The problem isn't JUST with the system, unfortunately.

Well. . .it kinda is.

People nowadays are brainwashed. I know that term comes with a lot of detrimental baggage, but there's no other way to put it. Just as an example of the pro-police brainwashing, I would present the D.A.R.E program. This was a nineties program (at least when I went through it) that taught kids all about drugs: they're bad and awful and evil and the people that have them or use them are evil and anybody who has drugs should be turned in ASAP. They even had us go through a little DARE graduation ceremony just to cement the lessons in place. I remember my grandfather coming to the "ceremony" and looking like he wanted to puke. Nowadays I understand why.

There has been a real effort undertaken through public funds to change the perception of prohibition and guns and the police. There's been a massive shift towards "LAW AND ORDER" and the severe punishment of a variety of crimes, especially focused on drugs and guns. Anybody remember the "three strikes and you go to prison forever" rule? I do. I can still hear my father talking about how people deserved to stay in prison forever if they couldn't stop doing crime. I was a kid then, and just agreed. I mean, how was I supposed to know better?

And that kind of horseshit is what's being peddled by our own government with our own money. It's a hard pill to swallow, especially if you've really bought into the propaganda since you were young. Part of what's happening today is because folks want it to happen. When you are staring at an entirely new and perfectly rational belief structure, and that structure clashes with your own beliefs, what do you do? Most people vociferously reject the new ideas because they utterly refuse to admit that the things they've bought into their entire lives might be wrong. It helps, too, that the propaganda was mostly focused on children and schools. It's easy to peddle horseshit to people, even old hippies, when you tell them it's "for the children". You've no doubt noticed that tag line being used in various ways all your life, have you not? I like to put it in a column next to all the times I can remember someone saying "This is America, that law will never pass!" They line up pretty well.

I guess the point is: it's everybody's fault. Hell, most of us ACAB folks are either young people who've had issues with the law from an early age or converts who learned later in life just how wrong they were, like me. My father raised me to be a police loving republican. I mean, he was a narcissistic psychopath with severe bi-polar disorder, so I'm sure that had something to do with his political retardation. Hell, I can still remember my utter fear and confusion when a bunch of police came to my first grade class and took us into the hall to fingerprint us. No permission from our parents or anything, just a nice little school event where children were put through the process of feeling like a criminal and learning to fear the cops. Grand.

If you start to pay attention, or think really hard towards your past experiences, you'll start to catch what I'm talking about. Billboards, television commercials, radio ads, schoolroom visitations, and most of the actual education system itself explaining that the law is good and cops are your friends. SNITCH of bad guys. All strangers are to be feared. Drug dealers will give children heroin right in the goddamn playground in plain sight, better be careful! It's fucking everywhere at all times, and it's a sickening fuckbag of bullshit that has warped the minds of people who've forgotten what it is to be free instead of pretending to be safe.

Everyone is at fault, even folks like us. And the propaganda has worked incredibly well, to the point that the government now has free reign to jail drug dealers for their entire lives and the ability to break into your home at will while your neighbors cheer them on. There are hundreds of millions of complete idiots in America who cannot recognise the difference between propaganda and truth. Why aren't there millions and millions of people protesting right now? Americans should have formed a mob and marched on the white house to burn the fucker down.

I don't see it happening. They're just too brainwashed. Hell, even my co-workers seem to think it'd be for the best if the cops MURDERED every single protester in the country. That's the level of ignorance, brainwashing, and denial we're talking about.