History TearJerker / LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver

* Towards the end of John's segment on Israel and Hamas, John visibly chokes up when showing footage of the destroyed Gaza strip and testimonies of traumatized displace Gazan children, calling attention to the fact that a humanitarian crisis doesn't just mean basic supplies are being denied -- it means that, if the instinct to protect any child is beaten down, that by itself is a crisis. The episode concludes with the words of Israeli peace activist Rami Elhanan:

* Towards the end of John's segment on Israel and Hamas, John visibly chokes up when showing footage of the destroyed Gaza strip, calling attention to the fact that a humanitarian crisis doesn't just mean basic supplies are being denied -- it means that, if the instinct to protect any child is beaten down, that by itself is a crisis. The episode concludes with the words of peace activist Rami Elhanan:

-->'''Elhanan:''' It will not stop unless we talk... [Palestinians and Israelis] are doomed to live here together and we have to choose -- whether to share this land or to share the graveyard under it.

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* One episode focuses on Immigration Courts and how disturbingly broken they are from absurdly long waiting periods mostly thanks to backlog, most people on trial are made to defend themselves, depressingly that includes [[AdultFear children as young as two]], and many people that desperately need asylum to escape violence were turned down after only a minute-long hearing and two questions (some of which even died after being deported back to their country!). And a lot of chief officers are pretty apathetic about it. With one dishonorable mention going assistant chief of immigration Jack Weil being disturbingly blasé about children as young as three or four being made to defend themselves with no adult help, claiming they are able to understand them... which was immediately disproven a series of Website/YouTube videos depicting mock trials with randomly selected small children which while funny and adorable is disturbing to think would be in a real, serious court setting.

* The ''blatant'' cultural genocide and human right violations against the Uighur population of China. [[BigBrotherIsWatching The people are monitored to the point where the most minor offense is grounds for suspicion and arrest]], [[AdultFear separated from their families and thrown into concentration camps]] [[MadeASlave and forced into slave labor]], women are forcibly sterilized and sexually abused, and all the people are stripped away from any and all Islamic traditions such as prayers, headscarves, their own language, and even giving children Islamic names. [[BlatantLies The worst part about all of this is China completely spinning those horrors into Uighers simply assimilating into Chinese society]] and [[CorruptBureaucrat major companies such as Volkswagen completely and willingly overlooking the part slave labor plays into the manufacturing their products.]]

-->'''John:''' We, as a country, need to take a hard look at what we’ve done in Afghanistan — which is likely to be destabilized for decades to come. So what can we do about that? Not much now. No amount of brute force or perseverance is going to clear up the clusterfuck that we helped fuck into existence. And I realize that’s a quintessentially un-American idea — to acknowledge that we can’t always control something we want to control or achieve something we want to achieve. But the truth is, we can’t. I know that feels futile. But assuming we can go into another country and fix everything by simply imposing our will is largely what led us to where we are right now. We have spent decades claiming that we’re trying to solve the world’s problems — albeit almost exclusively when it helped solve our own — and the result has been, in the words of this professional pearl-clutcher, that we’ve turned one country after another upside down. '''So we should maybe stop doing that'''. But in the meantime, the least we could do is help alleviate the humanitarian crisis ahead. Because no matter what happens in Afghanistan from here on out, there is no universe where America bears zero responsibility.

** It’s especially bleak, because John usually closes out the segment by telling the viewers the measures they can take to address whatever problem he’s talking about. This time? Aside from calling your representatives to encourage them to welcome refugees, there’s nothing we can do. We’re going to have to deal with the fallout of a disastrous, pointless war, whatever it may be, knowing that there’s nothing we can do to change it.