Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 11:14:34 +1000
From: "Jeremy Dixon" <jeremydixon-AT-eudoramail.com>
Subject: Re: Distilling (Re: Coca-cola)



---
ies.com/Athens/Agora/3199/

>
><< while I don't imagine any "democratic" state would _openly_ use thirst as 
>a weapon against large numbers of its own citizens; still, cops would 
>certainly come in on the backs of the water trucks. >>
>
>I guess that depends on how you define democratic. Guatemala and Chile were 
>called democracies by the US government during the cold war, because they 
>were anti-communist. The formula is basically this: capitalist friendly + 
>human rights violations out the ass = democracy.

Yeah, but when Guatemala and Chile were called democracies this was simply a deliberate lie.

When ,say, Australia (or I suppose the USA) are called "democracies" something a bit different is happening. Government here is by manufacture of consent rather than by terror. Terror is an expensive and inefficient way to govern. It is difficult to manufacture consent on the part of people who know that you've massacred their friends and family or reduced their city to submission by thirst. 

So, where there was a general strike in a major capital city  (which would require the active support of at least a large minority of the population)I doubt that the state would openly seek to reduce it by thirst. Although the state might seek to do so covertly. Assuming here that
the state is one that maintains itself by manufacture of consent, is "democratic" in quotation marks. (Rather than called democratic by the Pentagon, to widespread derision)

-Jeremy


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