Nick Bernabe

November 26, 2014

(TheAntiMedia) Young people are tired of the police state that America has transformed into following the passage of the Patriot Act. The true implications of the Patriot Act, which was passed following the 9/11 attacks, are now being showcased in Ferguson, MO and all over the country in a small town near you.

Militarized police forces that see the US public as the enemy now have the weapons to wage war on American streets.

This militarized mentality has spread among the police thanks to the post-9/11 all-encompassing national security state that the U.S. has become. Every move is recorded by the NSA, police locking people away for victimless crimes, cops gunning unarmed people down in the street; these are all symptoms of authoritarianism. The battle in Ferguson, ignited by the killing of Mike Brown, has kicked off a national movement of young people willing to challenge this police state.

It has become much bigger than Ferguson. Los Angeles to New York, both cities with their own notoriously corrupt police forces, had huge protests against rising police violence and unjust laws. At least 30 states held protests at multiple locations with more protests planned through the week including in Canada.

In San Diego, CA, where I participated in a march last night, many protesters were also airing their grievances with the Mexican government over the disappearance and likely murder of 43 students from the state of Guerrero after they clashed with police, and the ‘War on Drugs’. Hundreds of police officers responded to the protests and attempted to kettle protesters as they shut down major San Diego freeways three times. While this movement undoubtedly kicked off in Ferguson, local protesters have no shortage of grievances with their local police. We reported just today that an unarmed man was killed by an officer who wasn’t charged in Utah, and video footage of the 12 year-old boy who was gunned down by police in Cleveland was released. Unfortunately, police violence is not isolated to any certain area. It’s a global phenomena; from Mexico to Hong Kong, San Diego to London — people are being arrested for victimless crimes or executed on the spot by police without trial. Police are the agents of the state. The whole idea of government: politicians, bureaucrats, administrators, are all invisible to the common citizen. How often do you see your Senator, Congressman, even Mayor? But we see police everyday, and we reluctantly have to interact with them and it’s normally very unpleasant or downright dangerous. Minorities have a much higher probability of having these interactions, and that’s a very big part of the problem. But as oligarchy goes, the state becomes repressive and the face of that state is the police. The police are just the henchmen for the state, but they are also a reflection of the state as a whole. Repressive governments always turn to the strong arm of the law to keep their citizens in line, especially when they feel like they are losing their grip. Freedom of information, thanks to the internet, is quickly evaporating the false narrative that landed us in this predicament. The oligarchy is coming into plain view, and young people are the first generation to fully grow up living in it — free of monopolized state media. The beef with police that has grown in recent years is also a beef with the government as a whole. When I was at a rally for the missing 43 Mexican students a few days ago, a family member of one of the students spoke to the crowd. He said that people need to stop just complaining about the government, they need to actually live that life, in direct opposition to the state and their corporate financiers. I think that’s what we are beginning to see in America and many other places; a massive anti-state movement that has originated from the disenfranchised youth. This article is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TheAntiMedia.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to receive our latest articles.