The Coming Civil War

in #politics4 years ago

First of all, I really don't think there will be a civil war. So you really don't have to read the rest of this post. The US seems like it's in trouble, but it's really not. It's uncomfortable, but it's not leading to a civil war, even if the wrong person is elected.


I think that for the most part, Black Lives Matter is more about virtue signaling. I agree that it looks like more than virtue signaling, at the moment, but I think this whole situation has more to do with the election cycle than anything else.

If we were watching out for a civil war, do not look to the US Civil War as any kind of roadmap for what's happening right now. I also don't think the proto-marxism/marxism roadmap is as relevant as people think right now either. Instead, we should look to more modern examples of civil war, like Bosnia.

Here's an interview by Dave Ridley, where he interviews some people in New Hampshire prior to their Black Lives Matter demonstrations. He mentions his resistance to ask pointed questions, citing his experience reporting in Bosnia, where they associated political movements coupled closely with ethnic groups:

One thing to notice about the interview, they make a point that, at the time, there's no "POCs" (people of color, the new PC term for "non-white") and as result, they felt the need to call for "POC" participation. The person being interviewed is also very well steeped in "intersectionality".

This notion that coupling political movements with ethnic groups might sound like what we're currently facing in the US. But we're not. In my opinion, there's only a thin connection between the two.

Yes, there are parties that want to be closely associated with ethnic groups in the US. But there's also a lot of permeability, which I think defuses that contribution to civil war.

I'm not saying the US is naturally resistant to any civil war. I'm saying that the component related to political movements coupled with ethnic groups is not something that will contribute to it.

Balkanize

I believe, in order for a US civil war to occur, there would first need to be balkanization.

Balkanization is a pejorative geopolitical term for the process of fragmentation or division of a larger region or state into smaller regions or states, which may be hostile or uncooperative with one another.

wiki

For US balkanization to occur, there would need to be leaders making compelling arguments. Without internal cultural and ethnic bifurcation, I just don't see that happening. The US is just too united (Americans just have too much in common), even in the middle of this current situation.


Basically, what I'm saying is, the US is not racist enough to have a civil war. Neither side has what it takes to be that racist. And I'm not even talking about the fake racism that the far-left is currently trying to sell. I'm talking about the actual racism that we see in history and in certain parts of the world right now. We just don't have that on the level that it takes to truly balkanize in the US.

What about the TAZ/CHAZ/CHOP situations? I believe they could become a beachhead if allowed to cultivate. But so far, they're just extended raves, at most. That beachhead would have to displace at least as many people as it attracted before it could grow, geographically.

If an autonomous zone ever gets a charismatic leader, and if that leader manages to get an influx of people and resources, that's when balkanization could begin. And once balkanization begins, it'd have to also happen more than once. Then a traditional civil war would be possible.

Unlikely.

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I hope that the machinations of foreign entities, such as the CCP and Soros that fund BLM, doesn't alter your reasonable assessment. There are likely agents provocateurs, and Oregon has suffered (along with CA and WA) recently what I think was a deliberate attack of arson by paid mercenaries.

My experience in Oregon is that folks have pulled together to aid and assist one another in getting through the hardships we face, which seems to strongly support your assessment.

I sure hope you're right. For about a week I was very alarmed, and had the weather not strongly suppressed the fires, things might have gone differently.

Thanks!

500+ parts per million in air quality can do strange things. Many people were very alarmed.

CA is already starting to experience it's second yearly PSPS, which will be another opportunity for possible agitators, though I suspect this year's shutoffs will have less impact because people in CA are ready for them.

South Africa is another former first world country that suffers planned power outages. Like South Africa, people are fleeing CA too. U-haul says if you rent a truck in Nevada and bring it to CA it will cost you ~$2k. To rent a truck in CA and take it to Nevada will cost you ~$4k. There aren't any U-hauls left in CA tbqh, so they have to pay someone to bring a truck to CA to rent to you.

I'm not sure how a power outage presents an opportunity to agitators, but CA's government is doing a fine job of distressing people without much help already.

I'm not sure how a power outage presents an opportunity to agitators, but CA's government is doing a fine job of distressing people without much help already.

Well, one small way would be for agitators to show up to relief stations. Last year, PG&E organized places for people to gather so they could charge devices. Likely, there will be a modified version of this, to address pandemic concerns.

I could also see situations where a downed power line (due to winds) would require residents to evacuate, because of fire risk and/or extended repair timeframe, leaving them vulnerable to looting.

And there are probably other ways.

This discussion reminded me of something I found pretty discouraging. A lot of CA residents have invested in grid tied solar. One of the benefits they seem to have expected is that if the power grid went down, they'd still have power, but they don't because of the grid tie. To have standalone power they'd have to have invested in a battery bank and robust switching to disconnect from the grid, which is extra capital outlay most decline.

Sad, really.

well you would need an strong outside influence and greedy political leaders to start all that. also a strong media manipulation (i can't now find it, there was a video with Croat and Serbian news and exactly the same footage and totally opposite narrative).
for a balkan thing to happen in usa you lack the "we Texans would live much better if there were no this Californian people living here and taking all of our money and trying to take our land"
does any of us live better? not really, even after more than 20 years.

Damn. I had a long comment typed out and then tried to open a new tab and managed to close what I wrote.

Anyway, there are some echoes of the lead up to the Spanish civil war happening.

Obviously, different cultures can get along within the United States. For a long time, there has been a mainstream "melting pot" culture with relatively minor regional differences. There has also been a parallel black culture in a minority. And countless other parallel minority cultures from immigrants. This seems to work* as long as there is a hegemon culture.

*I use work as a broad term, it is not good for people who are discriminated against. However would those same people find better economic or social opportunity elsewhere?

However, the mainstream melting pot is being split. Our schemas of reality are being balkanized by the algorithms of Facebook, Twitter, Google/YouTube. Unfortunately, internal players and external states are doing what they can to exploit those algorithms and pour fuel on the fire. And the aggregators of information might acknowledge the enormous issue yet can't see past their own pocketbooks to do something about it.

We have ties that bind us economically, and that may be our most solid foundation. But we are already seeing the start of a split of economies as large, interstate businesses become more politically involved.

You may not see the territory being balkanized, but the political divide is increasing between the core city of a metropolitan area and its surrounding suburbs. This sort of thing might allow a charismatic leader to rise, rather than a charismatic leader arising and then everyone becoming suddenly radicalized. I can tell you from personal experience with people in my city: the amount of people that straight up ignore the atrocities committed by every communist regime in history is too high.

Personally I don't expect some large scale civil war but the trajectory we are on as a country doesn't have a good ending and it seems like we're going to need a tragic, shocking wake up call to actually get on to a better road.

I place most of the responsibility on the technology sector, specifically the aggregators/purveyors/funnelers of information whose simple sorting algorithms are creating silos of reality for everyone. They say they have a problem and yet fail to do anything about it. They refuse to acknowledge that they're tearing this country apart for their own profit.

One important thing we do have is a Constitution that for its age is still translated very well. We also have a professional military force with a largely meritocratic command structure that swears an oath to this document. This creates a lot of stability as the organizations most capable of violence are in theory committed to the foundations of the nation, rather than the political weather of the day.

I'm with you that while large scale civil war is unlikely, this notion of cultural trajectory (aka zeitgeist?) is concerning.

If algorithmic balkanization is one of the possible battlefronts, then one of the indicators would be the level of DDoS attacks and exploits. So that's one thing to watch out for, I guess.

But I think the various online communities tend to think they're more relevant than they really are. I heard a statistic that the total number of people who originate tweets only amounts to 2% of the US population. Of course, that ignores the number of people who lurk.

This isn't about just us nerds. The average person isn't going to launch a DDoS.

I am more talking about the average person, who is now just as connected to the internet as us nerds. Via Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, the everyday average person is siloing themselves into a particular echochambered view of reality that these information outlets are reinforcing with their algos. I've seen first hand what YouTube thinks I'll like just because I've watched some firearm related videos. I've seen how the algo suddenly lumps me into "guns, police, Trump guy" and if I was less capable of critical thinking I might just accept all I see in my suggested video feed as reality.

Nerd communities like subreddits will often overestimate their relevance although tight nerd communities have historically had a large influence (Something Awful).

I also think a majority of those lurkers you mention are the type to follow the crowd around them, so the 2% of people talking publicly will have an outsized influence.

I sure hope so.

When people can no longer disagree without being disagreeable, it does seem like conflict could be brewing.

Saw you downvoting a charity program, thank you for that... It's always a pleasure seeing people who supports other ones. And not even a comment to explain why... Cool