A New American Civil War - West Vs. East?

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I travel a lot, mostly across the southern U.S. I'm gregarious, so I'm often in conversations with folks from all over the country. One of the clues to mood is the reaction to various comments I make or questions I ask about this world we live in. I also read newspapers along the way, particularly the letters to editors: That gives some feel as to what folks are upset about.

It seems to me there is a general sullenness building, increasing year by year. There seems also to be a decrease in hope for a better future. My feeling is that a continuance of this will lead to a powderkeg situation, where some seemingly trivial happening will start trouble--and it will spread. I haven't a clue as to what it might be...Race riots? "Get rid of illegals!"? Dunno.

The causes of the emotional climate vary with locale and personal viewpoints on many subjects. Water, abortion, taxes, socialism, war, economy, gasoline prices--heck, you name it! These are but a few, but they all appear contributory to a general malaise.

How long before something sets it all off? I haven't a clue.

Art
 
Well, whatever happens, our society is too high-tech to withstand much of a rift. Shut down the transportation system, shut down the food/water/energy into the cities, and you're going to have MAJOR problems.
 
i just dont see 'conservartive america' ever rising up to do anything.
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I saw plenty of Conservatives in Florida up in arms about the handling of the ballot counts during the 2000 election. That was the first time I ever saw Conservatives go to the streets and say enough was enough.
 
SodaPop. We in New Jersey Salute you!

Hail SodaPop!

Don't forget to march your army to Forward Base Buckeye. My fire teams will be waiting;) . We all will be there awaiting your arrival and liberation of our oppressed state. :p

What will "spark" a controversy?

Nothing will spark a controversy. They will take gunners out one at a time like they have been doing. They will not rock the boat. WHY? Because it has been working great so far! Why screw up a good thing? Hate to say it but the majority will bow to more government and continue to bitch about it. How can I expect someone to stand next to me and fight when the majority can't seem to find the time to vote? Voting is a hell of a lot easier!

I forget who said this so I am sorry for not referencing my source:

"When will you know it is time to fight?"

"Grab your gun and go stand out in the middle of your street. If your the only one there, it is not time BUT if 3/4 of your neighbors come out and have their gun THEN and only THEN is it time."

I hate to be negative on this subject but the lack of participation in "The System" proves that people are happy just the way things are.
 
I saw plenty of Conservatives in Florida up in arms about the handling of the ballot counts during the 2000 election. That was the first time I ever saw Conservatives go to the streets and say enough was enough.
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Holding a sign on a street corner is a far cry from wholescale armed conflict.

Ray got my point. Right off the bat you have 75% of the nation that does not care, or does not agree with our general position. Of the remaining 25%, not many see things the way we do, and even fewer that are willing to go down shooting. The political climate is not even close, nowhere near sparking anything IMO. Its going to be a long time, and a LOT more BS before it is. Things will have to get MUCH worse then they are now for it to change. Our only hope IMO, is that 'things getting worse' is sudden enough that people notice.
 
"Right off the bat you have 75% of the nation that does not
care, or does not agree with our general position. Of the remaining 25%, not
many see things the way we do, and even fewer that are willing to go down
shooting. The political climate is not even close, nowhere near sparking anything
IMO. Its going to be a long time, and a LOT more BS before it is. Things will have
to get MUCH worse then they are now for it to change. Our only hope IMO, is
that 'things getting worse' is sudden enough that people notice."

The Big Thing that will set off The Silent Majority is still opaque.
It could be many things. But to believe that there is not a simmering
anger gathering in a lot of American households...? There's still a
lack of focus to the anger, but that doesn't mean that the anger isn't
real and potentially directable. I think the American middle-class
is sensing that the America they believed in is somehow slipping away
from them. They may not yet have put it all together and found a "target"
for their frustrations, but I believe they may very well before this
is all over.

The thing, you see, is that the people on top appear to have a compulsion
to push their agenda to the breaking point. Why? Only a psychohistorian
can say for sure, but a lot of the Left's agenda seems to arise from
self-loathing and that is not a very sound platform for creating a
healthy and happy society. Year by year we are becoming more divided,
more fragmented, more balkanized.

Want a burr under the saddle? Perhaps formerly employed American
citizens watching highly paid tech jobs going to Indians who are brought
to this country, on H1-B visas, by corporate America to work
for a fraction of what the American citizens were paid? They get three
years, then another three-year extension. Now Bush & Co. wants to
qualify these imported workers for Social Security after six years.
My understanding is you and I need ten years to meet the minimum.

We have a lot of people, corporate and government, selling us out. That
is the realization that will spark whatever is coming.
 
Look at the last Presidential Map for the borders (Red vs. Blue). The old city mouse vs. country mouse paradigm.
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Bush carried the rural areas, Gore won in the welfare cities. That is where the break will be.
 
a catastropic 9/11/01 event

will be the trigger.
no,I don't mean an airplane crashing into the whitehouse.
some huge terrorist event will catch us un prepared again.
on sept 6th(2001) I was arguing with some friends that our gun
laws were setting us up for the Taliban to attack.
remember the run on guns the week after 9/11/01?
it seems most of the population believe the gov't
can somehow protect us
personally I feel that a loose nuke will be unleashed
in NY or DC
leaving a mess we may never get over
 
If the break were (note the use of the subjunctive tense) rural vs urban, it should be interesting to see which group starves out first. Cities don't produce food, rural areas don't produce manufactured goods or motor fuel. The self-sufficient yeoman farmer doesn't exist any more. There are large areas of this country that are uninabitable, in a modern sense, w/o cars. If this little scenario were to occur, there'd be plent of suffering to go around and in the end the victors would be...all those who ever wished the destruction of the US.
Don't wish for civil war. They are always bloody and costly. It won't be exciting, it won't be romantic, and what follows won't be your wet-dream idea of a conservative paradise.
 
Count me among those who are NOT fantasizing about the glories
of a civil war. I think a growing cultural divide and increasing
pockets of anarchy and lawlessness are more likely, not two vast
armies, with clearly defined objectives, marching against each other.

I personally believe that class and racial conflicts are very likely.
We could easily have an "Intifada" situation in parts of this country.
Where I live, in Los Angeles, we have all the elements for a mini-civil
war right now. If this State were, for example, to stop public
benefits to illegal aliens, I think we'd see urban violence and a whole
new level of social friction.

A lot depends on the economy. Can the middle-class maintain its
life-style? Can the lower class survive? Unfortunately, there are
"macro" issues that augur poorly. Global capitalism would seem to
make deflation inevitable; there are untold numbers of workers Out There
willing to work for a fraction of what Americans are used to earning.
Computers and telecommunications have given us "higher productivity;"
that means a lot of people likely to be permannently unemployed.
We need politicians who have a grasp of these issues. Right now I really
don't see any.
 
What worries me is a situation which would spark large scale rioting in more than one major city, which would be followed by folks defending themselves, which would then lead to a cry to disarm them, which would then lead to more conflict.

Pray for cool summers.
 
One thing's for sure, we should all be prepared.

How many of you have guns, ammo, water, and food stocked for possible nasty scenarios?

How many of you have a way into a rural area that will most likely be less hot?

Remember one thing though: No country has ever been more than 3 meals away from a revolution,
 
I don't see any glory in war, much less civil war, but I belive that an oppressed people have the right to overthrow their oppressors. We here in the US will not do that. We have collectively sold our freedom for a safe, comfortable prison. Most people are happy that way. They don't feel oppressed, or if they start to, they just turn on their big screen tv or pop in a DVD. Those of that rock the boat will be dealt with. There may be riots and panics, but order will soon be restored least the majority wake from their comfort coma. There will be a slow and steady decline, a rot or slow cancer. Our end will be that of the Romans.


David
 
Remember one thing though: No country has ever been more than 3 meals away from a revolution,
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History does not support that statement. Consider Josef Stalin for example, who used induced famine to starve folks he considered politically unreliable to prevent rebellion. If your premise was correct, he would have been shipping them food. Same thing with Ethiopia several years back, the central government was using starvation as a weapon against the rebels.

Notice any rebellions in the starving areas of sub-Saharan Africa? Famine's there right now. Much more than 3 meals have been missed.

What about the slums of Rio? Seen any homeless joining together to raise the red flag? They're too busy dumpster diving.

There are countless example of people starving en masse throughout history with no revolution or even a large riot.

There are even more examples where chronic malnutrion...much less missing three meals... was the rule for generations.

Where I have read something similar to this is folks commenting that no American city has more than a 3 day supply of food on hand in the supermarkets and that their resupply is dependent on the interstates and railroad net being operative. These commentators were talking more about widespread urban rioting and the breakdown of law and order in that event rather than revolution.
 
These commentators were talking more about widespread urban rioting and the breakdown of law and order in that event rather than revolution.

That's what I meant, though your distinction between the two is accurate.

Thanks
 
Believe it or not, I think the government is going to begin cutting services. They will have no other choice when the dollar loses it's leadership position. If it raises taxes enough to cover the existing budget, they'll actually lose money. My estimate is that they would need to raise an additional 30% to keep everything as they have been. Can you imagine losing 80% of your paycheck? You might as well go on welfare.

So they'll cut welfare because we'll beg them to do it. They could cut Medicare and social security, but how do you market cutting funding to old people? Welfare is just a bunch of no-good lazy people, right? It looks better on TV. Besides, the old people aren't going to go out and find work, but all of the welfare recipients who have been holding down the economy will flood the landscape with cheap labor. At least, that's how they'll play it.

Then you'll have three generations of reasonably young people who have never earned a living with nothing to lose. The crime rate will go through the roof as these people steal, beat, and murder to take what they think is theirs.

The cities will crumble. People will flee to the suburbs and beyond bringing the predators with them. Shootings will begin and the national guard will be called into the major cities to bring it under control which will drive even more criminals into the suburbs and rural areas. The crime will be too widespread for the national guard to do anything about it.

Militias will be formed as the only way for rural areas to defend themselves. The first ones to be formed and show up on the government's radar will be shot down. Para-military gangs will form up along both sides of the racial lines.

Washington DC and various state capitals will begin to look like mideival walled castles.

Foreign military assistance will be called in. These troops will draw fire from BOTH sides.

Foreign economies will begin to tumble out of fear even before the United States.

China will use the opportunity to expand.

Muslim troops will march into Jerusalem after Israel loses significant American funding.

France will surrender to the Springfield Knitting Association.
 
Travis McGee

ShooterX10: I don't think that a American civil war would break down along geographical lines. Sure, big chunks of the west would probably go "our way," but only because they would fall more on the rural side of a rural vs urban war.
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Actually the Western States are the most heavily urbanized areas of our nation. A higher % of westerners live in what would be called urban areas than most other parts of the country.
 
You got it, Longeyes!
My husband and his co-workers are up in arms over IBM's announcement that all those nice, white-collar programmer jobs could be done more cost-effectively in India. Grrrr!!!!

Corporate America is selling out American jobs, and the Bushies are aiding and abetting them. I can see TSHTF when the number of families whose income drops from the high five figures to NOTHING hits critical mass because the Republicans opened up the floodgates to H1-B visas.

I agree that the actual trigger will probably be some catastrophic terrorist attack, in a climate of economic downturn and instability.
 
China will use the opportunity to expand.

Muslim troops will march into Jerusalem after Israel loses significant American funding.

France will surrender to the Springfield Knitting Association.
Click to expand...

You forgot to mention about Skynet taking over.:D
 
I can see TSHTF when the number of families whose income drops from the high five figures to NOTHING hits critical mass because the Republicans opened up the floodgates to H1-B visas.
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Now that the mighty IBM is talking out in the open about moving JOBS offshore perhaps we'll begin the national debate. Problem is the trend has been place and accelerating for the last 10 years. One traditional industry, textiles, has lost 400,000 jobs in 5 states over the last 3 years, but no one complained.

The reaction will be to blame the president in office. Problem is what we see today is the direct, linear result of decision made 15 years ago by all presidents and all political parties. It ain't just republicans. It was a decision made by the ruling class. So when the time comes to grab the pitch forks and head for the massah's house remember the complicity of the ruling class, not just one team.
 
I agree there's fault on both sides of the fence. That's why I'm a moderate. (You do, however, see Republicans much more represented in the ruling class than Dems, though, since they tend to have more money. Not that I'm knocking money--would love to have more of it!)

What should be of great concern to everyone is that we are losing the middle class here in America. The middle class, backbone of the economy, traditional route up for many people, is being systematically destroyed by the upper class who have decided there's no money in looting the pockets of the poor so they're making their profits now by exporting white-collar jobs.

Someone, somewhere along the way, decided that the ruling elite would no longer care about the middle class. (Granted, the middle class didn't care when blue-collar jobs were exported, as you pointed out in the textile example, and we SHOULD have. The parable about "and then they came for me" comes to mind.)

They don't have to care--they think they'll be safe in their gated communities, walled-off from us upper-middle-class riff-raff. It's already happening if you look around. Gated communities, rural retreats (all those celebs with ranches in places like Montana and Wyoming, miles from anywhere), et cetera.

Personally, I don't think they'll be safe. I think the sheer volume of hordes of enraged masses armed with whatever they can find WILL eventually overwhelm most of their defenses. Would you like a broiled flank of ruling elite along with that dusty old can of '04 Shiner Bock?

Somebody needs to stick up for the American middle class, and the people who come closest tend to be the Democrats, which is why I usually vote for them while carping loud and long to them about gun control.

If you're middle class right now, you need to WORK LIKE HELL to try to get yourself into the upper class, or you'll find yourself poor withing 10 years, nickled and dimed by bank fees, credit card fees, communications fees, and taxes.
 
My brother works at Sprint in KC. He says that they are getting ready to lay off approx 5,000 people. All of their IT will be outsourced. Where to? India.

I agree with Art, something is in the air. Almost an electric sense of dissatisfaction with their companies, the gov, illegals & the borders, the UN, etc. My territory is the Central time zone. From Minneapolis to San Antonio I get the same vibe. I'm 45 years old & I've never felt, seen or heard anything like it. People are angry and the only things that are missing are focus and a spark. It may degenerate into a race war.
 
The "war" has been with us for quite sometime with the McGoverninks winning all the battles so far. The real question seems to be when will the people enter the fray? Well....... my US Congressman indicated the most calls he ever received over any percieved problem was when the cable channels decided not to carry the local network affiliates channels(now since resolved) on their cable systems. Even more calls than during Monica/Whitewater Gate.:rolleyes:
 
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