America loves big “buts”

by Nathan Lindberg 

We Americans like news with a big “but.” Have you ever read Chinese newspapers? They’re all so positive. How unsophisticated. Daily reports from the rice paddies to the Nike sweatshops highlight satisfied Chinese workers who are convinced their government is honest and sincere, allowing proletarians to work happily, hand in hand raising abundant supplies of cabbage. Obviously, this means everything is terrible.

We in the West know the real truth. We know the Chinese government has one focus: dupe the people. And the people are either blathering idiots wondering in barren cabbage fields or enrolled in “education-reform” slave camps making golf shoes. We know because we know when all you hear is good news… someone is hiding something. Reliable news, like a hippo, is always followed by a great big but.  

Let’s take this example I’m making up right here. Say the lead news story was that unemployment had dropped to zero. The first part of the story would be auto workers “ye-hawing” in a bar, while they do si doed. BUT if the story ended there, we would be sure that the whole thing had been staged by Hollywood Communists. Or Republicans – take your side. So reporters would have to find someone angry to interview. Maybe a CEO’s bonus did not double. Maybe supporters of equal rights for tapeworms were protesting cheap rum. Maybe someone just invested in a triple latte and spilled it. Whatever the case, as soon as we see someone unhappy “butting” the happy story, we can all sleep content that we were informed unbiasedly.

But-news is so ingrained that if the “but” is absent, it’s either the cooking channel or we just add one ourselves. For instance if you told someone that comrades in Mainland China had just recorded a record crop of cabbage and then stopped without adding a “but,”  Americans would automatically think, “But cabbage makes people flatulent. Those Chinese are going to feel very awkward at the dinner table.”

Now on the other side of the ocean the Chinese are all convinced we can’t do anything right. They watch our news and just shake their heads. Even when we have total happy employment, we spill nine dollar coffee on our sweaters. They call it failure and inharmonious hostility. All I can say to them is, “But…” 

by Nathan Lindberg