Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: North Dakota
October 12, 2015 4:51 PM - Season 2, Episode 30 - Subscribe

Russia fires cruise missiles at targets in Syria and Iran, and the U.S. suspends their rebel training program. FIFA's ethics committee suspends Sepp Blatter for 90 days, and all his replacements are either being investigated themselves or might be soon. The U.S. asks Toyota how come so many of their trucks have gotten in the hands of ISIS. And Now: John McCain's Favorite Joke. Main story: North Dakota's oil rush, and the environmental and human cost to the state. LWT produced a video appeal to North Dakota to hold oil companies to greater account for their malfeasence, and paid for a billboard in the state saying "Be Angry. (Please.)" YouTube (20m)

Syria: Much better than Justin Bieber's penis.
FIFA: (Referring to when John Oliver drank a Bud Light Lime when Blatter said he would step down.) "The reason why my mouth still tastes like a lime crawled in there and shat itself."
Sepp Blatter: "The 'Pepe Le Pew' of soccer: boundryless, aggressively European, and if you're anywhere near him his stink will get all over you."
Finding Blatter's successor withing FIFA's ranks is "like finding a porta-potty at a music festival: none of them are likely to be clean, so the best you're hoping for is to find the one that's the least covered in shit."
Toyota: "Makers of the '92 Camry where you got your first backseat handjob."
North Dakota: "Or as you may know it, South Dacanada."

John McCain's favorite joke: "I've slept like a baby: Sleep two hours, wake up and cry, sleep two hours, wake up and cry...."
posted by JHarris (18 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Another brilliant episode. That Blood & Oil clip was unfathomably awful but typical of network television. I questioned myself that it wasn't actually a real show and a real commercial but was in fact a perfect parody. But it's actually real. The older I get the less I can process these types of realities, both real story and the fake.
posted by juiceCake at 5:47 PM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


That FIFA callback was brilliant.
posted by Etrigan at 7:18 PM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I agree - great episode.

Also, the new American oil boom is a fantastic premise for a show, but Blood and Oil is not that show.
posted by codacorolla at 9:21 PM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


A friend of mine who grew up in North Dakota really didn't like the way the segment on the oil stuff ended. Their feeling was that Oliver put too much on the people of ND to magically fix the problem when it's blatantly obvious that their regulatory infrastructure is completely hosed and the state legislature very, very, very easily bought. I'm... hard-pressed to disagree, though I did think the show did a good job of laying out the various ways in which the whole situation is fucked up.

A billboard telling people to be upset seems... Unhelpful, and not all that funny to boot. At least with something like the mental health segment, it's not hard to find good charities to donate to if you're so inclined just as a start after watching it. Here, I don't know what anyone is supposed to do and it seems pretty clear that the people in North Dakota can't fix it themselves.
posted by sparkletone at 11:43 PM on October 12, 2015


The people of North Dakota keep electing the party of deregulation and bad government to overwhelming majorities in both houses of their Legislature as well as the governorship. They should stop doing that. You can't say "nothing can be done" when you put these idiots in power over and over and over again.
posted by Justinian at 1:37 AM on October 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


Those people aren't going to listen to a John Oliver segment even if you Clockwork Orange it into them. The people who don't vote that way aren't helped by a lone stunt billboard either.
posted by sparkletone at 2:28 AM on October 13, 2015


Other than putting the onus on the people of North Dakota to fix their own state, what does your friend think a cable comedy news show should have done? I mean, honestly, the (majority of the) state has fucked, is fucking, and continues to fuck itself, so what's "magic" about saying "Hey, people of North Dakota, stop doing that!"?
posted by Etrigan at 3:51 AM on October 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


sparkletone: This is a comedy show. It's funny. It doesn't have to be effective.
posted by Justinian at 4:23 AM on October 13, 2015


The Hilux thing is such a weird nonstory that I'm surprised they covered it. (Maybe they just thought the juxtaposition of an everyday brand and terrorism is inherently funny?)
posted by paper chromatographologist at 6:04 AM on October 13, 2015


I think the funny (or at least Whaaaaa?!?) part was that the U.S. government is actually investigating this. It wasn't just "Hey, our writing staff noticed a lot of Hiluxes in photos on Google News."
posted by Etrigan at 7:04 AM on October 13, 2015


The Hilux thing is such a weird nonstory that I'm surprised they covered it. (Maybe they just thought the juxtaposition of an everyday brand and terrorism is inherently funny?)


I expected a "Hilux sales increased 500% in Saudi Arabia on the past 3 years"
posted by lmfsilva at 7:47 AM on October 13, 2015


I feel like the joke he missed is how ridiculous it is that it took this long for someone to even think of questioning Toyota about their trucks' popularity in wars - I mean the Hilux has famously been about as ubiquitous as the AK-47 in these kinds of conflicts for ages there was an actual for real war called the Toyota War! Not that Toyota the company necessarily has anything at all to do with it, likely it's just that they happen to sell nearly indestructible trucks so of course they're popular in these areas, but you'd think an official would have done their due diligence in asking them about it long before now.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:52 AM on October 13, 2015


although there is nominal democracy in North Dakota, most of the tools for organizing for democratic action are solidly in the hands of the oil companies. You can't (or at least shouldn't) call people stupid when the reason they can't do anything isn't dumbness but instead the systematic denial of opportunities to organize with each other and to educate each other. Chiding them for not using the levers of democratic power to overthrow oil company rule is like chiding citizens of the old Soviet Union for not voting out Stalin.

The effect of the lack of opportunities for effective organization is compounded by the fact that the oil companies really are holding the state economically hostage. Even if well-funded outrageously charismatic pro-regulation candidates were to emerge, they wouldn't get very many votes, because the oil companies have a real ability to blow up the state's economy altogether if they don't get their way even once.

tl;dr: it's more complicated than that.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:47 AM on October 13, 2015


sparkletone: This is a comedy show. It's funny. It doesn't have to be effective.

I am absolutely certain that Oliver's chief motivation in doing the show is to encourage political activity and political organization. The lols are necessary to get people to watch the show, and to get HBO to sign off on the show, but I would be stunned if Oliver or the writers considered the lols the point of the show.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:53 AM on October 13, 2015


You can't (or at least shouldn't) call people stupid when the reason they can't do anything isn't dumbness but instead the systematic denial of opportunities to organize with each other and to educate each other.

I don't think anyone here (or on the show) is calling them stupid so much as complacent.

Even if well-funded outrageously charismatic pro-regulation candidates were to emerge, they wouldn't get very many votes, because the oil companies have a real ability to blow up the state's economy altogether if they don't get their way even once.

What are they going to do, take their oil and go home? Not properly managing and supervising resource extraction is criminal negligence on the part of the politicians.
posted by Etrigan at 12:08 PM on October 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


> I don't think anyone here (or on the show) is calling them stupid so much as complacent.

And I'm not calling them complacent so much as trapped.

> What are they going to do, take their oil and go home?

s/oil/capital/g

I don't think right now that the ND state legislature is a useful lever for power. Although it has nominal power, I suspect it is more or less a rubber stamp organization. The relationship between oil company management and the state legislature is sort of like the relationship between the house of commons and the house of lords; although on paper the upper house is more or less equal to the lower house, in practice the upper house mostly just signs off on what lower house does. Likewise, the North Dakota state legislature on matters related to oil extraction must defer to oil company leadership.

Controlling oil companies will probably require organized action at the federal level — perhaps even over the objections of North Dakotans. Which is why Oliver is talking about this on a show with a national audience.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:18 PM on October 13, 2015


What are they going to do, take their oil and go home?

s/oil/capital/g


My point is that they wouldn't do that either. If North Dakota made the small step of saying "We're going to be exactly as 'business-friendly' as Texas or Alaska," the oil companies wouldn't just say "Well, fuck it, it's not worth the effort to extract billions of dollars of oil if we have to follow any rules." Hell, they're already paying a higher severance tax than they do in Texas or Alaska, so clearly the Assembly isn't completely bought.
posted by Etrigan at 12:35 PM on October 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


The Hilux thing is such a weird nonstory that I'm surprised they covered it. (Maybe they just thought the juxtaposition of an everyday brand and terrorism is inherently funny?)

That bugged me. Freaking ISIS steal everything they can get their hands on. And Toyota has 40% of the Middle East market. Their top seller - the Hilux.

Of course ISIS is using Toyota Hiluxes. That's what they can get. No mystery, no conspiracy, no war profiteering. Just common theft.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:53 PM on October 14, 2015


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