John Oliver Laughs At Your American Dream (Video)
Here's what we love about John Oliver and the writing staff at Last Week Tonight: they have a real knack for taking issues that seem dry and unfunny, and then exploring them creatively and in depth, all the while bringing the ha-has, too. And so this week he tackles income inequality, or as Fox News calls it, Class Warfare. There's a simple test to see where you fall on the income inequality spectrum, he says: Are you paying for HBO or stealing it? What's especially galling in America is the extent to which people who are never going to be in the top tax brackets are so willing to support policies that are designed to help the rich get even richer; Oliver notes that our willingness to act against common sense is rooted in one of our best national traits, our optimism, which makes us susceptible to a huckster like Marco Rubio saying that there are no "haves and have-nots" in America, only "haves and soon-to-haves, people who have made it and people whowill make it." And so we simultaneously think that our system is unfair and we can't wait until we get to be rich exploiters too: "I can clearly see this game is rigged. Which is what's gonna make it so sweet when I win this thing, whooo!!"
All this would change immediately if the minimum wage were raised to $10.10/hour.
But fortunately that kind of socialist redistribution of wealth will never happen. Think how lazy those Poors would be with a lavish salary of $21,000/year!
"The hollow prize," as Melissa Harris Perry calls it. After the cities got ruined, they let African-Americans be mayor. "Here, 'Mayor' Washington/Dinkins/Nagin, get a broom and clean up this mess." Same thing w/the US and A.