Remy: God Bless the USA (Veterans Affairs Scandal Edition)

A reworking of the Lee Greenwood classic.

This story was originally released on June 13, 2014:

Remy reworks the Lee Greenwood classic for today's Veterans Affairs administrators.

Written and Performed by Remy. Video by Meredith Bragg. Music Tracks by Ben Karlstrom.

Approximately 2.30 minutes.

Go to http://reason.com/reasontv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube channel to get automatic notifications when new material goes live.  You can follow Reason on Twitter at @reason and follow Remy on Twitter at @goremy and on YouTube here.

To see more Remy/Reason TV videos, go here.

LYRICS:

Well they'll be there in an instant
with the stars and stripes unfurled
glady going to the most dangerous
places in the world

But today it seems our fighting folks
are in danger once again
You may have seen the headlines in the news
or watching CNN

When we heard the wait times on our list
were so long that patients died
We said "This is government-run healthcare"
"So we're gonna do what's right"

We're gonna grab a piece of paper
and we'll make a second list
We'll just say that wait times aren't that long
and that no deadlines were missed
and when people die we'll cross them off
and pretend they don't exist
cuz there ain't no doubt we can't be fired
God bless the government

It ain't just about the soldiers
you see we also sacrifice
There are days you'll find us working
until the crack of 4:45

But for all the soldiers out there
who sick and need some help
What can they do to get the government
to care about their health?

They could grab a piece of paper
and write down something like this
and abandon your whole unit
then they'll care when you get sick
and if people die when they look for you
we'll pretend they don't exist
cuz there ain't no doubt we can't be fired
God bless the government.

Comments

[Christophe]

Better than the original? More accurate, anyway.

Where at least I know I'm free

Heh.

[Irish]

With credit to Serious Man, this really needs to be posted on the more recent thread:

"Transformers": Robot warriors of the Tea Party attack

All this is quite a turnabout for a franchise that began with hyper-patriotic swagger, assuring us by way of none-too-subtle metaphor that the war on terror was awesome and that diplomacy and negotiation were for pussies. While "Revenge of the Fallen" explicitly depicted the Obama administration as pusillanimous appeasers, the unnamed president in "Age of Extinction" is an ineffectual patsy controlled by outside forces, hopelessly in the dark about Grammer's secret dealings with Lockdown and pretty much everything else. If the overarching conspiracy theory of "Dark of the Moon" had a crazy, Kubrickian grandeur, this movie seems to have been derived from the sour and dissociated ravings of a mid-afternoon Limbaugh caller. Our own government is spying on us and corporations are evil and terror cells are everywhere and WTF I don't even recognize my own country anymore. And holy crap Benghazi. It simultaneously laments the fact that we aren't an ass-kicking fascist superpower anymore and proclaims that you can't trust the government, while pretending not to notice the contradiction.

I can't even...

[Irish]

In order to wash the taste out of your mouth, here's some more tweets from that hilarious Salon parody account:

Salon.com @Salondotcom ? Jun 27
Cut out the corporate middleman: Why Belle Knox should just sleep with federal student loan officials

Salon.com @Salondotcom ? Jun 27
Taking a page from Winnie Mandela: Why necklacing is the only solution to gentrification

Salon.com @Salondotcom ? Jun 27
Civilian ownership of assault scary stories: 'Slender Man' murders shows the need to ban stories over 2000 words long

Salon.com @Salondotcom ? Jun 27
Paul Krugman eviscerates GOP over claim that free markets are good for some things

Salon.com @Salondotcom ? Jun 26
How I was fat shamed: Restaurant charged me extra because I needed more food

Salon.com @Salondotcom ? 4h
Why libertarianism is the ideology of 16 year-old boys and progressivism is the ideology of cool celebrities

[MJGreen]

Fucking beautiful. Love that fat shamed one.

[Hyperion]

Why libertarianism is the ideology of 16 year-old boys and progressivism is the ideology of cool celebrities

Right, because 'cool celebrities' is not anything like a term that a 16 year old boy would come up with.

/derp

[Irish]

That's the joke. It's a parody account.

[Winston]

So Poe's law?

[Winston]

Any I blame Salon on Eros.

[Winston]

*Anyway* I blame Salon on Eros. "Your Stupid Minds! Stupid! Stupid!"

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

http://www.mediaite.com/online.....r-account/

[bostonaod]

Lois Lerner's hard drive issues show why we need more women in tech

LOL

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Our own government is spying on us and corporations are evil and terror cells are everywhere and WTF I don't even recognize my own country anymore. And holy crap Benghazi.

Evidently being opposed to those things are now bad because the Tea Party opposes them. Or something, it is derptastically incoherent even by Andrew "POLITICUS UBER ALLES" O'Heir's standards.

[Irish]

I know. Remember like 5 years ago when progressives thought the government spying on us was bad?

Also, don't progressives still believe that corporations are evil?

[Winston]

I know. Remember like 5 years ago when progressives thought the government spying on us was bad?

Or how tax protestors weren't so bad thanks to Iraq but now of course tax protestors are a bunch of nihilistic lunatics.

[Winston]

So who is more embarrassing: Andrew O'Hehir or trying to find a libertarian message in Game of Thrones or Avatar or whatever?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Salon, the Onion. Potato, Potato.

[Winston]

Are we sure the aliens in Plan 9 didn't use their device on David Talbot?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Tasteful celebrations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination-versary:

"As Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Moest raised his baton in Sarajevo, an actor playing Gavrilo Princip descending from heaven on angel's wings, raised his pistol in the eastern town of Visegrad, at the border to Serbia, to kill Franz Ferdinand again in a spectacular performance designed for the occasion.

"For the Serbs, Princip was a hero...

"Serbian crown prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic, President Tomislav Nikolic and the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej attended the ceremony in Visegrad where Serbian flags flew and the Serbian anthem was played although the town is in Bosnia."

[photo caption] "Tourists pose for photos inside a replica of the "Graf & Stift" car, parked in front of a museum at the historical street corner in downtown Sarajevo, where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo, on Saturday, June 28, 2014."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wir.....ntury.html

[Warrren]

Princips instead of principles.

[Irish]

Salon.com @Salondotcom ? 7h
Gavrilo Princip: The first teabagger

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

There was something darkly funny about the fact that Princip and other Black Hand members that participated all tried and failed to commit suicide when the bombing failed.

The one that threw the bomb swallowed cyanide and jumped into the river, but the cyanide they bought was expired and the river only a few feet deep so he was captured.

[Winston]

How about out the fact that the assassination only succeeded because the driver drove the wrong way and stopped in front of a caf? where Princip was sitting?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

And that was only because the Prussians couldn't be bothered to speak to the driver in anything other than German.

[Winston]

You know who else thought that Germans and Austrians were interchangeable?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Empress Marie-Theresa of the House of Habsburg?

[Winston]

You Know Who Else thought that Prussians and Germans were one and the same?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Der alte Fritz?

[MJGreen]

Meh. Are we supposed to be somber about the death of an imperial prince?

[Winston]

The Austrians weren't but that didn't do any good.

[Warrren]

Not his best work but still pretty damn good!

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Why does the Left insist on belittling true British heroes?

"By MICHAEL GOVE, Education Secretary [of the UK]

"The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war. Nigel Biggar, regius professor of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxford, laid out the ethical case for our involvement in a superb essay in September's Standpoint magazine.

"The ruthless social Darwinism of the German elites, the pitiless approach they took to occupation, their aggressively expansionist war aims and their scorn for the international order all made resistance more than justified.

"And the war was also seen by participants as a noble cause. Historians have skilfully demonstrated how those who fought were not dupes but conscious believers in king and country, committed to defending the western liberal order."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....emics.html

[Notorious G.K.C.]

(please insert ellipses before first paragraph)

[Winston]

H.L. Mencken has a sad.

[Winston]

Anyway it was the Liberals, who called themselves social liberals, who got the UK into that war and many historians think that it ended up destroying them.

[Irish]

The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Horseshit.

The ruthless social Darwinism of the German elites, the pitiless approach they took to occupation, their aggressively expansionist war aims and their scorn for the international order all made resistance more than justified.

Don't all these attributes equally apply to Britain and the United States in the early 1900s? Eugenicist social Darwinism? Check. Aggressively expansionist? Yep. Scorn for the international order? Absolutely.

If Germany's behavior in that instance justified war against them, then clearly the British Empire's behavior was equally odious.

And the war was also seen by participants as a noble cause. Historians have skilfully demonstrated how those who fought were not dupes but conscious believers in king and country, committed to defending the western liberal order.

Being committed participants doesn't mean they weren't dupes. In fact, being super committed to a bad idea is actually proof that you're a dupe.

[Heroic Mulatto]

committed to defending the western liberal order

The Ottoman Turks fought to defend the Western liberal order?

Who knew?!?

[Winston]

The Ottoman Turks where on the side of the Germans.

Though....is the author implying that Germans "defend[ed] the western liberal order" too?

Not to mention if anything the war destroyed the western liberal order despite what the politicians may have felt.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Though....is the author implying that Germans "defend[ed] the western liberal order" too?

I read it as Gove arguing that from the point of view of the Axis, they believed they were fighting to defend what they saw as a "liberal order".

[Winston]

Axis was WWII.

[Heroic Mulatto]

"Central", as in the Central Powers, means the same thing as "Axis". They are often interchanged, though Axis is more often used for WW2, but I would think the context in this thread would have made it clear.

[Irish]

Well, the Ottomans fought alongside the Germans and against the British, so obviously they weren't fighting for the liberal order.

A better example would be the fact that Britain allied themselves with Czarist Russia, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Kingdom of Serbia, none of which were 'liberal' nations.

England also ran an international empire, as did their ally France. I have difficulty figuring out how a country that runs a globe spanning empire can claim that they're fighting another country in order to prevent illegal expansion.

[Acosmist]

Read Germany and the Next War if you're not informed about this.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Nigerian atheist declared insane and locked up...

"When Mr. Bala told his family that he had renounced Islam, they took him to a doctor and asked if he was mentally ill, according to the International Humanist and Ethical Union, which has taken up the case. The doctor gave him a clean bill of health, but the family turned to a second doctor, who said his atheism was a side-effect of a personality change.

"Mr. Bala was admitted to the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital on 13 June and has since been held there against his will....

"But Mr. Bala's father tells a different story, according to lawyer Muhammad Bello Shehu. "The father was aware that he had stopping praying and going to mosques for a year now. But when he started tweeting about it and going public, that might have endangered his life and his family. So according to the father, the major reason he took him to the hospital was for his own safety.""

http://www.thehindu.com/news/i.....151033.ece

[Warrren]

This while thing is moot as the VA is just scientifically aborting post-zygote organisms.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Ann Coulter on Futbol

"Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer...In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway. There are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised...

Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level...

If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer."

http://townhall.com/columnists...../page/full

[Hyperion]

In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway

Has she ever watched the game? Or does having a giraffe neck not allow you to look down upon the field at an angle that can see it?

No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer."

Wrong, bitch. Now go eat tree leaves like the other giraffes and shut the fuck up before you embarrass the stupid party even more.

[Heroic Mulatto]

She's trolling. Seriously. She is explicitly, and with premeditated thought, trolling.

[Hyperion]

I don't get the point of it, really.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The point is the point of all trolling. People are paying attention to her. The website she posted the article on is getting ad revenue for each hit.

[Los Doyers]

Man you're biting way too hard on her troll branch. I'm a diehard soccer fan, but this is obvious trolling.

[Hyperion]

You mean like when she calls libertarians pussies?

I don't see anything funny about her, except her looks. I'm about 99% sure she has a penis.

[Almanian!]

She's trollin' like a motherfucker

[Suthenboy]

I hesitate to use the pronoun 'she', but that is what she does. She is pretty good at it too. Proggies melt like the wicked witch just from hearing her voice.

[jesse.in.mb]

I hesitate to use the pronoun 'she'

Comparing Coulter to trans people is unnecessarily mean to trans people.

[Los Doyers]

So do any DC natives here have any suggestions as to good bar/lounge spots in the Washington area? I've been to Adams Morgan once, and I'm already over that level of douchiness. I'm looking for a place with a relaxed vibe, and well dressed women. And preferably women who are dtf by the second date. Thanks for the input.

[Hyperion]

I'm looking for a place with a relaxed vibe, and well dressed women.

Internet. That is all.

[Almanian!]

GET TO DA CHOPPAH!

"Predator"

"I'm gonna have me some fun! I'm gonna have me some fun!!"

Right up until the Predator puts one of those bomb/bullet things through your chest, Mac.

"Out there....past them trees.....I seeeeeeeee you...."

/I Ain't Got Time to Bleed

[Almanian!]

DON'T GET YOUR ARM SHOT OFF, APOLLO!!!!

[Almanian!]

Too slow.....

ZAAAAAAAAAPP!!!

*arm falls off, shooting gun all the way to the ground*

[Heroic Mulatto]

The About page from Schwarzenegger's own Youtube page

Former Mr. Olympia, Conan, Terminator, and Governor of California. I killed the Predator. I told you I'd be back.

[Almanian!]

GAAAAAHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!!!

[Heroic Mulatto]

The fact that Schwarzenegger spends his spare time reenacting his best lines in his backyard gives me hope for the world.

[Almanian!]

"It's not a toomah!"

[Almanian!]

I've seen this movie 1000 times. It NEVER gets old.

"Stick around!"

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Arnold's 106 best lines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDxn0Xfqkgw

[Almanian!]

FUCK! Now Billy Bear's dead.

(I like using their names from all the other movies they've been in)

[Winston]

Fred Tatasciore is dead?!?

[Almanian!]

No, no, no! Of course, the great Sonny Landham, whose characters - by federal law - must always be named "Billy".

Except when they're not...

[Almanian!]

"Now we are going to play a WONDERFUL game, called, "Who is my daddy and what does he do?""

No, wait...

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

This AHNOLD chatter reminded me of the classic Arnold Calls Gateway. That shit will never be not hilarious.

[Almanian!]

"You are one UGLY motherfucker...."

[Almanian!]

"Do it! DO IT! KILL ME! I'M HERE!! DO IT NOOOOOW!"

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I am ready for mein close up, Herr De Mille...wait, that doesn't sound right.

[Winston]

So since we are talking about WWI remember that article about interwar pacifism?

Considering the whole WWII thing and the fact that very few of those pacifistic people stuck to their guns in WWII I would say the whole movement was a huge failure.

Oh and bringing up Deanna Durbin? Really? The one who went on USO tours, made war propaganda and whose films were sent to the USSR as some sort of cultural exchange? If we want to talk about pacifist Hollywood celebs of the time the only real one I can think of would be Lew Ayres whose career was almost wrecked when he became a conscientious objector. And even he ended up becoming a combat medic.

[Winston]

http://reason.com/blog/2014/06.....our-of-bat

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Are there any libertarian women around?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwCRZYgXcSI

[Winston]

Ginger Rogers wore a monocle in 42nd Street. Does she count?

[Irish]

More brilliant comments from the Socialism 2014 conference in my native Chicago.

Mzandry Mztress ?@mztress_isis 53m
One thing I cannot accurately live Tweet is the sound of hundreds of excited socialists chanting en masse earlier. #socialism2014

Behold! The glorious, wondrous sounds of group think!

Kevin Gosztola ?@kgosztola Jun 27
.@edgeofsports: Why watch World Cup? It's art. All art under capitalism is contradictory. Strive to reclaim, not reject it #Socialism2014

Yes, no Capitalist country produces good art. Given that Russia was probably the best country on Earth at producing great writers during the 19th century and destroyed their literary culture in the 20th, it seems that Socialism doesn't do a great job with art either.

Ben Norton ?@HeartsMindsEars 1h
"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!" #Socialism2014 chant pic.twitter.com/c5MhyaFYsY

I don't understand the left wing obsession with Israel. They're like the least offensive country in the Middle East. What's the point of freaking out about Israel while Iranians are stoning gays and Pakistani girls are getting shot for going to school?

Critical Reading ?@CriticalReading 6h
"Nothing in biology makes sense without history." -Steven Rose #Socialism2014

???

[Winston]

Aren't sports just a way for players and owners to make money?

Yes, no Capitalist country produces good art. Given that Russia was probably the best country on Earth at producing great writers during the 19th century and destroyed their literary culture in the 20th, it seems that Socialism doesn't do a great job with art either.

Well I've been on internet boards where people think the Soviet film industry was better than Russia's current industry.

[Irish]

The Soviet film industry was great early on when all of the filmmakers had been born prior to the Soviet takeover. The only really great Soviet Director born after 1930 was Tarkovsky.

Despite having a population of 200 million, the Soviet Union would generally only produce one great film a year, at the very most. The reason it's remembered as being a good period for Russian film is entirely because people look at 10 great movies made over a 30 year period. America and Britain made far more great movies over the same period of time than the Russians did.

Tarkovsky's Stalker is an absolutely amazing movie though.

[Winston]

Is this Kevin Gosztola fellow also saying that the US has produced no art at all? No classic films, books, music, tv, etc?

[Irish]

Oh, Jesus Christ:

? and ? ?@RedPleb Jun 27
'Where is the Palestinian Mandela' is a ridiculous question. He's in countless Israeli graveyards & prisons - @MaxBlumenthal #Socialism2014

Well, if the Palestinian Mandela was gay or an apostate, Hamas probably shot him in the head in a basement somewhere. Maybe the Palestinian Mandela was killed as a child when a homemade missile his dad was firing off backfired and burned him to death.

Israel's actions are often inexcusable, but this mindless adoration of Hamas run Palestine is absurd. If Palestine were 'free' it would just become another kleptocratic fiefdom run by radical Imams, so this bizarre utopian view of Palestine is nonsensical.

[Winston]

I've always found it amusing that the critics of the neocons and other interventionist like to accuse them of having a manicean worldview when they are just as guilty of the same. Just look at Rothbard's claim that the USSR had a libertarian foreign policy or the Rockwellians love for Hugo Chavez.

A good example of this is the Argentine Dirty War. We have Communist terrorists who thought themselves the real peronists, the actual Peronists who were corrupt, incompetent statists and the military who the Peronists were ordering to kill said Communist terrorists. And the libertarians too are just as guilty of simplifying this scenario into a cartoonish scenario of CIA puppets versus noble democrats.

[Virginian]

Just look at Rothbard's claim that the USSR had a libertarian foreign policy or the Rockwellians love for Hugo Chavez.

??

And the libertarians too are just as guilty of simplifying this scenario into a cartoonish scenario of CIA puppets versus noble democrats.

??

[Winston]

http://mises.org/daily/4470

Thus, fortuitously, from a mixture of theoretical and practical grounds of their own, the Soviets arrived early at what libertarians consider to be the only proper and principled foreign policy

Care to find an article by a libertarian where they admit the "democratic" regimes the US has supported the overthrow of might not have been very good guys?

[Virginian]

lol that article had some good points, and several very silly ones.

[Winston]

So do you consider that part I quoted to be a very silly point or a good one?

[Irish]

Well, Virginian's not retarded so I'd assume the former.

[Virginian]

Right, definitely that was a retarded point. But there was some good stuff in there about the immediate aftermath of WWII and Soviet maneuvers in that time period. Of course it goes full retard by ascribing Stalin's decisions there to some kind of magnanimous desire to avoid conflict instead of calculated and realistic appraisal of the situation. Hey knew that he could get Eastern Europe, but not any kind of foothold in the West. He was willing to trade Communists in Western Europe for assurances that there would be no widespread attempt at subverting the Communist takeover of Eastern Europe.

I also liked the bit where Finland is left alone because the Soviets felt the Finns would be neutral. In reality the Finns were left alone because they clearly demonstrated that invading them was the equivalent to fucking a meat slicer.

[Winston]

Well it was the Manichean thinking that led Rothbard to say stupid stuff like that. The USSR was America's enemy so Rothbard had to mindlessly defend them since otherwise he would be admitting that the neocons had a point which make him a warmonger.

[Winston]

It seems he started to avert that sort of thinking once the USSR collapsed and he made his paleocon turn. "Blame America" wouldn't work on those guys, except for Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts apparently. Hell those two haven't really changed their thinking except the US is now the enemy rather than the USSR.

Rothbard even admitted that his opposition to the NATO intervention in Bosnia didn't mean that he was now a supporter of the old Yugoslavia since he had written an article condemning it while it collapsing and how the US at the time was supporting the old regime.

[Virginian]

I don't understand the left wing obsession with Israel. They're like the least offensive country in the Middle East.

Simply a legacy of the Cold War. During the Cold War, the Israelis were aligned with the US, the Arabs aligned with the Soviets. Reds follow the Moscow line.

Look at WWII France. There was essentially zero armed resistance to the Nazis until they invaded the USSR, and then the FTP began active operations in order to help the Soviet regime.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I don't understand the left wing obsession with Israel. They're like the least offensive country in the Middle East.

It gives them an excuse to use the word "apartheid" and get their social justice boners up. It doesn't matter that there is a very complex history at work in that region or that Arab-Israeli citizens enjoy the same political rights as their Jewish neighbors.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

One thing I cannot accurately live Tweet is the sound of hundreds of excited socialists chanting en masse earlier.

Did it sound anything like "FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAAAAAAAD"? #daddyissues2014

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Spike TV presents - three-way battle! Terminator v. Alien v. Velociraptor! Carnage!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZdTC4OKWy8

[Notorious G.K.C.]

More ass-shaking than all HM's videos put together -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUJtLjXiNrA

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Janet Yellen discusses the federal funds rate -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJIFSB8owlM

[Notorious G.K.C.]

You can have your soccer - give me women's beach volleyball!

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix.....34x731.jpg

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Campaign to prosecute women who have sex with minors -

http://www.theaustralian.com.a.....6408035711