RUSH: George Carlin passed away the other day in Santa Monica, California. A lot of people think of George Carlin as a wacko liberal satirist, controversialist or what have you, and on occasion he was. But he really skewered everything, and when it comes to the environmental left, George Carlin was one of us. We have some sound bites to illustrate this from Carlin appearances over the years.
CARLIN: Let me tell you about endangered species, all right? Saving endangered species is just one more arrogant attempt by humans to control nature. It’s arrogant meddling. It’s what got us in trouble in the first place. Doesn’t anybody understand that? Interfering with nature. Over 90%, way over 90% of all the species that have ever lived on this planet, ever lived, are gone. They’re extinct. We didn’t kill them all. They just disappeared. That’s what nature does. We’re so self-important, so self-important. Everybody is 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?
RUSH: This is great stuff. And of course these are the things the left ignores about George Carlin. But listen to this next one.
CARLIN: 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. There is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The people are (bleep) — difference, difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. It’s 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 only been engaged in heavy industry for a little more than 200 years.
RUSH: Yes. Does this not sound like things you have heard on this program?
CARLIN: 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 going to 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, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide 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 isn’t going anywhere. We are! We’re going away.
RUSH: George Carlin. (laughing) This was out of character for him for many of his monologues and his shows on HBO, but I wanted you to hear these because, dead right on the money. He even got some applause from his audience, which is also a healthy sign. Now we move on to June 18th, we’re going back to last week, public access television show, Democracy Now, with host Amy Goodman. Why are we even worrying about what’s on a public access television show? Cookie, you’re working too hard. She has to watch all the media. Public access television show? You know, all this could mean is that the Drive-Bys are getting too predictable and there’s nothing new there so she’s gotta go to the outer reaches of the fringe. Public access television show? Where? Do you know what public access is? Do you know what public access on cable is? That’s like where Al Goldstein worked. It’s where Robin what’s her name Byrd, the nudist in New York, it’s where she had her channel, public access. Remember Robin Byrd? Cookie’s watching public access. Amy Goodman? Public access. Anyway, they had Ralph Nader on. Ralph Nader on public access, and she said to Ralph Nader, ‘The meteorologists are talking ‘extreme weather.’ Those two words, but not global warming.’
NADER: Yes, well, you know, the connection will be made more and more between extreme weather that’s occurring all over the world, the increase in water vapor, the effect of that. It’s amazing how some people who doubt global warming, I guess like Rush Limbaugh, want to wait until the oceans overcome our literal landscapes, and I don’t know what more evidence they’re going to require.
RUSH: Water vapor, more water vapor going up? Think back to what you heard George Carlin say. This is a classic example, here we have an arrogant, smug liberal or whatever Nader is these days, thinking that the world began on the day he was born. It’s also distressing, what am I doing on public access? That is a tumble. This is one of the reasons I like satellite. There is no public access on satellite. Here’s James Hansen. This screwball who 20 years ago testified before Congress that we only had 20 years. Now he’s saying we’ve got 20 more, but this is our last chance. This the guy that wants to put the oil executives on trial for treason or high crimes against humanity and nature. This still has me offended because nobody knows who the oil execs are, nobody knows their names. How many times have you turned on the TV and seen a Big Oil exec out there saying anything about global warming? They don’t talk about it. I do. If anybody needs to be brought up on charges, high crimes, treason, whatever against nature, it’s me. After 20 years of hard work, to be ignored this way. The only solace is that it’s some insane lunatic who has left me out of the mix. Here he is at a hearing with the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, a portion of James Hansen’s remarks.
HANSEN: These CEOs are the potential people, the captains of industry who could solve the problem. So I just want to draw attention to them, so I, in my opinion, I say that if they don’t change their tactics, that they’re guilty of crimes against humanity and nature, and they should be tried in one way or another.
RUSH: Now, when I hear this, you and I of course have the natural reaction, we split a gut laughing, but I wonder what these leftists out there and the ordinary Americans who buy into this, what do they think when they hear something — I’m not talking about rabid leftists who would agree with this kind of deranged drivel. What about the average American? Who’s really interested in whether or not global warming’s happening or not? You know, there are these people that pay a little attention and they’ll watch the Drive-Bys, and they’ll hear these stories about the whales and the polar bears and so forth, and their kids will see Gore’s movie and they’ll go home and they’ll go, ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, we’re killing the polar bears.’ Of course parents don’t want their kids unhappy so they sign up. But what about these people that just see one or two reports a week about global warming, just a little concerned with it, but they don’t really know for sure, and then they hear something like this. I would love to be a fly on the wall in the average, ordinary American’s house, concerned about it, but it’s not a big issue, what they think when some wacko nutcase from NASA who they don’t know has been bought and paid for by George Soros says the Big Oil executives need to be brought to trial for high crimes against nature.
This is extreme. This is ludicrous. This is insane. This is stuff of satire, and I have this desire to understand how average Americans who pay scant attention react to this. Do they scratch their heads? Do they look at themselves and go, ‘Hmm, never looked at it that way.’ Do they think, ‘This guy is a kook.’ Because if they don’t pay enough attention they can’t have that much passion about it yet if they’re just paying a little attention here or there. And face it, that’s who these guys have to appeal to. You know, the global warming issue is just like any other political issue. It’s got its passionate believers on both sides, but the people in the middle, the great unwashed, their lives are still focused on being first in line at blockbuster, if they can afford to get there. Hear this kind of stuff. These are the people that have to be persuaded, this is a big problem. I just wonder how they react to it. I guess there’s no way of knowing, just one thing things that makes me curious.