a call to action by one of the most accurate, if not offensive, social commentators of our time.

Carlin took Americans to task and lamented how we've been sold a bill of goods on the American dream, and blasted us for standing by as the "real owners" of America stick it to working folks and how the real owners, big-business interests, have taken control of politicians, the media, the judges, etc. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. They don't want well-informed, well-educated citizens, capable of critical thinking. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests.

Carlin went on to say, "They want 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 [expletive] jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. Good, honest, hard-working people; white collar, blue collar, people of modest means, continue to elect these rich [expletive] who don't give a [expletive] about them."

The guy who made me laugh my guts out when I was a kid stopped me cold with his death and his commentary.

There likely are a lot more than seven words we should keep in mind this November.

Suggestions?

Tagged as: george carlin, anchorage daily news, seven dirty words, u.s. supreme court, vince beltrami