This is what they meant by “false consciousness,” in case you were wondering.

I was moved to put this together this morning while reading the paper. It included Parade Magazine, a continual source of “huh, I guess THIS is where the Reader’s Digest demographic now goes for their hard-hitting journalism…” Today’s Parade Magazine was particularly head-scratching, though, as their “2013 Salary Report” seemed tailor-made to piss off anyone who’s paying attention to the state of economic inequality in America. Lots of regular Americans, working hard, stepping their careful way from $18,000 all the way up to the high $70,000s or even over $100,000! And then, sprinkled in like dash of hard slap-in-the-face, salaries from celebrities that were so high they simply abbreviated “mil.” and didn’t even put in all the 00’s.

I can’t help but think that this was a subversive but intentional attempt at consciousness raising by a Communist mole at Parade. To disguise their intent, perhaps, we don’t see the salaries of hedge fund managers in here for comparison – they would make the relatively wealthy Lebron James look like a  punter, and make it basically impossible to create an Excel chart like the one above because it would require hundreds more columns. But still pretty powerful stuff. And admirably bold, coming from Reader’s Digest-land.

Hey Parade revolutionaries – call me!