'CIVIL WAR - PART TWO"

“CIVIL WAR – PART TWO”

I’ve gotten a lot of good and provocative responses to last week’s blog on the possibility of another civil war in America.  The violence has only increased since then, so I’m wondering, wondering, wondering.  The first thought is that these next six months will tell us a lot about our future.  Will the Trumpist Republicans allow significant gun law reform?  The assault weapons ban was lifted during the George W. Bush presidency, and it has been mayhem ever since.  I am not hopeful that the Republicans will do anything significant – they might make the sale of body armor illegal to civilians, or they may allow a limit on the number of bullets available in a clip, but I do not see them going any further, if indeed they go that far.

Such action or inaction will be the first marker of the future.  To continue to allow assault weapons in the hands of civilians will proclaim the willingness and the desire to allow civilians to wreak havoc on society, even encouraging attacks on community institutions like schools and places of worship.  At this point, this scenario seems grim.

    The second marker will be the elections this fall, which now turn out to be omens for the future.  If the Trumpist Republicans win the House and the Senate in the fall, we are in deep trouble, because they are controlled by a vision of dominating white, male supremacy.  The moderates will still control the Presidency, but that may fall in 2024 also.  If the white supremacists win this fall, there will be no significant reform legislation passed in the next years.  Political races in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and other states will tell us a lot about the prospects for 2024, with governor and Senate races pointing towards the future.  There is still hope in this area, because voter turnout is key.  I am assuming that all people who read this blog are registered to vote and will vote.  I am asking you to pursue ten people who are not registered to vote and get them registered to vote.  It means an active working on our part to do this.  Then, make sure that people vote in the fall – it is as simple and as important as that.

    The third marker is the Supreme Court – all of us dread the SCOTUS decision coming this month on the Mississippi law on a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.  The leaked Alito brief makes this a difficult wait to see whether Roe v. Wade will be completely overturned.  Whether it is completely overturned or not, it seems clear that it will be eviscerated, just as SCOTUS eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in 2013.  Another part of this turning will be whether laws like the state of Missouri limiting  the right of women to travel to other states to receive abortions will be upheld.  This is eerily similar to the Dred and Harriet Scott case out of Missouri in 1857, where they were enslaved.  They had traveled to a “free” state and sought their freedom there.  In that case, SCOTUS said that they were not human beings and had no right to even bring a case before the court.

    Thus, it is hard to tell if there will be a civil war in the USA or not in the near future.  It seems clear that we are on the brink of a wave of repression that is coming soon, if the 2022 elections turn out as they are projected now.  One of the questions is what moderates and those on the left will do in response to the repression that is coming.  Get people registered and mobilized to vote – yes.  Contact legislators and seek to get gun reform passed – yes.  Take to the streets in demonstrations to demand justice and equity – yes.  Taking up guns ourselves to protect those who are oppressed and crushed – that is the question.  It may be that our future will be much closer to what Octavia Butler predicted in her book “Parable of the Sower.” In that book, there was no civil war, but there was violence all around, with bands of marauders roaming and attacking, with political ideology not as important as walled and armed camps protecting smaller groups of people.  

    This seems like a harsh and blunt blog, and I hope that I am making the wrong assumption about the short term future.  Younger people, who have responded to me, often indicate that these crazy days are the last throes of a white, male supremacist culture that is in decline. I am hoping that is true, that the forces of white male supremacy and materialism will yield to the power of equity and justice. I am hoping that moderates and progressives will prevail in the fall elections, but right now I hear Margaret Atwood’s voice calling.