[TITAN]

I see no way out of the U.S. spiraling down into a civil war. My guess is 2 years from now or less.

[Adelaidewonderer]

And the winner of the civil war gets what???? A $14.3 Trillion dollar debt. Or is it fair to say that once the civil war is over, the debt would be about $25 Trillion. Surely if someone in the US was looking for a fight, they would at least go after Canada or Mexico. After all, more Natural resources, and a forced breeding with the locals would increase the aggresors IQ.

[papa moose]

The winner gets to wipe the slate clean, obviously that $14.3T debt belonged to the losers side!

[PrestonSturges]

I see no way out of the U.S. spiraling down into a civil war. My guess is 2 years from now or less.

Oh do go on....

[jdumars]

I truly believe geography has rendered both civil war and revolution in this country impossible. Both of those things require proximity. Collapse and rebirth as "something else" is the only option, and it is quite possible that geographic "ideologic centers" will rise up, which could (and would) have strong fighting and purging of non-conformist community members. These could be as large as a city or as small as a village, and the rule of law will depend on what the prevailing mores are.

[Novus]

If I were a betting man I would vote never. There won't be an armed conflict over cession like it 1861 when the South ceded from the Union.

A more likely scenario we could see before 2020 is the "Peaceful" break up of the states similar to Russia in 1992. A state like California could solve most of its Financial problems by breaking away and becoming an independent country. No Federal taxes at all. Don't have to listen to the federal reserve anymore so they can print their own currency. Also value the currency for an export based economy to bring back jobs. The North East Blue states from New Jersey to Maine could break off together as one new country as well.

[mos6507]

There's been a lot of secession talk lately. The left/right divide is being expressed in almost militant terms. So I don't blame anybody for thinking there might be a civil war, but what has moderated that is the tea party wave. Now those who are pissed off that a "black socialist" is in the whitehouse have allies in Washington to gut the EPA and fellate the Koch brothers. So things are probably diffused.

[vtsnowedin]

The states without any oil, natural gas, or coal will have to be very nice to the ones that do. Hopefully a market economy can solve all those issues without either side resorting to armed force.

[gollum]

I'm with the above poster and vote for breakup before civil war, especially if that is through succession. I don't think we have it in us anymore to actually fight to keep the country together, especially in a time the federal government is proving to be incompetent and resources are declining. I predict an Eastern European future at best, and Somalia at worst.

[gollum]

I did vote after 2020 because I think there's when things really begin to fall apart for the country, I think there is always an expectation in the doomer community to underestimate the amount of time it takes for a system to collapse.

[Pops]

So who are going to be the sides in this war, pray tell?

Old white tea partiers vs young black socialists?

Rush-ians vs school teachers?

maybe Southerners vs Northeners? the east vs west? Suburbanites vs farmers?

[Lore]

The whole idea is preposterous. Rather, plan for tribal warfare when civilization dissolves into anarchy.

[teotwawki]

Most likely never. Between all the gene altering behavior morphing mandatory "vaccinations" that are being given out "for our safety", and the chemtrails, fluoride and microwave radiation; and all the docile-ization of being petted and groped by the governmint we are being desensitized into the new world order. Part of the faux rioting/protests throughout the world is to put on a show for peeps back here at home, to dissuade those inclined to protest or revolt by giving them a sort of vicarious outlet through the mass media's propagandized sensationalism through which they can scratch that existential itch without having to actually do anything about it. Wikileaks was the same movement. The CIA killed three birds with one stone by scooping up all the leakers (who didn't think to think they would be leaking into the hands of the Uncle), satisfying and satiating the publics desires for these leaks (the Wikileak sensationalism has played out, so next time if and when there is a genuine leak no one will care, we will have gotten used to it) and making an example out of these leakers by giving Manning the death penalty (in fact he is a pawn/ sacrificial lamb played by his masters) serves as a credible deterrent against any REAL leaks or leakers. We have become a nation of armchair citizens, football, religion, american idol, internet porn, all mindless entertainment to keep us running in the labyrinthine of TPTB's design. It is either facebook this or twitter that or CNN here or ipad 2.0/3.0, Android Honeycomb, Google Instant, we might as well Star Trek convert ourselves into bit-streams and transporter into the Internets/Cloud a la TRON style. Every four years we get the illusion of choice and freedom to elect for "change", and I think part of the indigenous beauty of the system is that these 'democracies' know its constituents truly better than they know themselves. Too bad the so called totalitarian regimes can't learn a page from the US playbook. (but then again we'd just resort to some other excuse to attack them) Human nature abhors change but the modern individual is keen to the mere idealistic illusion of superficial surface level change. In essence, they are giving us exactly what we want and what we deserve. The sands of the Colosseum. Unlike what is happening in the Middle East, US controls the Internets, the news, the monetary world order.. QE3.0 +will keep the US relatively stable while we watch the decintigration of the rest of the world on our 1080p flat screen HDTV's here at home and surf porn alongside football scores in our Google Chrome v10.0.648.126 Beta browsers. There will be no revolts much less any civil war in the US. We will be unbeknowingly thanking our lucky stars that the governmint sacrificed those other poor third world souls instead of us. And shortly after that we will be on the Halliburton chopping blocks. TPTB will starve us to death and we will thank them for it.

[Pops]

Gas, you're just spouting gas, if you'll pardon me saying so.

Where for example does the line get drawn between Ordinary Folk and Bankers?

Are "bankers" the tellers?
the ATM repair guy?
the armored car driver?
the IT person at the headquarters?
the stockholders like unions and mutual funds?


PS, teotw, try using some paragraph breaks if you want someone to read your post :^)

[kublikhan]

I see no way out of the U.S. spiraling down into a civil war. My guess is 2 years from now or less.

I don't get it. This country has many problems yes. But a civil war? Who are the sides? What are they fighting over? For decades before the American civil war, there were 2 clearly defined sides with specific agendas in specific locations. Nothing like that now. Yet you think sometime in the next 2 years the country will break into a civil war? Seems about as likely as flying pigs to me. Could you at least elaborate what drove you to this conclusion, what the sides would be, etc?

[Beery]

While it's almost certain that a civil war will break out in the US at some point in the future (after all, the Earth has a few million years left), I very much doubt there'll be a civil war in the next 50 years or so.

[pup55]

We did this calculation the other day, didn't we?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... W-fbMSAbMA

Half of the children in the US depend on food stamps at some point in their lives. About 25 percent of the US population is under 18, so we're talking about 76 million kids, of which 38 million are either on, have been on, or are going to be on food stamps. Add to that their 20 million single moms.... 58 million...


http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfac ... ot/#table1

Number of people on social security: 59 million, nearly 1/6 of the population.

http://www.google.com/?q=number+of+fede ... =firefox-a

Number of actual non-military federal employees: 2.5 million, add to that another 2.5 million spouses and others....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces

Number of military personnel: About 1.4 million, add to that, of course, the families and significant others....and also add to that the "civilian contractors" of which there are at least 100,000 in Iraq alone....

so: 58 plus 59 plus 5 plus 3, about 126 million out of the 300 million are directly dependent on the US government for support.

Add to that the employees of the defense contractors:
lockheed 135,000
boeing 80,000
general dynamics 91,000
At least another half million, plus their families, another million....

Add to that the owners of all of the bars, convenience stores, nail salons, and other hangers on with places outside the gates of the 75 or so military bases around the country....all of the McDonalds, all of the Walmarts and everyone else that is one degree of separation away from either the military, social security or welfare systems in the country....

and we have not even started to count the numbers that are directly associated with medicare.... the makers,distributors, sellers of the hoverround, viagra, the "help I've fallen and can't get up" gadget.... all of those people directly derive their income from medicare which comes from the US Government....including a lot of the doctors in the country.....

There are somewhere on the order of 20 million resident aliens, legal and illegal... are they going to fight anybody?

There will be no revolution as long as the money train keeps coming to all of these places...

I just had to laugh, the other day, when Saudi came up with X number of billion dollars for their population so that they would not revolt. What do you think is happening in the US?

[ian807]

I'm not sure it will be a "civil war" so much as a "civil ignore" as the government in Washington, DC becomes progressively more corrupt and bankrupt.

When the central government is too financially bankrupt to disburse money that anyone accepts, defend its territory, enforce laws or honor international agreements, I'm not sure how you can still refer to it as a "government."

States, and groups of states will go their own ways. They all have weapons and most have nukes stashed strategically away. Nobody's going to stop California and Texas from acting as independent countries, even if there's never an officially acknowledged revolution, or succession. They'll just start making their own agreements with China, Mexico and each other, and Washington will be powerless to stop them.

Personally, I'm not wild about this. I think it's what the Koch's had in mind all along. A strong democratic USA with an engaged voting public is a thorn in the side to the wealthy, who could care less about any country. China, I expect, will be broken up next.