Month: December 2018

The Caravan:  Warfare by Other Means

“Don’t worry, man.  Those aren’t narcs, they’re Las Emigras; you know, the Immigration Service looking for illegal aliens.” – Up in Smoke

crossback

Who knew that would be the impact of that one little change? (H/T me.me LINK)

The Caravan on our southern border is an expression of war, and it’s abetted by collaborators right here in the United States.  Or at least in Chicago, which I hear shares a border with the United States.

I’ll explain.

We live in an era dominated by 4th Generation warfare, and have been living in that era since Vietnam.  The “Caravan” of illegal aliens on the southern border of the United States is a concerted attack on the United States using 4th Generation warfare techniques.

Huh?  What the heck is 4th Generation warfare?

Don’t worry – I’ll explain.  I’m a trained professional member of Blog Club™, and the first rule of Blog Club™ is to mention your blog whenever possible – this thing won’t market itself.  Regardless, don’t try this at home or you might end up with and adverb slammed up your philtrum.  To understand what the 4th Generation is, let’s move back in time and understand the first three generations.  These descriptions follow concepts originally developed by William S. Lind (LINK).

In the 1st Generation of warfare, Lind picks the formation of the Treaty of Ghent as his starting point.  Or maybe it was the Simpson’s Treaty of Springfield and Shelbyville.  Regardless of what treaty it was, it essentially took warfare out of the control of small feudal lords and placed primary conduct of war in the smooth clammy fish-like hands of nation-states.  Since warfare back then consisted of cannons, very inaccurate muskets, and lots and lots and lots of dudes, the height of military strategy consisted of lines and masses of men moving to fight lines and masses of men.  It (sort of) made sense.  The muskets were crappy, so everybody shooting all at the same time was a good way to kill the enemy.  Besides, the cannons were inaccurate, too, and needed big targets to shoot at.  Napoleon was certainly the best general of 1st Generation warfare, but, you know, that whole “don’t get involved in a land war in Asia” started with him.  He won lots of battles, but lost the war.  Twice.

napoleon

2nd Generation warfare showed up when machine guns and accurate artillery made standing up in huge masses of dudes a certain prescription to lose the battle and also lose all of your pesky taxpaying citizens who used to be alive.  The real innovation of the 2nd Generation was “hiding” from the machine guns and artillery.  The Civil War in the United States started as a 1st Generation war, and finished with aspects of the 2nd Generation.  The trench warfare during the First World War was the height of 2nd Generation warfare, proving to be an even better way to eliminate your own citizens than standing them up in a line.

dibs

Guess that’s a last tag with Todd.

ktinder

The Kaiser is still on Myspace.  Sad.

The 3rd Generation of war incorporated mobility and the idea that the most rapid gains were based on combining infantry, armor, artillery and air power into a war of motion and position.  The German Blitzkrieg, literally meant “lightning war”, which is probably a good description for the 3rd Generation.  The French had ended 2nd Generation warfare by perfecting it – they created the Maginot Line, a series of fixed fortifications.  This forced the Germans to invent an entirely new method of war to defeat it.

During and after World War II, the United States perfected this 3rd Generation warfare – learning every lesson that the Germans could teach.  And then spending trillions of dollars to perfect an armed forces that is perfectly designed to win World War II.  Again.

panzerfest

Those panzers won’t fuel themselves!

The 4th Generation of warfare started in the latter part of the Vietnam War.  4th Generation warfare strikes at the legitimacy of the state.  Tanks, bombs, and mobility don’t count.  The idea is to win the war without (necessarily) winning any battle.  Whereas the 1st Generation of warfare arrived with the nation-state, the 4th Generation arises as people around the world cease to identify as citizens and begin to primarily identify with tribal, racial, religious or cause-based allegiances.  And yes, you can make the argument that Julius Caesar faced the same sort of guerilla tactics when he invaded Britain, but he didn’t have PNN© (Parchment News Network) showing photographs of the slaughter.  Pics or it didn’t happen.

picts

H/T:  Weapons and Warfare (LINK)

What are some examples of 4th Generation warfare?

  • The Intifada: Palestinians use children to attack Israeli soldiers, hoping for an Israeli soldier to kill the children for an awesome photo opportunity.  Palestinian leaders then launch rockets and missiles at Israel from hospitals and schools, again hoping for as much of their followers blood to be spilled as possible.  Israeli victory depends on . . . not killing these kids.
  • Mogadishu: The warlords walked the streets, surrounded by women and children, again knowing that an American Marine is not going to shoot up non-combatants to get to a bad guy.
  • Antifaâ„¢: To the mother that left her kids out in Berkeley, could you come pick them up?  They’re beating up both Antifa® and the police.
  • The Caravan.

Wait, what?  The Caravan?

Illegal aliens strike at the heart of the nation-state.  If a nation isn’t allowed to control its borders, then how is it a nation?  And there is a group of people inside the United States that are collaborators with the invasion.  They deny that borders should even exist.  An example of tweets from #abolishborders:

  • Shooting teargas at women and children is not “border security”. It’s terrorism.
  • Guess it wasn’t enough for the U.S. government to throw children in concentration camps. This is beyond inhumane. All dirt is the same, and free movement is a human right.

Military force is ineffective against an invasion like the Caravan.  Scenes of violence against unarmed people on TV is powerful propaganda against the middle portion of the United States population that can be swayed to support the aliens.  Imagine the sympathy fest as weepy single moms emote on their way to drop off Brayden, Jayden, Hayden, Aiden and Kirk to their dad who lives in a one-room apartment above the pool hall hear the news on NPR®.  How sad!

Von Clausewitz talked about war being waged on three levels:

  • Physical – Breaking stuff and killing people and taking land.
  • Mental – Making the enemy think what you want them to think. Confusing them.
  • Moral – You have to believe that what you’re fighting for is right, just and correct.

Most military thinkers through the ages (including that French dude, Napoleon) feel that the moral level of war is the most crucial.  If you think what you’re doing is wrong and evil, it’s probably a good bet you’re going to lose.  And if the people back home think you’re evil?  Well, we have Vietnam where news that was looking to support a narrative convinced the majority of the American people that we were on the wrong side morally in the war.  So, we declared victory and left the communists to win.

What if you decide you’re the bad guy?

But there are 4th Generation collaborators on the inside of the United States right now.  A primary organizer of the Caravans is the United States based organization Pueblo Sin Fronteras.  Started by leftist Emma Lozano, this organization is also affiliated with La Familia Latina Unida (LFLU, “The United Latin Family”), and Ms. Lozano is virulently against the United States, noting, “We ride for freedom from our oppressors and we don’t say, ‘please, accept us, we are good workers,’ and make contributions, and wave the U.S. flag.  We know our history – half of the entire United States was originally Mexico.  We have every right to be here.”

According to an email obtained by the Washington Times:

Lozano told supporters that “we will march and run our own Latino independent candidate for president of the United States.” When a staffer for Rep. Gutierrez announced that the congressman wasn’t interested in running for president, Lozano responded that “we’re obligating him to run, we’re not asking him. We’re in a war and when you’re in a war you fight. We’re drafting him.”

You can find much more about Emma here (LINK) or through a casual Google® search.  Based on everything I can find about Ms. Lozano, I would expect that she’s in favor of a racially-based communism that results in the destruction of the United States as we know it and lots of free stuff for people she likes.  And lots of concentration leisure camps for the rest of us.  Free RV parking!

Ms. Lozano is a general in a 4th Generation war.  She is actively seeking to abolish the United States – by directly replacing its people with people that she likes better.  And these activists seek photo opportunities that allow them to establish moral superiority.  I watched footage where a Mexican police officer said (more or less, I’m going from memory):  “Please, please don’t put your women and children in front like this man,” pointing to an activist, “tells you to do.  It’s dangerous.  And he doesn’t care about you or your children.  I’m begging you, don’t put your children up front.”  Pueblo Sin Fronteras is certainly willing to sacrifice your children for a cool photo.

How an organization that encourages and abets breaking the law (Pueblo Sin Fronteras) can operate and not be indicted based on conspiracy charges is beyond me – if this were a right-wing organization I believe the organizers would have been taken to the International Space Station just so they could be shoved out of an airlock as a lesson to others that embarrassing the state is simply not an option.  I guess that I’m forced to conclude that Pueblo Sin Fronteras is doing exactly what government wants them to do.

These activists want pictures of children that were bloodied and killed at the hands of the United States government, and will stop at nothing to get them.  They want to break down the moral will of the United States so that open borders are allowed.  Rather than attempting to take over Dallas at the head of an army, they want to influence the families of the people who live in Dallas to surrender as they never would to what this really is:  a leftist invasion based on an ideology of open borders.

americaclosed

But the logic for open borders is easy to refute:

  • How many people would move to the United States if they could? The answer is:  several billion.  This is simply not realistic.  Where would we keep them?  Does California have a closet and a spare bedroom we don’t know about?
  • Moving all the Guatemalans here doesn’t make Guatemala better – it just makes the United States into Guatemala. Where I live, nobody locks their doors.  In Guatemala?  Locked doors aren’t enough.  You can even argue that, after a point, it does the people who move here no benefit as the system breaks down and the benefits they looked for disappear.  This may be the reason that California is the New Mississippi – the greatest poverty rate in the nation.
  • The values and cultural norms that made the United States great aren’t the values of the invaders. Conscious or not, invasion by an unassimilated alien culture leads to the destruction of the American culture and norms.  And the big value generation-device that our economy has been for 120 years ceases to work.  We become poor.

In order to win this war:

  • The aliens must be gently, firmly, and quickly be sent home.
  • We must stop supporting them with cash if they are here.
  • We must make life here so unhelpful that they voluntarily deport themselves.
  • We must not give their nations cash if they keep coming here.
  • We must stop cash flowing from individuals to their home country.
  • We can help their home countries to build industries and meaningful jobs.
  • If the people like, heck, we could come in and run the country for them since they seem to suck at running countries and we seem to be good at it. Is illegal immigration really the best argument for colonization ever?
  • We must win at the mental and moral levels.

We are in a war.  Are we ready to fight?  Because I don’t think that the 5th Generation of war will be quite as nice as the 4th . . . .

Why Are You Mad At Your Computer? It Doesn’t Care. Plus: A Deeply Meaningful Poem

“They would’ve learned to wear skins, adopted stoic mannerisms, learned the bow and the lance.” – Star Trek

hardwood

Okay, it was really only one color.  But it was a LOT of ink.  Staining and painting.  Stainting?

I rarely saw Pop Wilder mad at any living human being, at least I rarely saw him mad after I reached the age of ten.  And I assure you that I deserved it every single time he was mad at me – drawing on the hardwood floor in ink under my bed wasn’t a particularly popular move – especially since Ma and Pop only discovered it the night before we were supposed to be out of the house so that the new owners could move in.

Oops.

Perhaps his even temper with people was learned.  After being in banking for decades (and having me around for years), I imagine he’d seen everything, including frogs swimming in the World War I helmet his father wore.  It might be that he believed the worst of people, and that way when they weren’t horrible, they pleasantly surprised him, and when he found ink on his hardwood floor and the family photo album soaking in the bathroom sink (I promise I had a good reason)?  Or spray painted the fender of his brand-new car?  Well, that was to be expected.

So, Pop Wilder was a mild and even tempered man and perhaps even a saint for not killing me.  The one exception to him getting angry was that he would get mad at . . . things.  Chainsaws.  Cars.  Snow machines.  The blinking light on his VCR.  In fact, the only time I ever heard him drop the f-bomb was when he was referring to his computer.  He said it not long after I’d introduced him to the future The Mrs., and in her presence.  “It’s . . . it’s all f****d up.”  Honoring Pop Wilder’s tone and frustration make it a form of punctuation in our house when things have just gone completely wrong but in a comical and hopeless manner.

But what I do know is this:  the computer didn’t care.

fbomb

Ahh, the United States Swear Force in action.

Dead Roman Marcus Aurelius nailed it when he wrote, “Pray to change yourself, not your circumstances.”  Marcus wasn’t referring to what was in his control.  Being an Emperor of Rome, Marcus could control a lot of things, but that’s not what frustrated him.  No, Marcus was referring to those things he couldn’t control.  Marcus was going to grow old and die, and he couldn’t change that.  Marcus would be resurrected as shoe salesman in Savannah, and he couldn’t change that, either.  Marcus wanted to change himself so he took those things that he couldn’t control and not react to them.  Why complain about gravity?

stonehead

Marcus Aurelius, with a hipster beard before it was cool.

The computer doesn’t care that you’re mad at it.  The computer won’t change if you speak harshly to it, though I hear Bezos is working on a computer that will buy random things from Amazon® that it knows you won’t like, just to spite you if you’re mean to it.  Honestly, most people don’t care if you’re mad at them, either.  The real secret is, however, that most things simply do not matter on any sort of cosmic scale.  I even wrote you, dear Internet, a poem about that:

The Unblinking Stars

The stars looked down.
When Julius Caesar was born, they looked down.
When Caesar defeated the Gaul, they looked down.
When Caesar died, they looked down.

For every man, for every empire.
The stars looked down.
Unblinking.

When continents split, and then recombined.
The stars looked down.
Nearly eternal.

At every time, at ever place,
Every ambition, every love.
Every betrayal.  Every loyalty.
The stars looked down.

Looking up at them, seeing into eternity.
I gasp.  I wonder.  I check the router.
Oh, good.  The Internet’s back up.
I wonder what just happened on Twitter?

spacekeys

I think that what sets us up to become angry about a situation is contained entirely within ourselves – there’s a way that we think the world should be, and when the world refuses to be that way, we get angry.  And the world doesn’t completely conform to anyone’s hopes and dreams.  From time to time, even I end up comparing my life to someone else’s life.  But I do this particularly awful thing:  I compare what they’re best at, to my accomplishments in the same arena.  Let’s take the business guy I knew.  He had tens of millions of dollars, a house in the mountains, and even a vintage fighter airplane.  I don’t have tens of millions of dollars, a house in the mountains, or any airplane that’s not a model kit that I made when I was a kid.

There’s a lot to envy, isn’t there?  I even think he had a pretty good marriage and smart kids.

Oh, and he’s dead.  And he died in a really dramatic fashion that probably left his widow with nearly no money after the lawsuit and attorney’s fees.  So if I’m going to be envious, I have to be envious of the whole person, not some small aspect of their lives.  It’s a big world and someone, somewhere has it all better than you.  They’re smarter than you, slimmer than you, with a really close, cool family.

And I’m okay with that, too.

One thing that helped me through my own personal envy was . . . cars.  When I lived in Houston, there were really nice cars everywhere.  And by nice, I mean cars that are worth more than my house.  I felt envy.  Then I thought about the car payment that they had to make (I read somewhere that most Mercedes® on the road are not paid for – they’re for show).  That made my four-year-old dad-four door car that I’d bought used seem a LOT better than the Mercedes® driven by the 27 year-old at the stop light next to me.

bitcoin

If you’re a billionaire crime-fighting superhero that found an amulet that gives you super powers but also covers your body in reptilian scales while flying screaming skulls follow you around?  I suppose it’s okay if you buy yourself something nice every once in a while.

To recap:

  • The situation doesn’t care. Don’t get mad at it, especially if it’s beyond your control.
  • Most things really don’t matter – don’t get hung up on the trivia of now.
  • If you won’t remember it next year? It’s probably meaningless.  Don’t sweat it.
  • Don’t compare yourself to others, unless they’re clearly awful in everything compared to you. Then gloat.
  • Expect that your children will destroy thousands and thousands of dollars of your property and at least a dozen priceless, irreplaceable heirlooms. And burn the counter with hot macaroni.  And write on the bathroom walls.  And . . . oh, wait, those were my kids . . .

Wait, what?  I’m Pop Wilder now.  When did that happen?

“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”-Steve Martin Plus? A sniper joke.

“Cash, every movie costs $2,184.” – Bowfinger

wildncrazy

I made this one up for fun when working on this post.  The Mrs. laughed so hard . . . I had to use it.  A link here (LINK) for the age impaired.  Link is probably PG-13.

“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

That was what Steve Martin said when he was being interviewed by now unpersoned Charlie Rose and Rose asked what advice Martin would give to a young person.

Martin continued, “ . . . it’s not the answer they want to hear.”

It isn’t.

People want easy.  People want lottery money.  People want step-by-step guides, complete with phone numbers and instructions on how to become rich and famous.  And they want Steve Martin to do it for them.  Now please, we’re waiting.

Face it:  people want free stuff, not hard work and risk.

I can’t imagine that Steve Martin wants anything for free – he wasn’t raised that way.  He’s been a comedian, musician, screenwriter, playwright, and actor.  He’s been more successful at each of these than almost any person on the planet.  When you combine these successes, Martin starts to look less like an entertainer and more like a National Treasure©.  Maybe a National Treasure® we should keep in Tupperware® and wrapped in the good paper towels so we don’t scratch him.  We’ll get him out when company comes over.

But Steve’s success wasn’t free.  In his book, Born Standing Up, Martin talks about his road to comedy, “I did standup comedy for eighteen years.  Ten of those years were spent learning, four were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.”  This is what those of a certain political persuasion call unearned overnight success.  It is obvious that this success was a result of Martin’s comedic privilege, because it takes a village to raise a comedian.

The concept of spending hours and hours, day after day, year after year seems a bit quaint now, when participation trophies assure every wonderful child that they’ll be successful no matter what.  What seemed fresh and new in his comedy routine when his wild success began was in reality the result of work, study, and effort that took fourteen years.  And he didn’t even have to “accidentally” release a sex tape to make it happen.

Did Martin know that his hard work would make him an icon known all the way around the world, worth millions of dollars?  Probably not.  Although it’s also certain that he didn’t wake up one morning and say, “Omigosh, there’s been some sort of error – where did all this money and stuff come from?”  And that line is comedy gold if you read it in Steve Martin’s voice.

Certainly, Steve Martin didn’t and doesn’t appeal to everyone – his persona of an entertainer that’s “just really bad at it” falls flat with certain people.  But Martin’s dedicated work created a skill set that appealed to enough people that Martin has true freedom – to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.  At one point in Born Standing Up, Martin talks about how stand up became difficult for him when doing huge stadium shows – but he didn’t stop.  There were “too many zeros,” in his paychecks. So, he died an unremembered failure.

No, just kidding.  His next project, a movie called The Jerk, made $180,000,000, despite costing only $2,184 to make.  That was his next step.

I realize that there’s a difference between writing whatever comes to mind and working hard every day, every post, so that today’s writing is better than yesterday’s writing.  And that next week I’ll be better yet.  And that my writing strikes a resonance somewhere, with someone.  It creates value.

adams

This is true.  I still swoon when I think of it.

And getting good at any craft is not entirely straightforward.  Scott Adams (LINK) uses eighteen elements when writing humor, and edits himself ruthlessly.  Scott wasn’t a humor writing machine when he started, but he built his greatness with time and effort.  And it is effort – I watched a short video of Jerry Seinfeld talking about the effort that goes into making just one joke.  It can take an afternoon or more to get it right – and even then he spends time tweaking it, and this is the level of effort that is required by an experienced comedian.  Imagine how much more difficult it would be to be a rookie.

For me, I’m going to work harder, steal everything I can from Martin, Adams, Seinfeld, and study it.

And learn.

seinfeld

Imagine if I never told Jerry to change his hair?

I do want to say thanks to The Mrs., who has greatly encouraged me to get better.  The nice thing is she’s my harshest critic but also the one I won’t slug.  But I will, passive-aggressively, change all the radio presets in her car to Mexican flamenco music.  She’ll never guess that I changed the autocorrect for “John” on her phone to “His High and Most Worthy Lordship.”

martin

Just kidding, The Mrs. isn’t a trained assassin.  But don’t tell The Boy and Pugsley – The Mrs. just assigned them a mission to stealthily clean their bathroom.

I’m working hard to make myself better, every post.  So I can’t be ignored.

But failing that, couldn’t I just play the lottery?

I’ll just leave this here:

Civil War – The Necessary Conditions

“You mean the war betwixt the Yankees and the Americans?” – The Beverly Hillbillies

leegrant2

I hear that Robert E. Lee was voted “Most Likely to Secede” in his West Point class.

A civil war is like a fire.  It consumes the energy and emotions of those around it and leaves destruction, desolation and debt in its wake – just like my first marriage.  But I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about civil wars and the necessary conditions for one.  After thinking about it, I’ve decided that a model for a civil war is fire.

firetriangle

For a fire to burn, it needs three things:  fuel, oxygen, and a spark which in turn creates the continuous burning reaction.  If you’re missing any one of those things, you simply do not have a fire.  An example – The Mrs. and I had a clay fireplace we used out on our deck (this was a long time ago – like during Bush II).  One day I was trying to start a fire in the fireplace, and the fire wouldn’t catch – the wood would just smolder – there was smoke, but no flame.  The reason for that was that the wood was a bit wet.  A-ha!  That’s okay.  I must have some charcoal starter liquid.  I looked in the garage.  All out.

But there was gasoline for the mower in the garage.

I poured just a tiny bit down the chimney of the fire place.  A tiny bit.  An itsy bitsy amount right onto the hot coals from the fire I’d been trying to make.  I looked down the chimney as I dropped a match into the pit.  Suddenly, a flame shot out of the chimney and washed over my face.  I had a beard at that time, and as the flame hit the beard it melted and burnt into kind of a single hair shell on my chin.  It smelled as good as burned blonde beard kebab.  Thankfully, no one was at home, so there were no witnesses when I took the scissors and chopped the welded chunks of congealed beard hair off.

It turns out that gasoline boils at a really low temperature, and when I poured the gasoline down the chimney, it landed on the hot wood that I’d been trying to burn and immediately turned from liquid into hot gasoline vapors.  The hot gasoline vapors were the fuel, fully mixed with the oxygen as they rose up the chimney.  All they needed was that spark, and all the energy stored in the hot gasoline vapors ignited at the speed of sound through the chimney in a de-beardifying whoosh.

But this is a model of Civil War not an ad for the use of flame as a shaving aid.  What allows a civil war to start?

  • Fuel – The differences in our opinions are shown pretty well in the most recent survey done by Pew, which is reproduced right below through the power of Internet sorcery. The Right is moving farther right.  The Left is moving farther left.  And in both cases the degree of overlap drops.  This increasingly small overlap between left and right means we’re not even talking the same language.  We look at the same picture, the same news story and react in entirely opposite ways.  The more fuel that builds up (generally) the greater the energy released when the fire starts.  Look to see a lot of hipster beards on fire.

pewthree

  • Spark – A spark is an event that’s bold, audacious, emotional, and one that means there’s no going back, things will never be the same again. These are often followed up by escalations, each one following the narrative of the split (the fuel for the fire) of the Godly and good us versus the evil baby-hating them:  shelling Fort Sumter; Caesar crossing the Rubicon at the head of his Legions; the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; and that night that Donald Trump poured sugar into Hillary Clinton’s gas tank.

rubicon2

  • Oxygen – This is required for the fire to go – it feeds the chemical combustion. In this civil war/fire analogy, oxygen is symbolic of the opposing governmental structure.  In the Revolutionary War it was the Congress of the States that declared the war.  In the Civil War?  The Confederate States organized and met.  Even Caesar had at his disposal the governmental structure of the Legions that he commanded and the means to provide for them.  In all cases, a civil war needs a governmental structure to move from isolated insurrection to true war.

government

In 2018 I think there’s a lot of fuel built up – the division between Left and Right is increasing.  Twitter®, the Fake News (Pulp Fiction, Epsilon Theory, and The News Isn’t The News. Really.) and the concentrated attempts to deplatform entire viewpoints (Civil War, Cool Maps, Censorship, and is Fort Sumter . . . Happening Now?) are examples.  The Left is even rioting against free speech – the very thing the Left rioted to allow in the 1960’s.

I think the fuel is currently pretty wet – it’s inhibited because people just have so much darn stuff.  Who wants to go down to fight Antifa© when you’ve got to get to work the next morning so you can earn money to make payments on your new F-150 and you’ve got beer in the fridge and Netflix® on the television, which is probably more fun than punching smelly hippies?

Even Antifa™ has to get home early so they can keep working at Starbucks® and Mom still has them on a curfew.  But make no mistake – they have no interest in finding common ground – they want to fight.  And they don’t want to hear what anyone else has to say.  From CNN:

“Antifa members also sometimes launch attacks against people who aren’t physically attacking them. The movement, Crow said, sees alt-right hate speech as violent, and for that, its activists have opted to meet violence with violence.”  So, other people’s speech is violence, and their violence is only speech?

antifa(H/T AR15.COM – warning, naughty words)

But a prolonged economic downturn will dry the fuel out quickly.  Janis Joplin taught us that freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose (and that Bobby McGee could really sing the blues), and we won’t have Civil War 2.0 until people have nothing to lose.  The saving grace for many years has been the all the “stuff” that we have.  Before then we’ve had a fairly homogeneous population with (for the most part) deeply shared values.

We have sparks everywhere – from marches and riots to new laws and elections – things that drive both sides crazy.  These will intensify during an economic downturn, and will be played up in the press.  Conflict sells ads.

We are, however, missing the oxygen – the governmental structure that benefits from the war.  The current governing powers aren’t threatened by Antifa®.  They’re not really even threatened by Trump, since very few of his accomplishments will outlast his time in office – Supreme Court Justice appointments being a notable exception.  The swamp remains intact.  Government certainly isn’t threatened by the very far right, since two out of three Klan members (all, what, 1000 of them?)  are FBI agents or informants anyway.  And individual states have been more-or-less neutered since the Civil War changed the nature of the agreement between federal and state governments.

Civil war?  No.  Not unless the economy worsens, and not unless there’s a structure that benefits “the other side” – and who on Earth would benefit from a civil war in the United States?

aliens

Notes:

I am not the first use the fire triangle analogy when it comes to war – I found a reference to a Major Patrick Pascall who used a similar model in a 2009 paper to describe the insurgency in Iraq (LINK).  As far as I can tell, though, I’m the first to use it in this manner.  Yay, me!

Fire Triangle By Wikimedia User:  Gustavb – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, snarky comments:  me.