"Then there is the possibility that federal authorities would use force to suppress secession or that violence would spontaneously erupt. Missouri, a closely divided state featuring bloody guerrilla warfare, was an outlier in 1860. If the country splits and things turn violent today, there will be many Missouris. Moreover, in most of the country, the barbarity of the Civil War was mitigated by the predominant use of regular armies following the laws of war, and by the common moral and religious underpinnings of the combatants. A modern version would look more like Bosnia than Gettysburg.
If we were lucky, things would not devolve into open war. But terrible consequences would still follow. There would be millions of refugees flowing in both directions, though more out of the blue zones, which will be afflicted by Portland-style disorder or insufferable progressive power unconstrained by the Bill of Rights. Continental commerce would be interrupted and basic security endangered.
The west coast would reach for international allies, and we might eventually find Chinese troops on North American soil. All of the reasons for union recited in Federalist #1-10 would come back to haunt us. And there would be other difficult issues to resolve, such as how to divide the national debt and the nation’s nuclear arsenal." Andrew Busch
———
"No one wanted war, but war came."
TTG thinks (or hopes) that war will not come. I am not so sure.
Where I sit in Alexandria, I see the ties that bind in; culture, sentiment, shared history and societal goals being systematically dismantled by a majority population of newcomers and minorities.
The same thing is happening all down the I-95 corridor all the way to Richmond where the dismantling is proceeding rapidly.
This is occurring without regard to the opinions and wishes of the rest of the state. "And here's to brave Virginia, the Old Dominion state…" No more. No more.
This pattern of potential division is repeated on a grand scale across the country. We are a federal republic and by that very structure we are built for dissolution as a united country. The UK can split along national lines; England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but the United States is made up of 50 potential countries. Or, perhaps more if other states divide internally as Virginia might.
If such a process of dissolution began, how would the forces of order fare? The National Guard? The Regular forces? The police? If you think you know the answer to that question, you probably do not. pl
https://americanmind.org/essays/sleepwalking-into-secession/
I hope to God this doesn’t come to pass.
Every country has its moment of reckoning – when they had to stand up to be counted or dissolve. The Turks had it after WWI when the young turks took back the country, the Russians had theirs in WWII. Now is the time for the United States of America. Now is the time for the patriots to stand up and save the country. If they delay, there might be nothing to save.
Find out who is supporting the rioters with knowledge, organisation and money and incarcerate them. Find out who/what is behind the media organisations that are supporting the dissolution of the country and jail them. Find out the traitors among the democrats, those who have taken money or have been induced by other means to do this, and jail them. Find out who is out to destroy the electoral process in the country and jail them. You might just find that the answers to all the above is the same entity
The Democrats, as a party, are no longer merely ‘liberal’ – they have gone in an altogether totalitarian direction. Witness the edicts coming from governors and mayors hiding under the Democrat banner, the blatant shuffling of money allegedly for BLM into the Biden campaign.
Likewise, the Republicans have embraced the destruction of their own with populist Trumpisms; while this chicken is in egg form at this point, it will come home to roost as a seed of destruction.
There is also a tremendous generational issue that remains unspoken – the old guys are refusing to let go within BOTH parties. This is perhaps clinging to “the devil you know” as a tactic for retaining control. In the end, the old guard must relinquish control – because they are simply too old.
Combine this with the current miasma of corruption at all levels, the amount of money flowing into the red and blue coffers and the already stated goal of ‘no quarter’ tacitly issued by both parties (Podesta Gambit is NOT a simulacrum, but an actual plan) – we are not looking at a peaceful transition.
The outlier here is Middle America. Many in this group want one thing – to be left alone and unsaddled by government intrusions. Things can get ugly in a hurry if either team begins to trouble those of us who wish to be left alone.
You are right Colonel; if this goes hot, it will be much worse than the last schism we went through simply due to the efficiency of weapons and tactics learned in Vietnam, along with other adventures.
Most of us do not want war, but many of us also know that if it comes you must win it or else you lose – there is no middle ground once the knives are out. History is not written by the timid.
None of us know what is coming down the pipe at this point – too many variables to even game it out effectively, as seen with the TIP attempt. I do know that should it start, the centralized nature of existing control will be the first casualty. Should mass slaughter be implemented, there will be nothing left but Balkanization for the country.
Most do not want division, but it is the gruel being fed to us from all corners – cui bono?
I hope and pray that things turn out differently, and we are happily chatting here on your blog next year. If we cannot do so, there will be some very pithy reasons for that.
This morning on C Span Washington Journal someone referred to a Joe Biden response to a question about his support for 2nd Amendment as citizens’ right / ability to defend themselves against an oppressive government.
Biden ridiculed the notion that armed citizens had any power at all in the face of the massive force US military can project.
Later this morning, DefenseOne delivered this report:
A state may secede but it cannot separate, cannot distance itself from the US military’s ability to kill “from kilometers away.”
Tom Luongo lives in Florida which, he has argued, is a “perfect” candidate for secession: it has abundant land, water resources, ports, agriculture to self-sustain, even an Air Force!
But could The Independent Republic of Florida defend itself against robot warriors that can target Pensacola from Arizona?
With respect to TTG, IMO, he has apparently reached a crossroads and taken a left turn into deep La la Land.
Looking at surveys of American attitudes over the past 30 years, we can see that the Right has basically remained static in its positions regarding economics, social issues, capitalism, etc. The Left, however, has move significantly farther left. The divide between the two side of the spectrum has widened to what appears to be an irreconciable gulf. The Right is capable of live and live (e.g. fine, let two guys get married), but the Left is not. It’s their way or the hi way.
What is the Left’s way? Marxism. They are clear about that. No need to be propagandized to come to that conclusion. Just listen/read their own words. Actually, it’s worse than Marxism because there is a racist component that labels “whites” as evil and deserving of persecution in all forms.
So compromise is not possible. Either the Left goes away or the Right goes away. My only solace is that I believe the Right would “win” handily because they have a tremendous established advantage in the men, materiel, training necessary to prevail. But it will be a massive, bloody, horrendous affair; yes Bosnia – to the 50th power.
OTOH, I sense the worm turning. Support for radicals is declining now that knee jerk virtue signalers are realizing what the radicals are truly all about. Nobody wants their “sh*t burned down” in “protest” for some cocked up sensationalized story in which they had no involvement. Nobody wants to be demonized based on skin color. Nobody wants to suffer a bad economy. The system may yet work, excepting a few municipalities or counties.
If they screw with the election, though, all bets are off.
When the things that make us different from each other are greater than the things we have in common, remaining a unified nation is improbable.
What I see is Congress is increasingly unable to accomplish anything due to divisions. The President and executive agencies attempt to circumvent through executive action. What I think would be a tipping point is if or when the other branches and people decide to defy the courts. This occurred to some degree with the fugitive slave law before the ACW but the issues now seem more wide-spread.
An aspect of civil war history research which has received increased attention lately is the extent of internal state disunion and irregular military actions. While border state partisan battles have seen treatment in the past, the new research is looking into other areas.
Colonel;
I have contemplated the prospect of breakup since the “turn of the century” and have increasingly considered it more likely. I don’t presume to know how that would happen and what sort of entities would evolve as a result. Potential trigger could conceivably be unprecedented financial collapse accompanied by loss of reserve currency status. That would be a problem for the ever growing federal subsidies and grants to states and institutions. Absent central government largesse, I’d tend to think whatever glue binds the states together might shake loose, but I dunno…
Artemesia
Soldiers are not robots. the troops and their leaders would decide for themselves how much they are willing to fight or suppress those they consider their kinsmen.
That article didn’t cover the events of the 60s and 70s, which are more like the events of today. If anything, that era was more turbulent, but that isn’t to say the union will survive as it did then.
JMG
Your post is a rationalistic theory which, in my opinion, has been historically inaccurate.
Passions & Sentiments are drivers of such historical events and not a rationalistic ledgering of what is shared and what is no longer shared.
Like this 90-year old man who was standing while all those pro-independence young men were passing by – saying: “But we are all Yugoslavs.”
“shared history and societal goals being systematically dismantled by a majority population of newcomers and minorities.”
There are tens of millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, and millions more who are recently naturalized or 1st generation citizens. What shared history and societal goal do they have? For decades we’ve been serandaded with “immigration is our strength”, which negates the value of the foundation and all decended from founders of that time. Our tech elite are only able to operate effectively because they have tens of thousands of non-citizen visa holders doing all that work ten thousand US colleges and universities apparently can’t train citizens to do for decades. (Facebook, Google, Twitter: all of which have special legal protections).
The Obama era leadership class of oligarch friendly internationalist elites have been happily denegrating America for decades as well. The civil war, publicly pronounced (but well underway beforehand) by Hilary’s pronouncment of millions as “deplorables”, turned violent months ago, not when the employees of The Red Hen chased a middle aged employee of the White House out of the restauraunt owned by a multi-millionaire (non-oppressive capitalist variety, like Bernie, but when New Yorker’s and Washingtonian’s chased varioius and sundry citizens out of shops and off public sidewalks in 2016. All to the resounding approval of the MSM and pundits of the left.
The manipulation of federal and state power we have seen exposed by the unraveling of the Russia Coup plot, the ongoing FISA revelations, and the responses from the left are just the tip of the corrupt iceberg that is ripping a hole in the fabric of society. The usurpation of power by the left utilizing the China virus as cover is purposely targeting political opponents and their (real or perceieved) supporters. Economic lockdowns, masking, disparate enforcement, tacit support for looting and rioting, all are being done in an effort to purge cities and states of the ‘deplorables’, or turn them into compliant serfs of the city and state.
“This is occurring without regard to the opinions and wishes of the rest of the state.” That sentiment is true in many other places, but the puritan elite know they have rightousness on their side. And the oligarchs money behind them. For now.
TTG,
Would it be accurate to say that you see a country that has not fundamentally changed? That current conditions are perhaps extreme, but are temporary?
My worry, which it appears others share, is that there has been a breakdown. One which could lead to catastrophe.
– Eliot
Sounds ominous. But I just don’t see this happening. Perhaps I have my optimistic blinders on. But I would love to see someone (preferably possessing real world knowledge and experience) take a stab at writing an “alternative history” series about the Great Civil War of 2020. I’d buy it.
Sounds like you are suffering from PT-C-S – Post California Traumatic Stress syndrome in Virginia. I recognize the symptoms – the growling lack of investment in the American culture.
When overrun by millions of illegals who have no ties other than seeing the US as a wealth extraction system to exploit, who also raise children more interested in waving the Mexican flag, going to US schools whose only mission is to dismantle American history and institutions, it finally reaches a critical mass and indeed America will be lost.
You can not have 30 million plus disenfranchised individuals within your national borders, who have a 5.-6 person birth rate and recognize what used to be America from just a few decades ago.
Turning points was the 1982 SCOTUS decision mandating free K-12 for all illegals. Could a better incentive for more illegal immigration have been designed? That brought in the rise of the teachers unions, who saw this as a cash cow growth opportunity.
Free handouts for illegal border crossers who genuinely did want better futures for their children, while they sending their non-taxed illegal US earnings out of the US economy back to prop up the continued corruptions in their own home countries.
Can’t not ignore this relatively recent huge population shift in legal vs illegal status when telling the recent history of this country. Past migrations were driven by those who wanted to become Americans and entered legally. This migration turns that on its head – illegal immigrations who cannot nor should become citizens.
But then what do you do with this growing illegal; and unassimilated demographic in the middle of a sovereign nation. Wait until their sheer numbers overwhelm everything? (See California)
The back door intentionally left open and sanctuary cities protecting those who flooded in who are now radically shifting the former demographics – not divided by race, color or language as much as the total lack of commitment to America’s founding principles.
They are disenfranchised by law, so why should they be loyal to anything other than taking advantage of the handouts that get thrown their way. Many of them would make excellent US citizens – but until the Wall gets built, amnesty must remain off the table.
Cui bono – no not ag, not cheap labor for low skill jobs, not covert armies of Hollywood domestics …the primary beneficiaries have been the teachers unions – the primary victims are a generation of K-12 students – both legal and illegal.
Must solve this problem starting from this mixed legal/illegal K-12 generation on up. Large numbers now who do not function in English, remain in disenfranchised illegal status, inadequately educated in anything, but free passes and participation trophies and radically demanding attitudes to either take what they want or burn it all down.
Large numbers of illegals now push out legal US residents as jobs and economics require bilingual – English-Spanish language skills or don’t even bother applying for the job.
That is the worst case scenario; what is the best from this current outcome? This toxic mix of demographics is already here- where are the strong points and where are the remedies. Certainly more active GOP recruitment and identification with founding US principles is necessary. Remediation of K-12 damage is essential, and should we woven into the GOP mission.
The “alienation of youth” has an entirely different meaning today because a critical mass of youth were never immersed in the traditions of America. They are without any exposure so the traditions of America. Re-watching Blackboard Jungle (post WarII K-12 slice of life) shows similar distress and alienation – but with a strong father figure core who while beaten does not back down.
This election is pivotal.
A. Pols
I suggest the most likely trigger at the moment would be Trump refusing to accept any election result except that of him winning. He says he would only accept a Supreme Court verdict in the matter of his losing. Interesting times can be expected if the Supreme Court over-rides a general public perception of the election result.
This would not be for a chunk of territory IMO. It will be for the whole bag of marbles.
A. Pols,
That’s liberal-progressive DNC fantasy used to incite the gullible. If President Trump loses the election, he is no longer the President, period. He is just one man. That’s all. He’s not a dictator, he doesn’t command the blind support of the Executive Branch.
Far too many people have allowed themselves to be consumed by an irrational fixation on Donald Trump.
JMG
A. Pols,
I misread the last post, my response was to Mark Logan, not you.
Babak,
Perhaps…I revert to my military background, in which I risk my life for another soldier because they are an American soldier. I don’t first pause to consider the intersectionality of the soldier and whether I should risk myself for someone so different than I am.
JMG
I believe the turmoil in this country is funded by forces that want “one world order.” These forces are funding the rioters and the departments in our universities that promulgate such an idea as “one world order.” They have ruined our once-great public education system. Our universities are no longer providing “higher education” but are indoctrinating students.
One world government seemed like a nice idea in the television and movie series of Star Trek. However, we Earth humans are simply not ready for that and may not be for a long time.
I was so terribly afraid of overpopulation and the prospect of having to eat “soylent green.” I was afraid of The Brave New World idea of manipulating genes to produce different human types. We were seriously working on interfering with human mental capabilities–trying to improve them with such ideas as “remote viewing” or simple mind control (i.e, men who stare at goats). LSD was a tool in that attempt.
I, personally find hope in the crowds that show up for Trump’s rallies. They do not burn things down. They don’t shout for their state but shout “U.S.A.” They may not run Wall Street or federal government agencies or national media corporations.
They “speak” American English and a crowd of them in Carolina, or in any other state where Trump holds a rally, can not really be distinguished from any other of his red-capped fans.
It’s telling to me that he was never a politician. He still thinks of himself as a businessman. And that IS what is needed in a country run on capitalism.
I was very disgusted by the hippies and by the weatherman underground and the Manson family. Those were frightening. The current BLM movement is also frightening. It’s as frightening as was the KKK.
Our media organizations have also gone through different stages–yellow journalism, for one example. The current media organizations are, I think, what we really need to be working on to improve our discourse. Few in these organizations–print or otherwise–follow the old “rules” of journalism. No one is punished for putting out “fake” news. At least the disgusting Joy B. has been made accountable for her disgusting remarks about a 17-year-old Catholic school kid. We need more of those lawsuits agains media organizations and media personalities.
Congress needs to follow its rules. How in the world did Adam Schiff get away with that stupid Kabuki theater he called an impeachment? An why is it taking so very long to get to the bottom of the Russia hoax–the joke of a dossier?
We don’t need to overthrow our federal system of government. We need to take the time and make the effort to fix all the ways the system has gone off the rails. Somehow we need to find a way to fast-track that process. Justice needs to be swift, and that is what we need to begin to concentrate on. It won’t be easy, but giving up and breaking up should not be what we choose to do.
I am praying that we hold together long enough for these current “growing pains” to pass. I count on the small business owners and the farmers and ranchers and the firemen and policemen and the National Guard—etc.—to keep our country together.
Our federal government needs to find a way to prevent foreign money from tarnishing our political process.
Right now the major Offender in my mind is George Soros. He has been fomenting this turmoil at least since the Obama campaign.
Mark K Logan,
That’s the same line Hilary used, right up to refusing to concede then supporting the “resistance”. What are you going to do when he is re-elected?
Mark Logan,
Well, old son, the left refused to accept the genuine outcome of the last Presidential election, for going on four years now. All manner of actively seditious behavior has been their response to the “unthinkable” outcome. They have deployed lawfare to disingenuously try to make some sort of shabby case for this. They have tormented citizens with spurious prosecutions in the cause, torturing the legal system not just in that fashion, but in their constant obstructionism of leftist “stay behind” forces in the judiciary to forbid the legally elected executive from use of his powers. Their Deep State weasels within the executive branch and other agencies have done all that they can to undermine the President. It’s been non-stop, this attempt to thwart a change of government.
And you want to purse your lips in disapproval at the President – and the millions of citizens who put him in office – getting just a wee bit pissed, and dubious that the forthcoming election won’t be gamed and stolen? All of the prior evidence points in that direction. So what’s your story?
A minority (white male property owners) have owned the USA since its inception. I see no sign of that changing at least for the next 2 or 3 generations.
So why all the consternation?
Non property-owning white males seem insecure about their standing among the increasing number of similarly lower middle class / working non-property owners. The minority owners of the USA had best do something about their angst.
Oh, right, they are… and are beginning to get a little nervous about the plan.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/trump-wall-street-election-chaos-421504
To the emotional stresses of the extant “Left”-“Right” conflict, we mist add the fiscal: the Debt.
That the whole government system, Fed-State-Municipal, faces an unsolvable fiscal problem, there is no doubt. The problem will face a reckoning soon enough.
Secession is but a matter of time.
Americans who want to brawl finally have an English football hooligan style regularly scheduled excuse to try and bash each other. That’s what the Portland antifa/patriot prayer etc clashes started as, starting the day after election day 2016.
With covid lockdowns, tons of people stopped having work or stopped having to go to work, and they got to join in.
It seems like the taking up the banner of moralistic social causes is great for those who want to keep scrapping.
There are other things happening, but they pale in comparison.
When lockdowns are relaxed, and people are allowed to rebuild businesses, or needed for help rebuilding other people’s businesses, this will fizzle out.
All,
How would you compare the late 60s to the current period? Similarities & differences.
There were bombings, terrorism, Vietnam war protests on campuses, national guard killing a couple protestors, the civil rights campaign, assassinations of leaders..etc, etc.
Are we suffering from recency bias?
JM Gavin,
Just lefty noise?
Trump is the spreader of this one. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/517976-trump-says-he-would-accept-supreme-court-election-ruling-after
Jersey,
Are you defending Trump’s plans to contest the results of this election?
Mark K Logan
Trump, or anyone else, has every right to contest the result of any election in the courts.
Turcoplier,
No argument, everybody has that right. Trump stating that he will do so for any result other than his winning was unwise.
Mark Logan,
As COL Lang writes, Trump has the right to contest the election.
As I wrote before, Trump doesn’t command the blind support of the Executive Branch. If Trump loses the election, he is no longer the President. If he is no longer the President, he will be out of the Oval Office. No one in the Executive Branch will help him remain in power if he is no longer the President. The idea that Trump can somehow refuse to leave office and thereby keep power is indeed just lefty noise.
I work within the Executive Branch. The Executive Branch isn’t the Trump Branch. If anything, most of the Executive Branch is very anti-Trump. I am not “anti” or “pro,” I work for the Executive Branch. If Trump loses, I still work for the Chief Executive (just a different Chief Executive).
JMG
One author saw this coming: Patrick J. Buchanan.
See, in particular, the Chapters 4 of
“The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization” (2001), and
“Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” (2011).
Both are available quite inexpensively as ebooks.
Since Buchanan saw so accurately what was coming, his analysis of WHY it was coming deserves attention, at least.
The three key questions are:
What, Who, and Why.
There is a “what” that the talking classes are systematically ignoring.
Consider the fertility rate for white women.
The last figures I saw for this was around 1.7 offspring per white woman.
Taking males into account, that means that for every adult in the current generation, there will be
.85 in the next generation.
There is a name and an analysis for this: it’s called “exponential decay.”
When the media talks about this as a problem, they only talk about how that means there will fewer workers to pay the taxes to support an aging population, thus they use it as an excuse to shill for something they truly love, yet more non-white immigration.
They ignore, maybe because they don’t consider it a problem, the inevitable result of that exponential decay (if it continues at the current rate): white extinction.
Note also how they have demonized the quite accurate phrase “The Great Replacement.”
Eliot,
You ask if I “see a country that has not fundamentally changed” earlier today. This country has been in a constant state of change for over 300 years. What we agree on and disagree on has shifted over time bringing great and small social upheavals. We’ve had rebellions and a catastrophic civil war. What we’re experiencing now is less violent that we had in the 60s and 70s as blue peacock pointed out. We had scores dead and many city blocks burnt down in those riots. Now we have one or two dead every now and then and a far smaller amount of buildings burnt. Even crime has gone way down since those days. This summer’s uptick in murders in cities is still far less than it was ten years ago. The different lies in the 24 hour news and social media amplification of these events along with the proliferation of absolute bullshit lies and propaganda masquerading as facts and news.
As Colonel Lang lamented, there are visible changes along I-95 in Virginia. Richmond has witnessed the disappearance of almost all monuments to the Confederacy. The remaining Lee monument has been appropriated and “contextualized” by BLM and the mostly black residents of central Richmond. This was foreseen by the editor of a black newspaper when that monument was erected. He stated something to the effect that it was the black man who built this monument and it will be the black man who takes it down.
The UDC wisely took down the Appomattox monument in old town Alexandria before it could suffer a similar ignominious fate. Its smaller size and location made it particularly vulnerable to vandalism. It was a monument erected by former local soldiers as a tribute to their fallen comrades. It certainly wasn’t erected as a glorification of the Confederacy. I always saw it as an anti-war monument, a soldiers’ tribute to their brethren dutifully sacrificed to the folly of war.
blue peacock
I lived thru the 60’s and early 70’s.
It’s actually scary now.
One difference is that the “ruling class” and it’s bureaucracy feels seriously threatened and will do ANYTHING (including destroying our history and culture) to preserve its power and self-enrichment.
During the VN war, they only disagreed about the level of the communist threat and how to counter it.
Big difference between then and now is that state and local governments didn’t give in to the mob, much less openly collude.
TTG
Yes, you do not “lament” the lost Virginia. “the land of song,” the land for which “Virginia is for lovers” was an appropriate license plate tag. Even though she was still in rags from “the burning” in the late 50s when I first knew her, she was beautiful. But, you have lived here in the hope of the coming of “East California.” I suppose the real estate values were favorable. You should press for a name change at that VA clinic at Richmond where you are treated so well. After all, he was a bad man. Talk to Northam about it. He might want treatment there.
Andrew Busch’s essay is thought provoking, to be sure. Only a fool would think it’s inconceivable that the US as we know it couldn’t fall apart. A few random thoughts though:
Prof. Busch characterizes Trump as failing to build bridges and worse, that he’s someone who burns them by “pouring gasoline” on political fires. I’d like to know WHO on earth on the other side has offered to build bridges? Does the professor discount the abuse of power employed by the Obama administration et al to not only thwart him but frame him and some of his subordinates??? The Left and their kindred spirits among entrenched Beltway Bubble dwellers have resented him and tried to destroy him FROM THE GET-GO. This has caused me to stop disliking his self-aggrandizing arrogance. Since he’s not getting any credit for notable accomplishments, he deserves to brag. Anyway, the professor must not realize that a large part of Trump’s appeal is that he delights in trolling his opponents with little if any mercy, like a cat toying with its prey. They’re all aflutter now with the crisis du jour: that he’ll refuse to step down if he loses. It’s exasperating at times but still laughable to see and hear them chatter hysterically ad nauseam.
If BLM and Antifa organizers have to transport rioters from city to city, could that indicate there aren’t as many of them as feared? I realize some who move around serve as trainers, but still. The violent rioters, many of whom have criminal records, are a far cry from suburban Millennials who truly do march peacefully on occasion. I’ve yet to see thousands of violent rioters at any one time. At most I’ve seen what looks like crowds in the hundreds (I’m referring to violent rioters but admittedly, I’m not sure if I’ve been privy to the whole picture).
Will suburban Millennials leave their comfort zones en masse to take up arms if Trump wins?
Can CA successfully secede if its water supply from other states is reduced or cut off?
Good question – compare the 1960’s to now – from one’s own living history:
Both had existential survival at stake. Actual lives of young people drafted to go to Vietnam in the 1960’s. This time it is primarily the deep state that feels the existential threat after Trump was elected and this existential drama is getting played out in perverse ways.
Anti-war, hippies, marches and levitating the Pentagon was one side of the 1960s- and the other was the eruption of civil rights and human inequities that we could no longer ignore as a Nation -as the American Dream..
Critical numbers now in both eras found the draft, and Trump, so odious they want to throw themselves against the cogs of the machine and grind it to a halt. (Paraphrase 1960’s Mario Savio). Both – the riots and the outrage was real, but also removed mostly from mainstream lives.
Media is more omnipresent today, than the three channel nightly news of the 1960’s. This radically changes our perceptions of current events. We could shut off the TV at night and sleep soundly. We are now wired 24/7 and choose to be in the middle of it. Even though it we shut it off, most of our daily lives are also untouched byt the riots and protests just as in the 1960’s
But also out of the 1960’s and still appropriate today was the phrase: if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. But whose solution? Who defines the problem. The war and race relations were the problem in the 1960’s .
But now the problems seem out of context and contrived in comparison – when basically life in the US was becoming better for most people every day – that is the dislocation – what happened – besides this being an election year? Besides covid.
Why did this all start after Nancy Pelosi tore up Trump’s SOTU address – why did every one of his accomplishments get called a lie and attacked, and torn asunder after the SOTU? There was no one bright line that set everything off in the 1960s’ – it came more as a wave. But this was an abrupt on and off switch – SOTU forward to November 2020.
Out of the 1960’s, long-discredited and disliked Richard Nixon found his moment and roared into two victories on the backs of the Silent Majority. That is the known unknown – does the Silent Majority have sufficient numbers or are they silent because there are fewer of them. Was taking down Nixon the first rumblings of what became the deep state?
Or was Nixon our last link to an institution that we through was still moral and honest, and then we saw it shattered, even though corruption in government long existed – but this time if was in our faces on TV and media everywhere. We were glued to the Watergate hearings in the early 1970’s – getting a real politik lesson in civics. Just like today – civics lessons abound.
Could our President really lie to us ,we has to ask in the 1960’s? Pretty naive question today. Yet seeing the “American Dream” — you can be whatever you want to be — now out of reach for so many who thought they were playing by the rules is another shattered institution today.
Did this American Dream also lie to today’s generation. But in the 1960’s we finally had to accept yes, our President did lie to us. Will this generation finally accept the cultural lies they were fed? And that everyone does have to find their own way in the world afterall, with the best tools one can put together.
One major difference in these decades is in race relations – out of the 1960’s Jim Crow was still alive and well in the deep south, and defacto segregation in the north -we have come a long way in both social movement and wealth access in this regard. We very much are a people of color nation, at every demographic level today. In the 1960’s, segregation was real and the gulf between races was real that rarely had common grounds or crossing points.
One other confounding aspect – wide spread recreational drug use was just beginning, and now its more general acceptance has rotted the core of many communities. Worse than alcohol? Worse than Prohibition? Maybe so, maybe not. Same dropouts, different substances.
The irony is we are still talking about recent deaths of black men as race crimes, when each of them had strong drug connections that set things off. Why aren’t we talking about this instead of seeing them only as racial tinderboxes?
There often was religion in peoples lives for both community and moral bedrock in the 1960’s – that is no longer the case. Life is coarser today- degeneration of values, language and manners. A cynicism about prior institutional religions , but an uncritical embrace of new false gods – like “experts”. junk science, the environment and magic wand diets and supplements. Shows mortality remains a huge focus – whether choosing religion for succor; or some fad or guru for a transitory sense of transcendent power of life over death.
But coming to grips with mortality is the same Big Issue for both generations – now and then. And yes, The Atomic Bomb was our mortality threat made manifest in the 1960s. Can’t quite get my own head around the “climate change” threat claimed by today’s generation – or is “climate change” just a surrogate for the same existential mortality issues that now a non-religious generation is asked to also face?
God and Country did bind sufficient numbers together in the 1960’s to make us think we were a nation of shared values, even if in fact we were seriously more socially apart – now social lives and morees are more fluid, but with a great deal of human carnage that came with the breakdown of the nuclear family structure. Solo parents (now) vs shot-gun marriages (then). Toss up.
I really can’t say which era had it worse – but what is going on today is maybe more insidious because it feels more artificial. I think we fell into real generational breaking points in the 1960s’, race and Vietnam. Both broke the ties that we thought had bound us. Today, I think we are in ginned up breaking points today, mainly for partisan political gain and that is a cheap shot. Today it seems there is more emphasis on separation, blame, resentment, division and anger. Before we claimed we wanted peace and love.
I always come back to this but I do believe a major difference is government employees were not unionized in the 1960’s. (JFK unionized government employees) 44 million government employees within our country today are unionized and that makes everything about who runs our “government” today existential for a very large organized and networked group of people, as well as their spouses, children, family and friends.
That is a very powerful new block of people in this country that did not exist in the 1960’s with a very private investment in the control of our public government. And they now have the means to control government, outside of the will of the voters at large. That is a fundamental division that did not exist in the 1960’s.
However, one pundit suggested a more conservative Supreme Court will in fact bring us together, because we will all have to go back to the basics – what does our shared constitution actually say. Not the flights of fancy imposed by partisan activist judges who remake our contract together at whim and will.
1960’s – Warren activist court – 2020 – Trump strict constructionist court.
1960’s – government civil service 2020 – unionized government employees
1960’s – discreet media with controls- 2020- 24/7 media with no controls
I started out thinking the 1960’s were worse; but I backed down from my own arguments as I rambled forth. Both are pivotal eras. Both demand choices.
Patience:
Correct on everything.
The Colorado River water is not absolutely essential for California. Another answer might be that the flow or the River would not be altered based on politics (just as availability of field labor would not).
Porkupine
Keith Harbaugh, both books are on line at archive.org
Naturally, some people became very distressed:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/business/media/with-book-buchanan-set-his-fate.html
TTG,
“It was a monument erected by former local soldiers as a tribute to their fallen comrades. ”
We had multiple national vigils in “tribute to” George Floyd, now ongoing tributes to Breonna Taylor, all with the the tag line ‘mostly peacefull’.
“This summer’s uptick in murders in cities is still far less than it was ten years ago. ”
It is called the Ferguson effect. That’s in tribute to the “gentle giant” who did not have his hands up but was busy trying to beat a police officer to death. A fact found out by Attorney General Holder, but not repeated by Obama or other in an effort to curtail the violence seen now. The tacit support of the mob is done in effort to drive Trump from office and disredit government at all levels so that the left will have a stage set in which to enact the radical transformations they desire but which the people of the Republic don’t.
pl,
It’s true. I don’t lament the passing of the Virginia which gave birth to the “massive resistance” movement in the 50s. And Virginia may be for lovers, but not for the Lovings in the 60s. I knew very little of Virginia outside of the history books until I moved here in 1995. Besides her natural beauty, I was impressed by the steady political moderation in Richmond. Clearly that’s being tested now, but I see it returning after this terrible year passes. Virginia is so much more than massive resistance and Loving vs. Virginia.
Perhaps Stuart, Jackson and Lee will find fitting new homes in the western part of the state. That’s something the UDC, SCV and Virginia Flaggers should work on. They would look great in a prominent point somewhere along the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Davis monument was just butt ugly. Good riddance to that one. Maury should go to Annapolis. Sure he was a strong proponent of slavery, but he was so much more. His monument beautifully embodied that much more. At some point, there may be a monument to the USCT who marched into Richmond that April morning in 1865. A great many of those USCT were Virginians from the eastern lowlands. There will be a hue and cry against it, just as there was when the modest Lincoln statue was erected in Shockoe Bottom, but Richmond will endure.
I was born and grew up in a country that no longer exists.
The political system was not the best but it allowed for a lot of dialogue.
The economic system was also flawed, but was much better than the Soviet one.
There were problems, ancient resentments and some bad blood, but also there were many things that bound the people together.
It did not survive. When the first shots were fired there was a lot of shock and disbelief.
Almost no one believed war was possible and yet it came regardless.
Some political and media rhetoric I see in US today reminds me a lot of that period before the chaos.
There is the famous story of the two Wolfs.
I fear that much of the mainstream media and politicians feed the wrong wolf.
Artemesia,Actually Florida is one of the worst states for secession on a cultural basis.Most of my mother’s people settled here in the early 1830s when it was a territory.This is not my great,great grandfather’s state.Florida would have to de divided into 3 states…………..Look at the voting patterns.NW Florida and much of N Florida are solid red.SE Florida is very blue.Central Florida is a mixed bag………….Even the Hispanics in Flodida have deep divisions .The Miami Cubans are more likely to be Repubs while the I4 corridor Puerto Ricans,a growing community,are very blue………………The native whites living in NW Flodida vote like the whites in OK……..SE Florida in just NY and NJ with palm trees……………IMO the best states to succeed would be ID,Ut,WY and OK on the red side and Wash,OR,HI and NM on the blue side………Mt is turning purple…The Dakotas are also good candidates for the red.Maybe Mn for the blue.
All
I delete a lot of hard core leftist comments. They desperately want to shut me up or effectively take over SST, but I will keep a few to have someone for you to argue against.
Deap & TV,
My folks grew up in the rural mid-west during that time. They believed the country was gonna fall completely apart then. In their view the violence was real then and the civil discord was palpable across many fracture lines. They feel today is just a manufactured hysteria and other than a few orchestrated anarchists for the cameras there’s not the kind of deep societal angst compared to then. Of course they never got into social media with Facebook or Twitter or Instagram accounts and they stopped watching cable & broadcast news at least a decade ago.
Now, I’m on record here that in my opinion, identity politics and the culture wars are designed as a distraction to the complete chokehold on the system by the oligarchy. I mean they not only have near monopoly control of every major market sector, they control both political parties, as well as the judiciary.
IMO, George Carlin was spot-on!
https://youtu.be/fT03vCaL-F0
Deap, you say Trump appointed a “strict constructionist court”. What do you mean by that in actual practical terms not just in rhetoric? Was Citizens United a “strict constructionist” ruling? Was the refusal to take up the myriad cases against mass surveillance and ruling in the government’s favor in the many lawsuits against surveillance without any probable cause also “strict constructionist”? Was the gutting of Do Not Call by Amy Coney Barrett also “strict constructionist”? When you look at the actual rulings of Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh & Gorsuch, they have overwhelmingly voted for the state against the individual and big business against the consumer. IMO, that is against the spirit of the writings in the Federalist Papers. What Trump & McConnell have done I believe is stack the court with proponents of big business & big government!
Trump is just as much of a conman as Obama & Bernie are. They are taking advantage of the same propaganda machine to drive the culture wars to distract from the continued looting over the decades by the oligarchy. Now, they also have a secure SCOTUS majority.
I read so many on the “right” concerned about “marxism”. Yet, they have no problem that American Airlines just got a $5 billion loan from the Trump Treasury. If they were capitalists they would have required AA to raise additional capital by issuing more equity diluting existing management and shareholders. They have no problem that under both Obama & Trump the Fed has printed up trillions to send o Blackrock & Citadel. Both the “right” and “left” back marxism for the oligarchs just not for the Deplorables. The success of “conservatives” and “liberals”; Trump & Obama/Bernie; is to focus the working & middle classes on the social and culture wars and getting these people to vote consistently against their economic interests. Yes, this divide & distract strategy has been a massive success over the past 40+ years as the working & middle class get squeezed even more. The lockdown epitomize it so well as the small business sector have been crushed financially while the oligarchs have increased their wealth by hundred of billions during this same period.
TTG: Just curious:
When you chose a place to which to retire, did you consider NH?
You certainly have connections there, and both you and I know it has plenty of natural beauty.
Also, although I don’t know this, I suspect its cost of living is quite attractive.
So I’m just wondering why you chose VA over NH?
(This is not an antagonistic question, although as you know I do sometimes have those.)
Blue Peacock,
Keeping infrastructure critical business functioning is hardly Marxism; at worst it’s cronnie capitalism. If you think it’s Marixism, then maybe you should read a little Solzhenitsyn.
blue peacock, if you demand 100% fidelity to an abstract principle, we will both be disappointed.
I am happy at least there is a consideration of the language found in the US Constitution, instead of making up legal principles out of whole cloth to achieve any pre-determined social activist results. All politics are theater.
The pendulum swung too far one way, and that as the Trump backlash. The deep state craziness did its best to neutralize the Trump pendulum swing for the first term. Now that the rules of the game are established, it will be good to see what Trump finally gets done in his next term. And then the pendulum will swing again.
Americans fundamentally get nervous when one party has too much power – we all basically hate government and do our best to screw it up – no matter who is in nominal power at the time. GOP has plenty of egg on its faces in the past. Don’t ask me to excuse or apologize for this lumbering operation called the US government. I am just happy we put the brakes on unfettered “progressivism” and could squeeze in a few road blocks – all of which can be undone in an eye blink with another vote of the people.
I am genuinely distressed over the co-opting role of the large unelected government administrative agencies and their highly disciplined employee unions. That was not foreseen nor addressed in the US Constitution or even imagined by the Founders – what people would want unelected “Big Government” running their lives? And paying heavily for this well into the future.
Yes, Trump is con man – we just like what he is selling – nothing wrong with America First, after too many years of America the Horrible. Obama was a charlatan who lied about his real motivations and who he was lazily fronting for. Trump gets in your face, but he does check out – there is a brilliant chess player at work so sometimes it is not so obvious, but he tells us upfront where he wants to go. And for the most part he gets us there – promises made; promises kept. He earned this motto.
America needs Trump right now. Look no further than the sober analysis of Victor Davis Hansen and his book “The Case for Trump”. He also opines Trump will ultimately be a tragic figure because he will fail to understand where he went wrong, in trying to get his agenda across -why he kept running into a buzz saw of opposition. That blind spot is his tragic flaw. But we elect human beings to these offices; not gods.
Even Trump could not accurately assess the depth of the deep state. That in fact will be America’s tragic flaw too. Petty bureaucrats who in fact do have far too much power over our lives today, but they are now so pervasive and dug in they cannot be dislodged. We learned this the hard way in today’s California. I know of what i speak.
America will eventually sort itself out again —- but that is another chapter to be written probably well after I am gone. Where else do people go, even those who took America for granted, or even hated America. Even they have to come up with alternate solutions eventually. Eating their seed corn is not an option, which is all they are currently putting on the table right now.
I leave you with one of my own favorite reminders: “Foolish inconsistencies are the hobgoblins of little minds”. Go long and go big.
Eg: activist vs strict constructionist courts;
—-9th Circuit – judges used Trump newspaper quotes to justify ruling against Trump in a legal hearing.
—-SCOTUS: made up the “right or privacy” which you can now drive a truck through to get anything you want, which is a right not expressly in the USConstitution
—Judicial Branch is asked to be more activist today because the Legislative Branch had defaulted on their own constitutional duties. That is not the solution; it is a sign of dysfunction. And a sign voters have also abdicated their intended role as the sovereign “rulers” of this country. They now howling partisan mobs, whose mob voice the Founders knew should be avoided at all costs.
Our intended balance of power and dual sovereignty principles are out of whack – they need to be wiggled back into place. Congress who was intended to be the primary source of power, hemmed in by the Executive and the Judiciary, has dropped the ball.
This means everything else now is in disarray. it shows. Voters are frustrated on all sides. The sabotage by the deep state post-2016 election was the ugliest national chapter we have seen since the Civil War. For the “loyal opposition” to now claim Trump will not transfer power peacefully is a slap in the face. 2016 was by far the worst transfer of power I have ever witnessed – a rank, parisan betrayal of one of our more sterling governance principles.
So we look now for at least a new SCOTUS majority that throws the ball back into the Legislative Branch, which is a good thing. And not forcing the Executive Branch to issue EO’s just to get anything done is also a good thing.
But as long as the deep state owns the Democrat party and the existential survival needs of the deep state overtake the “will of the people” or the deep state has grown so large is has now become the “will of the people” the future of our constitutional form of government is in peril. Which is why the outcome of this election matters; and the outcome of 2016 mattered more than most people appreciated – we wanted to rebalance recent trends.
And yes in 2016, we had to choose between two con artists to carry out that choice – Amazing, but perhaps comforting because it shows even after 250 years we have no hereditary ruling class. Be grateful for small favors.
Biden is a tool of the deep state and its excess and distorted lust for power, they don’t care who carries their agenda because their own survival riding in on any horse available is what matters most.
Trump is the outsider, break the place up, as much in frustration as anything else because the system stopped working as designed so we collectively flail to do something grand to get it restarted again.
Trump got the winning straw and to date his accomplishments have been pretty extraordinary despite the deep state road blocks, who are operating from frog brain mode since 2016.
Keith Harbaugh,
We really didn’t contemplate moving somewhere to retire. This just happened to be where my last full time jobs brought us. After returning from Germany, I worked out at Vint Hill Farms Station in Faurquier County. That was a glorious commute from Stafford over small county roads. The only traffic jam I had was when someone’s hogs got loose and blocked the road along with the occasional slow moving farm machinery. The commute to DIA sucked out loud, but the VRE commuter train eventually made that bearable. The sunrises over the Potomac made the trip worthwhile. My sons first came back here after graduating college before setting out to Richmond and Alexandria. Now we prefer to staying close to them. We also had our fill of moving both in the Army and as a civilian. We bought our first and only house here and we’ll die here. We do miss the northern winters. I have three sets of skis and two pairs of snowshoes in the cellar. and we dread the hot, humid summers here in Virginia. But Virginia is not a bad place to live at all. We do miss New England and real upstate New York (Adirondacks). That’s what i consider God’s country. Not Connecticut, though. Too crowded and too expensive.
TTG: Thanks for the info.
Ah yes, VHFS, out there in Warrenton. I visited there a few times in the 70s. Were the antenna farms still there? Back in the 70s it had acres of ground-hugging antennas, I guess to pick up signals with a very long wavelength. Anyhow, that really was the country.
ASA had some of its facilities in very nice places: Augsburg, Berlin, Ft. Devens, Warrenton, Arlington (AHS).
Sorry to hear about your underused skis. The last few winters have been so wsrm.
KH
et all. My ancestors founded Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. I have not been north of NY City for 20 years except for a few trips to Harvard for amusing meetings. The weather sucks. Lobster, clams, haddock and flounder are all good, but you can have the rest of my share. I am quite a good crosscountry skier and wasn’t bad downhill back in the day. Barnie McQuaid taught me. It will be fun to see if you can figure out who that was.
Col.,
My French ancestors arrived when New Amersterdam was still Dutch, the Irish side in scenic Rutland a couple centuries later. The English and German sides into NJ some time before the revolution, some others were here all along. I’m with you about the weather, though it is a spur to reading, writing and making babies. Now if we could just convince everyone that New New York is going to be the place to be maybe they’ll stay out of Florida. As a final thought, is Barnie McQuaid any relation to Isaac Smoot?
KH and pl,
I started downhill skiing in grammar school. I raced giant slalom on my high school club. Our town hall procured night skiing tickets at nearby Mount Southington. Every Friday night we could ski for a dollar. It was an affordable pastime. On the last Friday of the season of my senior year, I broke a ski and couldn’t afford a new pair. When I got to college, I decided to start XC skiing since I could get a set for $35 and I wouldn’t have to buy lift tickets. I fell in love with the sport and the freedom of the winter north woods. I honed my skiing skills in 10th Group and went to the Austrian Army Mountain Guide School. That was a true hoot. We wore Austrian uniforms and used their equipment. A Spetsnaz team, using the same uniforms and equipment went through at the same time. The Austrians made sure we were never on the same ridge line. But we did wave at each other.
The antennas at VHFS were mostly gone when I was stationed there. We were located on a small fenced compound within a larger fence line that one surrounded the antenna fields. I was also lucky enough to be stationed at Augsburg and Devens and spent a hell of a lot of time in Berlin. The Augsburg antennas were still there when I passed through. The Berlin site at Teufelsberg was abandoned by then.
fred
He was a WW2 correspondent and friend of Hemingway, Ernie Pyle, etc. Wrote for the Chicago Tribune then. He was editor of the Sunday newspaper of the Manchester Union Leader when I knew him. His son was a college classmate and since my parents were in California I was invited several times to spend holiday leave at their colonial farmhouse in Candia, NH. Many a night sitting in the kitchen talking and drinking good Scotch while my classmate and the young Joe, now editor of the Union Leader, watched TeeVee in another room. We went to ski at places like Sunapee. He said I had an unusual mind both analytic and synthetic and offered me a job if i would not go in the army.
TTG
You would have enjoyed the Mountain and Arctic Warfare course at Fort Greely in Alaska. the graduation qualifying event was a 100 mile cross country event with AKNG Eskimos as Aggressors.
Regarding Field Station Berlin: What prompted a lot of good-humored chuckling was the appearance of its antennas. You can Google its name, then switch to Images, and see their resemblance to the most distinctive part of a man’s anatomy 🙂
When I visited there circa 1977, its CO was, IIRC, Col. Stubblebine. Perhaps some of you knew him? He subsequently expressed some rather controversial views.
Keith Harbaugh
Is this the one who used to try to walk through walls?
I would think so, based on the name and service record.
His name stood out to me.
I spent two weeks at Field Station Augsburg, installing a computer system. No one mentioned the name of the field station commander.
OTOH, I only spent maybe two days at FSB, talking with their staff about the computer support they desired to counter the GSFG. During that time they made sure to emphasize the name of their commander, “Col. Stubblebine”, whjch they uttered with something resembling reverance.
In any case, former INSCOM CG MG Stubblebine caught my eye for his remarks, not those on paranormality, but those on 9/11.
“Keeping infrastructure critical business functioning is hardly Marxism…”
Eric,
I’ve read Solzhenitsyn several times. The big takeaway is that ideology is just a fig leaf for an elite group to acquire absolute power and the systematic subjugation of perceived enemies to retain the stranglehold of power.
So, in your view a private “infrastructure critical business” that keeps borrowing money to buy back stock so that its top management who are issued a lot of stock continually can become incredibly wealthy, must be provided funds by the government, so that top management does not get diluted by issuing stock to private investors, is “hardly marxism”. What is it? This is exactly what American Airlines, and United and Boeing and so many other big corporations did. They didn’t build up reserves nor invest in their businesses.
Should “infrastructure critical business” be owned by the state? Why not? Should all “infrastructure critical business” be able to access government funding or only a select few like those with the right political connections? Do these “infrastructure critical business” who need government bailouts be held to a different standard?
What is “marxism” in your view?