Does anyone feel we're already in a low-level civil war?

[coalition_unwilling]

I've read through the various posts today about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of putting K/E bumperstickers on cars and, it sounds as if people in the Red States are having to deal with a very high level of hostility from Repuke neighbors and colleagues, including threats of violence and petty vandalism.

Seems like the snarl had replaced the reaasoned argument in what still passes for discourse in this country. But has it reached the point of a low-level civil war here?

If it hasn't reached that point yet, how will we know when it has?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Yes.

Please note: There is no nobility in victimhood. It is just victimhood. Fight back. Self-Defense is the most natural of the "natural laws".

[DenverDem]

2. We are there, dude. Elect busholini inc and it will be full scale

in a year. This is what the wrong wing wants, to justify martial law and installation of dictatorial rule. They are miscalculating on this, just like Iraq. The American People will fight back and make Fallujah look like Disneyland.

This is why this election is the most important in history.

[geomon666]

3. We'll know it has...

When a father or a son kills the other because they got into an argument over politics. Hey if you can do it over chicken why not over the election. Sad thing is, it's probably already happened.

[rockymountaindem]

4. Yeah.

Today I left an anti-bush article on my AIM away message, and a cadet at the AF Academy who I know left me a nastygram which concluded "but since you don't know anyone involoved in the defence of this country, just complainers, I won't worry about you". Here's an idea for you pal... get your ass out of your comfy AFA dorm and start patrolling outside Fallujah. Oh, and one more thing... plenty of my ancestors and living famliy members have or are serving in the military, and they're NO fans of Bush*.

There's another cadet I know (who is *not* my friend, but someone who I was forced to be in close proximity with) who said that "I just don't think liberals can concieve of being away from home or defending their country". Oh, that's real interesting, since this sanctimonious jackass lives only 10 minutes from his childhood home (we live in Colorado Springs, the site of the Academy). So I sent him and all the people he addressed that comment to a copy of the Democrats who served list. I also suggested that he not piss on the graves on my WWII vet family members who never voted Republican in their lives (good liberal Jews, we are) and not to spit in the face of my AF vet uncle and my active duty Navy cousin.

Their votes don't count for any more than ours just because they're AF cadets, but you couldn't convince them of that. There are others I know, some of whom are my dear friends, who would be shooting at me if war ever broke out.

[Ripley]

5. Yes.

And it is not clearly defined by geography as some folks would like it to be. It is not the North vs the South this time. It is family, friends, co-workers pitted against each other in every state.

They have managed to get folks involved in politics in order to make a personal stand that translates into real anger.

My deflector shields are getting low.

[Mojambo]

6. I'm not sure I'd call it even a low level civil war just yet

I hardly think the civilians living in Iraq would describe what's going on here as anywhere close to a civil war.

And they should know, they ARE in a low level Civil War.

[coalition_unwilling]

17. Point well taken, altho Iraqis' Civil War may be high-level

I find that I can no longer speak civilly to people who have come out in favor of the Iraq War or Bush. All I can do now is scream imprecations at them, the way they do at me.

Very dark hours. To think that Lincoln once referred to us as "the last, best hope of mankind" (and that during some very dark hours indeed).

[dave123williams]

7. Yes. Too bad they just made it legal to buy assault weapons in all the...

Red states again...

[otohara]

8. We Were Saying Just The Other Day - This Country Needs Another

Civil War. Bomb it back into some sense!

[dave123williams]

9. Not even close to funny...

Our last Civil War was fought with *peashooters* compared to what's availible today, and it was still a bloody, bloody mess.

[FreedomMustRule]

12. civil war?

It does seem to me that the two opposing political camps are quite polarized to the point that reconciliation seems impossible. Most of the Right wingers are afraid that those on the left would like to impose some form of marxism on the country, taking away the freedom that the forefathers fought so hard for. While those on the left are afraid of a totalitarian dictatorship taking away our freedom. Those on the left might be helped to realize that most right wingers fear a large and obtrusive government, prefering a smaller government free of federal control from DC. While the right needs to realize that those on the left want equality and justice for all.

[el_gato]

14. one problem with your statement

I don't see those on the right fearing a large and obtrusive government since they are busily constructing the largest and most intrusive government this country has ever seen.

[coalition_unwilling]

18. Again, point well taken

I think it was my response to hearing all the anecdotal evidence about cars being vandalized and (second-hand admittedly) houses in Missouri getting "shot up".

Hence my use of the phrase "civil war". Seems to have provoked a healthy response which is good.

[Cat Atomic]

21. Bull.

Right wingers do not fear big government, and they certainly don't give a shit about the rights our forefathers fought for. They embrace big government- as long as it's led by Republicans. The more oppressive and dictatorial it is, the better.

The Bush administration and Republican Congress have done everything possible to centralize power in the office of the President. Anyone who supports Bush is for big government.

[Cats Against Frist]

28. News to me

The right wants a "small government," since when? Bush, his corpo-fascist friends, the religious right and the Neocons show no signs, as far as I can tell, of making the government less intrusive. To the contrary, they want to own my body, governmment engineer the tax system to shift the burden of taxation to the middle class, fight the Drug War, arrest old people for buying drugs from Canada, gut the Bill of Rights with the Patriot Act, add any amendment the Christian right gets its panties in a bunch about, toughen consentual crime laws, fight pre-emptive and interventionist wars, use the military as an arm of large corporations, hold the hand of every farmer and big business that needs subsidy or bailouts, close the borders, increase television indecency fines, overspend the treasury, increase federal control over local education standards, and -- even expand the welfare state.

Tell you friends. The GOP is NOT about small government, and it's time the pansies on the right, that are so afraid of "the commies," are sucking the teets of "big brother's other brother."

*** I had to edit this to add MORE, since the GOP is ALL ABOUT big government.

[kysrsoze]

54. The only "smaller" govt. the GOP wants is those helping the general public

n/t

[Media_Lies_Daily]

41. Meanwhile, the NeoCons have enlarged the U. S. government past any....

...logical need, and the NeoCons are as rightwing as you can get. How does that square up with your comment that "most right wingers fear a large and obtrusive government"?

[otohara]

55. Hooey - The loot and pollute party?

The GOP of past is not the GOP Bush/Cheney have established. So I'm told - I never agreed with one thing the GOP stands for.

Our tax dollars now go to corporations like Halliburton, Bechtel, those companies who provide mercenary type guys to guard American appointed Iraqi government types. They get paid $75,000 or more per year, while our troops get paid next to nothing.

They may succeed in dismantling parts of the government, but this country will go broke paying Bush's buddies to do the same thing.

Don't forget, the right-wing has coddled many a totalitarian dictators including the one pulled out of that hole - so we have very good reason to worry. They already are taking away our freedoms.

[AndyTiedye]

10. I Left My Kerry-Stickered Car Parked in the City One Day...

...and it spontaneously acquired a "Re-Defeat Bush" Sticker! :-)
I love California!

[meow2u3]

11. We've BEEN in a civil cold war since 1981!!

Get a grip, guys! The far right started this war with their culture war scam, and now that we're fighting back, the aggressors can't stand it, so they're ratcheting up the oppression to provoke a full-scale war.

Now you see why the Repukes have loosened the gun regs? They want to provoke Civil War II so BushCo can have an excuse to make themselves dictators for life.

[FreedomMustRule]

13. gun ban?

with a total ban on guns how could we procure the firearms to fight a dictatorship, with guns in the hands of citizens the government knows a revolution would occur.

[trogdor]

15. Are you ready to take on the U.S. Army with your hunting rifle?

[FreedomMustRule]

16. nope

i don't even own a gun, but no i wouldn't take on our army, with a hunting rifle. I would never want to engage in fighting against my fellow citizens, but if it happens I'm glad the arms ban that was recently out of effect is like that and stays that way, seeing how in the two weeks since it happened the urban areas haven't erupted into a bloodbath.

[Ripley]

24. Other than your misleading words...

Your response "gun ban" was to someone who did not say those words.

Why did you say that?

Twist much? You must be an old fogey from that era of Fats Domino.

[Cats Against Frist]

30. Yeah, I was glad it was lifted, too

now, if we can only get the other nine Amendments, in the Bill of Rights, back.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

42. Do you understand that in the event of civil war, the military may not....

...necessarily back the rightwingers...in fact, the split may be closer to 50-50?

[meow2u3]

53. I meant to say "repeal of the gun ban"

Slipup!

BTA, the rethugs will outlaw guns only after we liberals get our hooks on them.

The"patriot groups" do have a point that we need to arm ourselves to fight tyranny. Only problem was, they went after the wrong guy. Clinton was no tyrant--the BCF sure as hell is!!

[donkeyotay]

39. Yes, the right started the cultural war in 1980 under Reagan

They've been beating the tar out of us for 25 years, and the only reason the media mentions it now is because the liberals are fighting back.

Why conservatives continue to support a party that doesn't represent them either is mind-boggling.

[Beam Me Up]

40. Oh, it started before the 80s, I assure you.

See the documentary "Berkeley in the 60s" for example. There has been a very strong current against progressive views in this country for a long long time. Reganism was to a large extent a reaction to what meager headway had been made in this country on social issues during the late 60s and 70s, but it has always been a strugle.

[Eye and Monkey]

19. I've worked in the middle of a few civil wars.

This seems to be like some of the lead-ups that precede actual outbreak.

[coalition_unwilling]

25. Maybe that's closer to what I was getting at, this horrible feeling

that we're on the cusp of something truly horrendous in this country, where the 'social contract' has irretrievably broken down.

It was reading the accounts of car vandalism and gun violence (in Missouri) that started this feeling in me today.

[Eye and Monkey]

29. I think that we are on the cusp -

We might pull back. Still, we get closer and closer.

There aren't any direct parallels that I know of - but I've seen some of the breakdowns that led into some of the most appalling humanitarian crises of the last decade.

The media, the message, the way people act toward each other. And the reveling in the rhetoric of violence and absolutism. It doesn't bode well.

When is the point of no return, I don't know. Civil violence is a hard hard thing - a thing that few people in the US can truly imagine.

[Romulus]

35. gun violence in Missouri?

I must have missed that story . . . :shrug:

[coalition_unwilling]

37. Not between gangs. But one thread contained anecdotal story

of a neighbor's house with K/E yard sign getting shot up. Can't find the thread now, but there are two or three similar ones out there on DU currently.

[arwalden]

20. I Have Said On Several Occasions That We Are Headed For Civil War...

or an alarming amount of civil unrest. If Bush* "wins" this next election our country will never be the same as it once was. It will be irreparably damaged.

If Bush wins, it is likely to be the last national US election that I vote in. I'd want to move to Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. Otherwise, I'd prefer death than to live under that tyrant and international bully.

Puritanical LAWS will be enacted or added to the constitution and we'll likely be fighting a war on 4 fronts: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, and against China in Taiwan. (Okay, that's five.) If not IN Taiwan... we'll be helping them.

Israel will retaliate against Iran with a nuclear warhead. India and Pakistan will declare war on each other.



-- Allen

[Ripley]

26. Woah!

arwalden, relax. It won't be that bad! There are millions of us to fight their puritanical laws!

But as far as hand to hand fighting goes...I give it a 60/40 shot!

[arwalden]

34. If Bush Wins By Stealing The Election...

or if there's the slightest hint of impropriety, there will be civil unrest that will require military intervention.

Perhaps you're right... but the uniter-not-a-divider has RUINED this country. Martial law will be declared. Elections suspended. Dissidents and enemies-of-the-state will be rounded up and isolated. We will need a draft to supply more fodder for his oil-wars.

I'm not going to be here to watch it.

-- Allen

[coalition_unwilling]

36. My biggest regret from 2000

is that I didn't drop everything and head to Florida to get in the streets. No matter how much activism I now engage in (anti-war mainly, but also some Democratic electoral stuff), I'll never be able to look my children and grand-children in the eye and say, "I did everything I possibly could to stop this."

My only excuse will be "I didn't know it would turn out this way." And that doesn't seem like much of an excuse.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

43. That's what a lot of people said in 1861..."It'll be over in 90 days".

[Ripley]

47. You want to argue?

Okay. Americans are tough .. their side/our side.

Wanna bet?

[sweetheart]

22. Yes, a civil war from 1865

What made you think the war ended in 1865? The slave-plantation
enemy was broken but not destroyed, and sure enough, 135 years later,
they resurface and set out on a massive shift towards confederate
values translated in to modern form.

The karma of controlling the south is to be conrolled by it... and
sure enough, plantation-thinking is rife in all 3 branches of the
confederate government.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

45. Excuse me, but the people currently driving the train are the....

...descendants (literally and figuratively) of the major industrialists of the North. Those folks have been the movers and shakers since the Revolution.

Yes, there are quite a few folks from the South that have found kindred spirits in the racist and fascist-leaning corporatists of the North, but the Southerners are merely going along for the ride.

[DURHAM D]

49. Have you taken a look at the U.S. Senate and House lately?

[sweetheart]

50. point taken, however lets look at the policy approach

These folks are anti-equality, anti-womens liberation, racist to
the extreme, hick rednecks (to use a charged stereotype), and they
are following a policy path that is startlingly similar to the
confederate south.

I'm a buddhist, and i belive in reincarnation, not genetic family
ties... and what i see are a lotta folks from their former nazi
lifetimes and other disaffected racist utopians forming a reformation
of the confederacy under the auspices of the republican neoconverts.

They are blatantly racist and pursue policies that are distincty
designed to disempower all citizens that being on minium wages without
workers rights is blurring with the old concept of slavery in ways
that are striking to say the least.

They've re-defined the civil war to pretend it was fought over states
rights and cotton trading prices, whilst totally ignoring the historial
fact that it was fought over the abolition of slavery.... because
these evil folks do not recognize that abolition, unless they can
use it to steal an election. (reference to the 14th being used to
subvert the constitution in dec 2000).

The south control the military these days, feeing most of the officer
pool, and having most of the bases and PORK. In return the north
gets to be dominated. Since they've been in power, they've eroded
most of the bill of rights, constitutional separation of powers,
and have been frankly treasonous in thier usurping of warmaking
powers from congress... all without a bleep of dissent from a
complicity confederacy.

I'm amazed that anyone sworn to protect the constitution has anything
to do with these chaps. They belong in prison, for the very reason
that confederate conspirators were imprisoned a century ago.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

23. far from a civil war.

There are a few isolated instances of people being fired becuase of politics, and anecdotal accounts of violence...yet I bet this is pretty rare.

The penny-ante yard sign vandalism has been going on for years, and doesnt indicate anything.

[coalition_unwilling]

27. Well, I hope you're right. America doesn't really know what a civil war

would feel like and it's been close to 150 years since our first one ended.

Feels like the climate is especially brutish right now, that's for sure.

[Eye and Monkey]

32. "America doesn't really know what a civil war would feel like"

That's true, and deserves to be repeated many times.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

46. Have you ever done any reading about what the U. S. Civil War was....

...really like? Why do you think our foreign policy since that time has been so focused on fighting wars away from American soil?

[coalition_unwilling]

52. Yes, I've read most of the major histories: Catton, McPherson

Shelby Foote, as well as many biographies and battle-specific book-length works.

I"m not sure the violence of the U.S. Civil War explains the following century and a half of U.S. foreign policy, though. But I can understand where you're coming from (I think).

[mmonk]

31. Its here

and if there is any voter intimidation during the election, things are going to get ugly.

[Jose Diablo]

33. It has indeed started

but at this point all that is going on is the gathering of information on those in opposition to the police state as a form of government.

Expect it to get very much warmer when political objections are declared illegal. Of course, the agents promoting the destruction of the constitution hope it will get warmer, because they welcome a internal war. Much more money that way and they themselves are safe inside their communities and offshore. At least they think they are safe.

I think what they misunderstand is it is impossible to be truly safe anyplace in the world, when "We the People" become very very pissed-off.

[seemslikeadream]

38. Civil War has already been declared

by the Theonomic Reconstructionists. Biblical Law trumps Civil Law. They are serious.

The Significance of Reconstructionism
The leaders of Reconstructionism see themselves as playing a critical role in the history of the church (and of the world). They envision themselves salvaging Christianity from modern fundamentalism as well as theological
liberalism. Because they are both conservative movement activists and conservative Christians seeking to pick up where the Puritans left off, they have constructed a theology that would provide the ideological direction and underpinning for a new kind of conservatism. It is, as well, a formidable theology designed to take on all comers. In order to wage a battle for God's dominion over all aspects of society, they needed a comprehensive analysis, game plan, and justification. This is what Reconstructionism provides to a wide range of evangelical and other would-be conservative Christians. New Right activist Howard Phillips believes that Reconstructionism, as expressed by Rushdoony and North, has "provided leaders with the intellectual self confidence" to become politically active, whereas many previously were not. Many conservatives apparently felt that they had no positive program and had been left in the role of reactionaries, just saying no to modernism and liberalism. Reconstructionism offers a platform that encompasses the religious and the political.

Many Christian Right thinkers and activists have been profoundly influenced by Reconstructionism. Among others: the late Francis Schaeffer, whose book A Christian Manifesto was an influential call to evangelical political action that sold two million copies, and John Whitehead, President of the Rutherford Institute (a Christian Right legal action group).

Francis Schaeffer is widely credited with providing the impetus for Protestant evangelical political action against abortion. For example, Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, says: "You have to read Schaeffer's Christian Manifesto if you want to understand Operation Rescue." Schaeffer, a longtime leader in Rev. Carl McIntire's splinter denomination, the Bible Presbyterian Church, was a reader of Reconstructionist literature but has been reluctant to acknowledge its influence. Indeed, Schaeffer and his followers specifically rejected the modern application of Old Testament law.

The Rutherford Institute's John Whitehead was a student of both Schaeffer and Rushdoony, and credits them as the two major influences on his thought. The Rutherford Institute is an influential conservative legal advocacy group which has gained considerable legitimacy. Given this legitimacy, it is not surprising that Whitehead goes to great lengths to deny that he is a Reconstructionist. However, perhaps he doth protest too much. Rushdoony, introducing Whitehead at a Reconstructionist conference, called him a man "chosen by God." Consequently, he said, "There is something very important. . .at work in the ministry of John Whitehead." Rushdoony then spoke of "our plans, through Rutherford, to fight the battle against statism and the freedom of Christ's Kingdom." The Rutherford Institute was founded as a legal project of R. J. Rushdoony's Chalcedon Foundation, with Rushdoony and fellow Chalcedon director Howard Ahmanson on its original board of directors. Whitehead credits Rushdoony with providing the outline for his first book, which he researched in Rushdoony's library. Coalition on Revival

Whether it is acknowledged or not, Reconstructionism has profoundly influenced the Christian Right. Perhaps its most important role within the Christian Right can be traced to the formation in 1982 of the Coalition on Revival (COR), an umbrella organization which has brokered a series of theological compromises among differing, competing conservative evangelical leaders. These compromises have had a Reconstructionist orientation, thus increasing the reach and influence of Reconstructionism.

more
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre2.html

Who do you think was behind the impeachment of Clinton?

[951]

44. No

But I'm quite sure the Bushies would love that so they can quickly seize power. There are some stupid americans that will try to start one but it will fail big time.

[Freddie Stubbs]

48. Political thuggery is nothing new

It is not uncommon for disputes to turn into fistfights on election day (actually primary day is a lot worse, since whoever wins the D primary will almost surely get elected).

[agincourt]

51. Definitly yes,

there are many people in this country who are zombied by RW propaganda. The web is large and insidious, the only deterrent is will armed liberals whom will answer with bullets when attacked. It is hard to underestimate the level of RW fanatacism in this country.

[jn2375]

56. Yes sure do