China flexes its muscles

On the eve of his visit to the US, Chinese leader Hu Jintao has basically called for the replacement of the US dollar by the Chinese Yuan as the reserve currency, at least initially for China. He also sharply criticized the Fed’s quantitative easing policy. I discussed both topics last week.

When this is coupled with China’s test flight of its new stealth fighter while US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was visiting them, these are indications by China of its intention to challenge the US as the world’s leading power.

The media as a model of how a modern oligarchy operates

A well-functioning oligarchic system usually operates smoothly and largely openly and without a hierarchical structure. It achieves its goals by setting up filters that weed out those who do not support its agenda and rarely requires overt intervention to achieve its goals.

I discussed earlier how the major filter was the high cost of entry in the modern media world that meant only rich people or organizations could create a big megaphone for their views. Only someone like Rupert Murdoch, for example, could create a new major network like Fox News. The high cost of entry came into being over a century ago and was a result of market forces and technological advances and the adoption of a business plan that depended largely on advertising for revenues.
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Clichés

As someone who reads and writes a lot, I have got attuned to the rhythm of words. When someone uses a cliché, it is as jarring to me as a sudden wrong note in a piece of music.

I personally try to avoid clichés as much as possible and in trying to be alert to them, I started keeping a list of those that I hear that immediately trigger a negative response in me. Here is my list so far:

Speak truth to power
Last time I checked (when used in a sarcastic way)
Think outside the box
When the rubber meets the road
Hit the ground running
A perfect storm
Connect the dots
Light at the end of the tunnel
Start with a clean slate

Anyone else have phrases that grate on the ears (itself a phrase that is on the edge of entering clichedom) that they want to add to this list?

Huck Finn and the n-word

A new version of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will be released on February 15, 2011 with all 219 instances of the n-word replaced by ‘slave’. The book also changes ‘injun’ to ‘Indian’. These changes were made in order to make it more acceptable for use in schools that have shied away from assigning this American classic to students because of fears that students and parents would find it offensive. Proponents of the change have argued that the book’s anti-racist message is largely unaffected by these changes and that what is lost by toning down the language this way is more than compensated for by having more people read this work.
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The pernicious influence of Rupert Murdoch

Although the problems with the media that I have described are largely structural, it is possible to identify particularly insidious influences that are epitomize its decline and Rupert Murdoch is the undoubted leader.

In this 1994 clip British television writer Dennis Potter describes how Murdoch played a large role is destroying the quality of British media, a process that he is continuing in the US.

(Thanks to Harry Kroto.)

A model for how the oligarchy works

To understand who constitutes the new national and transglobal oligarchies and how they work, it is helpful to examine a subsystem of the oligarchy that has been studied extensively and provides a good model or template for understanding it. One fact that quickly emerges is that the best propaganda systems are those that operate seemingly transparently.

Those countries that have tightly controlled state media have a much less effective propaganda system than countries like the US. Not only are people in those countries aware that the media is a propaganda organ, which makes them skeptical of what it says, there is always the danger that somebody in the media is going to blurt out things that contradict the party line.
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Chaotic and dangerous situations

Arizona is a state that allows people to carry guns. Joe Zamudio carries one and was in a store when he heard the shooting and he came out with his gun to see if he could help. What happened then shows that when a gun carrier comes across a confused and fast-moving situations like the shootings last weekend, if they are not very careful they could make matters a lot worse, either by misjudging who is responsible for what and shooting the wrong person or being mistaken as the gunman by police.

This episode suggests that people who carry guns should get at least some of the kind of training that police officers get where you learn caution and never to fire at someone unless you are sure and get some experience in being put into chaotic situations.