If you can remove the mental block of identifying the government as the overriding power and authority in the society, you can begin to recognize where real power lies, and what the role of government is, subordinate to that power.
At that point you can examine your relationship with the actual power structure and to what extent you do or can influence it. You can understand what its goals are and its methods for pursuing those goals, and you can analyze how these goals and methods are susceptible to the intervention of the people.
Because it is a basic truism that whoever can disrupt a system is in a position to control it.