"Fear of collective power necessitates the oppressive systems that drive isolation, suspicion, and competition with each other - rather than the connection that leads us to freedom." The state intentionally manufactures suspicion to weaken communities' abilities to adapt and self-organise. Food scarcity, housing crises, alienating narratives around crime, media focusing on stories of conflict while drowning out those of connection, etc, all feeds the illusion of state as an unavoidable fixture of any functional society, which attempts to excuse the violence used to uphold it. State control and violence is neither necessary nor unavoidable. Strong communities threaten the state's very existence because they present tangible alternatives. In this way, community building is inherently political. By divesting from state power and reinvesting in community, we make state power redundant, and therefore reveal its injustices as inexcusable. // Images via abolitionisagarden and wokescienti...