Age of Disorder

[David Horn]

(09-09-2020, 02:34 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote:

(09-09-2020, 12:51 PM)David Horn Wrote: Bang-on in my opinion.  The only issues are when and how.  The time may still be in the future, though not the distant future, and how is up to the rest of us.  Political means beat the hell out of violence and mayhem, but either is possible.

The one encouraging note from the MarketWatch article appears in the last paragraph:

There have been 16 occasions over the last 500 years, when a rising power has challenged the ruling one, and on 12 occasions it ended with war. One piece of solace is the report notes that military conflict is unlikely.  

The last sentence accords with my own benign view (and Bob Butler’s?) that a total war between superpowers is probably out of the question, as long as rational heads of state prevail. Can’t rule out asymmetric acts of warfare on a smaller scale, though.  And as for internal conflict in the U.S., anarchic violence is certainly a possibility, though I would not characterize that as “war,” per se. But if the armed street violence that we have witnessed in Kenosha and Portland escalates, that could usher in a reactionary regime, akin to what followed after the German elite tired of the running gun battles between the Communists and fascists that plagued the streets of the Weimar Republic.  Not saying we’re there yet, but we’re inching toward a “spiral of violence” that makes a reactionary regime more likely than a left-wing revolution.  BLM and antifa protestors must take the high road, and forswear arming themselves when confronted with right-wing militias.  Take a page out of Gandhi’s and MLK’s book on nonviolence, and eject anyone from their ranks who are armed with weapons of any kind. The vigilante violence that occurred in Portland is a dangerous development that must not be repeated.

I agree that violence will be limited to domestic actions, more like Chicago in '68 than what's occurred so far.  I'm hard pressed to see how this is avoided, frankly.  The PTB are so smug and self-satisfied that a humble willingness to relent to anything short of a direct threat seems unlikely in the extreme.  40 years of riding high and making all the rules tends to warp ones perspective, and this Gilded Age set new records.