5 ms·

There is a John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode from a couple of weeks ago about this topic. Completely worth the 20 minutes it takes to watch it.

ShroudedNight 6y ago
Are you referring to the episode[1] (posted May 10th) or was there another, more recent one? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL8g0W9gAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL8g0W9gAQ
- fluffything 6y ago
  Yes, that's the one.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  I can't watch right now but does he do a decently bipartisan take on it? At the time the requirement to fund pensions through 2050ish was passed it got support from republicans who wanted to make life financially harder for USPS and democrats who wanted to guarantee that employees (union employees, so making sure they get a good deal is even more important) would be provided for and that USPS couldn't weasel out of it's obligations as part of a future bailout, perhaps by a congress that would have given employees the shaft.
  - tehwebguy 6y ago
    I’m always looking for videos that “debunk” Oliver to make sure I’m getting reasonable information but I never find any. Not sure if this means he’s usually right or not!
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      I've been following police violence and civil liberties for more than a decade now. I like to think I'm pretty well informed on the issue. His episode on riots didn't say anything wrong but he just kinda laid it all at the feet of the cops for shooting one too many unarmed black people when that's either a red herring or the straw that broke the camels back depending on how cynical you are. I get that he has to take a complex situation and make it into something a nationwide general audience can laugh at but he seemed to go to great lengths to avoid casting shade at city and state politicians (and by proxy voters) who bear a lot of responsibility here. He didn't say anything wrong but I was really disappointed how one sided it was. I know he's a comedian. I know he has an agenda. But it makes me suspect his other stuff might be tilted.
      - tehwebguy 6y ago
        No, if you mean the recent one called "Police" you are mistaken. At about 5:00 in he spends 6+ minutes talking about the decisions that put police in this position. * "Look, clearly, the police are just one part of a larger system of inequality, and for tonight we're going to focus primarily on them" * Then spends the next few sentences talking about how TV and film have painted an extremely unrealistic picture of police in the US * The history of policing and the policies we created it based on (slave patrol) * The Jim Crow laws & segregation that drove policing * Racist voters that tried to keet regions white * The media's whitewashing of the civil rights movement * Nixon & Regan's drug war + broken window policing * Stop & frisk policy and how more than 3/4 were black / hispanic * Then the big bomb at 9:05: "And let's be clear here, Democrats were very much involved in that, from big city mayors all the way up to this guy [shows a supercut of Bill Clinton in '93 promising 100k more police on the streets in various speeches, then "another 50k more in high crime neighborhoods"]" * This all came hand in hand with cutting every social service possible and pushing all of the extra work onto police * "So, while we should absolutely be angry at the police right now, let's also be angry at the series of choices that left them as essentially the only public resource in some communities" So he spent around 15-20% of the total time making it incredibly clear that while this is a police problem not a police only problem. What I'm more interested in knowing is, are his facts wrong? Or maybe is he leaving out an entirely separate side of things that point to the real issue? That's what I always wonder in the back of my mind.
        throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        You or I must be thinking of a different episode. I don't remember ANY of that. If he did say all of that then he did do a good job.

ShroudedNight 6y ago

Are you referring to the episode[1] (posted May 10th) or was there another, more recent one? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL8g0W9gAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL8g0W9gAQ

fluffything 6y ago
Yes, that's the one.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
I can't watch right now but does he do a decently bipartisan take on it? At the time the requirement to fund pensions through 2050ish was passed it got support from republicans who wanted to make life financially harder for USPS and democrats who wanted to guarantee that employees (union employees, so making sure they get a good deal is even more important) would be provided for and that USPS couldn't weasel out of it's obligations as part of a future bailout, perhaps by a congress that would have given employees the shaft.
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  I’m always looking for videos that “debunk” Oliver to make sure I’m getting reasonable information but I never find any. Not sure if this means he’s usually right or not!
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    I've been following police violence and civil liberties for more than a decade now. I like to think I'm pretty well informed on the issue. His episode on riots didn't say anything wrong but he just kinda laid it all at the feet of the cops for shooting one too many unarmed black people when that's either a red herring or the straw that broke the camels back depending on how cynical you are. I get that he has to take a complex situation and make it into something a nationwide general audience can laugh at but he seemed to go to great lengths to avoid casting shade at city and state politicians (and by proxy voters) who bear a lot of responsibility here. He didn't say anything wrong but I was really disappointed how one sided it was. I know he's a comedian. I know he has an agenda. But it makes me suspect his other stuff might be tilted.
    - tehwebguy 6y ago
      No, if you mean the recent one called "Police" you are mistaken. At about 5:00 in he spends 6+ minutes talking about the decisions that put police in this position. * "Look, clearly, the police are just one part of a larger system of inequality, and for tonight we're going to focus primarily on them" * Then spends the next few sentences talking about how TV and film have painted an extremely unrealistic picture of police in the US * The history of policing and the policies we created it based on (slave patrol) * The Jim Crow laws & segregation that drove policing * Racist voters that tried to keet regions white * The media's whitewashing of the civil rights movement * Nixon & Regan's drug war + broken window policing * Stop & frisk policy and how more than 3/4 were black / hispanic * Then the big bomb at 9:05: "And let's be clear here, Democrats were very much involved in that, from big city mayors all the way up to this guy [shows a supercut of Bill Clinton in '93 promising 100k more police on the streets in various speeches, then "another 50k more in high crime neighborhoods"]" * This all came hand in hand with cutting every social service possible and pushing all of the extra work onto police * "So, while we should absolutely be angry at the police right now, let's also be angry at the series of choices that left them as essentially the only public resource in some communities" So he spent around 15-20% of the total time making it incredibly clear that while this is a police problem not a police only problem. What I'm more interested in knowing is, are his facts wrong? Or maybe is he leaving out an entirely separate side of things that point to the real issue? That's what I always wonder in the back of my mind.
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        You or I must be thinking of a different episode. I don't remember ANY of that. If he did say all of that then he did do a good job.