I’ve seen alot of calls for violence in America. Whether it be directed at the president or Federal officers, many people are advocating for an escalation in response to the current situation.
And believe me, I do understand. what I see happening in America is horrifying. But all I am imploring is to really think about what your asking for. Because you can’t put the genie in the bottle once you’ve left it out.
If you’re really gung-ho about it, go and ask a Veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan about it and see what they think. If anyone will know about it they will.
I am going to link a YouTube Playlist. Its the Associated Press Archives of the Bosnian-Serbian war. Because THAT is what will happen if wide scale violence breaks out. Except what will happen in America will be a hundred times worse.
The Bosnian war was pretty much broken up along ethnic lines. “Well it’s going to be Conservative VS. Liberal” you say. Except it won’t be. It will be anyone having a grudge against someone going after them.
ALOT of personal animosity will be taken out in the first few weeks I feel.
And I think the Seige of Sarajavo will be writ large in American cities across the country. Imagine having to dodge sniper fire on your way to get to your job at Wendy’s.
Because that’s the other thing no one is thinking about. You are still going to have to make a living while this is all going to be happening. And the cost of everything will skyrocket. Shipping will probably have to be escorted from place to place because people will be stealing or even blockading locations because they’re “damn dirty libs” or “Fascist Conservatives” Fresh produce will become a thing of the past.
Canada and Mexico will close their borders due to all the refugee’s trying to cross. so if you thinking of doing it, do it the moment everything pops off because otherwise you won’t get in.
Basically Civil war is going to the worst thing to happen in America in a long time. and the only good that comes out of it will be Americans will finally have first hand experience of real war torn violence. And maybe that will hopefully last for another two hundred years or so.
If America even survives the outcome that is.
… Americans don’t realize they’re already in a civil war? Bro a city is occupied. Secret police roam freely. Tens of thousands disappeared.
It’s worthwhile you mention Sarajevo, and in reference to that I will post this tidbit posted by a MetaFilter user in 2009 regarding their experience in the siege of Sarajevo. I have it bookmarked and post it from time to time where it seems appropriate. The reality is though, you’re correct, Americans by and large don’t know what they’re asking for.
Well, unlike the majority of you (I assume), I actually lived several years in a period of savagery and killing, during which nothing - food, water, electricity, phone, clothing, sense of safety, school, the ability to go out in public, etc - was available, except during totally unpredictable, brief and sporadic occasions.
Of those who couldn’t leave my city, Sarajevo:
Some people (very few) were prepared for what they thought would be the “long haul” - this tended to be a couple of months. These people were widely seen as lunatics and dangerously pessimistic ones at that.
Most people were not at all prepared. This included my family. Many of those - like my family - considered the idea of “preparation” to be an affront to the decency we felt most people possessed. Were we wrong? Well, I don’t know. We suffered greatly; my parents were killed. But speaking only for myself, I never felt I cheapened my soul by betting on calamity. Today, that still feels like it’s worth something.
But here’s the main point: “Preparing” for the disaster really didn’t do anyone much good. Those who “prepared” ate a little better for a while. They stayed warmer for a few extra days. They enjoyed the radio for a while longer (via batteries.) But in the end, they ended up hungry, cold and bored too, just like the rest of us. Guns and weapons helped no one directly and were even of little to no use in the defense of Sarajevo, since they were toys compared to the shells, bombs and high-powered armaments of the attacking forces. The worst parts of war were psychological - the fear, anxiety, boredom, loneliness, paranoia, bad dreams. Respite from those things came with sharing food with a neighbor, finding a piece of clothing that would fit someone you knew, commiserating with others in your position, figuring out how to make make-up from brick or french fries from wheat paste and spreading this newly-acquired war knowledge around the mahala.
We knew who had extra food and supplies. For the most part, they weren’t attacked or hassled or bothered. Contrary to what these survivalists say, those in dire times generally hold on to their personal sense of pride even more than they do in normal times. I’d take a bite of a friend’s salad without bothering to ask in normal times. I’d never have done that in wartime, no matter how hungry I was.
Within the domain of those trapped in the city, civility greatly increased.
You often hear how Holocaust survivors felt guilt at surviving. Well, during war, that was a feeling everyone was aware of - people started dying right away (my parents were killed near the start of the siege, for instance) - and there was a palpable enough common sense of karma to make everyone into good Samaritans. None of us understood why we survived while others didn’t. I shared food when I had it, even though I often knew I wouldn’t have a crumb the next day. Which was no big achievement, because nearly everyone did the same.
Those who’d prepared, well, the majority of them shared their food and whatever else they had as soon as someone else was clearly in need. I can’t swear it, but I think they felt a little foolish to have been so self-obsessed, and giving away that stuff might have lessened that feeling. There were a few people who hoarded things until they ran out of stuff - eventually everybody ran out of anything worth hoarding - and they soon became wishful beggars like the rest of us. Again, I can’t swear it, but I hear stories, and it seems that these people suffer from post-war trauma, guilt and nightmares more than the rest of us.
Those survivalists, I feel sorry for them. It’s no way to live.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 9:33 PM on January 28, 2009
History repeats itself—if we let it.
When building power, some leaders pick a group to blame: Hitler targeted Jews, Trump vilified immigrants. Once momentum builds, the list of “enemies” grows—anyone who disagrees becomes a target.
Recognizing these patterns is the first step to stopping them. Let’s learn from the past and stand against division.
#HistoryMatters #NeverAgain #UnityOverHate
The question is what the alternative would be. Look at history for the answer. The easy comparison would be Germany leading up to, during, and after World War 2, but that would be low-hanging fruit considering how very directly the US regime is trying to force other countries to join them. (Anschluss, anyone?) Look also at the countries where extremist regimes took over and didn’t get forced out until years later and the damages they did to their country and the people living in it. Unfortunately too many examples there to name. The US regime and their stormtroopers will continue to harass, arrest, and outright kill people who have a legal right to live in the US simply over the color of their skin or otherwise until they are stopped. And they will most assuredly not stop by the power of fingerwagging and strongly stated words.
If you’re really gung-ho about it, go and ask a Veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan about it and see what they think. If anyone will know about it they will.
My uncle that served in Iraq still wakes up screaming in the night. He’s a shell of the man he used to be. Another vet my age I knew was absolutely erratic after serving. He couldn’t hold a job and ended up homeless and assaulted someone for their spot under a bridge.
My whole family bears the scars of the PTSD from what my grandfather saw from WWII. He also woke up screaming for years afterward.
you are saying this like the terms of the required action are dictated by the oppressed, and they bear the responsibility of the result. but that is wholly decided by the regime. if your asking people to weigh the cost of freedom verses the ease of tyranny, just remember that time does not make the cost any more palatable, it makes it worse.
Not American, so feel free to stop reading.
It’s ridiculous to me how you yanks go from zero to a hundred like this. Either normality or civil war. Like there is no in between? You have an authoritarianism problem. So resist authoritarianism. What makes you think that the only way to resist is shooting people? Resistance is a spectrum, and you have barely started using democratic means to fight back (you just started electing democratic socialists), much less active procedural and institutional warfare (is Bernie demanding a vote for every procedural point requiring a vote? Are the Dems actually using any rat fucking tactic to make the state ungovernable? Are your local and state governments really resisting beyond making angry noises?). You have barely tried non violent resistance (not the same as peaceful!) but you’re such a violent culture that you jump straight to military solutions. Wtf. Those come at the very end, if everything else has failed. Has it? Nowhere near. So this talk about civil war, is that really useful?
Whilst I agree, the problem lies with the individualism of the general population rather than the collective mindset. The backwards-ass government system (i.e. no opposition government, the bastardisation of the 3 branches etc. and the power hungry head-of-state vs a Parliamentary system for example), the extreme “state-first” mentality that then struggles when the Federal system comes down on it and the “divide and conquer” tactics of corporations with the support of successive right-leaning governments. A judicial system that corrupted by politics and trying to guess what a bunch of
guysslave-owning white landowners 250 years ago would have thought is also very very very very very very very dumb. The law is meant to be blind - it’s why the statue used to represent it wears a blindfold, holds a scale and a sword.The country is in need of a Civil Revolution rather than a civil war. Both sides are more similar than they realise, and generally want the same thing, and none seem to see the real enemy (CEOs, Billionaires etc.) due to all the propaganda.
You have barely tried non violent resistance (not the same as peaceful!) but you’re such a violent culture that you jump straight to military solutions.
Most Americans are victims of a violent regime and not violent themselves. They’re scared and going through something most Canadians and many post-WWII Europeans will never have to deal with in their lifetimes. People are being murdered, and you’re telling the victims it’s their fault and that they’re violent for trying to prepare for a worst-case scenario.
Yes, of course there are other ways to confront this. Yes, I wish the country I was regrettably born in was culturally more like the EU and Canada. But it’s not that simple and I can’t help but feel that this comment is in poor taste.
You missed my point.
You missed mine. Until you find yourself the victim of an authoritarian state you live in starting a Holocaust, you don’t get to make blanket statements about an entire country that lumps the oppressors and the oppressed into the same category.
I’m not denying fear, violence, or victimhood. And I’m not equating oppressors with the oppressed. I should push back on the idea that naming cultural patterns equals blaming victims, or that only people inside the worst possible historical analogy are allowed to analyze trajectories.
I’m talking about how societies slide, not about who deserves what. Those are different conversations. I’ve been on the receiving end of state violence. I’ve marched, been gassed, watched movements radicalize too fast and burn themselves out. That’s exactly why I’m saying this: jumping straight to existential framing and armed horizons doesn’t protect anyone it only narrows the future until only catastrophe is left.
You don’t need to already be in a Holocaust to talk about escalation dynamics. In fact, if you wait until everything is unspeakable, analysis is already useless. Yes, fear is justified and preparation is understandable and necessary. But when fear becomes immune to critique, it stops being a warning signal and starts being a steering wheel.
My point hasn’t changed: there is still space, Real Political Space, for non-violent (not peaceful!) resistance, that can be powerfully disruptive. Once that space collapses, it doesn’t reopen because people were right about how bad things felt. I’m arguing against that collapse, not minimizing what’s at stake.
I should push back on the idea that naming cultural patterns equals blaming victims, or that only people inside the worst possible historical analogy are allowed to analyze trajectories.
You can absolutely analyze cultural patterns. I’m just saying “you’re a violent culture” wasn’t the right choice of words. It’s also important to, while analyzing cultural patterns, to consider the role of privilege, and that words and actions are two different things, especially when the critic is looking in from the outside. I’m not talking about you specifically, but I’ve seen a lot of European/Canadian schadenfreude in left-wing online spaces (like Lemmy) over the situation happening an America. While they aren’t wrong that America is brash and needed to be taken down a peg, and there is a place for analyzing the political trajectory, sometimes these people forget the millions of people who aren’t gun-blazing, beer drinking, flag-waving patriots who are in danger, and that if they had the bad luck of being born somewhere else, they themselves might be in the exact same situation. The idea that “America tore itself apart” makes less sense the more you think about it, but seems incredibly plausible to an observer. I think the issue at hand is that, yes, it’s good to analyze cultural patterns, but America was never a monoculture.
In both situations, I ask: How does it help in these left-wing spaces to make blanket statements about Americans, when most of the posters in these spaces are the exception to Americanism and not the rule? Who is the “you” in “you’re a violent culture”?
You don’t need to already be in a Holocaust to talk about escalation dynamics. In fact, if you wait until everything is unspeakable, analysis is already useless.
I agree with this. But the message is everything. OP was just trying to make plans for a worst-case scenario and probably not jumping immediately to violence. While it indeed is important to recognize the spectrum of resistance, it also isn’t wrong to prep for the worst in addition to that. Currently, the people of Minneapolis, Minnesota, are resisting non-violently, and the Administration is still assaulting and murdering people and Trump is still threatening the Insurrection Act and martial law. For you, it’s a golden lining, but for us living it, we’re questioning whether that will work this time and bracing for impact. Is continuing nonviolent resistance the thing that save America? Maybe. Maybe the regime still won’t give us that chance. Maybe they will just make up lies to cancel elections and enact martial law. And if all options are extinguished and violence breaks out from that, it won’t be our fault for not being nonviolent enough.
Again, there’s nothing wrong about your underlying point – nonviolent resistance is important – but how it was worded.
Learned about it from this episode of the Team Human podcast
But what is happening in Hong Kong is they come up with a slogan, which is translated as Do Not Split, which is, we know that some people are willing to be confrontational with riot police.
And when they are, that’s going to cost the state in terms of not only resources, but it’s going to cost the state in terms of political capital and support. And we know that there are some people who are not willing to do that. And we are going to abide by the protocol of Do Not Split, which means that we’re not going to criticize them openly, and they’re not going to criticize us openly.
If we’re the pacifists, we’re not going to have them criticize us for being sort of like, I don’t know, limpid or flaccid or not courageous or whatever. And we’re not going to criticize them for being more confrontational. And the thing is that the support is also tacit.
It’s not like they have to come out and tell the media, oh, we approve of our more sort of confrontational colleagues. They just keep quiet. They just keep quiet.
Understanding that a range of tactics is probably going to be necessary. Nobody really knows what’s going to work. But if everybody’s pushing back against a particularly violent state, then everybody’s really on the same side.
Americans are sadly locked into the path of violence as the other path will force them to face their systemic racism, and corporate idolization which is clearly not going to happen.
It took Nicole Good to be face shot before people really started to react despite 4 other similar events with non white females and I am constantly shocked how many Americans defend corporations that are literally exploiting them. America is cooked unfortunately as like most humans, myself included, we tend to become blind with power.
Corporations became the dominate force in our culture and in every culture around the world. 90% + of all policy in the whole world is written by corporations. There isn’t a country that exist without widening income inequality.
It would be great if this was just an American problem. It isn’t. The wealthy will use their favorite proxy the corporation to run humanity into the ground. They have already poisoned the entire planet time and time again. They are the biggest threat humanity has ever seen.
They make the Nazi look wholesome. Remember it was IBM that developed the numbering system for Jews and also helped figure out how many Jews needed to be cleared out of the Ghetto daily for the final solution. Likewise MS, Google, Meta, etc. have been giving material support to genocide.
The first U.S. civil war never really ended, it has just gone into a long “cold” phase.
Those times are ending.
I could’ve ended if they hadn’t given so many concessions to the slavers, but they let that shit fester and grow and now the whole country is the fucking nazi bar.
*a lot. Buy a dictionary since you lack an education.
