The Second American Civil War

Perhaps it is the inevitable outcome of cynical modern Western wedge politics. Yesterday I wrote:

There is a low-level Civil War brewing in the USA, a totally pacific one at the moment, pitting pro- and anti-Bush voices against one another...

This morning I made the mistake of taking another look at Jeff "Don't Call Me Jeffrey!" Goldstein's pro-Zionist blog and found that he is also discussing civil war:

Never before in my lifetime did I find it even remotely possible that our country could fight another civil war. But I’m beginning to think that a (non-violent) civil war is coming — and that, frankly, it needs to happen. How it transpires, I have no idea — though I suspect migration patterns and a strong move to re-affirm federalist principles could provide the groundwork.

Goldstein cites the anti-Bush "Storm The White House" protest (my previous post here) as evidence of a "Left Wing Coup" threat. Predictably, a few regular buffoons get stirred up:

I for one hope it comes to civil war, I’m ready. Should be over in a day or two.

One twit makes his point by linking to a video of Southern kids learning to shoot machine guns. Another fool compares Feingold's call for censure to Lindbergh praising Hitler in 1942 (which makes about as much sense as the Wall Street Journal calling Bush's opponents "Orwellian").

But it's not all as gung-ho as it used to be in Jeffrey's comments section. When one wingnut insists that the USA has moved to the right of Bush, it's symptomatic of a broader disenchantment with the Bush & Co. agenda. You can't keep blaming the "left wing media" forever, as another poster says.

As long as there is a left-right divide in politics, of course, there will always be radicals at both fringes. But that is not what I mean when I talk about Civil War - I am talking about a divided nation going through a process that leads inevitably to revolutionary change. And what's interesting is that both Left and Right seem to agree that revolutionary sociopolitical change is exactly what is required now. The form that change will take - and who will lead it - remain to be determined.