Word puzzle

Change one letter [hint, its a vowel] in this politcally charged word and you get a second word that is not exactly the opposite in meanng of the first but is the favorite means by which a plutocracy suppresses that first word.

[select text between brackets to see answer:
Sedition can be snuffed out in a society that is looking first for sedation.
]

More wordplay: The initial substring common to the two words is also common to the name of one of the oldest religious festivals designed to teach that we cannot be calm and sleepy if there is privation anywhere.

Yes, I was at a Seder yesterday. And in the text we read was a passage that is found in many Passover Haggadot:
We must cast out the plagues that threaten everyone everywhere they are found:

• The making of war,
• The teaching of violence,
• Despoilation of the earth,
• Perversion of justice and government,
• Fomenting of Vice and Crime,
• Neglect of human needs,
• Oppression of nations and peoples,
• Curruption of Culture,
• Subjugation of Science, learning and human discourse,
• The erosion of freedoms.

Bleeding heart liberal sentiments? Yeah, sure, just as long as you don't happen to be looking down the barrel of one of those plagues. I stupidly said "That looks a lot like the effect if not the stated policy of the Bush admininstration". I got a few scowls and a lot of blank stares. Some of those plagues are more manifest and brazen, others just side effects of parochial myopia but I can cite at least a bit of news or an offended party for each charge. Do people not want to be awakened? After the meal, a few individuals did speak to me with some passion about one or two of these areas where the new Pharoh's boot steps on their particular toes. If I ran the seder, I would read from Eli Weisel: "Is silence the answer? It never was."