Allowing librarians to be arrested for what books are on their shelves is straight out of the fascist playbook. Our librarians deserve nothing but the utmost respect; this is so tragic what’s being done to them.

Watching the US from the outside feels like watching Germany in 1930.

I come from a poor country that has no infrastructure or funding for any public library, and we envy having public libraries that are filled with knowledge and amenities that help the people...and these guys want to close them. What a world we live in.

I’m a library director and this was spot on. “It’s Perfectly Normal” was my most challenged book last year. I had a guy preach to me for an hour for having books about astrology and tarot cards on display for Halloween… When I started reciting memory verses and retelling core biblical allegories I think his head exploded. We purchase materials for everyone, including those with different opinions, lifestyles, and ideology from ourselves. If you don’t want to read it, don’t check it out. I purchased a few anti-LGBT books we received in a “Suggest a Purchase” form. I’m not going to read them and I’m happy to report nobody has checked them out in the 10ish months they’ve been on the shelf but they’re there. That’s intellectual freedom.

Libraries are places where someone like me - an introvert whose family had no computer and Internet connection - thrive and continue to thrive. When books begin to vanish, services begin to disappear, and libraries begin to close, that is when the local communities begin to lose inevitably.

I live in Chile, far from a developed or fancy country, yet It amazes me how stupid things get in the USA

Libraries are important and they must be protected at all costs.

You know, sometimes I hate some aspects of the culture of my country. And then I see content showing American conservatives, and I'm glad I don't live there.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the adults not comprehending that there are different sections for different age groups in the library are part of the 40% that read at a 5th grade level

Leave it to the US to make libraries a political target. It's amazing how annoying & stupid the US can get

I'm Belgian and in our libraries everything is just open for everyone. Then I moved to South Korea. And there too, everything is open to anyone. And Korea is much more conservative as Belgium. Yet , you will find your books. The only book I know that is banned and illegal in libraries in Belgium, is mein Kampf. Form an Austrian painter turned German dictator

It's ironic that the country that desperately needs access to knowledge is also the one where people seem to be determined to remain ignorant.

Having this on KZfaq is just too good to be true. ❤

*God, The Rod, and Your Child’s Bod* perfectly encapsulates why people are leaving the church in droves.

"If your child is alone in the children section, he probably has a phone. In which case, my library is the least of your problems" I literally shouted "pow !"

TBH, I can't believe John missed the opportunity to point out that "BL" is short for "Boy Love", a genre of comic books, animations, novels, and live action movies that is popular across Asia.

As a librarian, I think it's important to remember that we are there to protect your right to democracy and free access to information and that's why librarians decide what belongs in the library and what doesn't, no one else. If your libraries are not governed at arms length, you no longer have democracy - it really is that black and white. We study years to learn how to keep these boundaries in check for you sake - and not based on our opinions but on actual research - and if you close the library, we can get a job elsewhere - but even if you have a room of books, it won't be a library unless you have some qualified running it, and once they move, they move. The person you are screwing over when you're either trying to "run the library" without qualifications or not protecting your libraries from this bs, is you. We can find jobs elsewhere - you'll be living in V for Vendetta. And if you close a library due to budget cuts because you are "making a statement", there's a chance that you'll open the room of books up again, but the librarian will be gone. I don't know how it is in the US, but in Sweden, the deficit in number of librarians at the moment is around 2000 and it's going to get worse. So if you want a library, and the democracy and access to free, unbiased information with information support that you can book for free, then maybe you should be motivating your librarians to stay even when things aren't so fucked up that you are actually allowing your lawmakers to put them in jail for protecting vulnerable people, and for protecting you.

This quote from Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri (1999!) feels more relevant than ever: "As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

10:47 the pet rock bit is just golden. the moment of silence from the other hosts not reacting to him speaking it as if they were jokes that fell flat before continuing saying he was too poor to get one was just hilarious lmao

When I was a child (around 20 years old), I foolishly decided I wanted to be a librarian because I wanted an easy job. I thought being a librarian is like being a book store owner only I don't have to worry about about sales and profits. Librarians are _scholars._ You can work in a library without a library degree (which in most countries is a Master's) as a library technician, but you can't be a _librarian_ without having added to scholarship as a whole. I barely passed my fuck-all degree as it is, I wasn't going back to school for more. So I tip my hat with utmost respect to our librarians and librarian techs and the rest of their staff and to any one who attacks them, get edited.

as someone watching this from europe, jesus fucking christ this is just 30's germany and its not even subtle

John Oliver making the show fully available online, and Jon Stewart returning to The Daily Show are just the moves we need to get everyone to listen...

I'm in a time zone where this youtube show hits at lunch hours. Monday is now one of my favorite weekdays.

Me: "Hey US, how Orwellian have you become today?" US: *campaiging to ban books by people who haven't read them and threatening librarians* Me: "Jesus Christ..."

“Where one burns books, there one eventually burns people.” ― Heinrich Heine Using the law to burn books and by extension, using the threat of jail to burn people!! How long before actual fire is used to burn both?

"...that is why you go into the clergy!" Wow, shots fired. 😅

All that delightful moment at 27:39 tells me is John Kennedy has never stepped inside a library in his entire life. And that his interns are laughing their asses off after they gave him that passage to read on a dare.

I had "the talk" with my two when they turned 12. Since it's really uncomfortable for my wife to talk to them about it, especially my daughter, I did it and gave them important guidelines on the matter. After I was done my wife asked how it went, to which I told her: "Take a notebook and a pen and go to them for extended instructions.". Children today have access to all information via the Internet, so the discussion was more about correcting "bad" things that are shown on the Internet as socially acceptable behavior in the hookup culture.

thank you HBO and LWT for making important information free to the public

I live in the Netherlands, and that exact same chain and bikelock combos are sold here as the "Amsterdam Fogheddaboudit" or the "Utrecht Donworryboudit" lock. For what it's worth, if you want to keep all books that refer to sex and violence out of children's hands, the Bible is certainly on the chopping block. I can't begin to even summarise the amount of sex, slavery, adultery, references to homosexuality and various forms of extreme violence in that book. Aw, snap. Five minutes on, and he summarises it. :)

Ilgar still shining for his variety in the graphics for this show 😂

If your 5 year old child is hanging out in tbe adult section of the library… that’s on you, parent. Be a better parent and watch your kids!🤨

The future of American libraries: "Hello, I would like to check out this stuffed cheetah and this gun. Also, do you have any books in this library?"

Congrats on 300 episodes! 🥳🎉👏🏻 Here's to the next 300! 🥂👀

I’m British, and looking at America a lot of the time it looks like the taliban are there

Sometimes i think people where im from are idiots, then i remember Americans exist. Damn yow

6:13 To be fair, the cop's phone flashlight might have run out of battery since he used the phone to scroll on duty.

It is totally sick that a country will take a book out of the hand of a person and replace it with a gun… totally mad

Libraries: The Handmaid's tale comes to mind. Also: I'm a librarian and our University books used to come from the USA. It was a dream system and everything. Now 20 years later, look at this! Poor US is beyond lost in itself.

Oh, you are so necessary to the conversation! May this show endure and may all America watch it.

1:45 Ilgar Pashayev, once again proving that he is the Meryl Streep of stock photos

The history of protests is it's often demonized when it's taking place while it will be viewed more positively with hindsight and nostalgia. MLK may be universally revered now, and the anti-Vietnam war protesters are now seen as courageous, but it wasn't so back then. These students will be vindicated.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, is happy.

They paid for that $214 book just for a 5 second joke, LOL.

Thanks for the moral clarity & keeping the focus on both protest and what's being protested! This is how you stand apart from the sheep.❤

"That is why you go into clergy." Ooooh vicious! *chef's kiss*

One of Japan's most popular series for children is called "Oshiri Tantei," a series about a detective with a butt for a head. And, yes, you can guess how they show him sneezing. That's not counting the number of times Crayon Shin-chan shows his butt for a joke. I'm just saying, America, you're making friggin JAPAN look less uptight.

John trying to gaslight me about The Berensteam Cheetahs was the best start to the week. That mom discussing "Let’s Talk About It" looked like she'd seen a murder scene. I'm impressed she managed to have a child or did she just pass out when she saw her husband for the first time?

Missed this show a little too much while John was gone. Grabbing my snacks!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is essentiallly what is happening here.

Leave it to religion to destroy good things.

That clurgy zinger is THE BOMB. 😂😂

American police arresting protesters for opposing a war. Uncle Vladimir must be so proud of you.

20:47 For the uninitiated, BL is also short form for Boy Love, aka yaoi

31:30 You can hear the vocal processing on the "kid", gotta love that.

Libraries serve as a repository of knowledge for the free exchange of ideas, which is essential to democracy. Curtailing them under the guise of moral policing is tantamount to censorship. Happy 300th episode LWT.

i love John Oliver more and more. in an ideal world, schools have Last Week Tonight 2 hours a week in their curriculum to watch and discuss each episode.

Congrats for US to turn into 1800s 😂😂

Love You John Oliver! Thank You for giving us authentic news with the humor it deserves. Arnab- Bangladesh

Contrast the reactions from western governments and western media on hong kong protestors occupying university campuses in 2019.

“Are you gonna resist arrest?” “Uh… no?” Lmao

So much of this is why I'm currently studying to become a librarian! Information needs to be freely accessible to anyone, at any time, and anything less than that is dooming mankind to be repeating history ad infinitum. And to be honest I don't think anyone, regardless of where they place themselves on the political spectrum, can disagree with that while still being true to themselves.

I wish I could upvote this video 100 times

Thanks LWT for blessing us all. I'm forever grateful.

As a Librarian I love this.

Eric Adams not fathoming that organized protests are organised is so on par with his personality.

the irony is that the internet is choke full of content far worse than any public library can offer. any kid with a keyboard can get access to "objectionable" material. arresting librarians is like closing the stable door after the horse has escaped. it is better to educate kids to tell between good and bad in a socially constructive way

I really hope you guys make the protests be a main story sooner or later, they are too big and important to be delegated to side stories that the Americans won't get on KZfaq

If a person or group tries that in Scandinavia they get laughed out of the library. I know because a group of muslim in Denmark tried that ten years ago.

31:25 ~ The ad from the conservative candidates where a "child" talks about how the library had a "funny lady" read an age-inappropriate book? That "child" voice is an option right out of Voicemod's default voice filters. There's adults pretending to be kids, just like when they give you these "my kid just said the most amazing thing" fake stories.

“When the Nazis came for the communists, I said nothing, I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I said nothing, I was not a social democrat. When they came for the unionists, I said nothing, I was not a unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to protest. » Martin Niemoller. Being against the massacre of a population by a far-right government is NOT being anti-Semitic.

The kids are taking action.

John: great journalism!!! You redeemed yourself!!!

Best part about waking up on a monday morning

camping supply conspiracy😂😂

It always jumps out at me the hypocrisy in these protests. 1st amendment that is for me not for you. Where I grew up there were 5 different children's sections (6 if you include the stuff for new parents) up to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 12, 12 to 16, and young adult, as they and my local education board understood that what a child needs and what a child should be allowed access to changes as the child changes. The things as a parent you do with a 5 year old is wildly different from a 9 year old. It was split along the same lines as kindergarten, first school, middle school, high school, college. We split these systems for reasons. And books and other things should be also. But they should not be removed "just because" Yes there is material that clearly should not be accessible to anyone, "Spare" by Harry springs to mind. What many many people seem to forget to get a job in a library you are not some stay at home mum who wants a part time job. For government work you will at minimum have a Bachelor of Science in Library Science, or Information Science, but many if not most have A Master's Degree in library science (MLS), preferably from an American Library Association (ALA). In New York, NYSED requires certified librarians to hold a Master's degree in Library Science. A Masters... That means at the very least they have 5 years of Education at degree level or higher in Libraries and how to run them how to manage them... And these specialists (which is what they are) are being attacked by people who are NOT qualified. And being managed by people who are equally not qualified.

My dad once showed me an old blueprint call to ban sex ed in my home town in the 70's and replace it with "family ed" based on Christian values. This was in my then VERY religious home town and you know what the ruling parties did with that? Ignored the craziness. You know what I got my hands on at MY public library in that same religious town when I was 15 in the late 90's? Oscar Moore's "A Matter of Life and Sex" from 1991 and honestly, I think I was one of few who even dared to bring it home and not just have a sneak peek by the shelf. I find it quite awesome how I was able to go straight from the church choir practice to reading about detailed gay sex without anyone trying to ban either. America, please stop getting worse on purpose.

Love you John for speaking out the truth against all the BS going on around us...!

How was a 65-years-old professor is seen as a threat? Because the pi-I mean, cops kept yelling "STOP RESISTING!" Don't you know that's police code for "I'm gonna mess you up now, sucka!", John? It's highly effective! 🙃

just came back from beautiful Prague and in one museum there was a wall of USA banned books, People shaking their heads and asking me really? Alice Walker as an example

Thank you for your support for these students, and your continued coverage of the situation in Gaza.

Good for you John. You nailed it with reference to the Gaza and to the Students' humanism that will be remembered along with the infamous police raids

Oh shoot, I love The Berenstain Boars!

Privileged Karens finding problems they want to complain about will always crack me up. lol

I think we can all agree Frankie Muniz SHOULD return that Oscar.

I am a high school teacher in Bangkok, Thailand. I strongly advise my students against choosing the US as a destination for their 10-month exchange program studies. It's a scary place.

"berenstain" still kinda pisses me off to this day

UCLA protest organizers are very disciplined when organizing and control the crowd to be extremely peaceful. They also help the protest from any harmful act from outside people who try to harm them physically. They also very disciplined when the media try to ask them a question. They will give the media direction to the media person in their group. So the organizers in this UCLA protest are consider as 10/10 performance. I will like to have them as my students instead of letting their talents be wasted by other university.

I love how JO when covering the protests talks in the vaguest terms about 'some Jewish students' have reported feeling unsafe and scattered examples of antisemitic rhetoric while cushioning this by saying there are also 'some Jewish students' participating in and organising the protests. He didn't appear to be as circumvent about providing statistics and context for the main piece about libraries, so here are a few points that JO conveniently ignored: 1) The vast majority (by any recent polling data) of Jews in America interpret chants like 'from the river to the sea...' to be genocidal and threatening, as well as identify as Zionists. The vast majority also view these protests as antisemitic - evidenced by the counter-protests happening all around the country. It is not an equal split (as JO implied by using the same language) of Jews who support and oppose the protests, it's about 5% vs 95% respectively, which shows the strength of opinion on this - we didn't even see such splits in the Russian election when only Putin was on the ballot! So JO's framing of this is more than a little disingenuous, especially considering the rest of the statement. 2) If it were 'only' that Jews have reported feeling unsafe and scattered examples of antisemitic rhetoric, that would be one thing, but there have been widespread examples of Jews being physically assaulted, verbally assaulted with clearly antisemitic chants, prevented from entering campuses, libraries and classes ... and framing that as 'overwhelmingly peaceful' is just a flat out lie. 3) Regarding the evidence of outside influence - of course he focused on the outlandish statements, while conveniently ignoring more concerning statements by the NYCP about some of the fliers they found - instructing people on how to commit civil disobedience and resist arrest, to "disrupt/reclaim/destroy Zionist business interests", calling for the "death of Israeli real estate" (whatever that means) and America. Neither has he discussed (in relation to this) a very concerning factor - that Qatar is the biggest foreign donor to American universities. Qatar, who supports and shelters the Hamas leadership and just this week, had a senior official (at the Arab League) call for the destruction of Israel. His aim here is clearly to legitimise these protests and ignore or minimise as much as possible how dangerous they are or could be.

Gotta appreciate John's intellectual honesty.

Another winner. I’m so grateful for this show. ❤

THANK GOD YOU'RE BACK

Oliver is a real G. Never been on the wrong side even when his proposed solutions were inadequate.

Thank you for talking about protests and gaza ❤ 👏👏👏 john you are a noble person with heart and ethics 🥺❤👏

My god, these people are messed up to target public libraries.

That clergy joke at 15mins, 10/10 delivery

Thanks guys. Libraries in many places of USA are great. Now that I am back in my country I miss them. The librarians are helpful and needded. People do not be stupid. These places keep CHILDREN, young people, old people enjoying free time and LEARNING

So happy to see Ilgar's stock photos being put into good use

Tq john oliver & the team for standing up for the students. U're 100x of a man than that maher guy. God bless u

That final line if the video almost killed me. Nailing home the point about taking things out of context.