Hello all, a friend forwarded me some links to articles claiming that the government in the USA is building up and training its troops to quell domestic dissent that is expected in the next few months.
I tend not to believe this kind of thing (read: conspiracy theory), but wondered if anyone had heard anything about this from a trusted source.
I imagine if a white supremacist actually managed to kill President Obama the aftermath would look somewhat civil warish.
It occurs to me that one way for the Obama administration to stimulate consumer spending is to let leak a few choice details like “U.S. gov’t order 50 million body bags, civilian sized” and “Chinese military observers invited to Fort Dix”. Overnight, sales of ammunition, camping gear, and canned goods skyrocket, stabilizing the economy.
I’m interested in what might happen if a movement starts for an Article 5 constitutional amendment, and Congress looks like it would refuse to initiate the required constitutional convention. That might turn out to be a sticky situation.
The European Union Times and Chuck Baldwin Live are racist publications.
Nah . . . There would be rioting, that’s all. In the 1960s America never came close to civil war (though it seemed to many at the time they were already in one).
Looking at its welcome page, yes, the European Union Times does appear to be a racist publication.
As for Chuck Baldwin, there seems no room for doubt.
I got an email about this the other day. That’s a trusted source, right?
It said, “Pass this along to everyone you know!!!” so it must be true. Funny how the usual news services seem to ignore it. They must be in on the conspiracy.
Well, as everyone knows, it has been predicted by a famed Russian academic that the US will break up into six countries in 2010 or thereabouts.
He’s clearly right. Gonna happen any minute now.
I’m not so sure: such an event (god forbid) in and of itself might inspire riots, but also might set off a radical reaction at the federal level (Homeland Security: The Sequel) that some states couldn’t accept. Anything that looks like a “civil war” wouldn’t be a matter of individuals taking up guns, Ruby Ridge style, but more like entire states banding together to declare their opposition to federal policies.
The nice thing about nutjobbery is that it’s non-partisan.
Here’s a 2004 thread about George W. Bush suspending the general election.
Here’s a 2003 thread about Bush’s plans for a pre-emptive nuclear attack against Iraq.
Unfortunately, the search function isn’t showing anything earlier than 2003 right now, or I’d link you to some threads about Bill Clinton declaring martial law. Instead I’ll have to give you this 1993 article that says Clinton would practice on Puerto Ricobefore doing it in the U.S.
From the second article:
Write your own punch line.
Russia will break up before the US does.
Not really. The Obama adminstration will be too timid to too anything radically authoritarian security-wise.
We didn’t have a civil war during the Great Depression and we won’t have one this time around either.
Well, that’s the point of this particular sub-plot: it wouldn’t be the Obama administration, it’d be a (presumably shell-shocked) incoming Biden administration, with little enough gumption to face down a Congress that’s baying for blood.
The US has suspended much civil rights before during the Civil War, and the World Wars yet that didn’t provoke mass riots.
Neither did any asteroids plummet into the Great Lakes at that time. A point, do you have one?
The last four presidential assassinations which happened in times far more primitive and prone to violence than our own. If authoritarian measures than and during the wars were not that drastic why would this situation if (God forbid) happens be any different?
Uh, your friend is an idiot.
Well, the concept of “domestic terrorism” wasn’t nearly as big a deal back then: the time we’re living in now has the “benefit” of both 60s civil unrest and 9/11 within living memory, as well as a much-weakened respect for the Constitution and a politically poisonous atmosphere in general. I’m not saying it’s Obama/Biden and the Democrats who are uniquely prone to authoritarian overreaction: if it were Bush/Cheney and the Republicans in power, were such a Bad Thing to happen, I’d probably be equally worried in this kind of environment.
And again, it’s not the (perceived) authoritarian measures in and of themselves, but the reaction of the states against those measures, that I think could set off a constitutional crisis at least.
I don’t think any of this is likely, but if the OP is asking how a civil war could happen, I think this might be one of the more likely routes.
I could imagine there being a war against the people who think “educated” is an insult and those who don’t. There’d have to be a pretty big spark to light that fire, though, I don’t think an assassinated Obama would do it. That would just send us into despair, not righteous anger.
Since there’s only been one US civil war, it’s hard to extract much data (so far, 100% of civil wars have been about slavery), but I don’t know if one would even be possible now. The country was smaller and didn’t have the complex and domineering military system we have now. Then it was just farmers with guns vs farmers with guns. A civil war now would be farmers with guns vs the National Guard, Army, Marines, and Air Force (the Navy could sit this one out).
This is why you don’t see many civil wars in military-industrialized countries. If anything, you see military coups. How would you get the entire military to turn against the rest of the government in the US?
I suppose if you had one president that was a real gung-ho military man and everybody with a uniform loved him, and then after him was a hippy-dippy liberal president who wanted to dismantle our entire military or something, with a decent helping of Limbaugh-fueled anti-government sentiments and that ex-president getting vocal in public opposition of the current president, he could possibly get some of the top US commanders to break from the pentagon and go (ahem) rogue.
Basically, rebels vs the empire.
Edit: To reiterate my last point, consider simply the use of the phrase, “I want my country back” and the type of people prone to saying it.