America's "Civil War" is really just a propaganda war so far

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But I wish to know who exactly is pulling the strings here and what their agenda is?

I just find it very hard to believe that an orange doofus like Trump is the sole cause of all this turmoil. If anything he's being exploited as a convient scapegoat by the press to distract us from whatever is really causing the US to fall apart like it is.

Numerous books and articles have been written on why we are still fighting the Civil War.

Basically, there are people who whole-heartedly believe that America was founded solely by and for the white people, and that Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse was coerced and therefore invalid.

Propaganda only? Look again. Systemic racism against minorities is rampant in America, especially in the Deep South.

I don't under how the US can be both entirely racist and yet the 'Deep South' gets all the blame for racism and slavery. Either you damn yankees and coastal elites own up to the fact that you were just as much responsible for the racism slavery and forcing indigenous peoples off their lands in our society or STFU.

I really wish Americans were bright enough to at least focus on their own survival as a nation and wise up to the fact that killing each other in another stupid civil war is a BAD f*****g THING!

But at this point I'm starting to think we really do deserve whatever collapse and/or dictatorship awaits us in the future.

Because Americans are just too goddamn braindead to see the bigger picture on anything.

I. Hate. This. Stupid. Country!

The South gets more blame for racism than the North because they were much louder and much more violent about it for much longer. The North did not fight a war to uphold slavery; the North did not maintain strict, de jure segregation until the federal government stepped in. When you live in a society that accepts slavery on the basis of race, then that is going to take a collective toll on that society's conscience. This is not unique to the South. Americans from all corners of the country still downplay the seriousness of slavery and make excuses for the fact that they treat slaveholders as meaningful authorities on freedom or democracy. Americans from all over rationalize the displacement of native peoples in one way or another, and rationalize America's collective inaction on addressing native grievances.

The South is and has been more racist than the north, but the obvious racism of the South has made many northerners blind to their own racism. Ironically, few people are more convinced that all of America is racist than a Southerner who is attempting to deflect criticism of the South's record on race. The South still deserves more scrutiny, as they still make excuses for slavery (even more than the North--and that's saying something) and some even consider southern whites to be the real victims in all of this.

Last edited by roronoa79 on 13 Dec 2023, 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by propaganda war but...
Yeah, many in recent years have argued that the US is in the midst of a sort of Cold Civil War. Although there is no armed conflict, many see American society as increasingly hostile and divided. The political center has worn away in the last few decades for a number of reasons. Moderate, classical liberal capitalism had been the glue holding together right and left, but both sides have grown more and more disillusioned with the status quo. Both sides increasingly see their ideas as fundamentally incompatible with or opposed to the ideas of the other--and any sheepish compromises from the center seem as a sort of "worst of both worlds".

In this Cold Civil War, battles aren't held at places like Bull Run or Shiloh. Battles are fought for control of institutions and the hearts and minds of the public. Battles are fought over school curricula. Battles are fought over what the editors print the paper. Battles are fought for what you can say on social media. Battles are fought over standing for the national anthem. Battles are fought over corporate policy on social issues. Battles of ideas are fought on forums like this one. Battles are fought over college admissions. Battles are fought over who gets to speak on campus. I'm guessing this is the kind of thing you mean when you refer to the propaganda war?

Generally speaking, the left has had the upper hand. I don't mean that as gloating so much as a blunt statement of fact. I read conservative news and opinion almost every day, and they seem to agree with this sentiment.

It is hard to see this Cold Civil War turning into an actual armed conflict, given how unevenly the opposing sides are distributed. The divisions arent regional so much as they are urban vs rural. I could, however, see the situation devolve into low-level violent civil conflict like the Troubles in Ireland. Hopefully it will not come to that.

Last edited by roronoa79 on 13 Dec 2023, 10:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I cited the "Deep South" because the most egregious examples can be found there (look up the case of James Byrd, for example). There is plenty of blame to go around, however. Labor unions in the North seem to have a more covert form of racism -- bordering on tokenism -- that still marginalizes minorities while non-minorities seem to enjoy higher status. A policy of "Last hired, first fired" seems to be fair until you look deeper and see that minorities seem to be most affected.

I have a feeling it already has devolved into this with all these mass murders and riots happening lately. We just refuse to acknowledge it.

And you know what else I see happening?

One side or the other winning all power and turning the US into an opprressive dictatorship.

There was a lecture that Mark Blyth delivered back in November of 2016 called 'Global Trumpism'. He nailed a lot of things to the wall in that, particularly the break between wages and productivity that seemed to start in 1973 and from then on real wages haven been getting tighter and tighter, which lead to the credit boom of the 2000's attempting to make up the gap between the two, and it's continued in the same direction that he suggested lead from the pre WW2 order into WW2 which had Keyenesianism on the other side.

It seems like any system we have can last for a few decades before it becomes static enough that people figure out ways to hack / game the rules and once that's done there has to be some other largely mindless convolution to something cartoonishly opposite of whatever we just left. It seems like strong evidence that groups of humans are most often far less than the sum of their parts and that the 'collective' lives in a very solipsistic, narcissistic kind of self-referential dream. It would be really sad if literally 'hard times' was the only cure for 'weak men / women', what follows that kind of decadence and stupidity is often carnage.

I have some hope that AI will be enough of a distraction to completely reorient us. Maybe, maybe not, I guess it just depends how strange that gets.

In other words white southerners get to be the white people that other white people love to hate, just like the Russians and Germans.

Yeah, I already get that.

Buuut on the other hand, I have a lot of contempt for the Deep South myself. I just don't like feeling subjected to all the negative stereotypes linked to this region. (Racist, inbreeding, stupid, etc)

I think what I hate most about the American South isn't just the racism or the weird obsession with the Civil War and Trump. It's the fact that nobody here wants to improve their existance. Being intelligent and seeking a higher education so you can find a better career is deeply frowned on around here. The "Bible Belt" is all but a theocracy where people are shamed for not being Christian by these hateful hypocrites in church. And did I mention the fact that drugs and drinking are a HUGE problem in all these small communities yet if you try to steer clear of those things people will treat you like you're being a social pariah? Healthcare for the mentally ill ranks as some of the worst in this region... and don't even get me started on the teenage girls here who throw their lives away before finishing high school by getting pregant by 4 or 5 different baby daddies. Also as I said in another topic, southern "hospitality" really is a myth. They're gruff and bitter people who will talk nice to your face and then trash talk you behind your back. Also there's the ignorance for.... everything.

And it's not just white southerners who are like this believe me when I say I've lived in a group home long enough to know that black southerners are just as guilty of this mindset.

The South is definetly the least progressive part of the US and they hate it when their own try to improve in any kind of way. I'll admit that at least.

Trump is both a symptom of the divisions and a cause of making those divisions worse.

He is a symptom but I don't believe he's the sole cause though. I think he's more like the gasoline being poured on a slow-burning fire. I think that the United States of Amnesia seems to forget that our country started going steadily downhill ever since the George W. Bush years of 9/11 and the stupid "War on Terror" which had absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump.

I've often thought of what happened to The Twin Towers as being symbolic of "The Tower" card in tarot.

The beginning of the end, the fall of a mighty empire brought on by their own arroagance.



"16. THE TOWER.-- Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe. Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, distraction, apathy, nullity, vanity."

Sounds just like Ammmuuurrriicccaa today...

Now, I would not shed a single tear for Trump Tower if it were burn to the ground.