The Lessons of 'American War'

[SNOWFLAKE]

“You fight the war with guns, you fight the peace with stories.”
― Omar El Akkad, American War

“Everyone fights an American war.”
― Omar El Akkad, American War

Dystopian novels are a difficult genre: They need to be imaginative, edging on the far-fetched, while being just plausible enough to terrify. Omar El Akkad’s American War, which interprets the American South by way of the Middle East, challenges Americans to imagine what it might be like to die for, but also kill, their fellow citizens.

The Second Civil War begins in 2074. Climate change has changed the continent, submerging the banks of Louisiana and the near entirety of Florida, save for an island enclave or two, one of which eventually houses the notorious Sugarloaf Detention Facility for Northern prisoners of war.

In the early 2070s, the federal government, by then based in Columbus, moved to outlaw fossil fuels. Southerners resented this and other impositions from the richer, prosperous Northern states. Fervor for secession began to build. The nature of Southern “culture” was rich, but also somewhat vague and constructed, like all cultural identities are. It was enough, though, to moor a movement that would lead to the deaths of millions. A Southern suicide bomber assassinated the president in 2073, plunging the country into violence.

The Lessons of 'American War'

What holds a society together in the absence of common ideas?

www.theatlantic.com

Also, from the above article:

Ultimately, the second civil war becomes “tribal.” To fight for your tribe, regardless of anything else, becomes its own cause, and one apparently worth dying for.

The fear and foreignness of tribal divisions might be why some American analysts, including The New Yorker’s Robin Wright, are treating the risk of civil war more seriously (with the caveat that a future American war wouldn’t be a “normal” one, but rather a lower intensity conflict). One common definition of civil war is 1,000 combat deaths in a year, coupled with the existence of at least one organized militia, a standard the United States, due to its large population, could theoretically more easily meet than a smaller country could.

Wright cites former special-operations officer Keith Mines, who puts the risk of civil war in America at 60 percent and lists five conditions that make violence more likely, each of which has by now been met. Basically, at the core of most civil wars is a collection of grievances, whether economic, ideological, or sectarian, that are foundational enough that they can’t—or can no longer be—addressed through politics. But it is not enough for grievances to exist; rebel groups must be sufficiently organized and effective, and the central state sufficiently weak or illegitimate, to be able to mobilize around those grievances.

Yes, the article from the Atlantic is a bit longwinded but definitely worth reading. What is not longwinded and even more worthy of reading is the book.

READ IT!

 

[Bok Tuklo]

My issue with the prospect of a second American civil war is the American divide is not geographic, it is demographic. It is not North v South, it is rural v urban. Dallas-Fort Worth is just as productive and modern, both economically and politically, as any comparable sized urban-suburban sprawl in the northern United States. It is why Republicans have abandoned subsidiarity in Texas.

State fights, if they occur, will first be intramural.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

My issue with the prospect of a second American civil war is the American divide is not geographic, it is demographic. It is not North v South, it is rural v urban. Dallas-Fort Worth is just as productive and modern, both economically and politically, as any comparable sized urban-suburban sprawl in the northern United States. It is why Republicans have abandoned subsidiarity in Texas.

State fights, if they occur, will first be intramural.

The author seems to be saying that a modern American "civil war" would NOT be one with hard borders, formal declarations and fancy armies of opposing republics.
If that's the case the author is likely correct, and I always use Northern Ireland's "The Troubles" as a model for what such a war would look and feel like in the United States, a seemingly endless series of skirmishes, mass shootings, bombings, kidnappings and futile sectarian riots.

Oh and, by the way, when religion gets involved, expect such a war to last more than a generation.

 

[Bok Tuklo]

The author seems to be saying that a modern American "civil war" would NOT be one with hard borders, formal declarations and fancy armies of opposing republics.
If that's the case the author is likely correct, and I always use Northern Ireland's "The Troubles" as a model for what such a war would look and feel like in the United States, a seemingly endless series of skirmishes, mass shootings, bombings, kidnappings and futile sectarian riots.

Oh and, by the way, when religion gets involved, expect such a war to last more than a generation.

Sort of the 50s-60s Civil Rights Movement/anti-war protests on steroids? I could see that. But any political grievances that exist are wholly on the left in this nation. There has only been one national election since 1988 where the Republican has won more votes than the Democrat (2004). Yet, conservatives wield a great deal of power at the national level. The political will of the minority is running roughshod over the political will of the majority. If there is any friction, it is due to a fundamental flaw in our governing system that allows this to occur.

People revere the Constitution but it has turned out to be a mediocre governing document at best.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Sort of the 50s-60s Civil Rights Movement/anti-war protests on steroids? I could see that. But any political grievances that exist are wholly on the left in this nation. There has only been one national election since 1988 where the Republican has won more votes than the Democrat (2004). Yet, conservatives wield a great deal of power at the national level. The political will of the minority is running roughshod over the political will of the majority. If there is any friction, it is due to a fundamental flaw in our governing system that allows this to occur.

People revere the Constitution but it has turned out to be a mediocre governing document at best.

Well said but I prefer "The Troubles" as a model because the war is being promoted BY the political Right in this nation, thus the reason why they keep dragging "Christian Values" into the arguments.
White supremacist Christian nationalism is a major driving force in the poisoning of the democratic process.
The political grievances you describe as being exclusively of the Left are really grievances of anyone who rejects fascist strongman theocracy, so I am compelled to question the validity of such a narrow definition like yours.
Were all eighty-one million Biden voters from "the Left" ?
According to polling data quite a few Republicans, some of them lifelong, some even members of DP, voted for Biden for the express purpose of ridding us of the poisonous mobbed up cult leader Trump.

But your criticism of the Constitution as a weak template for a democratic republic to rely upon is entirely valid.
The Founding Fathers who authored it refused to believe that something like a "Big Lie" could spawn such level of slavish cult devotion that it would become capable of burning such a republic to the ground but it is further complicated by the fact that NO constitution of any kind, no matter how comprehensive and sound, can force elected servants to follow its prescriptions for defense against insurgencies of this nature.
Simply put, we can "constitution the shit out of the problem" like Matt Damon "scienced the shit out of being marooned on Mars" but with a weak-kneed assemblage of cowards like we have on Capitol Hill today, a Matt Damon Martian would die instead of being rescued.

Matt Damon serves as a model for our democracy. Our democracy is marooned on the remote desert planet and we need to rescue it.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

My issue with the prospect of a second American civil war is the American divide is not geographic, it is demographic. It is not North v South, it is rural v urban. Dallas-Fort Worth is just as productive and modern, both economically and politically, as any comparable sized urban-suburban sprawl in the northern United States. It is why Republicans have abandoned subsidiarity in Texas.

State fights, if they occur, will first be intramural.

Might be, but predominately the southern states vote Red. If you read the book you will see the war will divide Blue States vs Red States. Of course each state will have some internal fighting as well.