War abets repression by demanding obedience

Listening to Tony Blair today about how we should obey police advice. "We intend to get people to understand the importance of giving the police and our security services the powers they need to prevent terrorism in this country." This quotation may be worth further circulation ..."war labels dissent treason" ... yes Tony, we can hear you loud and very, very, clear.

U.S. elites like war. War sends the message that laws do not bind U.S. elites, that morality does not bind U.S. elites, that nothing binds U.S. elites but their estimates of their own interests. It trumpets that everybody else better ratify our plans, or at least get out of the way. Likewise, for U.S. elites, war preparedness is good economics. Military spending primes the capitalist pump and spurs its engines, but crucially military spending doesn't give those in the middle and at the bottom better conditions or better housing or more education or better health care or anything else that will make people less afraid, more knowledgeable, more secure, and particularly more able to develop and pursue their own agendas regarding economic distribution. War empowers the rich and powerful, but its real virtue is that it disempowers working people and the disenfranchised poor. War annihilates deliberation. It elevates mainstream media to dominate communication even more than in peacetime. War abets repression by demanding obedience. It labels dissent treason, or in this case, incipient terrorism. Elites like all this, not surprisingly.

Michael Albert "Peace Movement Prospects" September 2001
Michael edits Z-Magazine and Z-Net