Is John Oliver a hypocrite for commodifying our anger?
Dear fellow John Oliver fans,
I believe that John Oliver is a very astute comedian but has fallen in the hand of his corporate overlord, Warner Bros Discovery. When comedy intercepts politics, the comedian is responsible for what comes next.
When John Oliver became an American Citizen, his responsibility, as a citizen, was to learn the electoral process so he could share it with his audience.
On September 29, 2022, the Manhattan Democratic Party County Committee is meeting to elect its Chairperson. John is just one of the more than 1000 voices in the room representing Manhattan.
The position of Chairperson is significant because it’s the person that nominates the commissioner of the New York City Board of Elections. **If the elections are a mess, it’s by design. (Its structure is explained in this short video: https://youtu.be/KU8-lHctud8.)
My interactions with his security staff tell me that his corporate daddy owns him and that his satirical comedy is allowed as long as he doesn’t rock the boat.
I am a housing victim turned activist, and that is where I learned how the political system is stacked against the weak.
I learned to navigate the New York justice system through Law and Order, but I did with the help of multiple real lawyers and books from Nolo Press.
Yesterday, I stood in front of the Last Week Tonight studios to hand out flyers asking the audience to leave them on their chair as they departed.
I did that to elicit an answer on whether John Oliver will be at the 29th Manhattan meeting.
For two years, I have reached out as a Party Leader, an Activist, an official Public Advocate candidate, and yesterday, simply as a fellow democrat.
The interaction with his staff made me believe that he is a hypocrite. Even more, one can’t use the bullhorn without impunity when the show’s premise is to entice political activism.
It took me 20 years to discover the root of the problem and that the whole voting process, as we do it in America, is a total waste of time. The system is rigged, but it doesn’t mean it’s hopeless.
The problem is not structural; it’s participation. Not enough people participate. It’s not about voting either; Americans do vote plentifully.
The participation I am talking about is what I have been trying to get John Oliver to open his eyes. He, like me, is European educated; therefore, we share the same frame of reference.
The system is rigged because the thousand of voices that form the County Committee has been suppressed for more than 100 years. I just stumbled upon it by mistake, but one needs to experience it in person.
Black Panther New York Assemblyman Barron explains how the system is rigged: https://youtu.be/9WT-Tu16iW0. He describes how one person has all the votes in the party, and nothing gets done.
My European upbringing made me to realize that I was being misdirected and that the missing piece to fix the broken system was hidden in plain sight in the New York State constitution. It was the most democratically designed system where each individual represented a tiny district.
I have been like a troubadour, telling people to join me. That election is once every two years.
John Oliver should be honored for the trust the voters in his district bestowed on him. Instead, he got his staff to tell me that he knew he was not interested, to go elsewhere and not bother his patrons.
That is the interaction that makes me write that he is a hypocrite. As you can see in this picture, the staff created a wall to ensure I could not hand the flyers to my fellow fans.
The lady with the red bag made sure that the dance would not take place, and a security manager came to tell me that I was harassing him and his family, and they threatened me with an official legal complaint if I persisted.
As an activist, I told them I welcomed a lawsuit as it would shine a bright light on the Rep My Block project.
His base is usually folks that are in tune with how shitty the system is becoming. His show is not relaxing, and it feeds on our anxieties. He is hilarious and taps into our inner desire to change things, but in the end, he does a disservice to the movement if he refuses to teach about where the actual involvement takes place.
Every two years, there is a 15 minutes window to change the world, but only if 5,000 democrats join at the same time; otherwise, nothing will change.
Bernie supporter and film student Fahim Hamid did a short documentary about it; https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2004908. On a case-by-case basis, Fahim allowed the Social Democrats of America to give out special viewing tickets. https://www.socialists.us/askfor/requestvirtualticket/movie.
What is portrayed in this documentary happens in every county in the United States. The hanging chad in the 2000 elections, the flipping of the coin during the presidential caucus, and the long lines at the voting booth in Georgia, it’s all directed by those elected at the county committee.
If these elected people are old and clueless, it’s by design; for the last two years, John has had the opportunity to learn and experience it, but he has willfully ignored it.
His not showing up on the 29th makes me believe he monetizes our common anger. That makes him a hypocrite.
Theo Chino,
Co-founder of the https://RepMyBlock.org website.
