The Revolution Will Be Baumgartenized

This blog, Smacktooth, mentioned an article the author read (which he can't find) about how the polarization of our country is setting us really close to the brink of civil war. That seems a bit far-fetched, though I'm sure someone somewhere wrote an article about it.

Here's his recollection of the article:

The paper talked about the right wings attempts to take over the fundamentals of America again and how they were making giant leaps and bounds under the feeding of George Bush and his administration. The right is well know for stroking the desires of the underclass, like racism, bigotry, and popular anger, and making them seem ok to rally against publicly. Now is as good a time as ever to do it in the post-9/11 environment. America has not had an enemy so easily spotted in ages to gather its forces and opinions against. Now that the uninformed, the uneducated, and the ill mannered can pinpoint a single enemy by the color of his skin, the right has found its launching point and has attacked its issues like a starving dog on meat. "If you're not against them, you’re against us." They've managed to polarize the country in delicate and specific ways not seen on our soil since the first civil war or the civil rights movements of the 60s and 70s, which can now be called a cold civil war.

The paper predicted the election would be close; with rumors flying from both sides of vote fixing that only polarize people into larger groups. Florida would again be a key issue state and where fighting would probably break out first, but in short bursts. It would be escalated by the calling in of the National Guard by Jeb at his brothers urging in the weeks following the election to help the police keep order and ending with the citizens eventually attacking them. The fighting would spread through the bible belt the fastest as the issue would take on people own individual angers and the "believers" would turn on the non. Public violence would die down and flare up for years to come. It wouldn't be a full out fighting civil war because that would involve the turning of massive military units and their commanders. It would most likely be "terrorist activities" against government structures that would unite groups to fight. An "underground militia" would be born and would grow quickly till a national commander was named and he or she would be tagged as equal to bin Laden in Americas common enemy. Assassinations would be common, but mob violence would be sparse in the long run. The economy would suffer from the loss of companies transferring overseas to a more stable location where the government would be more willing to crush revolt, like China or Japan.

This leaves me with some questions. The national head of this underground obviously wouldn't be a public figure, but would he answer to one in a round about way? Would this be to the Republican Party what the IRA is to Shinn Fein or Hamas is to the PLO? Seems unlikely because the connection between the militant groups and the respective parties in both of those cases grew from the feeling of disenfranchisement and futility that came from working through political channels. As the Republicans are currently in power, it doesn't seem like the militancy could grow in that way.

Though it would be a good way to keep power, as Republicans are traditionally considered tougher on crime and better with defense and whatnot. That's only if they could keep themselves distanced from the militants.

So all in all I'm not sure how this militant violence would help the Republicans solidify power . . . though I think the basic point of their catering to an ignorant, prejudiced, fundamentalist base is more or less right on.

The guerrilla angle is more plausible, but way less interesting than an all out lefty vs. righty throwdown. I've been contemplating the logistics of this since smacktooth brought it up. At first I thought our--the left's--chances in full-scale conflict would be pretty slim. I thought we'd get crushed, looking out from my west coast perch over the sea of sociopaths known in the common tongue as the midwest. Plus, other than Clark, I assumed that all military men were Conservatives. So if there was a turning of millitary leaders, most of them would side with the right. Frightening.

Then I remembered an analysis I read in Time--which I can't access here because you have to pay for access to archived articles. Anyways, the gist was that Americans with with college degrees were just as deeply polarized as the nation at large. The divide is more or less along the lines of major. People with liberal arts and sciences degrees tend overwhelmingly to be leftist. Business majors are conservative. Looking at the chief beneficiaries of Bush's tax plan gives proof enough of this.

In that I found hope. While the bible-belters are creating a rigid and labyrinthine bureaucracy charged with running their war machine, the hippy leftists will all form communes dedicated to this and that: effective, eco-friendly weaponry; hemp uniforms; fusion power etc etc. We'd obviously have light sabres. We'd also have the buddhist warrior monks (I'm talking some Shaolin shit, not the Tibetan Buddhists), the yogis--all the crazy eastern religion/martial arts shit. We'd have Tarrantino for rousing soundtracks.

So the trick would be surviving the initial onslaught. Catching and holding them in a war of attrition, probably somewhere in the Rockies is the key. The mountain terrain would leave their hulking tanks ineffective and highly succeptible to the guerrilla campaign by the Forest Service/Green Peace brigade. I imagine some crazy Endor shit going down there, the M1 Abrams tank as useless as the AT-AT walker against the eco-terrorists and forest rangers. Our troops will be better able to handle the psychological trauma of the long mountain standoff because we'll have Tibetan Buddhist chaplains teaching the 8 fold path to the cessation of worldly pain. The Christian Ascetics can come along too.

Once we're deadlocked in the mountains and the seige begins, having most of the scientists and theoreticians will allow us to far outstrip their research and development pace. That's when we get light sabres. These, in the confident and near clairvoyant hands of the buddhist warrior monks, the tide will more or less turn. The yogis will be effective sabboteurs, as they can reverse-digest all manner of contraband and weaponry via the anus and reproduce it at vital moments.

I feel good about our chances.