“South Park’s Interpretation Of America”

1 Pages 339 Words

The South Park episode which we watched in class, gives an interpretation of America’s political system. In the show, the boys discover that the founding fathers couldn’t decide whether or not to go to war with England. After a heated discussion, John Hancock, the head of Congress, and the founding fathers decided that America should be based on a system which can, “have their cake and eat it too”. In other words, America should do one thing and say another. This way America can go to war yet protest it at the same time. Personally, I agree with the South Park theory.
This strategy of indecision showed up in the Cold war when Johnson campaigned for presidency in 1964. When he ran, he declared that he was anti-war and claimed that he would pull our troops out of Vietnam. However, soon after he was elected an American ship was attacked and nearly sunk. It was later discovered that this incident, Gulf Tonkin, was fabricated by President Johnson. This shows that America wants to “have their cake and eat it to” because Johnson got everything he wanted: the image of being anti-war for elections and the ability to get involved in the war.
Some other examples of America “saying on thing and doing another” were also during the Cold War. During this time period America was determined to promote capitalism all over the world. However, to do this we needed an image of being “liberators” so countries trust us and turn to capitalism. As a result, after the Geneva Peace Conference of 1954 Vietnam was supposed to have free elections and become an independent republic. Although, in 1956 the communist leader Ho Chi Minh was about to be re-elected so America decided not to recognize the elections. This shows that America is declaring to be liberators; however, they are refusing to recognize free elections if the country is communist. Together, these two instances show that America can manipulate the it’s people and other count...