was: [RE: [PEN-L:32699] Re: Re: eternal war for eternal peace update]
of course, eternal war will produce eternal peace for many...
Ian quotes:
> "If protection rackets represent organized crime at its smoothest, then
> war making and state making - quintessential protection rackets with the
> advantage of legitimacy - qualify as our largest examples of organized
> crime...[C]onsider the definition of a racketeer as someone who creates a
> threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments' provision of
> protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering. To the
> extent that the threats against which a given government protects its
> citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the
> government has organized a protection racket. Since governments themselves
> commonly simulate, stimulate, or even fabricate threats of external war
> and since the repressive or extractive activities of governments often
> constitute the largest current threats to the livelihood of their own
> citizens, many governments operate in essentially the same way as
> racketeers." [Charles Tilly]
This, of course, is why we need to have democratic control over all states. (The option of abolishing the state doesn't seem to be available at this time or any time in the foreseeable future.)
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Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
