r/lastweektonight • u/Walter_Bishop_PhD Bugler • Aug 12 '24
Episode Discussion [Last Week Tonight with John Oliver] S11E20 - August 11, 2024 - Episode Discussion Thread
Official Clips
- To be added
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can't I view the YouTube links/why do the YouTube links appear to be removed?
- They are sadly region restricted in many countries - you can see which countries are blocked using this website.
Why don't I see the episode clips on Monday mornings anymore?
- They don't post the episode clips until Thursday now. The episode links on youtube you see posted on Sundays are blocked in most of the world.
Is there a way to suggest a topic for the show?
- They don't take suggestions for show topics.
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u/Klunkey Aug 12 '24
I’m all for a Walz glazing piece; I’m from Canada and I’m really rooting for him!
Edit: also, he made a couch-fucking joke and you didn’t even touch on that? Shame on you, John!
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u/dogman1890 Aug 12 '24 edited Aug 12 '24
I’m sad he’s not gonna be at our state fair this year, but he’s got way bigger fish to fry.
Edit: Stop chaise’ing them, I think that couch has been through enough, let them lounge in peace.
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u/East_Hedgehog6039 Aug 12 '24
Great episode. Incredibly informative, and only emboldened everyone’s rightful disdain and hate to billionaires and calling out unsurprising unethical practices of the military. Win win!
My heart feels heavy for Hawaii. I’m so glad this was covered and hopefully it brings more awareness to what we can do on the mainland to help support native Hawaiians.
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u/Ok-Cheesecake5306 EAT SHIT BOB Aug 12 '24
A few things I feel like he missed:
Post fire, housing prices obviously skyrocketed. The average cost of a single family home is now about $1.4M on Maui.
The water used to keep hotel landscaping in Lahaina nice and green is recycled wastewater, so it wouldn’t be going to fire hydrants. The water supplied to the rooms and kitchens, however, would.
When the Kingdom of Hawaii was annexed, only landowners could vote. Only white men could own land. Typical.
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u/anynormalman Aug 12 '24
Also, was it just me or did the prices the billionaires paid for their property seem relatively very low for what they were getting?? Buying an entire island of Hawaii for ~$300M, feels like it needs another zero. Thats only like 20-30 homes worth
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u/PotHead96 Aug 12 '24
300M is only 20-30 homes? I know Hawaii is expensive but 10-15M per house sounds too high.
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u/anynormalman Aug 13 '24
Considering the average home (like a small 2br apartment) is like 1.6M, a large luxury home would seem reasonable to be 8-12M. It doesn’t matter that much though, it still seemed too cheap for what they’re getting within a highly desirable and very limited market
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Aug 12 '24
Man John really showed restraint not pointing out the very fuckable horses on the Pennsylvania flag.
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u/MassiveStallion Aug 12 '24
The problem is the entrenched local politicians. Hawaii is a state, not a national park. Telling mainlanders to save it is like telling New Yorkers to save Texas.
The state legislature and the local mayors and city councils, like in most of America are populated by conservative. In Hawaiis case, DINOS running on tax cutting platforms.
Hawaii needs to save itself by getting activist politicians on the ballot and forcing the military and developers to pay their fair share.
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u/DC_MOTO Aug 12 '24
My former hometown DC is believe or not actually much much worse. It's not a state, in fact Congress directly controls its budget, and has veto authority on every law passed in DC. On top of that the Fed owns 25% of the land in a small urban space with limited taxable real estate. (in Hawaii the Fed has 20%)
Which is all to say I agree with you, and Hawaii very much has the power to do quite a lot.
I don't think the problem is necessarily mainlanders/foreigners, plenty of people from Hawaii and or native Hawaiians are in on the economic development of the state, to include the real estate - such as Kamehameha schools.
I feel the current finger pointing is scape goating frankly. If people from Hawaii don't want mark zuckerburg to own most of Kauai, simply don't sell the land to him.
In Latin America private / non-profits buying land to preserve it is a big thing. I believe Zuckerberg and Ellison probably feel they are doing that.
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u/MassiveStallion Aug 12 '24
Fortunately unlike DC we have our own representatives. Unfortunately they are only representing the interests of the wealthiest.
Local legislatures do have the power to tell Zucks and company to bite it. Notice how none of their compounds are anywhere near Oahu, where there are a lot of educated people and we have the ability to organize.
The problem with Lanai and smaller islands is that it's very easy for the billionaires to bribe the council members and that's it. Theoretically the state legislature could step in but they don't. I'm sure the judges and police would happily tell Zucks to kick it or knock down his wall, but no laws have been made to stop him.
As always, the problem is candidates. Hawaiian people are not really represented by local politics, it's mostly Japanese and white.
Nobody wants the job- I certainly don't and my unusual...activities definitely disqualify me for office. Who wants to spend 8 hours locked in a shitty room while everybody yells at your for like 30k a year? Just like in red states, for most Hawaiians the local education system and economy simply makes it too tempting for people to leave instead of solving the problems here.
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u/dogman1890 Aug 12 '24
I know they don’t put the news of the week segment out on YouTube, but this one really needs to be easily shared. John argued it better than I ever can and I need to share it.
3
u/Galvatron64 Aug 12 '24
I waited years for John Oliver to talk about Hawaii and he did an alright job covering the basics but he could have dug a bit deeper in some of the issues.
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u/anynormalman Aug 12 '24
Once i saw the Hawaii headline (Ive visited several times and know a tiny bit of the dark history) i thought it was going to be good, either focusing on the recent military water fiasco or the fire and land issues, luckily he touched on so much and i know there is more he had to leave out. I was really hoping for a bigger ending and kind of expecting to see some well known Hawaiian celebrities to come up like The Rock/Dwayne Johnson, Jason Momoa, Tom Selleck, Auli’i Cravalho (singer from moana) or even Keanu Reeves or any number of other people associated with Hawaiian heritage. A little disappointing to not have something more tangible/actionable or performative.
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u/JosieSparkle Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24
Tom Seleck is white. Dwayne Johnson is Samoan. Neither are Hawaiian.
Tom Seleck isn’t even from Hawaii, he is a white man who, along with a TV networks, used Hawaii to film a TV show and further his own career off of the local workers and industry.
Kanaka Maoli do not exist to be performative for others. They’re trying to survive. That was the whole point of the segment
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u/invisibilitycap EAT SHIT BOB Aug 14 '24
The rightful criticism of how tourists treat the state always reminds me of this scene from Lilo and Stitch. Wish they found a way to keep it in
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u/notapoliticalalt Aug 15 '24
I would love to see an extended cut with the deleted scenes finished. They have the voice acting, scoring, and rough sketches. They could finish these and people would never know the difference.
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u/AutisticTradingPro Aug 15 '24
Why does every recent John Oliver segment now feature Al Jazeera videos and represent them as reporting? I used to like the informative nature of John's reporting but it's impossible to take him seriously when he showcases state run propaganda. Especially from a state run channel with a vested interest to constantly paint the West in a bad light.
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u/notapoliticalalt Aug 15 '24
I think this is a wild overstatement both on John’s use of the outlet and Al Jazeera’s value as a media outlet. Al Jazeera has some good reporting. To your point, I would take Some of its Middle East reporting with a grain of salt, but they also have good journalists doing good work.
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u/Sr_DingDong Bugler Aug 12 '24
I worked with a guy (for totally unrelated reasons) who worked on the pollution the US Navy was pumping out into the sea. His task was trying to develop a machine that could filter the.... I'm just gonna call it guck, off the top of the water. He succeeded but the project was mothballed because the US military "doesn't care about the little birdies and the bunnies" according the military guy he talked to.
He said he went back like 5 years later and was in a lab and there was a jar with familiar looking guck in it' and he asked the guy what's in the jar and he said he couldn't talk about it, so he said "is that [whatever the scientific name was]" and the guy was surprised and said "how do you know?" and he said he probably took the sample, and they talked and the guy said he thought that he was the guy from the government who comes to tell him what to put in the reports before he writes them.
He also worked with a Ukrainian scientist who looked a lot like some high up famous Russian politician and he said it was a pain in the ass 'Cause for some reason someone would assume it was this Russian and they'd have to explain nearly every time they went on base and it was a drag and weird 'Cause it made no sense. Anyway, he said this guy "would splash benzine around like it was water" but when they went to one of the tanks full of guck to do stuff he said he was him get a cloth out his pocket and cover his mouth and nose and was like "Uh oh".
This is the kind of shit they're still pumping out to this day he said, made him sad 'Cause he loved Hawai'i. I got the impression because he was talking about stuff that was classified he stopped giving a shit and we were half a world away.
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u/derekpeake2 Aug 12 '24
Did John imply that he was the one that gave 2 million dollars to the guy in Hawaii to save his land? I was pretty tired when watching tonight and may have missed something about that joke/comment
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u/dumahim Aug 12 '24
No, he implied Zuckerberg. The clue was the comment about money falling from tree houses that he mentioned earlier.
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1
Aug 13 '24
Huh it's disappeared in America.
1
u/Walter_Bishop_PhD Bugler Aug 13 '24
Sadly for a while now you can't view official clips and episodes until the following Thursday
-3
u/StrykerND84 Aug 13 '24
Hawaii's problems seem simple enough... Too many people and not enough room. Hawaii is a tropical paradise... Many millions of people would love to live in a place like Hawaii. Competition and demand is high.
I'm not going to bad mouth billionaires for wanting in as long as they get in ethically. Legal, fair, and consensual property buyouts are not a bad thing. Selling a small property on Hawaii could probably secure a Hawaiian family's future in a small town on the mainland for decades.
As for the military presence... It's not like Hawaii is vital for Pacific naval operations. Oh wait... It is. Whatever, close all facilities and f*ck Taiwan and other Asian allies that need US fleet support. Speaking sarcastically.
6
u/invisibilitycap EAT SHIT BOB Aug 14 '24
No such thing as an ethical billionaire, point blank period. Doesn't matter if mommy and daddy owned an emerald mine, it's impossible for someone to be both a good person and get that much money. Musk, Bezos, and Gates could send the money we need to fix the world's problems and still be billionaires. Here's a site that does a good job of illustrating just how much money it is
2
u/StrykerND84 Aug 14 '24
Yes, you typically have to be an a**hole to get that much money.
Governments have spent trillions trying to fix the world's problems and failed. What makes you think a hand-full of billionaires could use their money and succeed at fixing the world's problems?
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u/invisibilitycap EAT SHIT BOB Aug 14 '24
It's really more of a hypothetical and way to illustrate just how much money they have! I know we're not gonna see, say, Elon Musk give his money to help homeless people. We still have a long way to go with trying to fix everything
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u/Barbaricliberal Aug 12 '24 edited Aug 12 '24
Another
majorsignificant reason for the high cost of groceries and other goods in Hawaii is the US’ restrictive maritime cargo shipping policies.I'm surprised he didn't mention it and advocate for the reforming or repealing of the law. It'd make a surprisingly big impact.
Edit: Or reforming the Jones Act. Plus, semantics.