No surprisingly, Butcher Billy (see art above) immediately saw the connection between James T. "Joker" Davis' (Matt Modine) situation in the classic Stanley Kubrick movie Full Metal Jacket and the character Stripe (Malachi Kirby) in the Black Mirror Episode "Men Against Fire."

In both cases, the soldier in question lives in the gray zone between their desire to be a good citizen (patriot) soldier while at the same time trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance between patriotism and committing the murders often required by patriotism.

The title of this episode "Men Against Fire" is a reference to S.L.A. Marshall's book of the same name which claims that the vast majority of soldiers have a hard time bringing themselves to fire on enemies because, at a very basic human level, no matter how just the cause, they don't want to be responsible for the killing of other human beings.

One of the tricks the propaganda organs of government have used over time to confront this problem has been to reduce "enemies" to sub-human in information released through all official and contracted agencies (check out the political cartoons of the Japanese from WW2 and you will get the basic idea). This process of officially sanctioned dehumanization, at its worst, can be seen in what happened in Nazi Germany and during the Rwandan genocide.

The "future" military in this episode of Black Mirror has secretly solved the "Men Against Fire" problem by equipping every soldier with a neural implant called a "MASS." I have said this throughout, Black Mirror uses technology as a device to create distance between the watcher and what is happening on the screen. What is reflected in the Black Mirror is us now (not some future citizens in some dystopian future).

The soldiers are told that the MASS only enhances their reflexes and senses but we find out, during the episode, that the MASS device also induce sex dreams (so that soldiers have good memories of their sleep) and also masks targets as genetically inferior humans (it is not clear how they identify between the genetically inferior and the normal humans) called "Roaches" so that they appear sub-human to the MASS-implanted soldiers (they appear to have blurred and insect-like features).

But you can find examples of this kind of dehumanization all around us in people without MASS devices. Last week, for instance, ICE agents removed a woman scheduled to have brain surgery to remove a tumor to a detention facility because she also happens to be an illegal immigrant.

All it takes in the United States now to justify the removal of a critically ill mother of two is for one passionate but cynical blowhard yelling for months about "bad dudes" and insisting that he only wants to remove the people who have come to the United States to "rape" and "murder" Americans. Of course, President Trump isn't carrying out mass deportations, this is a simple and just military action to protect Americans.

And that is the other side of what Brooker is getting at here, continual fear has to be produced and manufactured to maintain a fascist security state. Manufacturing fear is part of the security state which becomes dependent, almost addicted, to funding and power.