Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Sun, 17 Nov 2002 The Manufacture of Dissent Something's bugging me. Since January 1st, 2000, the trans-Atlantic gap has gaped wide in our collective perception of the way the world works. You need look no further than the blogosphere for evidence of this, from warblogging Americans denouncing spineless European perfidy to Europeans expressing outrage and disgust at American warmongering. You can see it in the news every night, US diplomats and politicians snorting contempt at the EU and EU politicians calling George W. Bush Hitleresque. Or ... can you? I'm not particularly well-travelled, but in the past year I've visited the United States, Eire, Holland and Belgium, as well as the UK. (And I've chewed the political fat with people from other EU countries.) The feeling I get from many people in all these places is that they think the other side is wrong -- that what they're saying is ludicrous propaganda aimed at us, and we are of course right. Huh? Can someone tell me what's going on here? Some of the dissent seems to be subtly manufactured. I'm not a one-man media monitoring agency, so I can't quote chapter and verse, but I think the trans-Atlantic rift over Israel is one symptom of it. Palestinian atrocities against Israeli civilians tend to be underreported in Europe, with significantly more emphasis directed towards the Israeli army carrying out reprisals. Meanwhile, US TV news is full of atrocities that are cut short in the BBC coverage, whenever a suicide bomber wipes out a restaurant or a bus stop, but coverage of the suffering of the Palestinians is minimal. It's not overt censorship; we hear about both sides -- but one side gets more airtime than the other, more pans and zooms across the bloody carnage. Another example is reporting on the EU itself. In the USA, and to some extent in England (but less so in Scotland and Northern Ireland), the EU has a reputation for being a huge, bloated bureaucratic nightmare of misrule. Stories of strange EU regulations are lovingly repeated; the committee to standardize the radius of curvature of the banana, or the perfidious attempt to destroy the Scottish fishing fleet by banning them from catching anything. But step outside the charmed circle of anti-EU reporting and some uncomfortable facts become clear. The EU employs fewer bureaucrats than the British government assigns to the Scottish Office in London. The banana committee is a myth. And the stories about the Scottish trawler fleet quota are entirely true but ommit the key detail that last year's total North Sea catch was down to 37,000 tons, from a peak of 250,000 tons in 1977 -- the ban on fishing is a desperate last-ditch attempt to save the North Sea from following the Grand Banks off Newfoundland into sterile extinction. Meanwhile, stories about George W. Bush's legendary stupidity, insularity, and ignorance abound in the European media. Do I have to draw you a diagram? Something nasty is going on, something that seems to follow Noam Chomsky's doctrine of the manufacture of consent -- only in a different direction; it's the manufacture of an artificial dissent, a mutual contempt between the inhabitants of the fifteen richest, most developed nations on the planet. The key is the way issues are reported in privately owned news media in different countries. "Balance" is a fetish in news reportage circles -- the idea that both sides of a story must be equally described. In reality, it's a chimera -- one side always gets more airtime, or is otherwise favoured. You pick a moderate on one side, and an extremist on the other, assert that it's a balanced debate -- and you've just shifted the centre ground towards the second faction's territory. At present, "balanced" reporting seems to be being used to drive a wedge between Europe and America, by building a climate in which concilliatory statements of solidarity are downplayed and the extremists are represented as the voices of the centre ground. I wish I knew why this was happening; not that I believe it's some kind of colossal top-down conspiracy. It may be an emergent property of the way news media work -- after all, bad news is good for audience ratings, and conclusive proof that the other guys hate us is bound to get more eyes focussed on the silver screen than yawn-worthy reports that they're on our side after all. Or then again, it may be a conspiracy -- a conspiracy of dunces, that is, of privately owned conglomerates pandering to the ideological prejudices of their owners. Rupert Murdoch reputedly hates the EU, and so does Conrad Black, after all: and the power to sack editors must exert a wonderful concentration upon their minds. Whatever the cause, it's worrying to consider. Because we're going to have to live with the consequences of believing these lies for many years to come 1:37:07 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Optimal web design. The Software Usability Research Laboratory has recently updated it's set of criteria for optimal web design. Written by Michael L Bernard, this resources addresses a range of common issues, including: How should information be positioned in a typical website? How... [Column Two] 1:26:39 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Consultant's Checklist John has found a little gem of a checklist for consultants. I try to practice the relationship model with my clients, but it is often easy to get sucked into that "Here's what I do" question and answer session. Most companies aren't used to the "What's your problem" approach. They are used to looking for the person who "does" what they feel is the problem. Changing the way they think to a more open, holistic approach, is the first step to a long-lasting (and profitable) relationship. [347.com || Andy's World] 12:48:57 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Global Trends 2015. Have you wonder what will happen with our beloved world in 2015? Oh guys, what out of worries that year, but the folks at CIA (and its friends) has do it. They has compiled of what so called "Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts". Here, I point one interesting views about the world that they divide into four scenario of global futures, they are: Inclusive Globalization, which mean all goes well; Pernicious Globalization, which mean globalization take the bad effect of evil to take the world; Regional Competition, which in my mean globalization come to its antidote creating more growth of regional identities; and Post-Polar World, which seem like our world right now. Though, I really deal with the last, may be because Indonesia has been mention there. To read its original version, please go to the CIA publication. Scenario One: Inclusive Globalization: A virtuous circle develops among technology, economic growth, demographic factors, and effective governance, which enables a majority of the world's people to benefit from globalization. Technological development and diffusion—in some cases triggered by severe environmental or health crises—are utilized to grapple effectively with some problems of the developing world. Robust global economic growth—spurred by a strong policy consensus on economic liberalization—diffuses wealth widely and mitigates many demographic and resource problems. Governance is effective at both the national and international levels. In many countries, the state's role shrinks, as its functions are privatized or performed by public-private partnerships, while global cooperation intensifies on many issues through a variety of international arrangements. Conflict is minimal within and among states benefiting from globalization. A minority of the world's people—in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and the Andean region—do not benefit from these positive changes, and internal conflicts persist in and around those countries left behind. Scenario Two: Pernicious Globalization Global elites thrive, but the majority of the world's population fails to benefit from globalization. Population growth and resource scarcities place heavy burdens on many developing countries, and migration becomes a major source of interstate tension. Technologies not only fail to address the problems of developing countries but also are exploited by negative and illicit networks and incorporated into destabilizing weapons. The global economy splits into three: growth continues in developed countries; many developing countries experience low or negative per capita growth, resulting in a growing gap with the developed world; and the illicit economy grows dramatically. Governance and political leadership are weak at both the national and international levels. Internal conflicts increase, fueled by frustrated expectations, inequities, and heightened communal tensions; WMD proliferate and are used in at least one internal conflict. Scenario Three: Regional Competition Regional identities sharpen in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, driven by growing political resistance in Europe and East Asia to US global preponderance and US-driven globalization and each region's increasing preoccupation with its own economic and political priorities. There is an uneven diffusion of technologies, reflecting differing regional concepts of intellectual property and attitudes towards biotechnology. Regional economic integration in trade and finance increases, resulting in both fairly high levels of economic growth and rising regional competition. Both the state and institutions of regional governance thrive in major developed and emerging market countries, as governments recognize the need to resolve pressing regional problems and shift responsibilities from global to regional institutions. Given the preoccupation of the three major regions with their own concerns, countries outside these regions in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia have few places to turn for resources or political support. Military conflict among and within the three major regions does not materialize, but internal conflicts increase in and around other countries left behind. Scenario Four: Post-Polar World US domestic preoccupation increases as the US economy slows, then stagnates. Economic and political tensions with Europe grow, the US-European alliance deteriorates as the United States withdraws its troops, and Europe turns inward, relying on its own regional institutions. At the same time, national governance crises create instability in Latin America, particularly in Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Panama, forcing the United States to concentrate on the region. Indonesia also faces internal crisis and risks disintegration, prompting China to provide the bulk of an ad hoc peacekeeping force. Otherwise, Asia is generally prosperous and stable, permitting the United States to focus elsewhere. Korea's normalization and de facto unification proceed, China and Japan provide the bulk of external financial support for Korean unification, and the United States begins withdrawing its troops from Korea and Japan. Over time, these geostrategic shifts ignite longstanding national rivalries among the Asian powers, triggering increased military preparations and hitherto dormant or covert WMD programs. Regional and global institutions prove irrelevant to the evolving conflict situation in Asia, as China issues an ultimatum to Japan to dismantle its nuclear program and Japan—invoking its bilateral treaty with the US—calls for US reengagement in Asia under adverse circumstances at the brink of a major war. Given the priorities of Asia, the Americas, and Europe, countries outside these regions are marginalized, with virtually no sources of political or financial support. Generalizations Across the Scenarios The four scenarios can be grouped in two pairs: the first pair contrasting the "positive" and "negative" effects of globalization; the second pair contrasting intensely competitive but not conflictual regionalism and the descent into regional military conflict. In all but the first scenario, globalization does not create widespread global cooperation. Rather, in the second scenario, globalization's negative effects promote extensive dislocation and conflict, while in the third and fourth, they spur regionalism. In all four scenarios, countries negatively affected by population growth, resource scarcities and bad governance, fail to benefit from globalization, are prone to internal conflicts, and risk state failure. In all four scenarios, the effectiveness of national, regional, and international governance and at least moderate but steady economic growth are crucial. In all four scenarios, US global influence wanes. [A Beauty Lover] 12:35:57 PM    trackback []     Articulate []