A little over a year ago I was an unknown writer of mostly fiction hoping to eventually find an audience to share my passion with. A friend of mine on Facebook told me about a post from Ademo Freeman, who was looking for new writers for CopBlock.org. Having been an outspoken critic of police for many years I jumped at the opportunity. An email, a few instant messages, and a phone call later, I was in! I cannot tell you how excited I was. But also nervous, because I needed to learn about a million things about the internet that I had no clue about to pull it off. My own site, AdvancedApe.com, was a relatively simple affair where I just flopped out stories with no real concern for site-building concepts that make a website more visible and successful. But I learned pretty quickly and was soon even doing analytic research on site statistics.
My very first article was a reposting of a fictional satire piece from my site that I had done on a future dystopian total police state. From there I worked on news stories, mostly just rehashing information from multiple sources and putting it all together. After a handful of those I did my first original editorial, or think piece, regarding the dangers of skewed ideas about masculinity and how they contributed to the police state. I really enjoyed writing that piece and so I began to intersperse more of that sort of thing with news stories. In less than three weeks I had several stories under my belt and wrote one of my favorite pieces discussing the police state through the lens of my Discordian religion. Right after that I put out a story that I had put a lot of work into with multiple sources compiled from a messy pile of sometimes indecipherable information, which probably stands out as the closest I will ever come to being a true investigative journalist. After a few more news stories I wrote another favorite of mine about how scientism, a topic I wrote a lot about before I began writing for CopBlock.org at another site I ran, contributed to the problems of the police state. Just before the end of my first month there I wrote my first piece regarding police issues in my own community.
In the next month I wrote about how to deal with cops in your family, how the police state goes against Christian ideas and values, why more women were needed in our movement, when trolling becomes activism, how the Baltimore riots were valid revolutionary acts when compared to those of this countries founders and did my first piece of satire here.
Over the following five weeks I continued to hone my skills and wrote prolifically. Some highlights include:
- My first Copsuckers Corner, in which I outed meathead ‘fitness motivator John Burk for his asinine pro-police video and stance.
- Explored the idea that policing antagonizes natural human defiance and creates problems doing so.
- Dispelled the myth of cops and donuts.
- My most read article ever about the time a bodycam helped a cop fight sexual assault accusations against him.
- Started toying with the notion that accountability was impossible by illustrating how police unions protected even the worst cops from prosecution or consequences for their crimes.
- Foiled our naysayers with a satire announcing our plan to retire and abscond from police criticism with loads of cash, based on really bad accusations we had recently faced. This is probably the article in which I first gained notoriety as an individual writer, which was mostly seen in the form hateful comments about me and recognition by regular trolls who have been giving me their undivided attention ever since. (Thanks, guys!)
In June a young man named Ryan Bolinger was killed by Des Moines, Iowa police for ‘walking with a purpose’. This was too close to home and it really got under my skin so I decided to leave the comfort of my keyboard for some live action activism. I organized a protest at the DMPD HQ. Ademo and Deo drove over from Ohio to join me and I got to meet two really great guys who I previously only knew from internet contact. The protest drew a good crowd and had decent media coverage, but Ryan’s death has still not been met with any kind of reasonable response by those involved.
This article attracted the attention of the mother of Autumn Steele, who had been killed earlier in the year when a cop trying to shoot her dog slipped and shot her instead. I have continued to report on this tragedy and staged my second protest in January on the anniversary of her death. And I will continue to fight for justice for Autumn in any way that I can.
Over the next few weeks I continued pumping away, having earned a place among the CopBlock.org contributors as a solid member, with mutual respect and friendships forming. These included:
- My very first attempt at dispelling the nonsensical yet oft-repeated accusations of our most rabid critics, in what would later become part of the Welcome Copsuckers Page which compiled a number of these kind of articles, answering the charge that “I bet you call the cops…“
- An appeal to train cops to fight so they were not so reliant on weapons to protect themselves.
- Explained to the people who detest us that we are just doing our job.
- Revealed the history of the Good Cop/Bad Cop method and narrative.
- Did a satire involving an emu’s interaction with police.
- Pointed out how the statement ‘he had a gun’ was being used, even when untrue, to justify police killings from the moment they happened.
About this time I became an editor three days a week for the website. This, as I soon found out, was a lot of work and anxiety. Balancing breaking stories with allotted schedules and peoples concerns was a constant task. I enjoyed this for the first month or so. I also was on the pulse of police activity and became a fast draw with breaking news stories. But after a few months I could no longer bear the burden, and worse yet, I felt these duties were taking me away from my writing. Especially of think pieces. But I did get some good work out during this time, nonetheless.
- During Police Pullover Guy Eats Hamburger (actually, this is the dumbest thing I ever published)
- Is CopBlock.Org A Terrorist Group?
- Why Are So Many People Impersonating the Police?
- CopBlock.org Is A Police Propaganda Campaign To Create Chaos
- Kind Cop Walks With Disabled Woman- Or Is There More To It?
- Seneca Police Defy Physics to Shoot and Kill Man, 19, In His Car (I was the first person in the media to question the official police narrative of the killing of Zachary Hammond and my speculation was later confirmed by video.)
- William Lewinsky- Meet the Man Who Creates and Excuses Killer Cops
- Is This 17th Century Salem? Cops Blame Triple Homicide on Witchcraft
- LEO’s: Time to Quit Yet? – Beaten Officer Mocked On Social Media
- Dear Copsuckers- The Truth About Your Stupid Fugking Meme
- CopBlock Interviews Bernie Sanders on the Police State (This interview, although satirical and completely made up, actually uses Sanders ideas on fixing police problems to show how naive and foolish this man is.)
- Inside the Mind of Police: Poll Hints At Cop Mentality/Culture
- Copsucker’s Corner #2: A Plethora of Common Sense and it’s follow up Copsucker or Charlatan? Amiri King Doesn’t Care About Cops or His Fans
- Psychology Studies Show That Police Supporters & Terrorists Think Alike (Another personal favorite.)
- I Am A Keyboard Warrior Against the Police State and Proud of It
- What Zombie Apocalypse Culture Reveals About The Police State
At this point I quit editing. Over the last few months I had learned a lot in a short time. I learned about creating graphics, internet functions and issues, social media savvy and a lot about myself. At the same time there were some big changes being made in how the website was run, things that I was pretty concerned about. I pondered walking away altogether, but decided to give myself a bit to see if these changes were workable and if I was still up to the task. My news stories became infrequent. I began spending more time writing for my own website and also created UnicornWorld.org as an outlet for political writings outside of police state issues. I did settle back into a place where I was comfortable continuing on as a CopBlock.org contributor, and was able to focus more on think pieces and criticisms of police culture both inside and outside of that profession.
- The Cop That Sucked Itself- Viral Rant of an Emotionally Unstable LEO
- NO MURDER EVER- I Do NOT Support Random Violence Against Police
- BUSTED- “Until You’ve Walked In Their Shoes, You Can’t Know How Hard It Is.”
- The Copsuckers Lament: You Paint All Cops With the Same Broad Brush
- A Response to the Daily Beast Article ‘The War Over CopBlock’
- When Mark Twain, 19th Century CopBlocker, Trolled the Copsuckers
- Dear LEO’s: How To Beat CopBlock
- Five Stupid Reasons People Support the Police
I also became the resident expert in a trend of people’s negative workplace interactions and refusal of service to police. Staples Office Supplies. Marriott Convention Center. Starbucks Coffee. Redrock Canyon Grill. Whataburger. Which eventually resulted in: Should You Personally Refuse Service To Police Officers At Your Workplace?
By mid-November I could no longer hide from something which had been increasingly bothering me. I was adding to the narrative of police accountability, a message that I found to be dishonest and impossible. I could no longer pretend police could be held accountable. I explored all of the reasons why that avenue was futile and could no longer bear to present a message I knew was a lie. I made my initial case in a trilogy of articles.
- Accountability Is Futile – Abolish the Police
- The Police State Is Slavery – Abolition, Not Reform, Is the Only Solution
- Abolish Police & the State – The Ideas That Will Replace Them
Since then I have incorporated that message into almost all of my writings and expanded on it in a myriad of ways. I have also been advocating to other CopBlock.org contributors to join me in the field of abolition and abandon the accountability message altogether, which has been met with varying degrees of success.
The following articles are highlights between then and now.
- “If You Don’t Believe ‘Rights’ Exist, Why Do You Care What Police Do?”
- Do Police Supporters Have A Neurotic Aversion to Cognitive Dissonance?
- I Do Not Hate Cops – It Is Not the Players, It Is the Game
- Company To Introduce Police Brutality Themed Liquor ‘Slagermeister’ and its follow up Jagermeister Threatens CopBlock.org Over Satire
- The Specific & Inarguable Reasons Why Accountability Can Never Work
- Officer Saves Abandoned Baby With Her Own Breast Milk; True Story Bro!
- New Copsucker Software Script Updates for Immediate Installation
- Sorry To Break This To You, But Policing Goes Against Family Values
- What If Police Training Is the Problem and Not the Solution?
- It’s the Little Things – Killer Cops Are Just A Small Part of the Problem (Another personal favorite.)
- Maybe We Should Be Giving Copsuckers Our Mercy and Support
- The Meme Analysis Project – Deconstructing Copsucker’s Favorite Images
- All Cops Are Bad, But Some of Them Are Still Mostly Good People
- Activism and the Absurd
- Who Said It, Cowards or Heroes? – I Feared For My Life
- Are Comparisons Between Police and Fire Departments Misleading?
- Should We Be Treating Drug Users Medically Rather Than Criminally?
My final article in my first year of CopBlock.org was an experimental piece of reality fiction:
Good Cop or Bad Cop? A Choose Your Own Adventure Story
It was a lot of work and was also probably the least read thing I have ever written for CopBlock.org
My year at CopBlock.org has been a great experience in so many ways. I wrote 304 articles here (on top of my other writing projects) in that time. I learned a lot of new things and acquired lots of new skills, while making a lot of great friends. I have honed my writing chops and gained more exposure in that capacity. While I get frustrated with our audience and other aspects of CopBlocking from time to time, those often turn out to be great learning experiences themselves, which add to my own personal growth and evolution. And while it is unlikely I will ever repeat the prolific nature of that first year, those tired of my writing here will be disappointed to know that I plan to stick around for awhile yet. I look forward to doing so until every badge has been melted down and its metal turned into something useful that can contribute to the prosperity and peace of humanity.
Thank you all for your readership and support. Without you I am just a guy pissing in the wind with a lot of fancy words and outrageous but reasonable ideas. Please like the Joshua Scott Hotchkin Facebook Page where you can read all of my writings from all of the websites that I contribute to.
Source Article from http://www.copblock.org/155785/joshua-scott-hotchkin/