Thucydides and the silencing of dissent
Posted by jalfro on 2026-08-28
Seeing the news that the US government has classified Autistici/Inventati as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” has prompted me to revive this blog. Of course, I could have joined the solidarity demonstrations for Palestine Action, outlawed in the UK months ago, but I always was an armchair anarchist. Nevertheless, a stand must be taken sometime against the creeping authoritarianism infecting so-called ‘democratic’ governments. All states are vehicles of oppression, but not all oppressions are equal. We don’t have a local dictatorship in the UK (yet), but our politicians have been slavishly subservient to the interests of US and Israeli governments, they have bent over backwards prevent criticism of the emperor’s new clothes.
Co-incidentally, I was reading Auden’s lines on the outbreak of WWII:
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave
And that’s the rub, dictators, whether Pericles, Netanyahu, or Trump, always end up spouting moribund drivel, because they will brook no contradiction. As David Graeber (2015) pointed out, the rich and powerful can afford to be stupid. It is the poor and weak who cannot afford mistakes.
The reasons given by the US State Department for categorising Autistici/Inventati as global terrorists is that the platform has been used by organisations which have allegedly committed or advocated acts of violence, which are outlined here. This is at least preferable to the approach of the UK government, who’s only justification for banning Palestine Action has been, ‘we know things you don’t, and we can’t tell you’. So Autistici/Inventati is being held responsible for the alleged crimes of its users. If you’re waiting with baited breath for the same approach to be taken against Facebook and Xitter, you should breathe out now – it ain’t gonna happen. If the US Government really believed that providers should be held responsible for the actions committed using the tools they provide, they would long ago have outlawed the sale of guns. Yet, as the so-called founding fathers clearly understood, free speech is a far more effective measure against tyranny than the possession of firearms (it’s the first amendment, not the second, guys). No, as usual, it’s the Emperor’s nakedness that’s the issue.
And once again it’s Thucydides who points us in the right direction to understanding its significance on this occasion. Graham Allison (2017, page 9) repeats what he refers to as “the most frequently cited one-liner in the study of international relations,” Thucydides remark that, “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” There are no prizes for guessing its relevance in the current situation. President Xi of China certainly knows, referencing Thucydides’ Trap in his recent meeting with Trump. And so, the constraints of state censorship continue to tighten, as the two empires prepare for war. And if one thing is worse than empires, it is war between them.
28th August 2026
References:
Allison, G. (2017) Destined for War, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York.
Graeber, D. (2015) The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, Melville House, London.
Filed under Moral Economy