"Chickens are decent people." - George Carlin

By Shira | Jun 29, 08 07:06 PM

About four minutes into this amazing monologue about a woman's right to choose, Carlin asks, "How come when it's us, it's an abortion, and when it's a chicken, it's an omelette?" While Carlin was not a vegan (or vegetarian), he was an astute observer of American society, including its schizophrenic attitudes towards animals.

Carlin died just as I started reading Lenny Bruce's autobiography How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Carlin has cited Bruce as an influence many times and was actually at the famous Lenny Bruce performance when Bruce was arrested for obscenity.

While America has a long way to go in the struggle for social justice, I've got to give props to these comedians for moving us forward in significant ways and paving the way for today's politically progressive comics. After all, could Stephen Colbert be named the 3rd most influential person of the year by TIME Magazine readers if Lenny hadn't pushed the envelope in the '50s and '60s? Nope.


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