Is Civil War Coming to America?

Our brains are not programmed to remember every minute detail of the dreams that play through them while we sleep, yet in spite of this handicap I have an unusually clear recollection of the dreams that visited me night after night during the summer and autumn of 2009. Each one was remarkably similar: the dream would begin with me traveling up and down a road that stood alongside a beautiful stretch of coastal land, a stretch which looked very much like the gorgeous Maine coastline where I grew up. These dream world travels were always at sundown, with a beautiful red and yellow sky giving a last bit of brilliant illumination to the shimmering surface of the water as it crashed against rocks and cliffs. And in these dreams there was always an overwhelming feeling of dread, sometimes given voice by another person who accompanied me, telling me that I should enjoy the tremendous beauty of this world while it lasted, because a terrible cataclysm was about the befall the land and change it forever.

It was not a coincidence that these dreams took place during the bitter town hall fights over healthcare reform, for my subconscious was taking what I was seeing and using it to resurrect a fear that had been with me since the very beginning of the George W. Bush years, a fear which had temporarily subsided with the election of Barack Obama. For a brief moment during those weeks of hyperpartisan rancor, America seemed genuinely on the verge of losing its collective mind. There were emotionally heated arguments and threats of violence at town hall meetings. Right wing media personalities were starting to openly talk of revolution and people were carrying guns to protests. The Tea Party movement was gaining real traction and there were reports that the Secret Service was receiving an unprecedented number of threats against the life of our president. And my dreams of a beautiful world about to be destroyed were manifestations of my fear that my lifetime would see the start of a second American Civil War. I am not a survivalist, a militiaman or a crazed conspiracy theorist, but it is ludicrous for us to believe that large scale political violence cannot happen here while we simultaneously wallow in a social climate that has become conducive to it.

On February 18 we got a taste of what that future may look like when Joseph Stack, an apparently mild-mannered software engineer with longstanding tax problems, crashed his private plane into a complex of IRS offices in Austin, Texas, killing himself and a federal employee, not to mention injuring thirteen others and doing considerable damage to the building. Before he died, Stack posted a rambling manifesto online that, in addition to attacking the IRS, the federal government and the bank bailouts, also betrayed a real sense of disillusionment with the American dream. “We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy,” he wrote. “Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all.  We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers.  Remember? One of these was ‘no taxation without representation’.  I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood.  These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a ‘crackpot’, traitor and worse.”

It didn’t take long for certain vocal members of the right wing block to start praising Stack as a folk hero. Social networking groups celebrating his act of suicide terrorism popped up within hours of the event, and it is quite clear that many right wingers consider him to be a martyr for their cause, even though the manifesto itself reads more like an amalgamation of left wing and right wing grievances. Stack’s problems even found some sympathy with members of the progressive movement, who voiced support for his motivations even while condemning his actions themselves. “I have to admit, if Joe Stack had flown his plane into the new headquarters of Goldman Sachs, it would be tempting to label him a hero. His political leanings notwithstanding, his act clearly falls within the FBI definition of a Domestic Terror attack,” wrote one Davis Fleetwood on this very website.

The martyrdom of Stack exposes a real problem, which is that support for political violence has started to enter the mainstream of American society, and we progressives must come to terms with the following unpleasant fact: unless things change dramatically in this country, and change soon, there are probably going to be more Joseph Stacks, and a lot more people are going to die. And if things can’t change, then we may very well find that the same kind destruction and chaos that has torn apart other once prosperous societies is going to start playing out in our neighborhoods and our streets. We must not say that it cannot happen here, for, with reports that the fanatical armed militia movement is again on the rise, it is quite obvious that there are already people who are planning for it to happen here.

What we have seen since last summer has been an elaborate dance between the rank and file of the Tea Party movement, the Republican Party and their corporate sponsors. The GOP and the big money backers are both encouraging the radicalization of the movement while trying to control it and direct its actions. They have not always been successful, as the election of Democrat Bill Owens (who took a House seat in New York held by Republicans for over a century after a vicious spat between a mainstream Republican candidate and a third-party right winger supported by the Tea Party crowd) proved last fall. There is a growing awareness among mainstream Republicans that their inability to fully control the movement could be dangerous for the future of their establishment, yet they continue to support it. The dance between these players bears a frightening similarity to a dance that has taken place so often in the Middle East, where Arab governments have alternately coddled, armed, funded, arrested and militarily fought extremist groups depending on their political needs of the moment.

Militant, violent sentiment is not nearly as common on the left as of yet, but I have seen signs that there are those within the progressive movement who have started to believe that some form of violent confrontation, either with right-wing groups or with a future government that is dominated by right wingers, may be necessary at some point in the future. There is a real sense of disillusionment within our movement right now. We have been let down by the president who we worked so hard to elect. Barack Obama has betrayed the principles he pledged to fight for, and by doing so he has broken our collective hearts. There is a very real risk that this terrible disappointment will continue the process by which we lose our faith in our ability to effect change through non-violent, political means. When the political system loses its last traces of legitimacy, when people lose faith in the ability of politics to deliver their needs, violence stops looking unthinkable and starts looking necessary, even attractive. The American Civil War rose out of the inability of our political system to deal with an intractable problem – slavery – that aroused strong passions on both sides. Even before the Civil War, the abortive uprising of John Brown and the battles between pro-slave and anti-slave factions in “Bleeding Kansas” showed that there were those on both sides of the issue who were willing to kill and be killed over it.

Contrary to what the Tea Partiers fantasize, a second American Civil War will not be a replay of 1776, nor is it likely to be an exact replay of 1861. It’s little realized by some, but at the time that these events were taking place America did not have the collective national identity that we have today. In large part that collective national identity was forged from the Civil War, and even though we have seen some right wing politicians flirt with the idea of secessionism, it’s unlikely that we’ll see states breaking off in groups trying to form new nations. A second Civil War is more likely to look like an Iraq or a Colombia, which is to say a lot of guerilla fighting and political terrorism, with an occasional conventional battle thrown into the mix. Those who fantasize about such a war should carefully examine what the people living in those countries have had to endure.

I for one can imagine what such a war would look like. I can imagine being woken up in the middle of the night by mortar and artillery fire. I can imagine women and children killed by faulty intelligence that directs an F-16 to bomb their house on the belief that insurgent leaders are hiding there. I can imagine highways littered with the burned out wrecks of automobiles, destroyed by unmanned drones who detected the presence of guerillas in them. I can imagine my elderly parents and grandparents dying of preventable causes because hostile fire and military roadblocks have prevented them from getting to the hospital. I can imagine naval blockades, national parks despoiled by land mines and booby traps and communities no longer safe for habitation because of contamination from depleted uranium weapons. I can also imagine the political steps that our increasingly authoritarian government would take to combat such an insurrection. Goodbye to habeas corpus. Goodbye to privacy and freedom of speech. And hello to Department of Homeland Security detention centers, electronic eavesdropping and torture.

It is because I can imagine all of these things that I have no sympathy for the Joseph Stacks out there. In the past year and a half I have felt the sting of unemployment. I have gone hungry and I have had to self medicate for lack of health insurance. I have experienced every terrible emotion out there: fear, anguish, insecurity, depression, rage and even bitter, apocalyptic hatred for those in power who have done these terrible things to my country and my world. Because I have felt all this I feel that I can empathize with the rank and file of the Tea Party, who seem to be going through these same emotions. And I am convinced more than ever that violence is not the best way to solve our problems, and that these people are not our real enemies, no matter our differences or what they may think of us.

Conservatism is not our enemy. Does anyone really believe that what happened during those eight years of George W. Bush was conservatism? Warrantless wiretapping, torture, bailouts for undeserving corporate entities, massive government spending, massive government debt and enormous government corruption are all incompatible with traditional conservative values. “Free market” fundamentalism is not just destructive to human health, civil liberties and economic equality. It’s also destructive to traditional values, family life and religious expression, all things that the real conservatives value in their hearts. The rift between liberalism and conservatism is as old as society. There will always be those who favor the old traditional ways and those who seek to change things. Our enemy is not each other, but rather the political and financial elites who have hijacked this country. These elites have donned the clothes of conservatives and are increasingly adding liberalism to their wardrobe, but they are neither. The government under their rule has become a monster, an evil being stitched together from disparate parts meant to funnel money to the surgeons. Working alone we progressives cannot turn such a beast into a compassionate machine of social welfare any more than conservatives can dismantle it and burn all the pieces.

Although this notion runs contrary to the orthodoxy of our progressive movement, I am going to advance it anyways by saying this: our most essential task at this point is not healthcare reform, environmentalism, ending the wars or restoring civil liberties. Our most essential task is to start calling things by their proper names and identifying areas where rank and file liberals and conservatives have common interests. We need to work together. I know that this will result in a lot of eye rolling and groaning amongst progressives who read these words. “Work together? With those maniacs? They’re fanatics, they can’t be reasoned with!” I used to say that myself, but I am now convinced that there is no other alternative. The frequent disputes and changing alliances within what is commonly identified as the right wing  show that it is not a monolithic alliance, but a coalition with its own dynamics and competing values. We must make a distinction between conservatism and corporatism. Conservatism is not our enemy. Corporatism is. Only through concerted action from both sides can corporatism be defeated.

I admit that skepticism of an opinion such as mine is warranted. Let me be clear: those in the right wing block who insist that there is nothing wrong with a corporate dominated state or that George W. Bush was the second coming of Jesus are not our friends and are a part of the problem. Those who are upset with the government and the bailouts, and unhappy with the state of the economy and the country, are our friends, or at least are our potential friends, even if they hold contrary views about things like guns, abortion, religion and general morality. We must make a distinction between them and the big money elite that is running the show. And we must agree to disagree on some things. We must not proselytize or try to convert them into progressives, nor should we tolerate attempts by them to proselytize or convert us. We must also not engage in the type of faux bipartisanship that has led the Democrats to surrender their positions wholesale to the Republicans. But we must understand that there is more that unites us than what divides us. We need to talk with each other. Each side needs to see that the other side does not have horns, and is not trying to wrestle their most cherished beliefs from them.

As Joseph Stack concluded his manifesto, he wrote that “violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.” But I have no desire to live in a country beset by anarchy and death. If we fall into the trap of believing that civil war and revolution are the only course, and that there is no possibility of working with the other side, then it will become the only course and it will become inevitable. And Joseph Stack will be viewed not just as a sad failure of a man but as a modern John Brown who helped precipitate an American tragedy of unbelievable destruction.