2nd US civil war?

Maria, I disagree. Cheetolini and his thugs are suing the state of CA because they don't like recently passed laws. Laws that the majority of Californians want (for example, Sanctuary - which merely means un-entanglement of ICE from local police). So much for "States' Rights".

Yes, I agree with both Maria and Zoron that the odds of a 2nd civil war probably aren't very high yet.  However it isn't just left or right politics and cultural differences driving things here as Laura F. and I are trying to explain.  It's a whole way of life and a tainted perspective that haunts the collective consciousness of the people of the southern US states that were involved with the civil war.   Wendy BP has a good point, the Civil War energy just doesn't seem to be healed yet.  People here have a real psychological problem with someone being different and although they may say they love you anyway (because they are Christians and as Christians they know they are supposed to love everyone) they also hate you (but it is a subconscious hate).  Since the hate is subconscious they react without realizing how harsh they are reacting--they overreact.   I don't know why I'm feeling like driving this point home so strongly, other than I've been forced to rub elbows with this energy for a while.  I hope I don't offend anyone.  As I said before, there are a lot of genuinely nice people who live here for whom this doesn't apply.

I have a coworker now who is a Christian church goer who loves his mom and is so Republican it hurts yet couldn't vote for Trump (Trump was just too rude for him).  He also hated Hillary and Obama.  He seems very nice until the topic of Muslim terrorists comes up and then he proclaims that if he were president he would just nuke the whole Middle East and get rid of everyone there.  Solve the whole problem he says...and he isn't kidding!  This same person will cry at the idea of anyone disrespecting his mother in any way.  He is always polite to me and told me that what whites did to Native Americans was horrible.  However, in his mind the terrorists are evil and deserve a quick and complete wiping off of the earth (or so he says).  The anger automatically leads to more drastic solution than is necessary.  The feeling is that if you can't act like one of us enough to get along with us you are in some way cursed...to be an outsider forever. Laura F. understands the energy here is not just an unpleasant feeling, it is corrosive.  And then the people go to church and all is well in their world, they have their church family to save them from the rest of the world.  All of this may not lead to a civil war but it leads to a lot of unconscious intolerance and strong emotional reaction to any threat.  If the federal government was seen to become a big threat in their minds the reaction would be strong and violent, I am pretty sure...

 Not a Southerner by birth, I have lived over half my life in the Southeast and it has changed dramatically over the past 16 years.  It has become a very uncomfortable place to be if you're not a Republican, Evangelical, gun toting right winger.  Before living on the coast, we lived in Atlanta, in a northern suburb that was so Evangelically religious and politically right wing that it felt as if we were living in a cult.  I did not know a single democrat, so it was a lonely job refusing to bend the knee to George W Bush and the religious right.  It's actually worse now in South Carolina.  Everybody knows who's a Democrat and who's a Republican.  People fall out with each other and lose friendships.  It's a delicate balancing act to   avoid any mention of the terrible injustices happening in this country while your neighbors heartily support Trump.  My kind brother who never had a gun in his life until six years ago also lives in this state.  He's now fueled by the Evangelical Right and Fox News and his unfounded fears have led him to become a genuine gun nut.  He has a concealed carry permit and carries a gun everywhere he goes, even church.  He's ready to combat a school or church shooting at a moment's notice.  My husband, a Vietnam vet, is well acquainted with guns and he thinks this behavior is way over the line into crazy town.  Another change we see in the South is an emboldened overt racism that's jarring.  People you would never have considered racist come out with awful comments stereotyping African Americans.  African Americans feel the oppression.  One told me, "this state has a history of keeping the black man down."  Another said, "I wish I could move to the West Coast.  I would feel safer there."  I can (obviously) go on and on.  I'm worried about what happens next in this country.  You wonder what's being planned for people who protest, people who reject the local right wing status quo.  These child and immigrant internment camps didn't just spring up overnight.  This was planned for a long time.  Now we find out that private corporations who provide the camps and services contributed money to this administration.  Sorry I'm not a ray of sunshine here in the sunny South....will work on nurturing an attitude of loving kindness.

I ran into this problem over a decade ago. Had a friend, from Indiana. We fell out over the issue of the first Civil War--she adamantly called it the 'War of Northern Aggression,' & stopped talking to me when I wouldn't cede the point. <R1 shakes her head> And she was a Quaker no less.

My god..... I read all this and I cringe, but I am familiar with these sentiments too. I've read gone with the wind and quite a bit of southern history and cultural history so I'm not entirely shocked by this, but a part of me is. Growing up in Canada ever since I could remember the republican party and the south represented evil. No one ever said that to me about the south but there was this sense that these people are barbarous and it's good that we have a border that keeps them out. And now I've crossed that border and live in the Yankee and that by itself scares me. 

Is there a particular reason why the last few decades have made the south so cruel? Is it the poverty? Or is the poverty a result of their mindsets? Or is there not as much poverty as claimed but just a vindictive cruel streak through the culture. These people don't understand how loathed they are globally, they are far too narcissistic to understand that or to care really.

Half of my husband's family is from the south, even though he grew up in Maine. I've met these relatives several times at family reunions and at our wedding last year. They are very friendly and kind but weirdly insular, just me mentioning support for universal healthcare scares them (god knows why, in Canada that's a duh answer) and one of them believes climate change is the rapture. 

I feel however that you can't bully me. I will never live among these people, but I may visit them, and no amount of crap will ever get me to bow the knee to their worldview. If anything I find it easy to bully them, my natural defense mechanism with people like that.

We are fighting a civil war in our hearts, hopefully it doesn't become a war with our arms. At some point however this has to end, we can't spend another century re litigating the same cultural arguments as we have the last, there has to be an end. Maybe that end will be the division of the country, I don't know, I just know that this has to stop at some point.

I’m embarrassed and apologize for my snark fest of a post regarding life in the Evangelical Republican South.  It was unfair.  While those comments express my keenly felt observations and angst, there’s a lot more to the South than stereotypes.  There are plenty of kind, considerate people, both Republican and Democrats and plenty of native born Dems at that.  It’s just that Democrats are a minority.  Not all Republicans are uneducated, gun toting bigots, yet they voted for a white supremacist, racist bully.  It’s complicated.  With the divisive tensions and drama playing out across the country, it just seems especially painful to see Trump ideology supported by people who fervently claim to love the Lord.

Poverty is a real issue in rural areas, especially for minorities.  The quality of education varies tremendously from impoverished rural counties to metropolitan areas with more industry and universities.  Right now we have a dilemma with Volvo building a huge manufacturing facility and it turns out that the local workforce is not educated well enough to fill the jobs.  

Fox News has played a huge role in brainwashing people with right wing propaganda and given evangelical leaders a platform to obtain political power.  It’s been a perfect storm of political propaganda from without and within.  Putin just weaponized social media, targeted the gullible and  here we are.  Even if Trump/Russia collusion is proven, the masses who watch Fox News are already conditioned to disbelieve it.

We need to focus on our power as heart warriors and not give in to despair and negativity, myself included.   I believe eventually the truth will out, that Trump and his accomplices in a Congress will be exposed for what they truly are.  No second civil war.  We have power we haven’t even learned to use yet.

BlueBelle, I only saw honesty, not a snark fest.  As for everything else in terms of a possible second civil war, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Peace.

I dunno that this problem is just a 16 yr old problem. I lived down in Virginia Beach for a year in '86, I think.  It scared me then... Used to drive by a Women's Clinic, which was always surrounded by good ol' boys on their knees praying for God to Smite the Baby-Killers with His Holy Lightning (a very Christian sentiment, yeah?)... Once we had some movers bring in a sofa. White owner, black helper. White guy did nothing but curse about how lazy the damn n***ers were, right in front of the kid. 

I think my jaw must have dropped, 'cause the black kid looked at me, rolled his eyes and shrugged a 'what are you gonna do' shrug. Needless to say, we moved out as soon as the contract was done.

If I didn't have cousins down there, and friends in the 'golden triangle' of North Carolina, I'd say just Build The Wall--at the Mason Dixon line.

R1

I have been lurking for a while and this is my first post on the forum.  I have read tarot cards for decades and was planning to join the next remote viewing but after all these South-bashing posts, I don't know if I should.  I'm floored at the disdain and condemnation I'm reading.  I haven't read anything else like this on the forum and it really saddens me, given that this is supposed to be a spiritual group, hopefully trying to keep in mind that all beings here on Earth are part of a Divine whole. 

Trump has only said one thing I agree with - that America isn't that innocent (paraphrased). The South is an easy out.  Of course the South is still processing the Civil War.  You would have to be psychically tone-deaf to not feel the ghosts.  Of course there is racism and ignorance.  But there is racism and ignorance everywhere and people are deeply flawed everywhere.  America is built on unknowable pain and abuse.  Being horrified by Trump and Trump supporters and Fox News is one thing.  Judging an entire region is something else.  These descriptions of the negativity/tainted psyche of the South I'm reading are shocking to me. I highly doubt anybody on this side of existence can evaluate the hearts and minds of an entire group of people.  And saying "but there's a few nice people" would be considered offensive for most marginalized groups.  

My disclosure - I'm a hillbilly from the Ozarks.  I've lived in the South my entire life, in many different places. I voted for Hilary because Bernie wasn't an option.  I've never met anybody who has handled snakes in all these years.  I don't have a church home but I think civic engagement is a good thing, even it doesn't look like I think it should.  I don't see any difference between saying "Bless your heart" to someone I don't like and sending them love and light.  I have met many churchgoers (even evangelicals) who struggle with how to be a good person in a dark world, as do we all.  My volunteer work takes me to many low-income areas and I have to evaluate my own classism, elitism and prejudices to be effective and of service.  I hope that you will do the same.  I don't know if I'm welcomed as a participant but it doesn't feel like it.

Octagon, you are most welcome and let me personally extend a heartfelt welcome, too.  I apologize for my post.  Our world has gotten so dark and complicated and we are voicing fears and disappointments today.  We are flawed and we are human.  I hope you will share your insights with us.  Blessings to you, my friend.

Octagon, you must have been the response to my prayers. I didn't like what some people were posting in this thread but I didn't know how to put it best, especially because I don't live there so I didn't feel like my opinion would count for much. But it was clear to me that bashing everyone in a whole area isn't the way to fix any problems. You may not be comfortable with the culture and/or the politics, but that doesn't mean that you go down into: "How can those people be so horrible?" It doesn't achieve anything useful or positive. It's much better to think: "I know some nasty things are happening over there, and that only some people are responsible. How can they be stopped?" Even when something is widespread, not everybody is doing it.

Now I feel I am being attacked for my feelings. 

It is easy to say that person is wrong but you haven't seen my heart and you don't know me.

Perhaps as an antidote, we should mosey on over to twitter and check out #secondcivilwarletters which are an hilarious response to the conspiracy theory that the Democrats are starting the second civil war tomorrow.  Funny AF.

That is, and forever has been the problem with emails, texts, and forum posts. The emotional context is lacking, so if the writer forgets to add an emoticon, you can't tell a wry joke from an insult! ? 

People in he U.S. aren't fighting about left/right politics. The fights are about (some people in) the white majority feeling like they are losing power, and adopting increasingly more fascistic ways to hold on to power through their party of choice (the republicans). The republicans, once the anti-slavery party, have been stoking racial resentment for 50 years, and there's a reckoning coming.  Will it be an all-out war? Unlikely, but for many of us caught up in the current times, it feels like one.

I'm of the belief that one should condemn the behavior more than the person, but these aren't ordinary times. The current administration has been gaslighting the American people, and I think many of us have had it with niceties. Vile behavior, including racist behavior, needs to be called out and condemned. That doesn't mean that people can't change or make amends, or that all people from an area are the same, but I think it's legitimate to call out bad behavior. I

t's not good for the spiritual development of our fellow humans to see really bad stuff and not call it for what it is.  Don't we expect that from the people who love us? Don't we want them to tell us hard truths when we're losing our way?  

I watched youtube videos of the Pickett attack at Gettysburg today and realized that we have been a divided country since the Civil War. The north and south never fully integrated and the South couldn't let go of  the war.

Sorry if I offended anyone, but I was merely relating my own experiences.

It's only in the South that I have been called the N-word (I am not african-american and do not identify as a person of color). It's only in the South that I was asked more than once "Is your momma black?". It's only in the South where my daughter (who is Asian but dark-skinned, and does identify as PoC) was also called the N-word, was taunted for her skin color at school. It's only in the South that complete strangers walked up to us both when she was little to ask the following questions: "Is she Hawaiian?" "Is she Mexican?" "Is her daddy Mexican?" "Is her daddy an [American]Indian?" "Does she speak Mexican?" "Does she speak Chinese?" "How much did you buy her for?", or to say the following "Oh what nice tan skin she has, I wish I could get a tan like that!" And for the topper, at a truck stop in Arkansas, white lady walks up to my daughter and out of the blue says, "Aloha! You know I'd love to go to Hawaii too someday." (that last one was on our cross-country move out of the South)

Also only in the South where a close relative, who happens to be a Rabbi, was taunted and followed down a street for refusing to donate to a Christian charity and for refusing to let his kid talk to a fake Santa.

Dave Chappelle once said, "Racism in the South...mwah, so delicious."

I never said everyone there is racist or a fanatical, religious nutbar. I have dear friends from the South. A huge chunk of my family has lived in Tennessee for decades. But my experiences over the years, from visiting TN in my youth all the way through living there til several years ago, has taught me that the entrenched mindset of the Civil War persists and seems to represent the way the majority feels.

I had to stop for a while and explore my feelings.  The overall feeling I have is that I've suffered a lot emotionally since I have moved here to Georgia. 

Octagon, what I wrote in no way should reflect on the wonderful people here on this site. I stopped to reflect on whether I've gone too far and should I just stay off this topic or even this whole site--and why do I feel like leaving so soon...maybe it is ok for me to say goodbye??  I can't seem to see the future very good anyway...

Octagon my father's side of my family is from a small town in West Virginia.  I have a lot of relatives there.  My mother's side of the family is Oglala Sioux from the Pine Ridge Reservation.  I don't want to offend anyone.  There is racism and negativity everywhere, you are right.  When I married a white man from South Dakota his family were immediately concerned when they heard I was part Native American.  I found out about that later after we had been married several years and had already had some children.  They grew to accept me so it all worked out ok.

Here in the Georgia I've made some good friends also.  People have shown me generosity. 

I go to different places here and I basically send out positive vibes to people.  I hold them in love, I do.

Once again sorry...

Octagon, posters who have not lived in the States have been horrified by the treatment of immigrants, especially children, and people who have lived in states where racism is more overt are trying to share how insidious racism is in American culture.  Writers, like Ta-Nehisi Coates, have been trying to show this for a long time: https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/reparations/.   Coates' account of slavery, segregation, and violence against African Americans here is not just located in the South.  I just finished reading David Grann's chilling account of genocide practiced against the Osage in Oklahoma in the 1920s: Killers of the Flower Moon.   Posters living in southern and border states are trying to convey a deeper historical and cultural context for this horror.  To be very crude, how can the zitt that is racism begin to heal in this country unless we help pop it and allow all of its gore to come up and spill out into the light?  Moreover, if we're all part of a collective consciousness, don't we have a responsibility to own and share what is unjust in it?