When They Do It...

Whenever I watch a game show in which obviously working-class people are making idiots of themselves for what amounts to really not that much money in the grand scheme of things, I can't help but think how propagandistic this would look to anyone outside of capitalism. As my old man always notes, the problem with Americans is that everyone of them think they can become rich. So even though the vast, vast majority of them never will, they resist higher taxes for the wealthy or any sort of income redistribution because they see it as a moot point, given that they will be rich themselves someday.

And this is clearly what game shows are predicated upon; they're basically saying "no, don't get upset about your inability to pay for basic human services like healthcare and heating for your house, for someday you could win big!" If the Soviet Union had had shows like The Price is Right we would laugh at the propaganda they need to keep their citizens thinking their lives aren't so bad and filling them full of false hope. Yet when we do it...well, one man's propaganda is another man's patriotism.

Unfortunately, the bad-for-them-ok-for-us mentality extends far beyond game shows and mystifying propaganda. For it turns out that the military's guide for "interrogation" at Guantanamo Bay was simply copied verbatim from the manual the Chineese used to torture Americans during the Korean war.

So when they do it's torture, but when we do it...you get the idea.