Civil wars... and the US

[nadinbrzezinski]

well we have crossed another point on the way to this... awful event...

Folks this week a member of the anti abortion movement was shot to death. Crimes happen, but this was a hate crime... and just like Dr. Tiller's murder it is yet one more marker.

In countries moving towards a HOT civil war these events become common, and the population develops a tolerance for them. There is more, some folks were not upset by this... and as much as this man, and his ideology, is something I will not agree with, just like Dr. Tiller he had a family.

So here is the point. It seems I am no longer speaking of something I have seen coming over the last few years... (that damn history degree), but now more of you are seeing it.

Can we stop it? Sadly I think we crossed the point of no return...

For many reasons this not only saddens me, but frightens me...

Oh and yes, race is one of the reasons for this, the other is the family values crowd... and the rise of a theocratic movement that wants to impose its world view one way or the other.

Oh and to those of you who have now joined me... it is a heart wrenching feeling to know that we are about to step off the damn cliff and there is little we can do about it huh? What is worst is that when I first noticed and spoke of this, we still could have done something about it, perhaps... but at this point... I just hope it is not as bad as civil wars can potentially be.

But yes, that murder was but one more step towards that... and it pains me.

[tblue]

1. I went to a town hall meeting today and I thought, 'This is the Civil War all over again.'

It's the same divide -- the racists, status-quo-ers, who adamantly hate the thought of helping other people, and the ones who want progress, reform, inclusion, shared burdens and common welfare. It's the same divide, just sparked by the issue du jour and the election of a black man who does not have a virulently rightwing political constitution.

It's sad, but there's no mistaking it. We are literally a divided country that does not share the same set of facts. I don't think we are equally divided, however. Obama did win the election and the Democrats have won two elections straight, after all. But we are divided and the losing party does not accept this result nonetheless, and it looks as though never the twain shall meet. I am truly sad and frightened for this country.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Civil wars do not start with a majority

that has hope of changing things thought the political process.

They are started by a minority that sees no other way. I'd add the religious component, and it will not be north vs south... but could be very nasty.

[Odin2005]

3. A thread on another forum that might interest you, Nadin:

Note that one of your threads is mentioned by me in the first post. :)

http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4215

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Interesting.... I see denial

is not just a DU problem

:-)

[Odin2005]

5. LOL, you can say that again!

that forum is been overrun lately with Libertarian trolls, driving me crazy! :crazy:

another thread there that may interest you:

http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4291

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. This forum is being overrun by Libertarian crazies

the problem with the libertarian party.... is that they are even less organized than the demns and span the left and the right...

:-)

[cali]

21. well, hyperbole, histrionics are a DU problem. You contribute

enormously to that. And you certainly are no Cassandra. Time after time you post the same crap- and you're wrong. Sooner or later you may actually be right about something.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. From the Forum guidelines

Civility: Treat other members with respect. Do not post personal attacks against other members of this discussion forum.

[cali]

29. there is nothing uncivil about noting that hyperbole and histrionics

are omnipresent here. And many of your postss certainly fit into that classification.

[Selatius]

7. I know the last civil war started over economic issues, mainly slavery.

Some people wanted the federal government to abolish slavery. Others saw that as the federal government essentially taking away several hundred billion dollars (in today's money) in what they viewed as "assets" or "property" that they claim to "own." I'm talking, of course, about owning humans. With that kind of money involved, you can bet rich people would pull out the stops for war if something happened that they didn't want happening, like the election of Abe Lincoln. I don't see that kind of coinage involved with things like abortion or gay marriage, though.

I think a scenario where one state gets help, while another gets no help would be ripe for abuse, the kind of abuse that could spark a war, a war over economic reasons. They said Obama was not about to bail-out California because that would be opening the flood gates. Other states like Texas and Florida and more would be demanding they get help as well and not just California. In that situation, I could see the US splintering along regional economic lines, with each side blaming the other for sapping resources and favoritism.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. We are already there, look at how much federal money

goes to states in the deep south and how much goes to the coastal states.

So that division, and resentment, is already there.

But here is what is driving this... and for the moment that economic resentment is not that strong.

The social issues, such as abortion, believe it or not science and evolution, and the family values are part of it. We ignore that at our peril.

There is also a heavy component of race. which is not limited to the south, but it is part of the witches brew. It is not just against the blacks, aka the old property, but also against the brown and other minorities. As to that issue, notice how many states are right to work states? And care to correlate this to the Confederacy? Some are not part of the same correlation, see Az and Nevada, for example, but the values regarding labor are similar.

Those are the places fighting the hardest as well against reform of the medical system and EFCA... and it is economic. If I make health care a lot less of a worry, my employees might be more froggy. And if they make joining unions all that much easier... again economics.

Regardless the pattern that leads to a hot one has been relentless since at least 1996, when it was too obvious to ignore any more.

At times I wish I did not do the readying I have done on the pattern that leads to civil wars, not just the US... and some wars are not economic, see Yugoslavia and see Rwanda, and even Somalia. They are over ideas... and theocracy is a strong component in this... as well as race. Oh and some of it, is the civil war all over again...as well as the civil rights movement...

[Selatius]

9. You're right about the subsidies to conservative states angle. There have been more than a few...

reports highlighting the fact that money spent on social programs that benefit people in low-income or in-need areas, often in conservative states, is usually money that came from more liberal areas in the form of taxation. The statistical reports of where the money is coming from and going to will doubtless become fodder for anyone willing to use that as a weapon against right-wing dominated states, like Mississippi or Texas.

If the issue can be painted along geographical lines on top of economic lines, it will become much easier to start the process of demonization. As it stands, it is more a conflict of Democrats vs. conservative Democrats/Republicans. It would not be entirely impossible to morph the conflict into a Northeast/West Coast vs. South/Plains conflict if certain elements in society continue harping on the disproportionate benefit poorer states, which happen to be more conservative, are receiving from federal programs paid for by more liberal states through taxation.

It was an angle that had temporarily escaped my mind until you brought it up. My mind is more concentrated on the short-term. You see, I recently became an unemployment statistic in this damn recession, which I now dub the Great Recession. This thing is deeper and longer than any recession from either the 1980s or 1970s. I lay the blame at Sen. Lindsey Graham of Texas for authoring that damnable act that repealed the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act that prevented consolidation between commercial banks and investment banks, which eventually lead to the current mortgage-backed securities failures of late and all the banks destroyed by the toxic waste from it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. I do hope you find a job soon

and this is a recession, we came this close to a depression... but a recession nonetheless and you are right about glass steegal... absolutely right.

[showpan]

10. I'm not convinced that the civil war

was more about slavery than it was about corporate greed and natural resources, the underlying reason for most violent action.

[Selatius]

28. Well, I was arguing that slavery = corporate greed.

If you told major landowners and industrialists that you were going to take away several hundred billion dollars worth of assets that they claim to own, they are going to start big trouble. It just so happened that the rich back then felt that slaves were "assets." They were not going to let them go without a fight, and they felt scared of Lincoln and the Republicans.

[Kievan Rus]

11. As somebody who knows a lot about the history of the American Civil War

What is happening in this country right now scares the absolute shit out of me. I fear that history is starting to repeat itself.

In the 1850s, the nation edged closer and closer to civil war. And acts of violence were a definite part of it. All of the violence in Kansas (bleeding Kansas). The brutal caning of Senator Charles Sumner in 1857. John Brown's raid in 1859.

We're still at a point were I think we can definitely avert it, but I seriously worry for the future of this country. All those frothing wingnuts are no different than the Southern agitators that edged this country into the Civil War.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Yeah it is the scary pattern

I forgot Wilson the other day in the house... not quite a caning, but you could say it was something equivalent, especially when you see the reaction of the House... as well as Republican operatives. God help us from enforcing the House Rules... since it will only increase the tensions in the House.

[Mixopterus]

14. What is especially amusing

Is that right wing southerners have fantasies about a second civil war, except they are convinced they would win such a conflict.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. It is not just right wing Southerners, it is right wingers

they have a very romantic view of war.

Been there, done that... and romantic it ain't.

[hootinholler]

16. You think we are closer now than we were in the 19-teens and 20s

Labor struggles?

You could well be right, but I'd like to hear your comparison of now to where we were during the labor struggles.

-Hoot

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Yes, the labor struggles had a very different feel and we were

all still American

What we have now is the language of the other... and the other is not american... that is what is so different from the 20s, but similar to the 1850s

[endarkenment]

17. I agree. As the violence becomes reciprocal it accelerates.

[cali]

19. happily unrecommended. you've predicted that "we're about to step

off the damn cliff" so many times over the past few years that it's laughable. You're a catastrophe hound, a dystopian junkie. That an abortion provider was murdered is not a de facto harbinger of a hot civil war. That an anti-abortion activist was murdered isn't one either. This has happened in the past. No hot civil war ensued.

And my two MA degrees in history, thankfully, actually educated me. Doesn't seem you received the same benefit.

Your posts on the imminent civil war or how bushco is going to put liberals in camps etc, have always been histrionics writ large and that anyone here takes this nonsense seriously is strong evidence that you can fool most of the people most of the time.

[Mixopterus]

20. Hm

A hot civil war may be far fetched, I can see your point. I always felt that the United States would break into regional nations along (roughly) cultural lines in the very long term, unless a highly authoritarian central authority manages to keep everything more or less together in whatever form our nation takes when it inevitably kicks the bucket.

[cali]

22. you may be right. As someone grounded in history I don't go near

the long term future. In fact, historians generally try to avoid making predictions. I will say though that there really aren't signs of an imminent hot civil war.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. If you define a hot civil war like the blue and the gray

that will not happen. No modern civil war has gone that way.

Now the break up of the US into five to seven successor states is not that far fetched under current conditions... and a hot civil war in the US will take on modern forms... which make people who do not understand that evolution declare them a non event.

That said... we are in the midst of a long term trend, started in 1996 or so, when it was unmistakable, where we entered the cold phase.

But if you think blue and gray... that ain't gonna happen.

Now a series of terrorist events... absolutely... and we are already in the midst of that... and a very low level one.

[Edweird]

26. You've told us what your definition of a 'hot' civil war isn't (a hot civil war), so

then what, exactly, *is* your definition of a 'hot' civil war?

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Terrorism, modern civil wars do not have

set battles.

Think of Norther Ireland, the troubles... that is very possible.

Now since religion is a really high component we may even see the militias control some ground and then you will see something more like sections controlled by sides, bombing the other side, aka Beirut... but that is not what I expect. I expect something as horrific as the Troubles... for similar cultural reasons.

[cali]

30. similar cultural reasons? please describe them.

oh, and since you've said this is imminent, please tell us what imminent means to you.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. From the Forum guidelines

Civility: Treat other members with respect. Do not post personal attacks against other members of this discussion forum.