In an earlier post, Ladd Everitt posed a provocative question: “Can peace be obtained through anarchy?” He answered: Maybe someday in the distant future when humanity becomes perfect, but not anytime soon because society needs protection from neo-Nazis. Wait, what?

If government is such a great protection against Nazis, then why did the Nazi Party pose its greatest threat to humanity when it was democratically elected into control of a national government? Democracy birthed the Nazi menace; it didn’t prevent it. In fact, anarchists would say that it’s exactly this kind of centralized political structure, with citizens willing to follow the commands of whoever wins power, that creates the opportunity for aspiring authoritarians to seize control and do their worst.

But Everitt isn’t the first to raise this specter of ‘ultimate evil’ to justify government and its inherent abuses. It’s a common scare tactic regularly deployed by politicians to legitimize all sorts of loathsome policies. Most recently, in his Nobel Prize lecture, President Obama sounded the Hitlerian alarm in a shameful attempt to justify his expansion of war in Afghanistan. Obama’s predecessors, Bush and Cheney, were also quite fond of this brand of rhetorical fearmongering, attempting to legitimize the “War on Terror” and the imminent threat of the “Axis of Evil.”

Nevertheless, humanity may always be faced with destructive or greedy opportunists who aim to harm others for their own personal gain. The anarchist solution is, quite simply: Don’t put them in charge. Better yet, don’t put anyone in charge, because history has demonstrated, over and over again, that power corrupts. Even the most well-intentioned peacenik will either be transformed into a scheming, power-hoarding monster by the political process, or will never gain a position of power in the first place. With such widespread support for powerful leaders, it’s easy to see why the most destructive people on the planet are running amok, wielding governmental and corporate power, and controlling entire regions of the globe. The results speak for themselves, none of which would be possible without millions of acquiescent adults enabling their leaders, eager to follow their every command.

But how could an anarchist society resist power-seekers who want to dominate and control others? There is only one way:  more anarchists. There is strength in numbers, and the more the better. Perhaps Everitt misses this possibility because he makes the common mistake of imagining anarchy without anarchists. That is, his hypothetical scenario of an anarchist society doesn’t seem to have many anarchists in it. Instead, it’s full of roving fascists (which seems more appropriate for a hypothetical society of roving fascism, no?).

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• British graffiti artist Banksy popped up with 4 new murals on the Regent’s Canal in London last week, one of which was this protest of global warming denialism.

• More than 1,000 people marched in Islamabad on Friday as part of a nationwide campaign that took place in 53 other Pakistani cities and towns to protest both Taliban bombings and the American drone strikes.

• Hundreds of demonstrators rallied on opposite sides of an Israeli-Gaza border crossing on Thursday to protest at the blockade of the strip imposed by Egypt and Israel. In Gaza, about 100 international activists staged a rally with some 500 Gazans, chanting and carrying signs denouncing the blockade. A small number of anti-Zionist, Orthodox Jews were among them.

• Hundreds of relatives of prisoners in a Mexican jail protested the expected transfer of inmates to make way for a film shoot with director Mel Gibson next year.

• Internally displaced people at a campsite in Nakuru, Kenya demonstrated along a highway to protest their poor living conditions following the onset of rains and demanded building materials.

• Dozens of Jordanians held a sit-in near the Egyptian embassy in the Jordanian capital on Sunday to protest Egypt’s plan to construct a steel wall along its borders with the besieged Gaza Strip.

• Thousands of people in Hong Kong took to the streets on New Year’s Day to demand full democracy in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. The Chinese government ruled in 2007 that the territory cannot directly elect its leader until 2017 and its legislature until 2020.

• Police detained dozens of people at an anti-Kremlin protest on Thursday, including 82-year-old Lyudmila Alexeyeva, one of Russia’s most respected rights activists.

The mainstream media has started referring to the recent surge of protests in Iran as “the tipping point” for the opposition movement. While this assumption isn’t totally baseless—as evidenced by the spread of protests from Tehran to the heartland—there’s still a sense of wishful thinking that pervades the coverage.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is not a radical reformer, which means he’s not interested in doing away with the Islamic system. This should be a sign that the greater social freedoms sought by the protesters do not go hand in hand with his assumption of power. By resting their so-called revolution on the shoulders of a politician like Mousavi, Iranians may end up with little more than a kinder gentler oppressive regime.

Perhaps that’s something we Americans can relate to. The movement that helped usher President Obama into office was motivated by his message of hope and promise of change. But after almost a year in office, he has shown himself to be scarily similar to his predecessor. Even the harsh treatment of activists has continued—something the much-maligned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently called to attention in his own defense:

When asked about the “awful scenes of violence on the streets” of Iran during the crackdown on demonstrators who claimed that his election victory was a fraud, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, “the American police beat people in Pittsburgh, they arrest people and use batons and tear gas against people.”

Given this sad reality, we should all realize how little change actually occurs when a movement only seeks to replace a leader. For real revolutionary change to occur, the entire system of government needs to be overhauled as well. It’s not clear if that is a demand of the Iranian opposition movement. Right now it seems to be more about election fraud. Perhaps the movement will evolve to incorporate radical reform, as well as address the interests of the poor and marginalized—a characteristic of a strong nonviolent movement. When that happens, there will be no question that a tipping point has been reached.