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One of the tricks the state uses to sustain power is to encourage confusion between itself/the dominant social system and reality-as-such, or even the cosmic order. For example, laws are analogous to "natural laws" - except that the former can be (and are frequently) broken, whereas the latter can't. This is sustained by mechanisms making the state (or other power-holders: today it is also the social media hivemind) seem all-powerful, mostly through spectacular displays of overwhelming force. To the extent that we are able to reconceive/re-experience the state as *just a bunch of human actors*, it's entire status both socially and "morally" is undermined. Of course this is easiest when we are able to evade or defy its rules without retaliation. And in moments of revolt, the state's affective hold breaks down. It's precisely the feeling of "magical" power to do the impossible (i.e. state-forbidden) which sustains effective movements, and the loss of this is also a loss of the imaginal/desiring side of activism. This feeling is hard to sustain when movements are in decline or have sold-out to the idea of (only) working within the system. The trauma of police raids, imprisonment, torture etc is designed precisely to produce a sense of the state as all-powerful and imminently threatening annihilation, so its rules have to be obeyed (modelled on Oedipal family relations). One resists this by reclaiming power - first in small ways, then larger ones. Anything that seizes back a bit of space and agency helps to break the spell of statist omnipotence.

Today I think we need to recompose by forming autonomous zones in remote regions worldwide, and drawing in as many drop-outs as we can. One of the biggest problems is that the spell of statist omnipotence is sustained both by intense paramilitary policing of known hubs of dissent, and massive surveillance which is set to expand further with smart cities and smart tech. One needs the room to breathe in order to not feel trapped in the state's grips, and this means finding or creating zones the state is unable to control.