This past weekend my band made the trek up to Syracuse to play the annual New Years Day hardcore show held there. As usual, we got off to a late start and finally ended up leaving town about three hours behind schedule. We weren’t too happy at the prospect of missing half the show and hurried to make up some lost time. Of course, such an objective required that we drive at speeds surpassing the posted limits and about two hours into the trip we saw a police car pull out from a hidden trap and turn on its lights. Annoyed, we pulled over hoping that we’d have a quick stop and be back on our way.
The officer stepped out of the car and walked up to our van. No sooner had she stopped at the window, than she demanded, “Who has the weed?” Slightly taken aback, we looked at each other confusedly. Of course, none of us had been smoking and we were baffled by the accusation.
She continued, “I know I smell weed. Tell me who has it or all of you will be sorry.” Not knowing how to react, we told her that she must be mistaken. At our denial, she only became more insistent, threatening to search the van and throw us all in the clanger.
After retiring to her vehicle to run our plates, she walked back to our van and forced the owner to step out. She informed him that his name and birth date matched that of an escaped felon and began questioning him. After pushing him up against the van and intimidating him with a barrage of empty threats, she finally allowed him back into the vehicle. She finally issued us two traffic tickets and, lecturing us on what would happen if we didn’t clean up our act, she finally allowed us to get back on the road.
Of course, her pretenses were completely false. She could not have smelled marijuana smoke because there had been none and she did not truly mistake the vehicle owner for an escaped felon. She was hassling us for naught but her own amusement. She had decided not to search the vehicle, but only after admitting that she didn’t want to rifle through the trash that was littered about the van’s interior. The law allows an officer to search a vehicle if “probable cause” exists. Of course, and as this situation so aptly demonstrates, an officer can fabricate such evidence to harass and pester unsuspecting bystanders.
Since she was an officer of the law, she could have gotten away with the search. Who would ever believe that she hadn’t actually smelt marijuana smoke, that there had never even been any in the first place? There was no way for us to prove it, and even if we had, she could claim she had made a simple mistake and would face no consequences for her actions. She held exclusive power over the situation as we were left to helplessly sit and watch our fate unfold before us.
I can barely describe the sense of powerlessness and despair that such a situation arouses deep within, the feeling of vulnerability that truly shakes the individual to his core. The realization that one is entirely at the mercy of malicious power is wholly demoralizing. There is no amount of protest that could level the playing field; there exists no effective office to petition, no real check on the power of such malefactors. We are all defenseless; our futures left to the whim of these such individuals with whom society vests this unbridled power.
There is something so horribly wrong with a society that cultivates these situations. The affording of power to an exclusive group of individuals to exercise and abuse at will over the remainder of the population is not conducive to either freedom or justice. Even more sickening than the presence of such power structures is the fact that the populace not only accepts this abuse and malevolence, but more often than not, actually embraces it. What pathetic mental state have we reached, where such relations seem to be beneficial to us rather than oppressive? There is nothing more wretched and dismal than the victim who yearns for the abuse to which he is subjected.
This asymmetry of power within society prevents any productive and unprejudiced interactions from ever taking place. This sense of coercion permeates every aspect of our very existence, becoming so common that we cannot help but fail to notice its manifestation. But it most certainly is there, lurking beneath the surface, shaping every interaction, every decision we make, every fleeting thought that crosses our mind.
This may all seem quite overwhelming but that’s only because it actually is. Escaping the grid is all but impossible. One cannot simply choose to exist outside of these forces and relations so wound up are we in their intricacies. Sure we can resist here and there, as we most certainly should, but let us never be deceived by the illusion that we have somehow freed ourselves from its vice-like grasp.
Understand we're fighting a war we can't win
They hate us, we hate them
We can't win, no way
