2012-12-29

Civil unrest, civil war and secession coming to America? Or World War III?

I tend to dismiss articles such as the one linked below, which ascribe a conspiracy to the inevitable (such as the collapse of the dollar), but from the standpoint of socionomic analysis, it doesn't matter whether it is true or not. What matters is that people believe it, the mood it reveals, and for forecasting purposes, whether people will act on it. When we look at Catalonia, Scotland or any secession movement, it doesn't matter if Catalans or Scots believe there is a conspiracy against them, or if their post-secession economic forecast is 180 degrees wrong, what matters is what they believe going into a secession vote.

In socionomics, we are often looking from the center out, from the standpoint of a group or individual. However, one can also see action from without. That is to say, a nation may not feel negatively towards a foreign power, but the negative action of that power could lead to war. Similarly, when looking at secessionists and anti-government sentiment, we could be seeing the intentional instigation of anti-government behavior because the government is also beholden to social mood. To use a recent example, the Oklahoma City bombing was partially blamed on talk radio and anti-government media. However, one could have just as easily blamed government policies and propaganda targeting guns, since the assault weapon ban and Brady bill preceded the attacks.

Catalonian secession cropped up so quickly, that one can reasonably ask if the Spanish government or Spanish people have not taken some anti-Catalonian action? In the case of Quebec, it's almost entirely a domestically driven movement, but outside pressure could be the trigger that makes Quebecois decide to leave once and for all. In the U.S., we see secessionist talk, but often the response to Southern nationalism is to deride Southern rednecks and say that America is better off without them. And certainly, in the run-up to the Civil War, the North was pressing its economic and political advantage upon the South.

What it boils down to in places such as the United States, where there are no established movements, is that secessionist movements will not be organic. Secession will be a reaction, not the action. The action will be oppression, the rise in authoritarianism that comes during negative social mood. The drive for secession will be the reaction to authoritarianism; it is the asymmetric response to a threat from a superior enemy.

As I've written before, negative social mood is necessary, it is part of the cycle of history. Negative social mood is the reaction that balances the positive social mood, cleaning out the failed policies of government, bankrupting the failed businesses, and settling long-simmering disputes. The particulars of how it is settled can be a net positive or negative for a nation: the United States, Russia, Germany, Japan and China all traveled divergent paths in the early 20th Century, and the choices they made impacted their nations for decades.

There's no need for secession or violent conflict, civil or international. However, governments that fail to understand social mood will make mistakes. They will behave in ways that leave their opposition with no way to act except via violent means, or they will respond to peaceful movements with violence.

Consider the current gun debate in the United States. The history is clear: last time this debate took place, there was a major act of domestic terrorism, and that happened while social mood was still net positive. Today, social mood is negative and falling. A wise government would look to defuse the situation, but instead, nearly every action of the government feeds conspiracy theories. Those inclined to believe conspiracy theories will always believe in them, but those who normally do not believe in them, start believing them when the government behaves as predicted by the theorists.

The latest from “DHS Insider”
RB: [Over talk/Unintelligible] ...know who was selected or elected twice now. You know who his associates are. And you are saying this is way over the top? Don’t forget what Ayers said - you talked to Larry Grathwohl. This guy is a revolutionary. He does not want to transform our country in the traditional sense. He will destroy it. And he’s not working alone. He’s not working for himself, either. He has his handlers. So don’t think this is going to be a walk in the park, with some type of attempt to rescue the country. Cloward-Piven. Alinsky. Marx. All rolled into one. And he won’t need the rest of his four years to do it.

DH: I need you to be clear. Let’s go back again, I mean, to those who speak out about what’s happening.

RB: [Edit note: Obviously irritated] How much clearer do you want it? The Second Amendment will be gone, along with the first, at least practically or operationally. The Constitution will be gone, suspended, at least in an operational sense. Maybe they won’t actually say that they are suspending it, but will do it. Like saying the sky is purple when it’s actually blue. How many people will look at the sky and say yeah, it’s purple? They see what they want to see.

So the DHS, working with other law enforcement organizations, especially the TSA as it stands right now, will oversee the confiscation of assault weapons, which includes all semi-automatic weapons following a period of so-called amnesty. It also includes shotguns that hold multiple rounds, or have pistol grips. They will go after the high capacity magazines, anything over, say 5 rounds.

They will also go after the ammunition, especially at the manufacturer’s level. They will require a special license for certain weapons, and make it impossible to own anything. More draconian than England. This is a global thing too.
People are agitated about guns, and nothing the government is doing today is designed to calm the population. It's doing the exact opposite, driving people to buy more guns and ammunition.

Now here's more of the conspiracy:
During all of this, and you’ve got to remember that the dollar collapse is a big part of this, our country is going to have to be redone. I’ve seen - personally - a map of North America without borders. Done this year. The number 2015 was written across the top, and I believe that was meant as a year. Along with this map - in the same area where this was - was another map showing the United States cut up into sectors. I’m not talking about what people have seen on the internet, but something entirely different. Zones. And a big star on the city of Denver.

Sound like conspiracy stuff on the Internet? Yup. But maybe they were right. It sure looks that way. It will read that way if you decide to write about this. Good luck with that. Anyway, the country seemed to be split into sectors, but not the kind shown on the internet. Different.

DH: What is the context of that?

RB: Across the bottom of this was written economic sectors. It looked like a work in progress, so I can’t tell you any more than that. From the context I think it has to do with the collapse of the dollar.

Most people cannot conceive of a collapse in the U.S. dollar. Despite the economic forecasts that have existed for nearly 40 years now, the vast majority of people do not expect a collapse of the dollar. Even those who buy precious metals and expect the dollar to undergo a crisis haven't thought through what the world will look like if the dollar collapses. I would bet that a larger percentage of the population believes that Obama wants to destroy America and the U.S. dollar. Therefore, if the dollar does collapse, what's going to be the response? Besides anger at Wall Street and Washington, will people have serious debates about the monetary system? Will they gravitate to Ron Paul? Or will they believe that the collapse was a conspiracy, part of a plot by a government that is simultaneously trying to confiscate their weapons and violate the most important right listed in the Bill of Rights?

A Survey of U.S. Secessionism: Negative Social Mood Will Vent — but Where?
Examples from the past and present show that common enemies often forestall civil wars. War with Carthage redirected ancient Rome’s internal conflict for many years. Once Rome defeated its enemy, civil war intensified and the empire began its famous decline. The Spanish-American War in the decades following the U.S. Civil War provided a common enemy that helped to heal the residual bitterness between North and South. The 1919 Anglo-Afghan War united long-adversarial Pashtun tribes against the British. As Euan Wilson described in the January 2010 Socionomist, the intensity of the Chinese Civil War waned when Japan expanded its incursion from northern China into Manchuria. After Finland lost its common enemy and oppressor, Russia, during the Russo-Japanese war, it promptly erupted in civil war. A prolonged political enmity followed, but it eased when Finns again faced a common enemy in World War II. In 2009, previously hostile Pakistan and Afghan Taliban factions united to oppose the buildup of 17,000 U.S. troops. Recent reports show Taliban groups again bonding as they face the current 30,000 troop American surge.

...Politicians and government propagandists are well aware that the portrayal of a common enemy can rouse emotional solidarity and group identity, which in turn redirects internal dissent and discord. Alexander De Conde’s History of American Foreign Policy says William Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, advocated “a policy of hostility or war” against several European nations to “win back the loyalty of the seceded states and avoid civil war.” But Lincoln famously urged “one war at a time” and refused to initiate or respond to foreign provocations during the war.
What's the most likely response to growing secessionist talk in the United States? A foreign war.

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