Much has been written about the approaching Police State in alternative media. Commentary ranges from various warnings, to shock and outrage, and fear over an impending martial law takeover in North America and Western Europe. It's hitting us from so many different angles, and yet the mainstream conversation continues to be woefully inadequate in both characterising the situation and offering a remedy.
In order to really understand the modern Police State, we need to explore some very profound and difficult questions. Many people who consider themselves
aware think Western society has already reached the tipping point and the deteriorating situation is simply
inevitable. If you feel like Winston Smith right about now you aren't alone.
Prior to the mid 1990s, one might have described the militarisation of public law enforcement something of a
creeping paradigm, but one that was still a long way off. Society explored many aspects of the Police State, both the physical and Orwellian psychological scenario, through literature and film. American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick penned some significant works like
The Minority Report, and cinematic hits like Paul Verhoeven's
Robocop and Terry Gilliam's
Brazil also explored what this dystopic, future vision of fascist technocracy might look like. As it turned out, and
far from fantasy, countless devices, systems and themes depicted in so many of these supposedly 'fictional' classics have since made their way into our day to day lives. The dark dream became real.
Unfortunately, as humanity's freshmen class of the early 21
st century, we can no longer afford the intellectual distance enjoyed by previous generations between life
today and that blurry, far-off spectre of something that might arrive sometime at some point in the future.
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