A week ago, i was assigned to do a report on "police states", somehting that i found very ironic, considring that for the past month i've emersed myself in anarchic essays and media. but, curiosity drove me to take a closer look at "the enemy", just so i would know what i was up against. when i first began to persue the topic, i had a clear picture of what a police state was in my mind: the taliban, nazis, or what have you. this is what our society has been trained to recognize as a police state system, and, as to plan, no one questions wheter that is what a police state truely is. however, even tho i barely scratched the surface of the topic of police state, i began to see that we live in such a system without really knowing it. sure, maybe some of our laws dont seem as rigid or horrible as other countries, but it is obvious of how much power that the military and police of the u.s. hold.
when i gave my presentation yo the class, in which i was supposed to convince them of choosing a police state for the political system of our "community", i was bombarded with questions such as: "y do we want police to control our lives?" "how do we know that the police wont abuse their power?" "surely, with a police state, the majority of the public would revolt?" and with each question they asked, i laughedd inside, and the simply anwered that, considering that our counrty is run in a similar fashion, and none of them seemed to have a problem with it, why not have a police state? i found it funny that my class was so opposed to the police state, yet could not comprehend the idea that they actually live in one. it was obvious that they were perfevt products of american propaganda, and were in serious denile that our counrty could be run in such a way.
later after class, a fellow student told me that she would never vote for a police state, and i agreed with her, saying that i leaned more towards anarchy. "ANARCHY?" she said, "y would u want to live in a place where ppl could kill one another and not be punished? y would u want to live in chaos?" and, i believed she had amade a very good point. could chaos really be the answer to an already messed-up world? y trade a world full of killing and some justice for one with killing and none? so, in order to answer this question, i went online and went to the most basic thing about anarchy i could find: its defenition. it was descired by its Greek roots an="the absence of" and archos "a ruler". the article went on to explain that many anarchists did not view anarchism as a totally chaotic world of violence and without order, it is simply a world of freedom of mind, actions, and without rulers and authority. so many ppl prefer to picture anarchism as violent chaos however, since only violent acts that are related to anarchists are ever widely reported on. anarchy is not about just destroying things out of the anger that that is generated by an opressive society; it is about destroying in order to later on improve. u dont have to burn down a building or start a riot to be an anarcist, u only need to know whats right and take action, however small or pointless it may seem. power comes in numbers, and the kind of numbers we need are people. so challenge authority, revolt against conformity, and do as you see right! |
