Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Are we already inside a civil war?
John Batchelor Show ^ | 12 May 2017 | John Batchelor Show

Posted on 05/14/2017 9:37:07 AM PDT by dontreadthis

Friday 12 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block A: Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Strategy and Policy Department, US Naval War College, in re: Two conflicting ideas, each side sure it's right. Turns out to be a basis for civil war. No compromise, no surrender. Here, we have two kings; One is Clinton and one is Trump. Civil wars are always existential and always welcomed. All about who will have and hold legitimacy: who owns virtue, (the civil religion), what is right and true. Also, when one group of brothers sees the other one as The Other. Because it’s between intimates it becomes extremely bitter. The proximate issue is identity – who has the right and authority to define how you should think and believe. Each side demands submission by the other (art of the existential equation); nether side can accommodate. The defining moment occurs when one side tells the other: I will not submit. Thereafter, it’s a matter of who makes the first violent move. David Armitage, History of Civil Wars: “Sing of civil war” [quotation] The failure of America as a redeemer nation has corroded it [centrally]. . . . Civil Was south was crated and maintained by latifundio-style oligarchs with a slaveocracy vision. Today, those elites are seen in the US in the [coastal elites] who tell us how to think. The Democrats’s conduct is a natural response to the ruling elites, [in effect a rebellion against that tyranny]. Friday 12 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block B: Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Strategy and Policy Department, US Naval War College, in re: Civil war II; Jeff Davis. Finish quotation from Seventeenth Century poetry. Caesar’s assassination. Shakespeare: Mark Anthony’s funeral oration over the Caesar’s body. Spanish civil war: tore Spain apart for sixty years as there was no way to reach reconciliation. Same in the US in 1860 – no figure to bring the country together; same today – no Teddy Roosevelt or the like. I despair.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: batchelor; civilwar2; civilwarii; vlahos; waragainstparagraphs
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-39 next last
worth a listen for an historical perspective
1 posted on 05/14/2017 9:37:07 AM PDT by dontreadthis
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

; nether side can accommodate...”

There would be no America if niether side could accomodate. One side hasn’t changed, one HAS.


2 posted on 05/14/2017 9:51:59 AM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAvq73a82T0&index=18&list=FLLBSYHqFQCmCkmPaaMRgQ4g


3 posted on 05/14/2017 9:52:02 AM PDT by MrEdd (MrEdd)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

Very interesting...


4 posted on 05/14/2017 9:54:44 AM PDT by heterosupremacist (Domine Iesu Christe, Filius Dei, miserere me peccatorem!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

I prefer the old school approach. This current ‘bloodless’ civil war is replete with nothing but cheats, crooks and liars and though that’s just the enemy the enemy includes a good chunk of the republican leadership and other Fakers

I prefer a solid target to aim at. The enemy does not present one. They hide and strike from behind skirts and children and race, then scurry to their holes to giggle. They are the ultimate in cowardice.


5 posted on 05/14/2017 9:57:04 AM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

Heck! Just look at how long it took Angel to realize the final apocalypse was already under way...


6 posted on 05/14/2017 9:58:59 AM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is another agitator for republicanism like Sam Adams when we need him?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

Always listen to Vlahos, Gordon Chang and Gregory Copley segments. Sometimes Thad McCotter.

Vlahos is John’s Hopkins and Naval War College. Baltimore is his base. Suddenly since the riots he’s gotten religion. Screw him.

Agora Publishing is a Baltimore based apocalyptic buy gold now financial newsletter publishing co. Owned by one Bill Bonner. Suddenly my inbox is flooded with spam for his latest screed, an appeal to prepperism.

Boiling frog syndrome. On both counts.

Things have sucked for awhile for a significant portion of the American populace, and now that the Fed is withdrawing the punch bowl and future federal outlaws will have to compete with interest payments on the debt, suddenly everybody realizes this could really, really suck.

A pox on all their houses.


7 posted on 05/14/2017 9:59:33 AM PDT by ameribbean expat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis
"...no figure to bring the country together; same today – no Teddy Roosevelt or the like"

Teddy R??? He is the leftist scum that started us on the road to where we are today!

8 posted on 05/14/2017 10:00:43 AM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is another agitator for republicanism like Sam Adams when we need him?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

????? Two KINGS??
President Trump is the Commander in Chief and there is no other ‘king’.

General Petraeus About Our Military Today –

Thanks to my fellow veterans: I remember the day I found out I got into West Point. My mom actually showed up in the hallway of my high school and waited for me to get out of class. She was bawling her eyes out and apologizing that she had opened up my admission letter. She wasn’t crying because it had been her dream for me to go there. She was crying because she knew how hard I’d worked to get in, how much I wanted to attend, and how much I wanted to be an infantry officer. I was going to get that opportunity. That same day two of my teachers took me aside and essentially told me the following: “David, you’re a smart guy. You don’t have to join the military. You should go to college, instead.” I could easily write a theme defending West Point and the military as I did that day, explaining that USMA is an elite institution, that it is actually statistically much harder to enlist in the military than it is to get admitted to college, that serving the nation is a challenge that all able-bodied men should at least consider for a host of reasons, but I won’t. What I will say is that when a 16 year-old kid is being told that attending West Point is going to be bad for his future, then there is a dangerous disconnect in America, and entirely too many Americans have no idea what kind of burdens our military is bearing.

In World War II, 11.2% of the nation served in four (4) years. During the Vietnam era, 4.3% served in twelve (12) years. Since 2001, only 0.45% of our population have served in the Global War on Terror. These are unbelievable statistics. Over time, fewer and fewer people have shouldered more and more of the burden, and it is only getting worse. Our troops were sent to war in Iraq by a Congress consisting of 10% veterans with only one person having a child in the military. Taxes did not increase to pay for the war. War bonds were not sold. Gas was not regulated. In fact, the average citizen was asked to sacrifice nothing, and has sacrificed nothing, unless they have chosen to out of the goodness of their hearts. The only people who have sacrificed are the veterans and their families. The volunteers. The people who swore an oath to defend this nation. You stand there, deployment after deployment and fight on. You’ve lost relationships, spent years of your lives in extreme conditions, years apart from kids you’ll never get back, and beaten your body in a way that even professional athletes don’t understand. Then you come home to a nation that doesn’t understand.

They don’t understand suffering. They don’t understand sacrifice. They don’t understand why we fight for them. They don’t understand that bad people exist. They look at you like you’re a machine - like something is wrong with you. You are the misguided one — not them. When you get out, you sit in the college classrooms with political science teachers that discount your opinions on Iraq and Afghanistan because YOU WERE THERE and can’t understand the macro issues they gathered from books, because of your bias. You watch TV shows where every vet has PTSD and the violent strain at that. Your congress is debating your benefits, your retirement, and your pay, while they ask you to do more. But the amazing thing about you is that you all know this. You know your country will never pay back what you’ve given up.

You know that the populace at large will never truly understand and appreciate what you have done for them. Hell, you know that in some circles, you will be thought as less than normal for having worn the uniform. But you do it anyway. You do what the greatest men and women of this country have done since 1775.

YOU SERVED.

Just that decision alone makes you part of an elite group. “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” —Winston Churchill

Thank you to the 11.2% and 4.3% who have served and thanks to the 0.45% who continue to serve our Nation.

General David Petraeus West Point Class 1974


9 posted on 05/14/2017 10:00:51 AM PDT by sodpoodle (Life is prickly - carry tweezers)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SuperLuminal

Teddy R was the Ross Perot of his day, dividing the Republican vote so that Wilson could be elected. Income tax and World War One followed.


10 posted on 05/14/2017 10:08:18 AM PDT by Luke21
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

The southern democrats in 1860 were the slave owners. Today the socialist democrats from all over are wanting to take away the freedom. The battles if any will be fought by lawyers in the government arena and by racist facist punks from Mexico and by black punks from Democrat governed cities and by white punks who want a communist totalitarian state. Who ever opposes the attacks will be told to move to a better part of town...and to stay away from the no go zones. Does every city in America have a no go zone? So just move to a better part of town and let the lawyers battle each other in the arena of the government. No big deal.


11 posted on 05/14/2017 10:17:01 AM PDT by Trumpet 1 (US Constitution is my guide.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

I’d say it began in the late 1960s.


12 posted on 05/14/2017 10:19:57 AM PDT by ealgeone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

I heard this the other night. It is quite good, especially his analysis of what happens when one side, in this case the dims, believes it has a monopoly on virtue and it’s definitions. This make everyone who holds differing views the “Others” who are no longer seen as worthy of protection. This in turn leads to an existential conflict in which one side feels it must impose its will on the other to eliminate the opposing, unvirtuous views.

This guy has been rather squishy before, but he lays this problem right at the feet of the Dims, particularly the coastal elites, who believe in punishing others for what are essentially thought crimes.


13 posted on 05/14/2017 10:20:53 AM PDT by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

Yes, next question...


14 posted on 05/14/2017 10:21:16 AM PDT by Kickass Conservative (The way Liberals carry on about Deportation, you would think "Mexico" was Spanish for "Auschwitz".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

This is hardly an argument when compared with the real Civil War. No blood No war.


15 posted on 05/14/2017 10:26:32 AM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ameribbean expat

Russian-studies professor Stephen Cohen is a good guest on the show too, debunking the Russian conspiracy theories.


16 posted on 05/14/2017 10:27:18 AM PDT by MUDDOG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: ameribbean expat

BTW I’m glad Monica Crowley is back on the show, after her absence in the wake of plagiarism charges.


17 posted on 05/14/2017 10:31:44 AM PDT by MUDDOG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
18 posted on 05/14/2017 10:39:13 AM PDT by tumblindice ("Fight for your country." Hector)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MUDDOG

Ditto. Bachelor’s a loyal guy, and I respect that. Can’t be easy having Stephen J. Cohen on these days to talk about Russia, but I give Batch credit for doing it.

Miss Selena Zito, but at least he still has Liz Peek on.


19 posted on 05/14/2017 10:50:31 AM PDT by ameribbean expat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: dontreadthis

Are we that different from those in high school?

Two kids who don’t get along walk down the hall toward each other. Their shoulders bump as they pass because neither will get out of the other’s way. They exchange words. Each day the bump and the words get more forceful. Eventually, they meet outside the building to “settle it”. That actual fight happens later, but it’s almost unavoidable after the second bump.

Decent people and the Ctrl-Left have been bumping shoulders for a very long time.


20 posted on 05/14/2017 10:57:40 AM PDT by Pollster1 ("Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-39 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson