Liu Xiaobo, Barack Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize

"....a state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands, even for beneficial purposes will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the machinery to which it has sacrificed everything will in the end avail it nothing".

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

The Chinese Communist party has rightly been chastised by the western press for it's condemnation of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo through it's state owned media. This is clearly an attempt by entrenched interests in the Communist party to preserve the privileges they enjoy by dwarfing an advocate for the democratic process.

There are parallels between the reaction of the Communist party to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo in it's state owned media, and the reaction by the Republican party in the privately owned Fox News Media to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama a year earlier.

Both the Chinese government owned media and the Murdoch owned private media are propaganda arms for entrenched interests of the communist party in China, and the Republican party in the United States. Both hinder the democratic process as envisioned by John Stuart Mill in his essay On Liberty.

While one man was in the White House and one in prison, the entrenched interests of those in the Republican Party and those in the Communist party were equally complicit in dwarfing both men by denouncing the award through their propaganda arms. Both have sought to make their men more docile instruments. The machinery to which the Communist and Republican parties have sacrificed everything will according to John Stuart Mill ultimately avail them nothing.

And so it should be.