I like how this manages to both educate about the actual historical event while also still being written from the perspective of someone who doesn't get why it was wrong.
@@gallectee6032I will point out that it was only like two people, North and Regan, that disobeyed Congress, consisting of over 500 people. It is always nations that put too much power into too few people.
@@hyenaloaf1858 They have a lect with 29 mill views. It explained everything that then happened many years later. Should be first or second option. (First comment was supposed to be second)
Comrade_ Savage15 You are now being monitored by the United States Government. Every website you visit, every text, phone call, voicemail, every sound within a 30 foot radius of your phone's microphone, and everything within the lens of your phone's camera is being recorded at all times.
ZeranZeran The United States can't monitor foreign enemy territories, they try and Russia will DDOS half of Servers in United States Government facilities
Comrade_ Savage15 You're a cute kid. If I were you, I would start destroying any hard drives, sd cards, phones, RAM, anything that holds memory. You have a few weeks max.
I actually agree... I dont mean this ironically but i actually learned more about this whole incident in this clip than i ever did anywhere else... It was both Catchy and factual..And a bit humorous too "You see North secretly sold missiles to a harmless country called "Iran" that would always be a grateful ally"
I was reading One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb when it got to a section going into detail about this and I remembered this American Dad clip. It succinctly nails what went down.
@@kurtpunchesthings2411 the guy who took a hit for Reagan thus setting him up for life among the republicans since a lot of Republicans worship Reagan.
Yes!! Haha (super unpopular opinion I know-- but I kind of sorta LOATHE Family Guy and most of McFarlane's "our only source of providing humour is RANDOMNESS AND FARTS!" shows and movies) yet this was AMAZING and I absolutely loved it. Fuck Ollie!!!! Fuck all those insane extreme right wing narcissist, sociopath NUTS.
@@Doctorkilledbydeath OMG he wrote and directed some those classic toons??! My mind has fully combusted. That is amazing wooooowwww. The man was ALWAYS there, throughout my entire childhood and I didn't even know it!! Ok I'm liking Seth more and more now.
Dude, im from Nicaragua and i just can't believe that our educational system is so bad that i had to lean this big chunk of history from a American dad song
Most of us in the United States didn't learn about Iran-Contra in school, either. I guess the schools considered Iran-Contra to be too recent to cover in history class. Maybe by 2040 it'll be long ago enough for schools to care.
Oliver North was a guest speaker at my super-conservative college and we had to listen to him talk for an hour about how it’s America’s job to police the world.
@@mattsodano6264 No offense as a non-american but if your elected officials can pull stuff like this, the war on drugs, or the patriot act and get away with it then maybe you should try and sort out your own democracy before messing with anybody else's turf. Like the problem with Iran-Contra wasn't only the fact that they were funding terrorists, it was the fact that it was actively treasonous to the very country that elected them but they ended up getting off scot-free for something that an average citizen would probably have been executed for. "Rules for thee but not for me."
I believe the implication was that the details of the Ollie North story (that should've been a bigger controversy), which are more or less laid out fact-by-fact in the song itself, were remembered by his brother because of it, so he could use that historical info on the exam. However, bonus points should be granted if he included Roger and Klaus in the description lol
Ryan Taylor also don't forget they were fighting a regime that murdered 20 million men, women, and children in the Siberian Gulags and 60 million men, women, and children in China during Mao's "great leap forward"
Jackluck2 No but Communism did and had Communism been allowed to take over Nicaragua it would have ended up like Cuba. Instead it's been a Democracy thanks to Reagan
Not only is this song absolutely amazing but the funniest part is people asking if Oliver North was a real person. Yup and this song is pretty much exactly what happened.
The USSR had minimal involvement in Nicaragua, but they always use such propaganda to fervor blind patriotism (the exact same thing is done to China now). So that they can do anything with the publics' support. In reality it was the Nicaraguans themselves who rose up to slightly change their economic system to improve their living standards, like the US and other western powers themselves have done during the FDR/New Dealers era and their equivalents. But the so called democratic free world cannot permit such things to others, particularly their colonies, so they labeled the Sandanistas communist Marxist terrorists and funded the fascist forces in Nicaragua (the Contras) to militarily defeat these reforms and to terrorize the public, destroy infrastructure, and all the rest. Edgar Chamorro was a leader of the Contras and became a dissident because the Contras had no vision for the country, when he asked his soldiers why they fought for the Contras, they'd always reply that it was because they were getting paid. The Sandanistas were the complete opposite (even though they won, going against these powers you can never win long term. They always destroy these countries in the end). A lot of people are unaware of the fascist dictatorships that were couped and instated by western powers all over the world, from Latin America to the Middle East. And still so to this day. Ukraine being one of the most recent examples (Maidan Revolution in 2014). It was an internationally engineered coup leading to a war by and for western elite interests (e.g. taking Russia's energy market share in Europe, providing a stimulus to US weapons manufacturers, throwing Ukrainian bodies at reducing Russia's influence, and etc). The Central Intelligence Agency is probably the most evil terrorist organization that there is and ever will be.
@@Tacotime478 Because they're saying this is an example of why it's one of the best Seth's shows, even though in this part they're propagandaizing the public...? I'm not saying it's intentional, as that was the narrative painted by the state and media. But that's still what it is. Imagine painting forces that terrorized a public as the good guys. The United States funded those terrorists and forced the Nicaraguan public to fight for better living standards. Which even though they won, were then sanctioned out of the global economy to make sure they wouldn't achieve them anyway (and they didn't - the benefits were short lasting). This is pure evil. If Seth criticized such acts rather than paint Congress as the problem (who blocked funding these terrorists), I would have nothing to say.
Seth Macfarlane should make a series where he stars as an animated version of himself and explains history but a bit more detailed than this but in song fashion. His animated character's outfit could change with the period too!
Not being from the US I had no idea who Oliver North was and thought it was a fictional character initially when I saw the title and thumbnail, but that was a genuinely good history lesson
The way Reagan runs away never fails to make me laugh... God i wish American dad could do more like this Truth be told i had no idea who Oliver North was before i saw this episode of American dad
I loved everything about this from the first time I saw it but the running kids turning into fireworks at the line "...and landmines!" has always particularly stuck with me as an absolutely top class bit of animation and satire.
So they pretty much admit Fawn Hall, the old ass secretary who's still alive by the way who destroyed the evidence against Oliver North, is guilty of destruction of evidence. However, Oliver North is also guilty of high treason because of the MacFarlane affair caused by selling weapons to Iranians.
@@viraloracle5151 the w bush administration did nothing but help iran. They got rid of saddam hussein and the talibans. They both hated iran and now these countries are pro iran
I have a friend who’s an American history professor at a local University. She said with the exception of the intentional humorous overtone, this is pretty accurate and has shown it to her classes multiple times.
By the way, a part they left out: A couple of months before this happened, Iran had taken part in a terrorist attack that killed over 200 servicemen in Beirut. That's where the 'High Treason' part comes in.
So Stan just ignored the fact this man got away with high treason and funding drug dealers while also confirming he watched way too much Schoolhouse Rock?
from what i understand he also helped Professor David Sands introduce a form of Fusarium Oxysporum (native to Hawaii) to Peru in order eliminate coca production, but it mostly killed tomatoes and other food crops, ignoring coca plants, virtually forcing previously lawful farmers to go into the drug manufacturing industry..
he also backed a program to eradicate coca plantations by sending teams in to manually chop them down... ..this amounted to chopping plants with machetes and leaving them to die.. wait no, to grow bigger and stronger. (botany 101 in this type of plant).. oh and he was apparently forewarned that this is all it would achieve.
All these people don't get the joke, and frankly neither do i. Is it a reference to the trick "Ollie", particularly a variation of the trick known as an Ollie North
+NeoDragonCount Sorry. Brain Fart. Anyways, first Al-Qaeda, then Taliban, and now ISIS. All because of Reagan and North. REAL american heroes they turned out to be.
+NeoDragonCount if you think that's the fault of what they did 30years ago... well this might be called ignorant. they started it all, but the money and the guns still float today.
Watched it and yeah that was fucked up I hope you guys do your own research CIA informants were the ones distributing crack in the inner cities And the contras role was to explicitly torture and disappear leftist leaders in the community. This meant like teachers and lawyers and stuff. They weren't like a political group they were armed thugs, more like how you would think of the Mafia
I looked it up and for the most part this is a simplified version of what actually went down. Hilarious, and republicans still think Regan was the greatest president of all time.
No republican really thinks that. But certainly one of America's better presidents. Certainly better than Bush or Obama or biden. There's no evidence reagan committed any crime so I'm not sure why this would make someone think less of him.
+Thelionpaladin Sadly, this was probably necessary for you to add. Does anyone remember the Colbert Report? Colbert was taking the piss 24/7 during Bush's presidency and Republicans thought he was being serious. LMAO.
Zachary Schurr also don't forget they were fighting a regime that murdered 20 million men, women, and children in the Siberian Gulags and 60 million men, women, and children in China during Mao's "great leap forward"
@@LoveOverwhelming yeah it was. Obama dropped off billions of dollars to a hostile nation that funds hezbollah. Giving them nuclear power for "public utilities" was a lie. Iran will never be a US ally as long as they are a theocracy. Look at how close they are to refinement of a nuclear weapon now coupled with their abilities with long range missiles. No fuckin idea where you were from 2008-2016. The democrats sucked the dicks of the east, including Russia, Iran, and China.
@@jpflock1078you when you realize the democrats and Republicans are ALWAYS working together. You don't have a choice or a democracy, you have an oligarchy and fake elections like Russia
Fun fact my high school US AP test had an essay question about the contra crisis and I was the only one in my class who knew what it was because of this song. One of only three kids who passed the test lmao
The Simpsons and family guy both have songs today and songs that came before American dad was even invented and they tend to have Better messages to them and sound better.
Me. There was even Reddit thread about this video on The Boys subreddit. It's unfortunate the video doesn't get into the selling drugs to black kids part too. Because it is otherwise a super comprehensive video.
