BOOKS / Alan Wieder : Paul Buhle's 'Radical Jesus: A Graphic History of Faith'

Paul Buhle's 'Radical Jesus':
Comic artists explore the history
and social message of Jesus Christ

By Alan Wieder / The Rag Blog / December 19, 2013

Paul Buhle, the noted historian, author, graphic novel publisher, and editor of Radical Jesus, is Thorne Dreyer's guest on the 200th edition of Rag Radio, Friday, December 20, from 2-3 p.m. (CST). Rag Radio airs and streams live on cooperatively-run KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, Texas, and is rebroadcast and streamed on WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA, Sunday at 10 a.m. (EST) and on KPFT's HD-3 Channel in Houston, Wednesday at 3 p.m. (CST). The podcast of this show can be found at the Internet Archive.

[Radical Jesus: A Graphic History of Faith. Paul Buhle, Editor; Sabrina Jones, Gary Dumm, Nick Thorkelson, Artists (2013: Herald Press); Paperback; 128 pp; $24.99.]

Paul Buhle is one of the most prolific and insightful critics from the American left. While his topics at first glance appear incredibly eclectic, closer reading uncovers a sharp focus that thoughtfully challenges class disparity, racism, and imperialism in the United States and throughout the world.

The breadth of his work, even if you consider only his collaborative graphic titles, is mind-boggling as the topics include Che, Yiddishkeit, SDS, the Wobblies, Emma Goldman, FDR, the Beats, and Isadora Duncan. And now, in collaboration with artists Sabrina Jones, Gary Dumm, and Nick Thorkelson, comes Radical Jesus: A Graphic History of Faith.

Like Buhle’s prior books, Radical Jesus investigates the inequalities that exist in the world, historically and presently, but this time through a theological lens. After an introduction, the sections of the book are “Radical Gospel,” “Radical History,” and “Radical Resistance.”

As a focus for reading the book we can assume that liberation theology began with Jesus and carries on at the present time. Each section is illustrated by a different artist but is pulled together by both content and style. As Buhle explains in the Introduction: “The book has been designed with a purposeful color progression from black and white in the first section, to a color choice reminiscent of the illuminated texts of the Middle Ages, to the full color of modern times.”

Combining substance and style, the drawings and text constantly switch between social issues of the past and the present. Interviewed by a reporter for the Brown University newspaper, Buhle said that he wrote the book for the young people involved in the Occupy Movement.

Oh, let’s say I was speaking to those young people. I’m not a person who goes to church. But I was speaking to those young people and to others who were looking for some alternative, there’s one page in the comic that says no to either passivity or violence. For some other way to respond to the crises, and you know, Americans by and large, still, have this religious thing, this mystique. It’s good to think of a way to speak to them in this fashion.

There are numerous poignant frames in Radical Jesus; below are some samples. With stark black and white graphics page 23 in the “Radical Gospel” section, by Sabrina Jones, begins with a priest looking at a dead man lying in the street, “unclean -- better keep away!” Another priest does the same but then comes the Good Samaritan who helps the man who isn’t dead -- who is the Christian.

Stories of Jesus and class disparity continue in this section with a distressing sequence on preaching and religious leaders on page 35, “They preach – But they don’t practice.” Reminiscent of of Bishop Tutu’s story of Europeans coming to Africa: “We had the land and they had the bible. Then they said, ‘Let us pray.’ And we dutifully shut our eyes, and when we said amen at the end and opened our eyes, why, they had the land and we had the bible.”

But of course Bishop Tutu said much more. Corresponding to Radical Jesus:

This God did not just talk... He showed himself to be a doing God. Perhaps we might add another point about God -- he takes sides. He is not a neutral God. He took the side of the slaves, the oppressed, the victims. He is still the same even today; he sides with the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, and the victims of injustice.

Gary Dumm did the “Radical History” section of the book with Laura Dumm and others. This section tells the story of dissent beginning in the 14th Century and concluding with the abolitionists. John Wycliffe, the Anabaptists, Quakers, and the Grimke sisters are introduced with many other people who challenged church hierarchy in the name of social justice. On page 63, Buhle collaborates with Dumm on a story called “Escape from Galley Slavery.”

Some martyrs were burned at the stake, others were drowned, decapitated, had their tongues ripped out, or their mouths filled with gunpowder. To go to a violent death with cold determination or even good cheer was to prove to all present that the believer placed ultimate trust in God’s judgment.

However, these executions were ultimately cynical and class disparately vicious.

French and Belgian royal courts sometimes offered ‘banquets’ for the intended victim the day before the execution. In the city hall, the accused would be compelled to take the seat of honor between the mayor and a local religious leader while being mocked and offered expensive food and wine.

Many a martyr refused to eat or drink!

Drawing by Sabrina Jones
from Radical Jesus.

The last pages of “Radical History” speak to the Quakers in Pennsylvania losing the fight for Indian rights. Two frames appear on page 85 with the first showing Quaker representatives in the Pennsylvania Assembly resigning and walking out of the chambers in protest of oppressive actions to attack Indians.

The second frame, titled “What was Lost,” depicts people in a living room watching a baseball game between the Philadelphia Quakers and New York Iroquois -- shades of Howard Zinn history.

The 39 pages of the book’s last section, “Radical Resistance,” is thick as the art of Nick Thorkelson and the text speak to the many more modern quests for social justice through questions/statements of a grand diversity of people on-the-ground testifying at a faith-based meeting.

The courage of abolitionist Sojourner Truth is portrayed in a story called “Steal Away: Abolitionism and Black Freedom.” We meet those who fought for civil rights in the United States like Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttleworth, Bob Moses, and many people whose names we don’t know.

The New Jim Crow is portrayed on page 104 with Reverend Jeremiah Wright connecting the incarceration of blacks in the United States with the plight of Jesus. On Reverend Wright: “A prophetic voice much maligned in the mainstream media but cherished by the thousands of black churches allied against mass incarceration.”

“Radical Resistance” also tell us of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin’s Catholic Worker movement as a lead into the anti-war actions of the Berrigan brothers -- liberation theology and the work and political assassination in El Salvador of Archbishop Oscsar Romero. All of these accounts of activism conclude with stories of people that we have never heard of who fight for social justice in both their communities and throughout the world -- and there lies the "mission" of Paul Buhle and his collaborators in Radical Jesus.

Buhle writes:

The radicalism of Jesus has nothing to do with men hoarding guns against the imagined threat of black helicopters, or bearded fanatics burning down schools for women. Instead, Jesus goes to the roots of assorted hatreds -- not only our destructive exploitation of humanity but also our plundering of creation. All of life is endangered and we cannot afford these hatreds running rampant much longer.

Radical Jesus provides the stories of models, teachers, for the young people for whom Buhle says the book was written. The book’s portraits, graphics, and text are thoughtful and powerful, and are important not only for young activists, but also for all of us who thoughtfully work for social justice.

[Alan Wieder is an oral historian who lives in Portland, Oregon. His latest book, Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid was published in the United States by Monthly Review Press and in South Africa by Jacana Media. Read more articles by Alan Wieder on The Rag Blog.]

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David Macaray : Twelve Questions for Satirical Icon Paul Krassner

Paul Krassner in the day. Photo by Robert Altman.

Twelve Questions for
satirical icon Paul Krassner

"I think [audiences are] more aware now of the contradictions in mainstream culture, the phony piety that permeates society, the inhumane hypocrisy." -- Paul Krassner

By David Macaray / The Rag Blog / February 27, 2013

To say Paul Krassner has lived an eventful life is an understatement. He invented The Realist, America’s premiere counterculture journal. He co-founded the Youth International Party (Yippies). He was a child violin prodigy who, at age six, was the youngest person ever to perform at Carnegie Hall.

He was a member of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. He edited Lenny Bruce’s classic, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. He’s written more than a dozen books, recorded several comedy albums, and, at age 80, is still writing, lecturing, and stirring the pot.

Krassner is unique in that he’s one of those veteran radicals who never came in from the cold, never cashed in his chips, and was never co-opted by the mainstream media. This was partly because he didn’t seek their approval, and partly because he wasn’t considered "domesticated" enough to be embraced. As testimony to his wit and sensibilities, he’s the only person to have won both a Playboy magazine satire prize, and a Feminist Party Media Workshop award for journalism.

1. What’s it like being 80 years old?

Well, I’m more aware that it’s one more decade closer to my death, and my priorities keep falling into place. And in order to keep myself, literally, from falling into place -- stemming from a police beating in 1979, when I got caught in a post-verdict riot after covering the trial of Dan White, who was sentenced to seven years for the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk -- I now walk around with a cane, and when I go anywhere I use a walker.

Otherwise, I seem to be in good health. I owe my longevity to never taking any legal drugs. Although, I did take an aspirin last month. I didn’t have a headache or anything, it was just at a party, and the host was passing around a plate full of aspirins. It was just a kind of social ingestion. You know, peer pressure.


2. What do you think the result would be if all 50 states legalized marijuana?

Allow me to quote Ken Kesey’s response when I asked, “Do you see the legalization of grass as any sort of panacea?” “The legalization of grass,” he said, “would do absolutely nothing for our standard of living, or our military supremacy, or even our problem of high school dropouts. It could do nothing for this country except mellow it, and that’s not a panacea, that’s downright subversive.


3. How do you feel about Medicare?

It’s worked for me until now. All I know is that my doctor and the doctors of two friends, each with a different doctor, were told that Medicare alone would not be accepted any more. The unstated reason is that an HMO supplement plan will pay the doctor a monthly sum per patient whether or not they come in for medical help. So the doctors and the insurance companies benefit from this plan. And the patient becomes a pawn in the game.


4. Why did you title your memoir Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut?

After Life magazine published a profile of me in 1968, an FBI agent sent a poison-pen letter stating, “To classify Krassner as some sort of social rebel is far too cute. He’s a nut, a raving, unconfined nut.” Even if that were true, it’s not what taxpayers provide funding for the FBI to do. So when I wrote my autobiography, I decided that the agent’s words would serve as a more appropriate title than Yay for Me.


5. The FBI’s tactics during this period are so frightening, they almost defy belief. What was the Bureau’s main beef with you?

I guess they perceived me as a threat to the status quo. But I perceived them as a threat to my life. In 1969, they produced a Wanted poster featuring a large swastika and the headline "LAMPSHADES! LAMPSHADES! LAMPSHADES!" Inside the four square spaces of the swastika were photos of Yippie co-founders Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and me, and Mark Rudd of SDS. The text warned that “the only solution to Negro problems in America would be the elimination of the Jews. May we suggest the following order of elimination? (After all, we’ve been this way before.) All Jews connected with the Establishment. All Jews connected with Jews connected with the Establishment. All Jews connected with those immediately above. All Jews except those in the Movement. All Jews in the Movement except those who dye their skin black. All Jews (look out, Jerry, Abbie, Mark and Paul)!”

My FBI files indicate that the leaflet was approved by J. Edgar Hoover’s top two aides in Washington D.C.: “Authority was granted to prepare and distribute on an anonymous basis to selected individuals and organizations in the New Left the leaflet submitted. Assure that all necessary precautions are taken to protect the Bureau as the source of these leaflets. NY suggested a leaflet containing pictures of several New Left leaders who are Jewish. This leaflet suggests facetiously the elimination of these leaders. NY’s proposal would create further ill feeling between the New Left and the black nationalist movement.”

And, of course, if some overly militant black nationalist had obtained that flyer and eliminated one of those New Left leaders who was Jewish, the FBI’s bureaucratic ass would be covered. “We said it was a facetious suggestion, didn’t we?”


6. Given that you were at the forefront of the tumultuous Sixties, what comparisons between then and now can you make? How were the Yippies and Occupy movement similar/different?

Image from Hollywood Progressive.

We had to perform stunts to get media coverage. A group of us went to the New York Stock Exchange and threw $200 worth of singles onto the floor below, where shouts of “Pork Bellies! Pork Bellies!” suddenly morphed into Diving for Dollars. This was followed by a press conference about the connection between capitalism and war. And now, an Occupy placard, “Wall Street Is War Street,” gave me a strong sense of continuity.

The evolution of technology has changed the way protests are organized. The Yippies had to use messy mimeograph machines to print out flyers that had to be folded and stuffed into envelopes, licked, addressed, stamped and mailed. The Internet -- and social media such as Facebook and Twitter -- have enabled Occupiers to inexpensively reach countless people immediately.


7. Despite the obvious limitations of our traditional two-party system, who are some of your all-time favorite and least favorite politicians?

Favorites: Bernie Sanders, Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich. Least favorites: Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush.


8. Obviously, it’s way too early, but if you had to bet $100, who do you see as the Democratic and Republican candidates in 2016? 

Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie.


9. What inspired your infamous FUCK COMMUNISM! poster?

Mad magazine art director and Realist columnist John Francis Putnam wanted to give me a housewarming gift in 1963. He had designed the word FUCK in red-white-and-blue lettering emblazoned with stars and stripes. Now he needed a second word, a noun that would serve as an appropriate object for that verb. He suggested AMERICA, but that didn't seem right to me. It certainly wasn't an accurate representation of my feelings. I was well aware that I probably couldn't publish The Realist in any other country. Besides, a poster saying FUCK AMERICA! lacked a certain sense of irony.

There was at that time a severe anti-Communist hysteria burgeoning throughout the land. The attorney general of Arizona rejected the Communist Party's request for a place on the ballot because state law “prohibits official representation” for Communists and, in addition, “The subversive nature of your organization is even more clearly designated by the fact that you do not even include your Zip Code.”

Alvin Dark, manager of the Giants, announced that “Any pitcher who throws at a batter and deliberately tries to hit him is a Communist.” And singer Pat Boone declared at the Greater New York Anti-Communism Rally in Madison Square Garden, “I would rather see my four daughters shot before my eyes than have them grow up in a Communist United States. I would rather see those kids blown into Heaven than taught into Hell by the Communists.”

So I suggested COMMUNISM for the second word, since the usual correlation between conservatism and prudishness would provide the incongruity that was missing. Putnam designed the word COMMUNISM in red lettering emblazoned with hammers and sickles. Then he presented me with a patriotic poster which now proudly proclaimed FUCK COMMUNISM! -- suitable for framing.


10. Also, I have to ask about your controversial Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster. How did that come about?

When Walt Disney died in December 1966, it occurred to me that he had served as the Creator of this whole stable of imaginary characters who were now mourning in a state of suspended animation. Disney had been their Intelligent Designer, and had repressed all their baser instincts. But now that he had departed, they could finally shed their cumulative inhibitions and participate together in an unspeakable sexual binge to signify the crumbling of an empire.

So, I contacted Wally Wood, who had illustrated the first script I wrote for Mad, and I told him my notion of a memorial orgy at Disneyland. He fulfilled that assignment with a magnificently degenerate montage, unleashing those characters’ collective libido and demystified an entire genre in the process. I published it as a black-and-white two-page centerspread, which was so popular that I re-published it as a poster. In 2005, a new, digitally colored edition of the original artwork in authentic Disney colors (you can see it at paulkrassner.com) was done by a former Disney employee who prefers to remain anonymous.


11. Having done stand-up comedy for more than 50 years, how have your audiences changed?

I think they’re more aware now of the contradictions in mainstream culture, the phony piety that permeates society, the inhumane hypocrisy. And I’ve evolved right along with them. Performing, for me, has always been a two-way street. English is my second language. Laughter is my first.


12. And finally, what are you working on currently?

I'm writing my long-awaited (by me) first novel, about a contemporary Lenny Bruce-type performer. I'm also compiling a collection, The Best of Paul Krassner: 50 Years of Investigative Satire. And I'm gathering up my archives -- translation: all the crap in my garage -- for some lucky university.

[David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and author (It's Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor), is a former labor union rep.] 

Find articles by and about Paul Krassner on The Rag Blog and listen to Thorne Dreyer's three Rag Radio interviews with Paul Krassner.

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Tom Tomorrow : Free-Market-Man

Cartoon by Tom Tomorrow / This Modern World.

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Source / Truthout

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COMIC / Tom Keough : Baseball's Handout to Haiti

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Political cartoon by Tom Keough / The Rag Blog / February 5, 2010

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COMICS / Paul Buhle : Beyond the Superhero

Pages from Die Stadt (1925), a “novel in woodcuts” by anarchist artist Frans Masereel (1889–1972). Masereel's novels are not usually treated as "comics."
Beyond the superhero

With the boom in graphic novels, comics are likely to appear anywhere -- sometimes lavish and funded by patrons of the arts, sometimes strictly ephemeral and popular enough to claw back costs.

By Paul Buhle / The Rag Blog / July 23, 2009

Comic art has been global for at least a century. Comic strips have passed from nation to nation through the commercial press and, at least now and then, the socialist and communist countries.

The woodcut novels of Belgian leftwinger Frans Masereel would have been the greatest, but were not usually treated as "comics."

Until the last couple of decades, most of the exchanges involved European and U.S. exports and imports. Manga from Japan changed things, but so has the work of unique geniuses like Osamu Tezuka, Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman, joined more recently by Marjane Sartrapi and Alison Bechdel among others.

With the boom in graphic novels, comics are likely to appear anywhere -- sometimes lavish and funded by patrons of the arts, sometimes strictly ephemeral and popular enough to claw back costs.

Too often they mirror the violence and racial sentiments of the superhero genre that first made U.S. comic books famous and grandly profitable, providing wartime reading among soldiers a long way from home. But not always, not by a long shot.

The absence of corporate domination of comic art in Canada, experts say, has opened the door to some of the most artistic productions in the English language via Montreal's Drawn & Quarterly press.

Its publications are not political as such, but the artist known only as Seth, for example, has delivered extended treatments of the essential loneliness of modern middle-class life, looking a few generations back and forward to the present. He also drew and wrote from oral history the saga of his father's desperately poor 1930s childhood in the maritime provinces.

Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography by Chester Brown.
Highest plaudits must go to Chester Brown's Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, which traces the life of the Metis and the curious leader of the resistance during the British invasion of central Canada in the mid-19th century.

Drawn & Quarterly is also the best publisher of admired Chicago artist Chris Ware, an inward and backward-looking artist who nevertheless reveals from time to time how he despises the presumptions of empire and the layers of psychological distortion necessary to keep the citizenry in line.

Then there is Aya by African writer Marguerite Abouet and French artist Clement Oubrerie, a trans-border collaboration of another kind. An adolescence-gender drama that relates daily life in the Ivory Coast of the 1970s, it depicts a recently decolonized society making use -- or misuse -- of its resources, cutting down the forest for agricultural production and creating a surplus for a degree of comfort for the urban lower-middle classes.

A young woman aspires to be a doctor but finds herself trapped on all sides, helping a friend seek an abortion and then accept the finality of single motherhood instead. Not much else happens out of the everyday. But the color work is lovely to look at and the attempt at realism notable.

Beyond Drawn and Quarterly, there is Nelson Mandela: The Authorised Comic Book, an African but also global story of another kind. First published in South Africa last year and printed in China, like the most lavish comic art these days, it appears this month in a U.S.-British edition released by the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Researched, storyboarded, drawn and inked by a team so large that no artist's credit appears on the cover, it is somewhat grey in more than one sense.

The South African Communist Party's role has been minimized, even though individual Communists achieve heroic status. The art seems to me both stiff and predictable. On the other hand, the saga of struggle against racism, like the courage of the protagonist, should leave an indelible impression on young readers in particular.

There is so much more to say on comics' global reach. Scratch a little harder and small items like the Canadian Mayday: A Graphic History Of Protest, a lively 24-pager recently published in Vancouver, are likely to turn up. But this column is merely a first look.

[Paul Buhle is an educator and historian and a publisher of left wing comic books. His latest book is The Art Of Harvey Kurtzman (Abrams), an exploration of the genius who created Mad Magazine and brought together John Cleese and Terry Gilliam of Monty Python's Flying Circus. His writing about comic art and other subjects will continue to appear in The Rag Blog. This article was also published in Morning Star, U.K.]

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Tom Hayden Comic : The Long War

The Long WarText by Tom Hayden.Illustrated by Sam Marlow and Ellis Rosen. Edited by Paul Buhle.
Published by The Rag Blog.

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[Tom Hayden, a prime mover in the Sixties New Left, was a California State Senator. A respected activist and author, he was a founder of Progressives for Obama and is the author of Ending the War in Iraq (2007), The Voices of the Chicago Eight (2008), and Writings for a Democratic Society, the Tom Hayden Reader (2008).]

[Sam Marlow and Ellis Rosen are graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Together they self-published two comics. Marlowe also worked as a digital colorist for Chicago comic artist, Paul Hornshemeier, on titles such as “The Three Paradoxes”, and Marvel Comics’ “Omega the Unknown.” He recently completed a short science fiction comic about the end of the world. He is currently volunteering at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Rosen lives in NewYork where he also works part time at the Barry Friedman Gallery.]

[Paul Buhle is an educator and a historian. He published the New Left journal Radical America during the 1960s and has written or edited many books on radicalism and culture. He now organizes leftwing comic books.]

Go here for earlier Tom Hayden comics published by The Rag Blog.

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Tom Hayden Comic : Partial Peace, Looming War

Partial Peace, Looming WarText by Tom Hayden.Illustrated by Sam Marlow and Ellis Rosen. Edited by Paul Buhle.
Published by The Rag Blog.

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[Tom Hayden, a prime mover in the Sixties New Left, was a California State Senator. A respected activist and author, he was a founder of Progressives for Obama and is the author of Ending the War in Iraq (2007), The Voices of the Chicago Eight (2008), and Writings for a Democratic Society, the Tom Hayden Reader (2008).]

[Sam Marlow and Ellis Rosen are graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Together they self-published two comics. Marlowe also worked as a digital colorist for Chicago comic artist, Paul Hornshemeier, on titles such as “The Three Paradoxes”, and Marvel Comics’ “Omega the Unknown.” He recently completed a short science fiction comic about the end of the world. He is currently volunteering at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Rosen lives in NewYork where he also works part time at the Barry Friedman Gallery.]

[Paul Buhle is an educator and a historian. He published the New Left journal Radical America during the 1960s and has written or edited many books on radicalism and culture. He now organizes leftwing comic books.]

Please see "Iraqis Bear Tragedy of American Empire" by Tom Hayden, a Rag Blog comic, with an introduction titled "Comic art is growing up" by Paul Buhle / The Rag Blog / April 7, 2009.

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Tom Hayden Comic : The Tragedy of Iraq

Iraqis Bear Tragedy of American EmpireText by Tom Hayden.Illustrated by Sam Marlow and Ellis Rosen. Edited by Paul Buhle.
Published by The Rag Blog.
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Comic art is growing up
By Paul Buhle / The Rag Blog / April 7, 2009

Comic art is growing up. And the youngest generation promises to be the best yet, building upon the work of the past. That is to say: the previous generations of newspaper and comic book art, but especially the Underground Comix days of The Rag and others, and the alternative art (Austin’s Jack Jaxon notably) that began to take history seriously. I’m happy to have had a small role in much of this since the appearance of RADICAL AMERICA KOMIKS in 1969, with Gilbert Shelton in charge editorially and me, a mere publisher.

It was the happiest of coincidences that brought artist Ellis Rosen and Sam Marlow together with me, through a particularly wonderful student of mine at Brown. I’d been working fitfully on a Tom Hayden Comic, given it up a couple years ago, now see it come to life in a new way, from Tom’s passing observations on the global scene.

Keep tuned, this is something new and exciting.

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[Tom Hayden, a prime mover in the Sixties New Left, was a California State Senator. A respected activist and author, he was a founder of Progressives for Obama and is the author of Ending the War in Iraq (2007), The Voices of the Chicago Eight (2008), and Writings for a Democratic Society, the Tom Hayden Reader (2008).]

[Sam Marlow and Ellis Rosen are graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Together they self-published two comics. Marlowe also worked as a digital colorist for Chicago comic artist, Paul Hornshemeier, on titles such as “The Three Paradoxes”, and Marvel Comics’ “Omega the Unknown.” He recently completed a short science fiction comic about the end of the world. He is currently volunteering at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Rosen lives in NewYork where he also works part time at the Barry Friedman Gallery.]

[Paul Buhle is an educator and a historian. He published the New Left journal Radical America during the 1960s and has written or edited many books on radicalism and culture. He now organizes leftwing comic books.]

Coming Soon: "Partial Peace, Looming War," by Tom Hayden, a Rag Blog comic.

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Censorship Revisited : Tommy Smothers Gets his Due

Tommy Smothers overlooking a valley in his Sonoma vineyard - he still gets together with brother Dick to perform their routine. Photo by Kim Komenich / San Francisco Chronicle
Tommy Smothers: 'I dedicate this Emmy to all people who feel compelled to speak out, not afraid to speak to power, won't shut up and refuse to be silent.'
By Joel Selvin / October 22, 2008

"No comedian's wife thinks he's funny," Tommy Smothers says as he surveys the panoramic vista from his hilltop home and vineyard in the middle of Sonoma's Valley of the Moon. "The first few years of the marriage, maybe. I was funny as hell the first couple of years."

Smothers first repaired to this peak 40 years ago to lick his wounds after CBS abruptly pulled the rug out from under the top-rated "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" on the eve of its fourth season, the culmination of constant harassment and surveillance by the network's censors during the show's three seasons.

At last month's Emmy Awards, Smothers accepted a belated trophy for his contributions to the team that won the 1968 writing award for the show's final season; Smothers left his name off at the time, fearing the inclusion would draw controversy. When he accepted his Emmy last month, he was typically plainspoken and eloquent at the same time, a Smothers hallmark. (The speech is on YouTube.)

"Freedom of expression and freedom of speech aren't really important," he told the audience, "unless they're heard. The freedom of hearing is as important as the freedom of speaking. It's hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. There's nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action. So I dedicate this Emmy to all people who feel compelled to speak out, not afraid to speak to power, won't shut up and refuse to be silent."

September was a watershed moment for the Smothers Brothers in another respect: The long-awaited release of the comedy show's third and final season on DVD, this time including the portions of the show CBS censored, including Harry Belafonte singing "Don't Stop the Carnival" as footage of violence outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago rolled behind him.

NPR television critic David Bianculli will publish his oral history of the Smothers Brothers show next year. What started as a last-ditch effort by the network to salvage TV's dying variety-show format became a landmark series in television history.

Act of repression

The muzzling of the Smothers Brothers at the height of the Vietnam War and the era of student protest was an emblematic act of political repression three months after Richard Nixon was elected president. But the firing of the Smothers Brothers has echoed through the years, becoming a case study in mass media censorship. The brothers, who arrived on the small screen as clean-cut, wholesome folk song parodists, stumbled into the turbulent times.

"Instead of vacuous comedy, we thought, 'Let's do something with some bite,' " Smothers, says. "There was the Vietnam War, voters' rights - all sorts of issues that we thought we could reflect and develop a point of view. We didn't even know it was important until they said 'You can't say this.' Forty years later, people are still talking about it. Isn't that amazing?"

The Emmy sits on the top of a grand piano cluttered with family photos. Smothers, 71, and his wife of 18 years, Marcy, have two teenagers (Smothers also has a grown son from an earlier marriage). Medical school skeletons, some wearing costumes, are stationed around the spacious living room that looks out over the valley. Smothers sits in a chair next to a table with a pair of lamps shaped like giant kernels of candy corn.

"I had mixed feelings," he says about the award. "It's in the past - what's the difference? Then my wife and kids got excited about it, and I started to think maybe this is pretty cool. I started to think about what am I going to say. Because we were silenced for it 40 years ago doesn't mean we have been converted. So I made my little statement. Steve Martin introduced me. My brother thought it was cool, pretty neat."

From the standpoint of today's TV fare, the old Smothers Brothers shows look decidedly tame. One of the first bits that raised the network's ire involved nothing more flagrant than comedian David Steinberg saying Moses burned his feet on the bush, and "there are many Old Testament scholars who to this day believe it was the first mention of Christ in the Bible."

But it wasn't the lame anti-war jokes or comedian and presidential candidate Pat Paulsen's editorials on gun control that earned the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" its place in history. "The silencing made it more important, the issue of being censored," Smothers says. "If they had just not picked up the show, it wouldn't have been that big an issue."

Government censorship isn't necessary in a free-enterprise system, Smothers says, citing reasons that prove he hasn't mellowed a bit in four decades. "The country doesn't have to stop people from saying stuff. The corporations do it for them. Look at the Dixie Chicks. The corporations are fighting things for other people. That's fascism in action. Fascism is when private industry owns the government."

Tom and Dick Smothers started out as a folk-singing comedy team, then got political on their "Comedy Hour" in the '60s. SF Chronicle File Photo 1971.
Developing the act

The two brothers (and a sister - Tom, Dick and Sherry) grew up in Southern California. Tommy and Dickie began to develop an act while students at San Jose State, an act they polished at North Beach nightclubs in the '50s. Their 1961 album, "Live at the Purple Onion," established them as leading clowns on the folk-music scene. They are celebrating their 50th anniversary in show business and perform as many as 60 concerts a year.

"We were famous before we were good," Smothers says. "Now we're good, not famous."

The act has changed little over the years. Tommy Smothers started playing yo-yo about 25 years ago - when he does yo-yo tricks, they are funny, and when they don't work, even funnier - and he usually carries one in his pocket.

Tom and Dick Smothers not only mined the fascination of the day with folk songs, but also the passive-aggressive relationship between brothers - "Mom always liked you best" - a role that often spilled over into their offstage life.

"We've been 2 feet apart for 50 years. He's always on my left. I'm always on his right. Same with our baby pictures. We've been looking at each other that far away. We'll get offstage and he'll look at me and say, 'When are you going to have that cyst fixed?' "

Smothers says all that stopped after an 18-hour couples-counseling session about 15 years ago.

The counselor "changed everything basically by saying, 'Stop the nonsense - you're professionals, cut out all this brother s-,' " Smothers says. "We could fight. We could clear a room."

Smothers replanted 45 acres on the hillsides surrounding his home after phylloxera took the old grapevines. When he and Dick, 68, first moved to Sonoma and bought property outside Kenwood, they started producing Smothers Brothers Wine, but long ago changed the name to Remick Ridge, after their grandfather.

"People would say Smothers Brothers is a good wine, but it has a funny finish - things like that," says Smothers.

Dick left Sonoma long ago for Florida, but his older brother has developed a keen appreciation of the role the straight man plays in comedy teams.

"The straight man in vaudeville was paid more than the comic," he says. "That was the skilled position. The straight man could introduce acts, and you could put him with a funny guy and have him control that. If you don't believe the straight man, you don't believe the comic. Look at Bud Abbott, Dean Martin, Dan Rowan. I learned this in 50 years in the business - the quality of the straight man defines how good the act is."

When he first moved to the property, he lived in a cabana next to the swimming pool and then slowly built a barn, garage and magnificent home over the years. He has grapevines trained to grow along his rooftop, a tomato plant sprawling onto his patio and rosebushes he prunes himself.

The firing clobbered the Smothers Brothers, who spent years recovering their careers and, in many ways, their lives as well.

"It took three years to get my sense of humor back," he says. "I started taking everything seriously. I became the temporary poster boy for the First Amendment, freedom of speech. Twenty years later, there's Howard Stern."

Humor reclaimed

He and his brother went off separately, as Smothers struggled to find himself. "Everything was so serious," he says. "Then I saw Jane Fonda on the 'Tonight Show' one night talking about burning babies. I think Cesar Chavez was on the same show. It was like an epiphany for me - there was no joy, no sense of humor, no laughter. It just turned me around."

He leaves and returns with a calligraphic print he and his wife sent out some years before as a Christmas card. It is a quote from Alistair Cooke that reads:

"In the best of times, our days are numbered anyway. So it would be a crime against nature for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly, that it put off enjoying those things for which we were designed in the first place: the opportunity to do good work, to enjoy friends, to fall in love, to hit a ball, and to bounce a baby."

With a playwright's timing, his wife arrives, fresh from working out, a trim woman who hosts a radio talk show in Santa Rosa.

"OK, so she's 25 years younger," says Smothers. "If she dies, she dies."

"I didn't think that was funny the first time," says his wife.

In Tommy Smothers' life, everybody else is a straight man.

Source / SFGate

Thanks to Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog

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The Most Trusted Man in America

You can’t be serious: How a comedian became the most influential voice in American politics
by Leonard Doyle / August 19, 2008

See video below.

When Jon Stewart inaugurated his fake news anchor on The Daily Show eight years ago, his goal was to send up the hyperbolic and manufactured controversy of US Cable News and, if possible, be even more outrageous. Now, in a wonderful through-the-looking-glass moment, he has supplanted the subjects of his mockery in the country’s current affairs consciousness, and finds himself crowned the bemused voice of reason in an insane world.The underground comic has become such a cultural touchstone that The New York Times asked this week whether he has become “the most trusted man in America”.

For anyone who has missed the influential anchor, then his take on the way mainstream media peddles false rumours about Barack Obama is instructive. He calls it “Baracknophobia” and shows clips of blow-dried anchors and experts repeating widely-believed but baseless rumours - that the Democrat is actually a secret Muslim, a plagiarist, a misogynist etc. The purveyor of fake news lacerates the networks’ talking heads as they blame the internet for rumour mongering about Obama.

The highlight is a straight-faced Mr Stewart saying: “Oh, this is interesting. SomeguyI’veneverheardof.com is reporting presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama has lady parts. Obviously scurrilous and unfounded, we’ll examine it tonight in our special, ‘Barack Obama’s Vagina: The October Surprise In His Pants’.”

The latest sign of how far the show and its host have come from their edgy early days will come at the Democratic Convention in Denver, where he and his reporters are fully accredited.

When asked last year by the Pew Research Centre to name the journalist they most admired, Americans placed the fake news anchor Mr Stewart at number four on the list. He was tied with such luminaries as Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather, then of CBS, and Anderson Cooper of CNN.

The Daily Show and the equally funny and successful Colbert Report shows are broadcast more than 23 times a week, “from Comedy Central’s World News Headquarters in New York”. The side-street studio on Manhattan’s West Side is not only the undisputed locus of fake news, but it is increasingly the epicentre of real news - administered with a wrapping of college humour.

The whispered advice of a State Department spokesman to a foreign correspondent trying to make sense of American politics was very simple: tune into The Daily Show. “I watch the reruns every morning at 10.30,” she said, “it’s the only way to find out what’s really going on.”

The Conflict in Georgia


The Daily Show is also a top priority for ambitious politicians and was described by Newsweek as “the coolest pit stop on television” for presidential candidates, world leaders and ex-presidents. While mainstream news gave an even-handed report on the legacy of the Blair-Bush years after Tony Blair’s farewell visit to Washington last year, The Daily Show tore Mr Blair to ribbons.

One of the programme’s signature techniques - of using video montages showing politicians contradicting themselves - is now a staple technique of mainstream news shows.

Nor is The Daily Show afraid of tackling what it calls “super depressing” stories, such as President George Bush’s decision to approve the use of torture after the September 11 attacks and the unprecedented concentration of executive power by the White House. Interviews with serious authors such as Seymour Hersh have helped focus attention on potentially illegal acts by the Bush administration and win a wider audience for their work.

Mr Stewart’s frequent outbursts of “Are you insane?!” seems to capture the post-M*A*S*H, post-Catch-22 sensibilities of a country that waged a war in Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Now, with the most promising candidate in generations running for president, Mr Stewart asks whether the country may be about to reject him at the ballot box because of rumours that he is Muslim.

The purpose of The Daily Show is to entertain, not inform, Mr Stewart insists, and he likens his job to “throwing spitballs” from the back of the room. But he and the high-powered writers who work with him like nothing better than tackling the big issues of the day - in ways that straight news programs cannot.

“Hopefully, the process is to spot things that would be grist for the funny mill,” Mr Stewart, 45, told The New York Times. “In some respects, the heavier subjects are the ones that are most loaded with opportunity because they have the most … potential energy, so to delve into that gives you the largest combustion, the most interest. I don’t mean for the audience. I mean for us.”

The Daily Show’s success comes from blending the informality and attitude of bloggers with the hard-nosed research and expertise of the best investigative reporters to reveal a new news medium. Like bloggers, a key to his show’s success is the authenticity that comes from in-depth reporting, combined with stating the blindingly obvious.

Every day begins with a morning meeting where material culled from 15 video recorders, as well as newspapers, magazines and websites, is pored over. The meeting, Mr Stewart says, “would be very unpleasant for most people to watch: it’s really a gathering of curmudgeons expressing frustration and upset, and the rest of the day is spent trying to … repress that through whatever creative devices we can find”. Josh Lieb, one of the executive producers of the show, describes the process as looking for stories that “make us angry in a whole new way”.

By 3pm a script has been prepared and Mr Stewart’s rehearsals begin. After an hour of rewrites, taping the show starts at 6pm.

The fake news anchor may be the antidote to fake news, which has a habit of showing up in American newspapers. After all, the US government had an initiative in 2005 to plant “positive news” in Iraqi newspapers to sway public opinion about the war. The Bush administration has worked closely with big business to keep it flowing.

According to Professor Robert Love, of Columbia Journalism School: “They have used fringe scientists and fake experts to muddy scientific debates on global warming, stem-cell research, evolution, and other matters.”

For all his fakery, Mr Stewart may be pointing the way to the future of news: bluntness and informality fused with ruthless editing and a funny bone which helps to ensure that stories he wants to cover are watched.

©independent.co.uk

Source, including a couple more videos / The Independent

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Mexican Comic and Stamps Draw Charges of Racism

Houston: Customers ask Wal-Mart stores to remove Memín Pinguín comic
By Leslie Casimir / July 8, 2008

See "Stamps Racist, Civil Rights Leaders Say," at end of this article.

Beloved by Mexicans for his dim wits, street smarts and playful disposition, long-running comic book character Memín Pinguín — a little black boy whose face resembles a monkey — is at it again.

His zany adventures chronicled in a hugely popular book series for decades are up for sale at your neighborhood Wal-Mart store in the Libros en Español section, right next to the store's cadre of African-American books.

The latest issue: Memín para presidente.

By Shawnedria McGinty's American standards, the image was shocking. The African-American woman who was shopping at the store on South Post Oak over the weekend immediately asked a store manager to remove the books from the shelves. A manager told her he would comply.

"I said, wait a minute: Is this a monkey or a little black boy?" said McGinty, 34, of Meyerland. "I was so upset. This is 2008."

But as of Monday afternoon, the books were still on the shelves at many Houston stores, prompting community activist Quanell X to demand that Wal-Mart apologize for selling the racially charged books.

"Even Hispanics of conscious minds sense this is racist and that to sell this is totally unacceptable," said Quanell X, who spoke in front of the Wal-Mart on South Post Oak and demanded officials issue an apology. "It is a disgrace — it's an insult to all African-Americans."

Quanell X, who was contacted by McGinty, requested a meeting with regional Wal-Mart officials.

A Wal-Mart spokesman said the books were removed late Monday at the Meyerland location, but would not say if the comic books would be pulled at other Houston locations. A Houston Chronicle reporter bought three Memín comic books for $7.44 each at another Wal-Mart on Dunvale.

"We will be evaluating the best course of action," said Phillip Keene, a company spokesman.

Memín is no stranger to controversy. In 2005, the Mexican postal service released a series of new stamps commemorating the comic book character, who debuted in the 1940s. The stamps sold out quickly, but the debate endured and swirled between the U.S. White House and the Mexican White House.

To some in America, Memín's stereotypical image of exaggerated lips and ape-like characteristics represents a racist period in the nation's history when black-face characters were popular.

The stamps were deemed offensive by President Bush and a number of American leaders, including civil rights icon Jesse Jackson. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said he didn't understand what all the fuss was about and insisted that Memín's image was not racist, but a beloved character embraced by all Mexicans.

"When you read the stories, he's always the hero — he saves the day," said Raul Ramos, professor of Mexican-American history at the University of Houston, who added that the racial dynamics in Mexico — where stereotypical "Sambo" characters do not exist — are far more complex than in the U.S. "He's kind of the Charlie Chaplin figure, the rascal who is able to overcome the difficult situations. So he's a very populist character in that way."

Omar G., 45, who was shopping at the Meyerland Wal-Mart with his four American-born children, said he did not want his children to read it.

"I grew up reading the comic book as a kid in Mexico, but for here, it is offensive for some people," said Omar, who did not want his last name published. "To see it here in Wal-Mart, I am surprised."

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Source. / Houston Chronicle

The Mexican government issued a series of five stamps depicting a black cartoon character known as Memin Pinguin. Photo by Dario Lopez-mills / AP

Mexican Stamps Racist, Civil Rights Leaders Say
Images Feature Popular Cartoon Character
By Darryl Fears / June 30, 2008

The Mexican government issued a series of stamps yesterday depicting a dark-skinned Jim Crow-era cartoon character with greatly exaggerated eyes and lips, infuriating black and Hispanic civil rights leaders for the second time in weeks.

Mexican postal officials said the five-stamp series features Memin Pinguin, a character from a comic book created in the 1940s, because he is beloved in Mexico. A spokesman for the Mexican Embassy described the depiction as a cultural image that has no meaning and is not intended to offend.

The Mexican government issued a series of five stamps depicting a black cartoon character known as Memin Pinguin. (By Dario Lopez-mills -- Associated Press)

"Just as Speedy Gonzalez has never been interpreted in a racial manner by the people in Mexico," embassy spokesman Rafael Laveaga said. ". . . He is a cartoon character. I am certain that this commemorative postage stamp is not intended to be interpreted on a racial basis in Mexico or anywhere else."

But the leaders of the NAACP, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the National Council of La Raza and the National Urban League denounced the image in strong terms, calling it the worst kind of black stereotype. The curator of a Michigan museum that collects Jim Crow memorabilia said the Memin Pinguin caricature is a classic "pickaninny" -- a black child, oafish and with apelike features.

"It is offensive," said the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, who like other leaders called on Mexican President Vicente Fox to apologize and stop circulation of the stamps. Jackson vowed to lead a demonstration at Mexican consulates if Fox does not do so.

It was the second time in seven weeks that Jackson called on Fox to apologize for a racial offense. In May, Fox apologized for saying that Mexican migrants in the United States work jobs that "even blacks don't want," a comment he said was taken out of context.

Marc H. Morial, executive director of the National Urban League, joined Jackson in calling on President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to denounce the stamps. "It's outrageous, it's offensive, and it really raises the question of whether President Fox's apology was sincere and meaningful," Morial said.

Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, said it is "impossible to overstate how appalled and offended I am, not only by the stamp but by the reaction of the Mexican postal service." She added: "Hispanic Americans and all other Americans will and should be equally outraged."

David Pilgrim, curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., said images such as that of Memin Pinguin are prolific in Mexico, Latin America and Japan. "I'm disappointed but not shocked," he said. "This is consistent with what we in the United States would refer to as a pickaninny image. It's disappointing when you find a government putting its stamp on racism."

Source. / Washington Post

Memin Pinguin:
The Structural Violence of an Image


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Clear Channel Bans Ads For Harry Shearer's CD Over Anti-Bush Image

Clear Channel, the radio station and billboard powerhouse, has banned an ad for Harry Shearer's new CD "Songs of Bushmen" because it depicts George Bush with a bone through his nose, the New York Post's Page Six reports:

The outdoor advertising arm of notoriously conservative Clear Channel has banned signs for "Songs of the Bushmen" because the cover depicts the president with a bone through his nose. "Their tone turned from genial salesperson to angry schoolmarm - 'This is unacceptable,' " Shearer, the voice of Mr. Burns and Flanders on "The Simpsons," told Page Six. "And it's not like this is a dangerous time to criticize George Bush."

Last October, Clear Channel's Palm Beach arm refused to air an ad for VoteVets during Rush Limbaugh's show because the ad "would conflict with the listeners who have chosen to listen to Rush Limbaugh."

[Disclosure: The ad is running on the Huffington Post, and Harry Shearer is a regular contributor to the site.]

Source. / The Huffington Post / June 27, 2008

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Another One Bites the Dust

George Carlin: American Radical
By John Nichols / June 23, 2008

I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. -- George Carlin.

The last vote that George Carlin said he cast in a presidential race was for George McGovern in 1972.

When Richard Nixon, who Carlin described as a member of a sub-species of humanity, overwhelmingly defeated McGovern, the comedian gave up on the political process.

"Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians," he explained in a routine that challenged all the premises of today's half-a-loaf reformers. "Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: "The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope."

Needless to say, George Carlin was not on message for 2008's "change we can believe in" election season.

His was a darker and more serious take on the crisis--and the change of consciousness, sweeping in scope and revolutionary in character, that was required to address it.

Carlin may have stopped voting in 1972. But America's most consistently savage social commentator for the best part of a half century, who has died at age 71, did not give up on politics.

In recent years, in front of audiences that were not always liberal, he tore apart the neo-conservative assault on liberty with a clarity rarely evidenced in the popular culture.

Recalling George Bush's ranting about how the endless "war on terror" is a battle for freedom, Carlin echoed James Madison's thinking with a simple question: "Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?"

Carlin gave the Christian right--and the Christian left--no quarter. "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State," Carlin said. "My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."

Carlin's take on the Ronald Reagan administration is the best antidote to the counterfactual romanticization of the former president--in which even Barack Obama has engaged--remains the single finest assessment of Reagan and his inner circle. While Carlin did not complain much about politicians, he made an exception with regard to the great communicator. Recorded in 1988 at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, and later released as an album--What Am I Doing in New Jersey?--his savage recollection of the then-concluding Reagan-Bush years opened with the line: "I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photograph of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan administration."

But there was no nostalgia for past fights, no resting on laurels, for this topical comedian. He read the papers, he followed the news, he asked questions--the interviews I did with Carlin over the years were more conversations than traditional Q & A's--and he turned it all into a running commentary that focused not so much on politics as on the ugly intersection of power and economics.

No one, not Obama, not Hillary Clinton and certainly not John McCain, caught the zeitgeist of the vanishing American dream so well as Carlin. "The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Not just aware of but steeped in the traditions of American populism--more William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Victor Debs than Bill Clinton or John Kerry--Carlin preached against the consolidation of wealth and power with a fire-and-brimstone rage that betrayed a deep moral sense that could never quite be cloaked with four-letter words.

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. 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 statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've 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," ranted the comedian whose routines were studied in graduate schools.

"But I'll tell you what they don't want," Carlin continued. "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. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers--people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. 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, sooner or later, because 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."

Carlin did not want Americans to get involved with the system.

He wanted citizens to get angry enough to remake the system.

Carlin was a leveler of the old, old school. And no one who had so public a platform--as the first host of NBC's "Saturday Night Live," a regular on broadcast and cable televisions shows, a best-selling author and a favorite character actor in films (he was even the narrator of the American version of he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends")--did more to challenge accepted wisdom regarding our political economy.

"Let's suppose we all just materialized on Earth and there was a bunch of potatoes on the ground, okay? There's just six of us. Only six humans. We come into a clearing and there's potatoes on the ground. Now, my instinct would be, let's everybody get some potatoes. "Everybody got a potato? Joey didn't get a potato! He's small, he can't hold as many potatoes. Give Joey some of your potatoes." "No, these are my potatoes!" That's the Republicans. "I collected more of them, I got a bigger pile of potatoes, they're mine. If you want some of them, you're going to have to give me something." "But look at Joey, he's only got a couple, they won't last two days." That's the fuckin' difference! And I'm more inclined to want to share and even out," he explained in an interview several years ago with the Onion.

"I understand the marketplace, but government is supposed to be here to redress the inequities of the marketplace," Carlin continued. "That's one of its functions. Not just to protect the nation, secure our security and all that shit. And not just to take care of great problems that are trans-state problems, that are national, but also to make sure that the inequalities of the marketplace are redressed by the acts of government. That's what welfare was about. There are people who really just don't have the tools, for whatever reason. Yes, there are lazy people. Yes, there are slackers. Yes, there's all of that. But there are also people who can't cut it, for any given reason, whether it's racism, or an educational opportunity, or poverty, or a fuckin' horrible home life, or a history of a horrible family life going back three generations, or whatever it is. They're crippled and they can't make it, and they deserve to rest at the commonweal. That's where my fuckin' passion lies."

Like the radicals of the early years of the 20th century, whose politics he knew and respected, Carlin understood that free-speech fights had to come first. And always pushed the limit--happily choosing an offensive word when a more polite one might have sufficed. By 1972, the year he won the first of four Grammys for best comedy album, he had developed his most famous routine: "Seven Words (You Can't Say on Television)."

That summer, at a huge outdoor show in Milwaukee, he uttered all seven of them in public – and was promptly arrested for disturbing the peace.

When a version of the routine was aired in 1973 on WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation radio station in New York,. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC. Pacifica was ordered to pay a fine for violating federal regulations prohibiting the broadcast of "obscene" language. The ensuing free-speech fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rile 5-4 against the First Amendment to the Constitution, Pacifica and Carlin.

Amusingly, especially to the comedian, a full transcript of the routine ended up in court documents associated with the case, F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978).

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," recalled Carlin. Proud enough that you can find the court records on the comedian's website: www.georgecarlin.com.

There will, of course, be those who dismiss Carlin as a remnant of the sixties who introduced obscenity to the public discourse--just as there will be those who misread his critique of the American political and economic systems as little more than verbal nihilism. In fact, George Carlin was, like the radicals of an earlier age, an idealist--and a patriot--of a deeper sort than is encountered very often these days.

Carlin explained himself best in one of his last interviews. "There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species--and my culture in America specifically--have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power," he said. "And perhaps it's just a human weakness and an inevitable human story that these things happen. But there's disillusionment and some discontent in me about it. I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word 'cynic' has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. 'George, you're cynical.' Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know.

Source. / The Nation

Also see A Littany for George Carlin in Seven Words / The Rag Blog / June 23, 2008

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A Litany for George Carlin in Seven Words

George Carlin, who died of heart failure Sunday at 71, leaves behind not only a series of memorable routines, but a legal legacy: His most celebrated monologue, a frantic, informed riff on those infamous seven words, led to a Supreme Court decision on broadcasting offensive language. -- Associated Press / June 24, 2008

The Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV
by George Carlin

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words.

I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.

They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion.

Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid.

Then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for that thought, so be careful with words. I like to think that the same words that hurt can heal, it is a matter of how you pick them.

There are some people that are not into all the words.

There are some that would have you not use certain words.

There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are seven of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is.

399,993 to seven. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous to be seperated from a group that large. All of you over here, you seven, Bad Words. That's what they told us they were, remember?

"That's a bad word!" No bad words. Bad thoughts, bad intentions... and words. You know the seven, don't you, that you can't say on television?

"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"

Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.

"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits" Wow! ...and Tits doesn't even belong on the list. That is such a friendly sounding word. It sounds like a nickname, right? "Hey, Tits, come here, man. Hey Tits, meet Toots. Toots, Tits. Tits, Toots." It sounds like a snack, doesn't it? Yes, I know, it is a snack. I don't mean your sexist snack. I mean new Nabisco Tits!, and new Cheese Tits, Corn Tits, Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits, Onion Tits, Tater Tits. "Betcha Can't Eat Just One."

That's true. I usually switch off. But I mean, that word does not belong on the list. Actually none of the words belong on the list, but you can understand why some of them are there. I'm not completely insensetive to people's feelings. I can understand why some of those words got on the list, like CockSucker and MotherFucker. Those are heavyweight words. There is a lot going on there. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling.

I mean, they're just busy words. There's a lot of syllables to contend with. And those Ks, those are agressive sounds. They just jump out at you like "coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer. coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer."

It's like an assualt on you. We mentioned Shit earlier, and two of the other 4-letter Anglo-Saxon words are Piss and Cunt, which go together of course. A little accidental humor there. The reason that Piss and Cunt are on the list is because a long time ago, there were certain ladies that said "Those are the two I am not going to say. I don't mind Fuck and Shit but 'P' and 'C' are out.", which led to such
stupid sentences as "Okay you fuckers, I'm going to tinkle now."

And, of course, the word Fuck. I don't really, well that's more accidental humor, I don't wanna get into that now because I think it takes to long. But I do mean that. I think the word Fuck is a very imprortant word. It is the beginning of life, yet it is a word we use to hurt one another quite often. People much wiser than I am said,
"I'd rather have my son watch a film with two people making love than two people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but I like to take it a step further.

I'd like to substitute the word Fuck for the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. "Okay, Sherrif, we're gonna Fuck you now, but we're gonna Fuck you slow."

So maybe next year I'll have a whole fuckin' ramp on the N word. I hope so. Those are the seven you can never say on television, under any circumstanses. You just cannot say them ever ever ever. Not even clinically. You cannot weave them in on the panel with Doc, and Ed, and Johnny. I mean, it is just impossible. Forget tHose seven. They're out.

But there are some two-way words, those double-meaning words.

Remember the ones you giggled at in sixth grade? "...And the cock CROWED three times" "Hey, tha cock CROWED three times. Ha ha ha ha. Hey, it's in the bible. Ha ha ha ha. There are some two-way words, like it is okay for Curt Gowdy to say "Roberto Clemente has two balls on him.", but he can't say "I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony. Don't you? He's holding them. He must've hurt them, by God." and the other two-way word that goes with that one is Prick. It's okay if it happens to your finger. You can prick your finger but don't finger your prick. No,no.

Source. / LyricsBox

Quite a wordsmith, he was. A scholar of the language. I note that he and I are the same age...I had the pleasure of his company one evening in about 1973. He was playing at the Marin Civic Center, around the corner from where I lived.

The Sons of Champlin opened the show. They rented a space across the court from my space and rehearsed, hung out there. We were all good friends. When George approached one of them about perhaps scoring some cocaine, they called me. I happened to have some and proceeded quickly over to the Center not knowing who my customer was. I was ushered in to his dressing room which was cleared of all company as we went through the score procedure. He immediately went to work on the new purchase and the two of us had a short time together, flying in the zone of the leaf.

He got so ready that he went out on stage before the roadies were finished, found a live mike and started his show. No introduction, just started rapping. Needless to say he was hilarious and did a great show. I really enjoyed being around him and became a lifelong fan. He was a genuine wizard.

Gerry / The Rag Blog / June 23, 2008

George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian, Is Dead / by Mel Watkins / New York Times / March 24, 2008

George Carlin Reads More Blogs Than You Do / Interview by Rachel Sklar / March 1, 2008 / The Huffington Post

Religion is Bullshit Video / The Rag Blog

Video highlights from George Carlin's Career / The Huffington Post

The Rag Blog

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