[Peace-discuss] Whose rights, and What's Left?

[Morton K. Brussel]

An extract from an article/blog by Stephen Gowans at:
http://gowans.blogspot.com/2007/02/whose-rights.html

He compares in the remainder of the article what are usually  
represented as repressive authoritarian states with what are  
represented as democratic freedom loving states.

…Rights have a class character. Freedom of expression to persuade  
others has
little meaning if you haven't the resources to own and control the mass
media. Freedom to run for elected office has little meaning if you  
haven't
the money power to buy high profile advertising, hire pollsters,  
campaign
strategists and PR firms to persuade voters. Because they often have no
substantive meaning to anyone except the wealthy investors, bankers and
hereditary capitalist families who have the money power to turn them to
their advantage, political and civil liberties have been allowed to  
flourish
in parts of the Western world that have not been challenged by  
significant
labor and socialist movements. But when political openness has  
allowed these
movements to threaten the status quo, civil freedoms and electoral  
democracy
have been abridged or cancelled altogether (as in fascist Italy and Nazi
Germany; in Chile in 1973; and in countless other countries, usually  
with
the blessing, if not the assistance, of the US government.)

Despite civil and political liberties being skewed in favour of those  
who
have economic power, commitment to civil and political liberties is  
never
absolute. The notion of warranted restraint - that liberties can be  
abridged
or even denied under certain conditions (freedom of expression does  
not give
me the right to yell fire in a crowded theatre) - says that formal human
rights are conditional.  The conditions are often presented as the  
need to
strike a balance between liberty and security, but what civil and  
political
liberties have always been conditional on is the degree of threat  
they pose
to whatever class dominates the society.  Security, it's true, is  
relevant -
but whose security?…

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