The logistics of a right-wing uprising simply don't make sense...

[LLStarks]

The United States, as it exists today, is not amenable to a coup, secession, or second Civil War.

Legal issues aside, it simply can't happen.

Even if 100,000 crazies (a large stadium's worth of people) took up arms in any given American city (capital or otherwise), it would still be an isolated incident that could be dealt with swiftly.

Simply put, an organized movement wouldn't work.

To the credit of any potential rebellion, diffuse urban warfare would be a nuisance if not lethal.

[armyowalgreens]

1. A 100,000 person strong rebellion would be devastating.

It would cause chaos all over the country. Copycats, riots, you name it, it would happen.

They don't actually have to succeed at overthrowing the government immediately. They just have to disrupt our fragile little lives enough to throw off the entire routine of the nation.

That would only empower more to join the ranks of rebellion.

[imdjh]

3. most are middle aged and geriatric. Revolutions need young people for cannon fodder. nt

[armyowalgreens]

7. Most of the right-wing militant types that I have seen have families with teens...

I wouldn't doubt that they'd send their sons out with an AR-15 in the name of "freedom".

[Ikonoklast]

36. But, for the most part, those people aren't in the cities.

It would be suicide to send them out in small numbers, unless they act as a terrorist cell and only use harassing tactics, quick strikes, and fade into the woods.

And they also forget that approximately half the small arms owners in this country are Democrats. I wouldn't just let armed bands of idjits roam my neighborhood, doing mischief, without getting at least some resistance in the form of flying lead.

But, can you imagine, even if there was a 100,000 armed individuals of every right-wing type, together, in insurrection against the Federal Government? Never mind the problem of fighting a division of armor with small arms, let alone trying to hide from overwhelming air superiority...

They would devolve into their own civil war amongst the Fundamentalist God Warriors, the Libertarians, the Racists, the Palinistas, the Randians...the factions would tear each other apart.

It might even be fun to watch them fight each other, kinda like what they are doing now, only politically.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. But civil order does not

A small team of snipers could bring any major city to a halt and be damn near impossible to find if they knew what they were doing. Remember what 1 did a few years ago, and he was an amateur.

[imdjh]

43. You can't predict the response to insurrection based on a sniper incident.

In a sniper incident, the citizens of a city are in work and shopping mode, not defense mode. When a sniper starts picking people off from atop a bank people, people are shocked and terrified, they scramble for cover, but they don't go home, fortify their houses, put al their children in the basement of the school and then go out in ad hoc regiments to repel the insurrection.

When the Union troops invaded Maryland, the people of Baltimore quickly organized to stop the movement of the Union troops. They didn't have the numbers or military strength to repel them, but they ripped up railroad tracks and opposed their path.

When the riots in Washington DC and even some small towns occurred, the law abiding citizens and police essentially set up containment zones, established citizen and police patrols, and instituted other aspects of civil defense. While you can't count on every police officer to be in opposition to a Freeper Rebellion, the hiring practices of the last 30 years or more have seen that the police departments of most major cities reflect the demographics of that city (as opposed to national demographics) so in Washington DC you might have a police force that is perhaps disproportionately conservative (as a natural consequence of law enforcement duty) but still overwhelmingly Democratic if not what some would consider liberal.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. Some called the Rodney King riots a rebellion (which it clearly wasn't)

And it may well have had 100K people doing bad things.

[armyowalgreens]

21. It was rebelllion, it simply had no objective other than chaos and destruction.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

34. And looting. I was there when it happened. I would not call it a rebellion in a political sense

[warren pease]

14. Yeah, except Pox Nous would claim about a couple dozen drunken rioters...

... were involved in a non-political event, CNN would pick up the party line and before you know it, an armed insurrection of 100K or more people at the end of their collective rope would be reduced to just another "drunk-boys-will-be-boys" pub-crawling story to provide filler for the nightly fluff machine.

The intertubes would hum with the news... and be further discredited by corporate mass media as the customary haven for radical, lying loons on both sides of the ideological divide.

So by definition, corporate mass media would collaborate to position themselves as the sources of truth and no-shit "journalism" and steal a little more of our own history into the bargain... once again, and they'd get away with it once again, too.

Mainstream media, with TEE VEE by far the worst offender, has a bottomless pool of "on-air talent" – perfectly coiffed, voices well-modulated, tastefully made up, arrayed in $5K suits, Hermes ties and little flag lapel pins -- each more strident and irritating than a hundred Ross Perots.

We have broadband, YouTube, blogs, forums, actual reporters, search engines, discussion groups, political organizing, access to newspapers published in actual free countries – all taking place in plain sight.

This means we're doomed to lose the credibility wars because everybody knows to stuff their fingers into their ears and close their eyes whenever somebody challenges the sacred, untouchable value about how "We're Number One" "We're Number One" "We're Number One" "We're Number One" "We're Number One" "We're Number One" "We're Number One..."

And anybody that tells you different is just a disgruntled comsymp pinko rat loser who can kiss the USA's ass.

USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!


And so on into the night of the living morons...



sf

[imdjh]

2. Simply put, the coasts are essential and even in Red states coastal areas are purple or blue.

[flamingdem]

4. What about a slow motion uprising, old fogey style, over a longer time period? nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Do you truly believe that a modern civil war will be

fought by established armies?

Think the IRA... and the London bombing Campaign. In fact, I will make the argument that this has been ongoing already, and we have had a very successful terrorist movement. Just ask Randall terry.

Abortion is legal... how many clinics do it?

That is what you are looking at.

Not regular armies.

This is called a low intensity war, or an irregular war.

[LLStarks]

8. I never said it would be established armies. The Tamil Tigers did amazing using their tactics though

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. There you go and that is the point

a bombing campaign will change the country in fundamental ways

Remember while the Tamil tigers were destroyed, the IRA (and most other movements using these tactics) have ended up in a negotiations table... talking to each other and coming up to a political settlement.

[conscious evolution]

38. it always cracks me up

that people still think civil wars are fought by a group of guys in blue clothes firing muzzle loading weapons across a field at a group of guys wearing gray uniforms firing muzzle loading weapons at the guys in blue.

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. Well you know it is very romanitc you know

but far from the reality... the last war you could make that argument was the Spanish Civil War...

[BlooInBloo]

6. Neither does people taking the notion seriously.

[Ozymanithrax]

10. Something like a group of violent anti abortion protesters..

Who stayed free for years, striking every now and then while like minded individuals let them remain free.

How about the unabomber.

Now, imagine 100,000 unabombers that continue their attacks for 20 years. Sure, we get some of them but imagine the changes that kind of insecurity will breed in Americans. What has 60 years of insecurity done to Israel? It is created a right wing state that embraces any violence to end the threat. Certainly 60 years of failure has not ended the thirst of the Palastinians to be free.

100,000 terrorist using a cell structure chould cripple this nation for a decade.

[NutmegYankee]

31. That concerns me as well. We don't want something like the Algerian Civil War.

[notesdev]

11. It wouldn't be done that way

it would be done by guerrilla warfare - targeting of federal agents, sabotage, creation of 'no-go' areas, assassinations - surely we've seen plenty enough of that around the world to be familiar with just how hard it is to suppress that sort of thing where it has popular support.

How long do you think the government would keep up the will to suppress a rebellion, if IED roadside bombs came to Washington DC?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. Look what one crazy shooter did...imagine a group of them with decent training and

an organization behind them.

Not a prediction, but I too think the issue would be in the cities. Also I fear if the targets are not popular the outcry would be less than deafening ala one of the Tom Clancy books when a former SEAL goes rogue. You can not hear subsonic 22LR on a busy urban environment and they do not trigger the gunfire monitors. They can easily kill if well placed.

[Paladin]

37. It's Pretty Obvious You've Given This WAY Too Much Thought.... (n/t)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

48. Not really. Anyone with a tactical background understands this

Those kind of scenarios are trained against by most big city cop shops.

The police don't really fear the gangs near as much as a small disciplined team (like their own tactical units). That was the big issue with the DC sniper. Had it not been for the notes left, the police would not have known they were dealing with amateurs.

[Bosso 63]

30. I agree. Something along the lines of the Mano Blanca would be their "style".

[billyoc]

12. Armed struggle won't work if you have any freedom of speech/assembly.

If your government has even a fig leaf of constitutional legitimacy, the people will never support an insurrection, and you're dead without the support of the people.

That's Revolution 101.

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. That is why the Ameirican Revolution had the support

of 33 percent of the people, while the royalists had the other 33 and the rest wanted nothing to do with it.

Now I know I am math challenged, but 33 is far from a majority. And that is but one revolution from the top of my head that had that little problem.

[billyoc]

44. Well, first of all, I didn't say you needed a majority,

and second, that was a war of national liberation, an entirely different breed of cat.

[nadinbrzezinski]

45. It ws also a civil war, don't kid yourself

look at the relationship of one of our founders with his son...

[billyoc]

46. It most certainly was not a civil war. It takes more than some people siding with the English.

Lol, "kid yourself"

[nadinbrzezinski]

47. I know the AMERICAN MYTH, but 1\3 is not a few people

The American myth does not like to call it a civil war, but it also had all the elements of one, including families divided and brother fighting brother and families divided. I used the example of one founding father and his son as an extant example of this.

In the American myth it was a war of independence, or national liberation. Funny thing happened on the way to the forum... it wasn't, not until July 2nd 1776 when the Declaration was signed (announced on the fourth), and even at that moment there was a letter sent to King George trying to find accommodation... It was known as the Olive Branch...

So if you truly believe the American myth taught in schools, I guess it wasn't a civil war... but to HISTORIANS, you know the serious kind... it was both a war of national liberation, and a civil war... Another funny thing happened on the way to the forum, few wars of liberation, or independence are not civil wars as well. The only modern example I can think of is the Israeli War of Independence of 1948. That war had elements that were less than line, but at least did not share elements of a civil war.

[Selatius]

50. The American Revolution as a war could not be neatly packaged as a war of just national liberation.

There was intense disagreements over the very notion of how to proceed with grievances with the English Crown. When the war did begin, there were loyalist militias operating alongside British Army regulars in the American Colonies. On the other side was the Continental Army and the militias who had taken up arms against the Crown.

The American Revolution had elements of both a civil war and a war of national liberation. Very few wars fit neatly into categories we try to assign them. That is the reality of war. It is a messy business that can hardly be boxed into neat categories.

[Kievan Rus]

16. They (radical wingnuts) would lose eventually....

but would take pleasure in inflicting as much damage as possible upon the tolerant, multicultural and democratic society they so despise. These people are scary as hell. The greatest threat to our security at this moment isn't an al-Qaeda guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, it's radical wingnuts stockpiling guns in a forest and spouting hatred for anything they don't agree with. The FBI seriously needs to redirect more resources to watch the crazies in this country.

They've more or less already realized that a culture under the total domination of straight white Protestant men is never to return. We're already seeing acts of violence committed by these crazies, and I fear it will get worse in the future as they continue to lose ground. A few have already begun to adopt the mentality that Japan had at the end of the Second World War, or Iraq as it pulled out of Kuwait in 1991...if you're going to lose, take as many of the enemy with you when you go down.

[XemaSab]

18. We already have 100K people waging urban warfare every day in the US

They are in the inner city, they are not organized, and most people wouldn't give them the time of day. Do they disrupt lives and wreak havoc? For sure. Are they likely to overthrow the government or cause meaningful social change anytime soon? No.

To put it in perspective, 100K teabaggers nationwide would be 2,000 people in every state in the country. There are 58 counties in California, so that would be a little over 34 people in each county in the state. In short, enough people to take over the Redding mall.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

20. That is beacuse the gangs have no political agenda and are just organzied thugs

If the crazies just targeted them, I doubt there would be significant hue and cry, which says something about the rest of us.

Like Board of Ed candidates, with teabaggers its not the out ones, its the ones concealing their true intent you need to worry about

[Frank Cannon]

28. These morons don't have a political agenda, either

The Freepers violent enough to bring guns to the fray are pissed about one one thing: There is a black dude in the White House. That's hardly the underpinnings of a revolution.

There just aren't THAT many racist retards in this country, regardless of how much noise they might make.

[napoleon_in_rags]

19. Wow, when did THIS get on the table?

Glenn Beck say something?

Regardless, its silly. The real deal is that people aren't geographically separated enough for the conflict. I go to work every day with conservatives, and the know I am progressive, and we are friends. Arguments can break out, but we are friends. I would have their back in a crisis, as I would with my conservative family members.

This fact is pretty much why any acts of violence would create a huge backlash against them. If somebody were to pick up a Republican/Democrat flag and start claiming we should shoot the other party, the actual response is "You want me to do WHAT to my grandfather? My brother? My kid?" Because the political divide reaches through families, workplaces, etc. Its only the people living in very non-mixed settings who could even envision that sort of thing, but the majority of the country is very mixed on politics.

[ClayZ]

22. They are NUTZ but organized!

These people are scary!

http://accdf.com/


K and R

[Norrin Radd]

23. Have you seen WALL E? Think of the humans in that movie.

[armyowalgreens]

24. While I don't think thesep people are world class athletes, lets not underestimate them.

I think the "fat lazy white guy" card is played a little too often when we are referring to the right. It's not entirely accurate.

[Norrin Radd]

49. I was jesting with the word "uprising." Also, they aren't intellectual

ethical, or motivational athletes. Think of how those characters were distracted.

[leftofthedial]

25. 2000 was a coup

[Larry Ogg]

33. November 22, 1963 was a coup

And as far as I’m concerned it has never been undone.

But then what is more important; a majority consensus based on the unelected PTB’s (powers that be) corporately owned conservative biased hypnotic fraud propaganda fake news and entertainment machine - aka the M$M, or the paradoxical beliefs of some small left of the dial insignificant minority?

[safeinOhio]

26. Like the Klan

Agent mike is keeping an inside eye on them.

[Hannah Bell]

29. an inside eye is right. if they're getting lots of press, it's because someone wants them to.

[zbdent]

27. Like Rush Limbaugh and Vietnam ...

I wonder if the RWers would actually go to the front line in a coup if they realized that the U.S. Armed Forces are supposed to protect the country from an armed uprising, enemies within and without ... and the "enemy" would be shooting back at them ...

the "liberal media" was salivating in December 2000, anticipating an armed rebellion by RWers ... which would have been a ratings COUP for the corporate owners ... Osama bin Laden wouldn't have had to attack the U.S. to tear this country apart ... he would have been watching CNN's feed of the "courageous freedom fighters battling to install the 'legally elected President' into the White House, and oust that tyrant Al Gore ..."

[Odin2005]

32. But they could really mess up the country with guerrilla violence.

Imagine 100,000 Timothy McVeighs.

[Marr]

35. Let's be honest.

The right-wing base in this country will not be carrying out an armed insurrection in their lifetimes. There are three fundamental personality traits that define the American right, and they all short circuit such an act.

1) They're cowed by authority, so they'll never work up the guts to oppose anyone with a badge or a flag.

2) They're self-centered. Joining such an open revolt would be the ultimate act of selflessness, as participants would likely die or do long stints in jail for it. Such an act is not in their character.

3) They're mostly cowards. We're talking about a group of people who have been praising a war for the last eight years but have passed on joining it.

I wouldn't be surprised if we continue seeing the occasional right-wing terrorist cell causing problems, but open insurrection? Not a chance.

[Echo In Light]

39. Precisely. Besides, Big Brother is FAR more concerned w/Leftist/progressive "perception management"

...since they realize, unlike the hate radio ding-a-lings, that these 'wars' of this era are fought via perceptions, propaganda, and seeding the public mind accordingly. While it's clear that the phony "war on terror" legislation has domestic dissidents/anti-war peeps in mind, perhaps there's an effort underway to bolster actual, genuine right-wing "terrorism" here to be used as an excuse to somehow cinch up the ideological leash of the Left w/a chilling effect? I mean, if the media pundits who cheerlead for the aims of the shadow govt are playing an active role in encouraging Rightists to take this type of stand there has to be an ulterior agenda.

[chrisa]

40. We've been at a state of war with the

Right wing militias ever since they attacked us in Oklahoma City. Their movement just died off.

[santamargarita]

51. They're too chicken shit to try anything

~