The Hillbilly Viet Cong

David Trammel's picture

As a climate fiction writer, there is always interest in just how and why a new civil war would take place in the United States. This article has a good over view of that subject.

Asymmetrical Warfare and 4GW: How Militia Groups are America's Domestic Viet Cong

"Now imagine such a scenario in the United States. You wouldn’t be the first person to do so. From Red Dawn to James Wesley, Rawles’ Patriots series, there is a relatively long-standing tradition of American survival literature about the hoi polloi resisting the tyranny of big government, either before or after a collapse."

"For the purposes of this article, consider what a domestic American terrorist or freedom fighter (after all, the label is in the eye of the beholder) organization based on the militia movement would look like in open revolt against the United States government. In the spirit of levity, we’ll call them the “Hillbilly Viet Cong.” They would most likely find their largest numbers in Appalachia, but don’t discount their power in the American Redoubt, or the more sparsely populated areas of the American Southwest, including rural Texas.

"Here we have tens of thousands of Americans armed to the teeth with combat experience, deep family ties to both the police and the military, extensive knowledge of the local geography, and, in many cases, survivalist training. Even where they are not trained, militant and active, they enjoy broad support among those who own a lot of guns and grow a lot of food."

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There are two discussions further down, one about a European civil war and an American civil war worth reading as well. And don't forget the comments section too.

David Trammel's picture

Here is another article that argues that perhaps it is time to divide America, and offers a very good senerio on how it could peacifully happen.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/maybe-its-time-for-america-to-split-up.html

Could be a good background for a story.

"The year is 2019. California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, recently elected on a platform that included support for the creation of a single-payer health-care system, now must figure out how to enact it. A prior nonpartisan analysis priced it at $400 billion per year — twice the state’s current budget. There appears to be no way to finance such a plan without staggering new taxes, making California a magnet for those with chronic illnesses just as its tax rates send younger, healthier Californians house-hunting in Nevada and big tech employers consider leaving the state."

"But Newsom is not alone. Other governors have made similar promises, and Newsom calls together the executives of the most ideologically like-minded states — Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland. What if they banded to create a sole unified single-payer health-care system, spreading risk around a much larger pool of potential patients while creating uniformity across some of the country’s wealthiest states?"

After thinking about it, I think "Hillbilly Viet Cong" is cute but messes up our mental lanscape.

The article states: "This is not a trivial observation. The U.S. government spends more on the military than the governments of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, and Japan combined. Plus, the potential of a tyrannical government is arguably upon us – with the federal government spying on its own citizensmilitarizing local police departments with equipment and tactics from the War on Terror, and repeatedly searching Americans, which desensitizes them to this invasive process."

Think about this for a minute. White dudes want to take up arms because the government wants to treat them like black and brown people and foreigners with differnet religions. --Even when the US government lets them get away with armed confrontations that would have resulted in bloodbaths if they had been members of a minority group. Okkkaaaay. I suggest folks read up on the massacre of the Black Panthers in 1969.

Folks might also want to read up on the Viet Cong. Associating "Viet Cong" with "Hillbillies" will probably give you some seriously mixed up impressions of what happened in Viet Nam. Ho Chi Minh was a highly educated, well-traveled man from a good family: "[his] father was a Confucian scholar and teacher and later an imperial magistrate in the small remote district of Binh Khe (Qui Nhơn). He was demoted for abuse of power after an influential local figure died several days after having received 102 strokes of the cane as punishment for an infraction.[5]:21 [Ho's] father was eligible to serve in the imperial bureaucracy, but he refused because it meant serving the French."

See, the French colonized Viet Nam, but ethnic Chinese had dominated the country financially and politically for generations. Under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Cong rose up to take back their country from the French and the Chinese minority. Because Ho espoused Communism, when the French were driven out, the U.S got into the war. And the people we were defending--the government we were backing?. All those boat people who fled Viet Nam when we were kicked out? Ethnic Chinese.

So who is actually threatening these would-be 'freedom fighters" in the article? Who is plotting to take away our liberties? Here are a couple of interesting stories that showed up in my news feed this last week.

Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America

Rigging the vote: how the American right is on the way to permanent minority rule

Note in the second article: "The two most recent Republican presidents have entered office despite receiving fewer votes than their opponent in a national election, thanks to the electoral college, which systematically over-represents small states. (California gets one electoral vote per 712,000 people; Wyoming gets one per 195,000...)"

"Then there’s the Senate. Because of its bias toward smaller, rural states, a resident of Wyoming has 66 times the voting power in Senate elections as one in California. Thus, in 2016, the Democratic party got 51.4 million votes for its Senate candidates. The Republicans got 40 million. And despite losing by more than 11 million votes, the Republicans won a supermajority (22 of 36) of the seats up for election, holding their majority in the chamber."

David Trammel's picture

While I agree with the inherent unfairness of the way the Electoral College picks who wins, let me play devil's advocate for a moment.

I can't think of anything more likely to bring about an American civil war and the break up of the United States as to remove the Electoral College from the mix and go to straight popular vote for electing our national representatives.

Its a reality that the issues that rural conservative citizens hold dear are not those that urban liberal voters have. You can call those issues hidebound and parochial, even racist and wrong, but they have them. Trying to force them to change their views will provoke immediate backlash. So will just marginalizing their opinions and going to majority rule.

The Founding Father specifically framed the Constitution to prevent the "Tyranny of the Majority".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

I know its frustrating to let people we disagree with so strongly maintain their attitudes, and worst it looks like the Republican's legacy will be a Judicial system predominantly conservative for the next decade and confound the change that is going to happen. If you expect as I do that this election and perhaps the 2020 election will be the last ones that the conservative minority in the United States can wield disappropriate power, then I would argue that playing the "Long Game" is the smarter choice.

lathechuck's picture

Blame it on spell-check, unless you really mean that there's some connection between Republican conservatism and Jewish religious practice.

David Trammel's picture

Funny that the original spelling is actually a word.

I totally agree: trying to eliminate the Electoral College would be absolutely the last straw! But we went down this path with the Old South. No matter how many times we kiss their canteens, they are going to push back against the "tyrannical" government, which guarantees them the right to push back against tthe "tyrannical" government which... You wanna talk about special snowflakes?

Look, by my lights, the midterm elections were a success. At least 400 women ran for office this year, from city/county level up to governors and Congress Critters (that's what really comes of pink pussy hats). Our federal congress is now 20% WOMEN!!!  Can you imagine that??? I think women make up something like 52% of the population, but for the first time in the 242 years one out every five Congress Critters are female. And not only that but they look like the communities they were elected to represent. Two Native American women, one of them a lesbian, two Muslim women, one of them a Somali immigrant. Latina women!

And something like 29 NRA supporters were replaced. And these poor "Hillbilly Vietcong" are scared shotless. So, they are terrified of losing the American Dream? This gal nails it:

The Anger of the White Male Lie

We are getting backed into a "damned if we do, damned if we don't" situation and appeasement is not going to solve anything.

Even the FBI Thinks Police Have Links to White Supremacists — but Don’t Tell the New York Times

"Over the weekend,  the New York Times Magazine published a lengthy and in-depth piece on how U.S. law enforcement has willfully ignored the threat of white supremacist extremism for decades. The author, Janet Reitman, takes an ostensibly deep dive into how law enforcement — particularly federal agencies — has neglected the growth of the violent far right, in part owing to Republican political agenda setting. For a story framed around a 'blind spot' though, the piece itself is hobbled by an egregious case of sightlessness.

"The Times tells a story about law enforcement failing and struggling to deal with white supremacy. The elephant in the room, unmentioned by Reitman or any of the sources she chose to cite, is that U.S. law enforcement doesn’t do enough about violent racists because as an institution, U.S. law enforcement is violently racist and contains explicit white supremacists in its ranks."

History is rhyming, all right. We know what happens when white men feel snubbed.

Black Veterans Killed in Fight for Democracy in U.S.

"As the Equal Justice Institute notes in the Introduction to their report on these atrocities,

"Between the end of Reconstruction and the years following World War II, thousands of black veterans were accosted, assaulted, and attacked, and many were lynched. Black veterans died at the hands of mobs and persons acting under the color of official authority; many survived near-lynchings; and countless others suffered severe assaults and social humiliation. Documenting these atrocities is vital to understanding the incongruity of our country’s professed ideals of freedom and democracy while tolerating ongoing violence against people of color within our own borders."

Red Summer

"The Red Summer refers to the summer and early autumn of 1919, which was marked by hundreds of deaths and higher casualties across the United States, as a result of racial riots that occurred in more than three dozen cities and one rural county. In most instances, whites attacked African Americans. In some cases many black people fought back, notably in Chicago and Washington, D.C. The highest number of fatalities occurred in the rural area around Elaine, Arkansas, where five whites and an estimated 100–240 black people were killed; Chicago and Washington, D.C. had 38 and 15 deaths, respectively, and many more injured, with extensive property damage in Chicago."

Killing of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark

"In Chicago, on December 4, 1969, two Panthers were killed when the Chicago Police raided the home of Panther leader Fred Hampton. The raid had been orchestrated by the police in conjunction with the FBI. Hampton was shot and killed, as was Panther guard Mark Clark. A federal investigation reported that only one shot was fired by the Panthers, and police fired at least 80 shots.[102] The only shot fired by the Panthers was from Mark Clark, who appeared to fire a single round determined to be the result of a reflexive death convulsion after he was immediately struck in the chest by shots from the police at the start of the raid.

"Hampton was sleeping next to his pregnant fiancée, and was subsequently shot twice in the head at point blank range while unconscious. Coroner reports show that Hampton was drugged with a powerful barbiturate that night, and would have been unable to have been awoken by the sounds of the police raid.[103] His body was then dragged into the hallway. He was 21 years old and unarmed at the time of his death. Seven other Panthers sleeping at the house at the time of the raid were then beaten and seriously wounded, then arrested under charges of aggravated assault and attempted murder of the officers involved in the raid. These charges would later be dropped.

"Former FBI agent Wesley Swearingen asserts that the Bureau was guilty of a 'plot to murder' the Panthers.[104] Hampton had been slipped the barbiturates which had left him unconscious by William O'Neal, who had been working as an FBI informant. Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, his assistant and eight Chicago police officers were indicted by a federal grand jury over the raid, but the charges were later dismissed.[85][105] In 1979 civil action, Hampton's family won $1.85 million from the city of Chicago in a wrongful death settlement.[106]"

Interesting timing. I just read an article claiming the Civil War never really ended.

The American civil war didn't end. And Trump is a Confederate president

His supporters hark back to an 1860s fantasy of white male dominance. But the Confederacy won’t win in the long run

"In the 158th year of the American civil war, also known as 2018, the Confederacy continues its recent resurgence. Its victims include black people, of course, but also immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, trans people, gay people and women who want to exercise jurisdiction over their bodies. The Confederacy battles in favor of uncontrolled guns and poisons, including toxins in streams, mercury from coal plants, carbon emissions into the upper atmosphere, and oil exploitation in previously protected lands and waters.

"Its premise appears to be that protection of others limits the rights of white men, and those rights should be unlimited. The Brazilian philosopher of education Paulo Freire once noted that “the oppressors are afraid of losing the ‘freedom to oppress’”. Of course, not all white men support extending that old domination, but those who do see themselves and their privileges as under threat in a society in which women are gaining powers, and demographic shift is taking us to a US in which white people will be a minority by 2045."

This was written before this week's latest mass shooting--the 307th of the year. This bad man used a Glock, IIR, with an extra large magazine, but too many doctors are being overwhelmed with injuries from AR-15s.

Learning how to "Stop the Bleed"

"Ballistics tests show how lethal a wound from an AR-15 style rifle can be. Now there's a campaign to teach civilians how to be first responders in mass shootings

"A Pittsburgh synagogue, a Florida high school, a Texas church, a Las Vegas concert, a Connecticut elementary school. These are the locations of some of the deadliest mass shootings in America in recent history, and they all have something in common: The style of weapon used at each horrific scene was the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.

"This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Scott Pelley reports on what the weapon does to the human body, why it's different from the wounds created by a handgun—injury from an AR-15 style rifle round is potentially lethal.

"Because handguns wound and kill more people than AR-15 style rifles, first responders and emergency room doctors are used to treating injuries sustained from a handgun shot.

"But most emergency rooms haven't had to treat victims who've been shot with an AR-15 style rifle.

"'It is a whole different kind of injury,' 60 Minutes producer Ashley Velie tells 60 Minutes Overtime's Ann Silvio in the video above. 'When you're hit with an AR-15 bullet, most people die fairly quickly from bleeding out.'"

The war never ended!

David Trammel's picture

Some history on the bullet.

I served in the US Army from 1978-1982, which was just after the Viet Nam War. I also had one year of Junior ROTC and one year in College. I was exposed to NCOs who hated the AR-15, and preferred the older M-14. That rifle used the larger 7.62mm round, where the AR-15 uses the .223mm round.

That's a bullet about 3/10th of an inch in diameter versus one that's about 2/10ths. (.308 cailiber vs .223 caliber).

The older round was designed to kill an enemy and does damage like a handgun bullet, causing huge point damage and large wound.

The brains at the Pentagon decided that you could make the enemy work harder and expend more resources, if you wounded an enemy soldier rather than killed him, since a wounded enemy requires people to care and assist him. So the lighter .223 round is designed to tumble once it enters the body, causing massive lighter damage but not necessarily kill. It can often travel up or down the body as it strikes bone.

A secondary advantage was its lighter weight. A soldier could carry more rounds. Since the earlier soldiers were often country boys who knew how to shoot, having lesser rounds per soldier wasn't an issue. Once you began drafting city boys whose only exposure to guns was the few weeks of basic training, having a rifle they could aim and spray had its advantages.

Of course the gun from Mattel, had alot of other problems especial once it was put to work in a jungle.

I think teaching people how to deal with gun shot wounds, at least to stabilize them before first responders arrive is a smart move.

Blueberry's picture

Just the yellow vest. The happenings in France started with what we call blue collar workers. In America to bring things down just have the truck drivers stop work just like France. Saw something about 8000 trucks a week to keep New York City going. Just in time could bite us in the a##. Cyber attack on the grid ie the Erie Loop was some kid on his computer!!! Super Storm Sandy, was in Europe when it hit a verizon center in NY failed because of flooding so no American bank cards worked in Europe for 2 days. Smart grid an smart appliances so some hacker turns off all the HVAC systems at once then turns them back on in say a hour so much for home heating in the middle of winter. Guess what no shots will need to be fired for us to enter the stone age.

Justin Patrick Moore's picture

This was an interesting article, as was another one linked in the first on No Go Zones in Europe. I just saw this movie plot at work (cataloging a DVD).

The Standoff at Sparrow Creek:
"After a mass shooting at a police funeral, reclusive ex-cop Gannon realizes that the killer belongs to the same militia he joined after quitting the force. Knowing the police will be closing in on them, Gannon quarantines his fellow militiamen in a remote lumber mill. There, he sets about a series of grueling interrogations, intent on ferreting out the killer and turning him over to the authorities to prevent further bloodshed."

This thread also reminded me of a short lived TV show I saw a few episodes of "Outsiders". Here is the synopsis from wikipedia:

"Set in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky, the series revolves around the interaction of a group of mountain folk known as the Farrell clan and the locals in the nearby town of Blackburg, Kentucky. The Farrells are an isolationist group, who shun normal society and live a spartan existence in the woods. Extremely paranoid of outsiders, the family controls a mountain coveted by a national mining outfit for its coal deposits.

At the start of the series, Asa Farrell, a cousin of the ruling family, returns to the mountains after leaving ten years prior in order to join the military and experience life amongst normal society. His arrival coincides with the family matriarch Lady Ray Farrell announcing her intention to cede power to her son, "Big Foster" Farrell. Big Foster, who never forgave Asa for leaving his family, has Asa imprisoned in a cage for six months until he is freed due to his ability to read after an eviction notice is posted at the entrance of the mountain.

In town, the mining company has gained approval to evict the Farrell family from the mountain and seeks to expedite the process so mining operations can begin as soon as possible. Deputy Sheriff Wade Houghton is assigned the task to carry out the eviction process. Deputy Sheriff Houghton however, suffers from alcoholism, opiate addiction, and PTSD due to previous encounters with the violent and cold-blooded Farrell family, and the death of his wife. Houghton attempts to warn his superiors that any sort of eviction process will be bloody, result in loss of life on both sides, and will eventually devolve into a lengthy siege with the Farrells holding the advantage through their extensive knowledge of the mountains.

The eviction leads to a power struggle, as Lady Ray believes that the impending eviction is the apocalyptic event that the family believes in per a family prophecy. Because of this, she pardons Asa, freeing him from the cage and announces a delay in turning over authority to her son. She continues to refuse to change her mind when Big Foster, upset at being denied power, arranges a raid in town of a local mobster that goes bad and costs the life of Big Foster's youngest son."

All of this is to say the sort of thing posted here is certainly good fodder for fiction.