Prometheus 6

These guys are sounding exactly...exactly...like the militia movement prior to the Oklahoma City bombing

That's because they are!! Though the caller was from central Illinois, which is not the epicenter, but definitely a hotbed of rich nutrient media - he represents something very real and just a little ominous. As I see it, the fault lines for American Balkanization haven't really changed that much in 150 years.

The Players - Some peak oilers use the term "EarthMarine" to denote various types of para-military groups through out the U.S. The term is a bit confusing so I will go with "Merc" or a shortening of mercenary. Technically mercenaries are illigal in the U.S., but let's call a spade a spade shall we?. These are the numerous private citizens who perform a military or para-military role here in the U.S. and abroad for the U.S. Govt for money. The ill-considered invasion of Iraq put a bunch of these folks in play and in pay. Anybody else also remember Blackwater in NOLA?

The Game Board - As goes the south, so goes America. The contemporary south is fiercely independent - some side with Bush et al and some don't, but think of themselves as loyal Americans. The White/Black ratio is about 60/40. There is, however, a dangerous and volatile concentration of capable authoritarians in the south. If there is a tipping point region, it is definitely the south. I see this region becoming a seperate part of anything post collapse. Take almost all of the original rebel states from the Civil War and either keep them together or split them among Blacks and whites. It would depend on what divided Blacks and Whites or unified them against a "common" enemy. Right now, there IS no agreed upon common enemy, and very much that disunites folks politically. Much because the truth has never simply been told about why the U.S. invaded Iraq!

The important factor to consider here is Military presence and para-military training schools, and the pool of militarized folk concentrated in this region.

Let's see, Georgia has at least five Army bases and the U.S Marshal's training facility at Glynco, GA. Two Air Force Bases and I think two Navy bases and one small Marine base.

South Carolina has one Army, three Marine and two Air Force bases.

Alabama has two Army and one Air Force.

Florida has seven Air Force bases and seven Navy.

Mississippi has two Air Force and three Navy basess.

North Carolina has two Air Force and three Marine and one Army.

Tennessee has one Air Force base and one Navy base.

Virginia has one Air Force base and five Army, two Marine and nine
Navy bases.

Kentucky supposidly neutral back in the 1860's has two Army bases even though Ft. Campbell is mostly in Tennessee.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has facilities in SC and TN. The SC one has over 600 highly trained and VERY well armed LE Officers keeping nuclear material safe. Augusta Georgia is home to many as is Ft Gorgon's off post population of retirees and separated vets who have stuck around.

Black Water USA is in North Carolina and Triple Canopy and HCT is in Virginia. Check out HCT's web Site and notice what it says on the bottom of the intro page.

Will post-collapse troops stay loyal, or hire their services out to the highest bidder, or simply stay and defend their homes? Will they split along racial lines and fight each other? Many live with each other in the same neighborhoods. This may lend itself to more communitarian cohesion. However, many towns are isolated and have a high ratio one way or another, like 70% Black or white. Those pockets merit close scrutiny as they could get ugly quickly.

Black and Latino gangs have also been sending members into the Army and Marines to be grunts and come back and teach the rest tactics. So there is a constant export of subject matter expertise out of the military south and into the urban hood, but nowhere near the depth and discipline that is concentrated in the South.

Not only do you have these Military bases and personnel concentrated in these areas, but many have the BEST troops on them. Ft Bragg NC 82nd Airborne, Special Forces School along with SF Line Units. Ft Benning GA 75 Ranger Regiment and 3rd Ranger Battalion (BN) and Ranger School. Infantry School. Ft Stewart GA has either 2nd BN or 1st BN of the 75th Ranger Reg. Ft Campbell KY 101st Airborne. Ft Jackson SC and Parris Island SC are major Basic Training bases for the Army and Marines respectively.

What this all boils down to is that there are troops trained in every type of warfare that train others to do the same. Special Forces primary mission is to train indigenous people to be guerilla fighters. Get an ex Ranger or Green Beret and they could have them to a higher level with a few more weeks training. Back in 90's a Green Beret started an underground newsletter that was distrusting of the Gov't. These Bulleteers tend to keep it real.

Excellent analysis and post, cnulan.

This caller reminds me very much of a caller who called up C-SPAN during a program which featured David Brock as a guest.  Any political junkie will know that David Brock was a former conservative who authored such books as The Real Anita Hill until he became stricken with conscious after the whole Clinton impeachment affair and began authoring books such as Blinded by the Right.  The caller berated C-SPAN for being "99.9% liberal" and accused Brock of being "someone who stirs up a bunch of controversy so he doesn't have to work for a living."  He then said, "I'm glad you got rid of your beard and your beads to come here on tv, but you  don't fool me 'cause I know you are a lying piece of sh$%"--thankfully he was cut off before he could complete his expletive.  The point is is that people like this one and the caller featured on this post make no objective attempt to contemplate the facts.  It was apparently lost on this fellow that Brock used to be on his side of the fence.  He only saw someone whose opinions must have meant he was an aging 60s radical or a red diaper baby.  Some of these people simply can't be reasoned with which makes them extremely frightening.   

cnulan...  do you think economic trends in the South will continue to favor the set of circumstances which you described?             

Here's a little visual aid to shed some light on the discussion courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center website. As cnulan points out above, the South is the most important region in this scenario. The majority of militias and hate groups are located in the South.

cnulan... do you think economic trends in the South will continue to favor the set of circumstances which you described?

It's not a question of regional economic trends. The overarching question is whether the U.S. can sustain or lower its disproportionately high level of energy consumption. The primary pacifying or civilizing factor that holds the U.S. together is hyperconsumption. If there is an abrupt economic collapse (net energy reduction) the likelihood of it triggering societal instability is extremely high.

So the question goes back at you. Do you believe that the U.S. will get to continue gobbling up 25% plus of the planet's gross material output for the forseeable, or, do you think that we're in for a long overdue economic reality correction?

until he voted against reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.

You may find Dr. Roscoe Bartlett's awareness and action advocacy sufficiently mainstream to warrant careful consideration. The Army Corps of Engineers report has useful predictive power...,

Keep uppermost in your mind the fact that the entirety of the Iraq fiasco is driven by the need for energy security, and everything else discoursively related to that is merely misdirecting conversation in the political theatre.

Yes, I do think we are in for a massive economic change.  I, however, do not have the empirical facts to support an in-depth argument.  Your question is prompting me to think of parallels between our current situation and the set of factors which brought about the Depression, namely overproduction mixed with under-consumption.  Can we afford to consume what is currently being produced?  Probably not--and since most of what we consume is produced overseas, we will not be able to solely look at our internal economic structure to confront and ascertain the nature of a looming economic crisis as Roosevelt and the New Deal favored doing.  Our national leadership is vastly unprepared to even begin contemplating an economic collapse.  I also think a catostrophic economic crisis on par with the Depression would provide the cohesive agent to link many of the these para-military groups together.  Thus your point on how many of these para-military groups would become an autonomous force is well taken.   

While we are on the subject of para-military groups and the saturation of our society with military industrial influences, it is mind blowing that some people think this represents the best of what we have to export to the world.  A couple of months ago, the National Review printed an editorial that suggested that paid mercenaries would be more effective in quelling violence in Sudan than UN forces.  Such a notion is extremely scary, but it is indicative of the fairy-tale notion inhereted from the Wild West that Americans are well-suited to solving problems through violence.  Just take a look at the lyrics of Toby Keith to discover what I am talking about.  Another good example of what I am referring to can be found in the movie The Magnificent Seven in which vigilante cowboys come to the rescue of oppressed Mexican farmers.  A college professor of mine argued quite persuasively that this movie illustrates the spirit which defined the self-image of the Green Berets, the CIA, and even civilian groups like the Peace Corps during the Kennedy years and beyond.  His argument was that Americans love "to be good while being bad."  (Present day images of overseas prisons and torture immediately come to mind.)  Indeed, our fetish for consumption tends to feed this dialectic and an economic crisis would serve to channel it in the form of para-military activity.   

These are just some impressions and are not on par with the factual evidence you provide.  Hopefully, however, they add to the discussion.                                                                        

Let's throw a little log on the fire...,

There is always something special about science meetings. The 109th meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in Beaumont on 3-5 March 2006 was especially exciting for me, because a student and his professor presented the results of a DNA study I suggested to them last year. How fulfilling to see the baldcypress ( Taxodium distichum ) leaves we collected last summer and my tree ring photographs transformed into a first class scientific presentation that's nearly ready to submit to a scientific journal (Brian Iken and Dr. Deanna McCullough, "Bald Cypress of the Texas Hill Country: Taxonomically Unique?" 109th Meeting of the Texas Academy of Science Program and Abstracts [ PDF ], Poster P59, p. 84, 2006).

But there was a gravely disturbing side to that otherwise scientifically significant meeting, for I watched in amazement as a few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Science rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation to a speech that enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population by airborne Ebola. The speech was given by Dr. Eric R. Pianka (Fig. 1), the University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert who the Academy named the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.

This is some log....

It's Texas. I think there's a law requiring a plurality of the occupants  at any given moment to be batshit crazy.

I don't know, however, how these ideas would go over in the liberal enclave that is Austin, TX.  I have visited a friend who goes to school there.  From what I have viewed of graduate students and faculty at UT, exposure to these ideas for what they are--an advocation of genocide--would not find broad popularity among these groups on campus.  Still, there is a culture of violence which permeates Texas history that might condition the context in which these ideas are formulated.  I wonder if there was any opposition to what came out of Pianka's mouth amongst the faculty or student body.  I guess Pianka's solution would eliminate the need for the Timothy McVeighs of the world.