I didn't care about what the civil war was about in Civil War. I cared that it never really seemed like it wanted to say anything but then it also, in the same breath, carried itself like it had a big message.
The point is that it doesn't matter, it's meant to get you to question the civil war itself. It'd be easy to make it about conflicting ideologies of today, that's why certain states are allies in the movie, to prevent clear lines.
Ta muchly. All I can share in response is an interaction between some journalists and a Lebanese shopkeeper in 1975: "You are journalists? Stop calling this a "civil war". This is the most uncivil of wars"
I kinda like the 90s movie because it really shows how in a bad situation a bunch of stupid mistakes and misunderstanding can go out of control especially in the modern world. Sure the powder kegs have to be set, but once they are then the accident will eventually happen. After all, during the Cold War nobody would have guessed that one of the final nails to the Soviet Union's coffin was going to be a couple idiotic power plant managers, an inexperienced night shift and a safety test, but even Gorbachev says Chernobyl was a lot of why they fell apart, and even that took years to finally die.
What ruined the soviet union was the weakening of state control over the population. Glastnost and parastrioka were mistakes. If Gorbachev would've held strong and gradually liberalized the economy, he would've been able to hold the union together.
To elaborate somewhat on the analogy, I think those two movies pretty well encapsulate the cultural divide in America right now. On the one hand, smug, self-righteous, educated, urbanite, elitards (scientists and bureaucrats) decide the best way to handle an impending comet impact (Deep Impact) is to keep it secret, dooming most of the population to death, because they won't have the forewarning they need to make their own preparations, all so they can keep the economy humming along as before and make it a little easier to save themselves by digging enough bunkers for like 1% of the population (chosen by them of course.) The monstrosity of this betrayal and the destruction, waste, and loss of life it causes, is never really examined within the context of the film and it's just taken for granted that no better solution or outcome is feasible. VS. (Armageddon) A bunch of practical, rough around the edges, working class heroes, with tons of real word experience, come along and save humanity from a looming asteroid impact, and the corruption and incompetence of clueless elitards who can't figure out how. The main thing they ask in return is to never have to pay taxes again.
@@chrisbullard5901 Now that was a MUCH better film than those bloody piles of crap :( Yeah the way Armageddon vs Deep Impact showed a cultural dichotomy and total divorcement from reality, is really emblematic of the gulf in US culture And sorry , kind of indicative of the US today and alas, the whole damn Western world, sigh
I'm more worried about a French Revolution type scenario happening than another American War of Succession one. The Revolution route makes enemies of everybody to each other. Especially when there are two sides of the political spectrum clamoring for one.
Everyone mentions this. A Second American Civil War will be a Troubles type situation, or Years of Lead, or La Violencia. Basically expect a LOT of bombings, assassinations, disappearances and parts of the country highly influenced by one side of another, with state and city governments taking sides. But, there will still be a functional federal government and a functional military, which will either take a side or be paralyzed as units defect to a side or another or 'donate' weapons to their preferred side.
I've lived in Europe where there are multiple parties. It doesn't stop ANY polarization it just has more corners for fractionated factions to run. There are coalitions to form majorities that simply run right along the EXACT same left/right lines are ours do. To sum it up as Dr Thomas Sowell said, " there aren't any solutions only trade-offs"
--- A PROPER REVOLUTION À la française . . . is exactly what the U.S. requires so that we can OUTGROW religion-justified white supremacy and so progress onwards and upwards from right-wing mediocrity to be all that we can be.
The scene everyone quotes from "Civil War" is the one with Jesse Plemons. He shows up and WHAM we're in a new movie--for five minutes. The irony is he was just at the set with his wife Kirsten Dunst when the actor cast in the role quit and they needed a replacement. Most actors: "I'll need a week of boot camp and some pages about my motivation." Jesse: "Okay. You got some red sunglasses?" If THAT is the big moment in your picture . . . you need to do some more planning.
The character looked like he had been out of Basic for a long time )and had been recycled a couple of ties before finishing it. It was a nice performance because of that, not in spite of it . . . .
Right Wing Historian: "History is the struggle of people groups, great men, and ideas. Left Wing Historian: "History is the struggle of the people against the ideas of 'great men.' Feral Historian: "History is messy."
If I have to say one thing that most reviewers have missed, is that the 2024 movie is also a road movie. Until the last 20 minutes it never really covers the front line of the conflict. It travels through a civil war america where Americans are fighting Americans and shows us what such a country would look like. What does it show? It shows that even places that try to stay out of it will have to post armed guards to protect themselves. You can't rely on cops alone. If somebody tries to steal from your local community, you can either beat them up or kill them(then hang their bodies off an overpass as a warning), because jails will be non-existent. Any travel becomes dangerous as wackjobs can start looting and killing in the name of any cause you care to mention. The Big battles? Yeah, that will go into the history books, but there are thousands of smaller battles going on all across america. Its an atomized society where anything beyond your neighborhood is the other, the stranger, and the enemy. To the point that the victor will be welcomed for bringing an end to it. No matter their ideology.
I liked the game This War Of Mine. Siege of Sarajevo the survival game. You are three or four people holed up in a building. Outside, the army conducts a security operation. You no longer trust the promises on the radio.
I like civil war novels and movies that show the little details of moving about in a warzone. How characters react when three weirdos with guns and a "sergeant" who might be high are suddenly on the road. How to keep going to the factory or office or farm because conflict or not you need a paycheck. Trying to get medication or prescription glasses or diesel from who knows where. Random mortar fire at night. Trying to persuade the dude from the same football team to let you get off the truck on that little slip of familiarity. Not necessarily all the deep worldbuilding but the everyday bits pulled from previous civil wars around the world. Even if only to understand those conflicts by viewing them through the home front lens.
With the scene with Jesse Plemons, I got a vague Arkan's Tigers/Serbian Paramilitary vibe from it, the fact you don't know who they are aligned makes it more scary. My theory is that they are a aligned with US government, but only nominal and acting on their own accord and the US government lacks the means to reign them in, and tolerates their actives because they are useful to them when it comes to keeping some semblance of control of their territory, so their basically operating like warlords. The movie was basically Red Dawn meets Oliver Stone's Salvador, with a tad of Apocalypse now. People complained that the movie was vague and you don't learn much at all about what's happening, But I liked that way because It allows a lot for the audience to fill in the blanks and fact you don't much makes things more scary, putting the horror in the minds of the audience and let their own imagination do scaring, a very Hitchcockian approach to storytelling. The movie was basically a popcorn move with intellectual disposition, a typical A24 formula which why that studio has been on a role a lot lately and very successful at a result and on the up and up in the film industry.
I suspect the memoir, My War Gone By, I Miss It So, informs this movie (as does Michal Herr's Dispatches). The war depicted in Civil War is very much like the Wars in Yugoslavia. Arkan's Tiger came to mind during the Jesse Plemmons scene. But, the whole thing starts out as conventional was between factions and became, to some degree, gun law. On a slightly smaller level, that is also Somalia. The guys of the roof tops probably become like the Warlords running Mog in 1993 at some point.
I haven't seen the movie but I like that the uncertainty came through. If I was going down the road in a truck and five unmarked paramilitary guys are on it, would I really be guaranteed to know what side they were on. Or if they are some opportunists looking to pick up a road tax, or if they want me for a labour platoon.
Im so glad you put out a video on the Alex Garland Civil War. If anyone was going to have a fantastically nuanced take and give it justice it would be you. Thank you so much!
The Second Civil War was underrated when it came out, and is criminally forgotten today. I was a college senior in 1997, and I remember laughing out loud with my friends at the succession/secession mixup. The movie was full of brilliant satire like that. Funny as hell, but also 100% something that you know could really happen.
I'll say the same thing Margaret Killjoy said: Civil War is centrist propaganda. It's about the center left (CA) and the center right (TX) teaming up to fight an "extremist" President. As a result, it appeals to people who want their centrism affirmed, and doesn't appeal to people who wanted a well-conceived, realistic movie.
I am going to make 2 separate commends. 1. I believe the odd alliances established in the movie is part of the point, and it serves a necessity. Being confusing should be part of the point, as people on the ground would have a very difficult time figuring out what was actually happening, as every Civil War has a whole bunch of groups all over the place with various alignments and fighting for their own cause within the greater conflict. If you were a 19-year-old student in Sarajevo, you would have a hard time figuring out what was actually going on. You have obvious sides in generic terms, sure. But then all of a sudden the American launch an airstrike on your house and school. Or in Afghanistan. America invade. They encounter village leaders that thinks that the Americans are Russians. And the Americans primarily end up fighting against Pakistani soldiers. Or when the Nazis signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. And, it was the only way of avoiding any sort of "Red vs. Blue / Liberal vs. Conservative / White vs. Minority" connection, which would have made the movie impossible to make, and impossible to watch. And for the "Red glasses guy". The biggest enemy to the regime in Germany during the war, were fellow Aryans within the Protestants and the Catholics. The Germans even tried to make a new Denomination called "Positive Christianity", which bans the Old Testament and heavily edits the Book of Matthew, as well as anything that has to do with the "Jewish prophecy". The Protestants and the Catholics serving as giant thorns in the sides of the regime for the entire rule. Being the only two forces that prevented the Nazis from having absolute ideological supremacy. And, of course, there was the whole struggle with the long knives. I am not a big fan of the recent Civil War movie. As a chronic worldbuilder, it feels like an odd creation. Yes, it carries the generic "War is bad" mentality, and especially that a civil war in America would be horrible. But it doesn't go nowhere near enough to what a Civil War like that would actually be on the global scale. The global calamity of a collapsed Bretton Woods system, the disappearance of the Dollar, no global free trade, no American security guarantee. 80 years of paused animosity would erupt all at once the moment the Americans no longer force the world to play nice.
It's very much a movie about how ambitious journalists' appetite for shock value, breaking news, hard hitting photo disregard the wellbeing of everybody inside the conflicts, including their own. It's blockbuster nightcrawler. Global politics dont matter that much within the confine of this intention. If you put this "American" civil war in any other actual currently happening civil war, it would work and it would work even better. Imo the only reason they specifically went for the US setting is commercial. Easier to sell, easier to cast and far far easier to market.
The odd alliances only exists to be purposely vague. The writer director wanted his thing to not be a commentary on current day politics and because of that he tried to make 'politically neutral'. Except you can't have a politically neutral civil war by definition.
@@BoneistJ Exactly. When you make a film about a Second American Civil War, you can't sacrifice worldbuildin' in the name of "political neutrality". Such a notion is pretentious. Alliances have to feel realistic and both sides have to have clear causes. The Second Civil War in the film needs to feel like a war, not a vague shallow backdrop for a road trip with unlikable characters and a bunch of actions scenes that exist for the sake of havin' action scenes.
I think a key part of the "What kind of American are you" scene is that red glasses guy is Kirsten Dunst's husband in a cameo role. Looking at that scene, no way would you think they are a couple. This just underlines the ambiguity that would arise should this play out.
From how you describe the scene, I like it. Part of the dread with weird, unmarked dudes on the road is that you might not know who they are and what the heck the "right" answer is. Are these weirdos high, are they looking to extort a road fee, do they want the truck itself, are they looking for some others...
Real, the journalists seem so out of touch while people are fighting for their lives and seeing their world crumble around them. Presumably profiting off the destruction around them. They’re really despicable characters.
@@dragon_ninja_2186 No small group tactics, no comms, no NODs, no drones, ND's with white lights, no use of defensible positions...in a movie called 'Civil War'....hilarious.
Hi Mr feral historian I'm a new subscriber but I've watched every single one of your videos from start to finish I like what you got going here very entertaining very informative and intellectually stimulating I have one small complaint however not in any particular video just in your recording method I do like the outdoor appeal when you talk about jets flying overhead I like hearing the birds and I like seeing the landscapes but your audio perhaps you need to wear a mic or a headset or something because you have a very distinct casual voice which can be somewhat quiet at times but then the audio makes a loud sharp squeal I know nothing about audio but I like this channel and I want to see it grow and it's very noticeable in your early videos I think you're probably already figuring it out Also if you want an idea on a video Tom cruises Valkyrie
Welcome to the channel and, yes, the audio on the early videos is often horrendously bad. Recently I've been using a wireless lav mic that, while not perfect, seems to be the optimal balance between sound quality and being able to lug it up mountains without too much hassle. But there's always room for improvement. I'm not sure of the details yet, but I think Valkyrie is going to come up in connection with a few other things.
Comment 2. A more realistic approach to what a Second American Civil War would actually look like. Let's have a bit of fun. Whenever people talk about a potential Second American Civil War, the first words you hear are "Red versus Blue" and "Urban versus Rural". This carries a little bit of truth, but it is too simplistic. They look at the electoral map, with the Red and the Blue, and think that the Civil War would follow these lines. This is not how it works. War has changed drastically since the 1950s. We no longer have fronts and great tank battles. And the same is true for Civil Wars. The fighting takes place everywhere in various forms. And now, we are about to have a fun dive into a more likely scenario. And I would like you to consider, that a Second American Civil War, would be a mixture of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia, and the Spanish Civil War. Children in Northern Ireland were able to distinguish between Catholic and Protestant on the pronunciation of the letter "H". To me as a Norwegian and you as an American, the Catholic Belfast and the Protestant Belfast accent is identical. Yet they were able to pick up the difference. That is polarization. Now, for the Second Civil War. For this exploration, we can take America some months away, after the elections. And for the sake of argument, let's say that the Blue team wins. Now imagine that there is another Waco or Ruby Ridge that happens a year or so into his second term. The Blue President and his crew screw the pooch, just as they did the first time. But this time, as America finds itself in a very different situation, the repercussions are worse. Social Media and Alternative News Media takes this to the hills, and the wickedness and overreach of Washington and the Elites have now fully proven and on show. And the fire is set. There is an event similar to the Oklahoma City Bombing. But this time, the action is done by a small group of people. One man can do a lot of damage. But imagine what a group of 6 have the ability to do, as they start targeting Federal institutions somewhere in Middle America. Now, things happen slowly. There is no grand moment of Secession. Instead, there is a slow steady buildup, as the fringes on both sides detach. And they organize. In the Rural areas, small radicalized Militia groups use Thermite on rail tracks and pipelines. Raiding or cooperating with someone in the demolition business is an easy thing to happen, and road and rail bridges are blown up. As well as tunnel entrances are blown up. The damage in infrastructure would be felt world-wide. Trade between Asia and Europe has 3 paths to go. Through the Suez Canal (already at max capacity), Panama Canal (drought and is operating at max capacity), and over the United States by railroad. With attacks on the rail infrastructure, the trade between Europe and Asia is extreme hampered, as supply chains are entirely thrown up in the air. The problems wont manifest immediately, but they will in 6 months to a year. In the inner cities, the situation is not much better. Some police shooting brings people to the streets once more. Students and activists take over portions of various major cities. Fueling the rage and the fury from the opposite detached side. All while the Federal Government is sitting with a situation that is spiraling out of control. They have no choice but to act, and they have to act hard. The President Nationalizes various National Guard Units and deploys them, some to the cities to secure law and order, while others are sent to patrol and protect the enormity of the American infrastructure network. Fueling the ill-will even more. But the problem does not go away. Now, we can give names to the various sides. For the sake of simplicity, I have decided to use "Patriot" for the Rural Militias, as I find it to be a likely term that they would use for themselves. And, a very common term used in fiction. For the Urban, Revolutionaries. A likely name they would use for themselves. And, in the center, we just have the Feds. Or, lets use the full name, Federalists. Now, to explore the factions. The Patriots: The Patriots would generally be radicalized Republicans, generally from the Libertarian, the Nationalist, and Evangelical factions of the Republican Party. Many of their members will have military background. They are overwhelmingly towards exclusively White. In their eyes they are fighting for the Constitution and what America is and was supposed to be. This is a very cohesive group of people. One of a more Nationalist persuasion has no problem with the other two branches. And so, this is a very cohesive group. Remember, similarly to the Spanish Civil War, where you had the Nationalist and the Monarchists walking hand in hand. Revolutionaries: The Revolutionaries would be an incredibly diverse coalition of peoples of all sorts of backgrounds. You have persons with racial reasons to being there, and you have people of ideological reasons being there. Anarchistic, Communist, Social-Democratic, you name it they will be there. Ranks filled with Students and activists. Federalists: Over 90% of the American population. Now, with soldier and Federal agents patrolling and doing what they can do quell the chaos, events such as the "Boston Massacre" are bound to happen. Innocents will die, and those deaths will be used to cause further radicalization. Just as we see in every conflict in the past decades. Instead of quelling the chaos, the fringes grow. Until a tipping point occurs. When people in Congress start agreeing with the Patriots or Revolutionaries. You don't need many. But if you have a handful of Republicans siding with the Patriots, and a handful siding with the Revolutionaries, and the entire Federal Legislature locks down. Forcing the President to rule by decree. Radicalizing even more of the population. All the while, the news all around the world, are entirely dominated by images of bombings of buildings and infrastructure in America. Political assassinations of politicians and judges, causing a situation similar to what we see in Mexico and what we saw in Columbia, where the entire legal system locks up from a lack of judges, and local and State governments lock down from a lack of people to fill basic functions. The President has no other choice, and decided to start using air strikes and drone strikes against enemy targets in Rural America, while the Marines are sent into the cities. Governors of fly-over States, now suffer from air strikes and bombings by the Federal Government, and have no other choice but to align with the Patriots, while other Governors are outright couped. While the cities descend into chaos. The economy breaks apart. Occupying the entire country with the National Guard is very expensive, but people across America have simply stopped paying taxes, and collecting taxes becomes impossible. The Federal coffers run dry, and the Dollar becomes an unreliable currency. While at the same time, more and more fall to the fringes, and entire brigades disobey direct orders to attack their own countrymen. Then the last flip happens. It has always been easier to placate the Right than the Left. The demands of the Right are always straight forward and direct, while the Left demand complete and fundamental revolution. The Pentagon, the Elites, the Corporate interests, and other such top assets depose the Blue President, and talks begin with the Moderate elements of the Patriots. The radical wing of the Patriots are cast aside, as the Old Elite and the Patriots join against the Revolutionaries. As the United States goes through a generational conflict. But, without any outsiders telling them to stop. So, you can imagine, a Yugoslavia situation, but without any sort of UN or NATO to stop the horrid actions. Where the United States goes through a generational struggle, where they will have some sort of Franco-esque military man at the center of this scarred America. Where the conflict would boil over to include both Mexico and Canada, as there would be no way to contain the struggle within arbitrary borders. And even with this chaos, the world beyond North America would have it even worse, having been without the American security guarantee for a whole generation. 80 years of animosity and anger all boiling to the surface in countries like Spain, Italy, France, Russia, China, India, and all across the world.
I forgot to mention, military bases would be attacked. And everybody knows where the nuke silos are. Imagine for a second what would happen to the prestige and legitimacy of the sitting President, once militias start taking over nuke silos. Imagine how global news and the world would react.
The broad strokes are pretty much how it strikes me as well. The big variable on the world stage is the simultaneous end of the Dollar-based economic order and the sudden emergence of new pseudo-states with uncertain levels of political stability and access to nuclear weapons.
@@feralhistorian I don't necessarily think there would be new pseudo-states as such. The "Right" tends to be far more cohesive in its ideology in such events, and this would be the dominating ideology within the areas of the nuclear silos. In the beginning these groups would be nothing but terrorists, until they either fizzle out into generic lone-wolf activity, or they unite, generally under a Military General, and so formalizes itself into a relatively cohesive faction. This would operate as an underground movement operating in a vast area, until they are either wiped out. Or, they are able to get the support by people and attract more fighters to effectively take over entire regions. Taking over military bases, and having active servicemen join their ranks, supplying them with significant military hardware. As this would probably be a slow and gradual process with very loose "borders", the ordinary operations of local and municipal governments would probably still go on very much as it had before. In Mexico as an example, I would argue most of the country is not actually run by the National Government, but by the military and by the two large cartels. Yet, the basic functions of infrastructure is still being done by the National Government, even when they are not actually in control of it. The presence for the "Patriots" being in the area between the Rockies and the Mississippi. But of course having groups and strikes and operations beyond. Reaching across the Midwest, down to Texas and the Northern and Southern corridor of the Appalachian mountains. And, as we saw in Spain and Northern Ireland and in Yugoslavia, the "Right" tends to be pretty cohesive in these situations. Their demands are few and straight forward, and they tend to have a view of wanting to go home to their families once the 'enemy' has been vanquished. Their area of control would be pretty cohesive, their ideology is pretty cohesive, and they don't really step on each other's toes. So I wouldn't say the United States would splinter as such, instead I think a new Military government of sorts would develop, then grow and grow until it becomes the effective military government of a certain area of the United States. While stability for most people would be pretty stable, at least considering the situation. There is room to breathe in the region. People can leave the cities and towns and work for food on the farms for the duration. While arrests and generic modern Civil War things would happen in a limited number of locations, generally in large towns and cities. And the question of nukes. The big thing here would be the humiliation of the sitting President, in the fact that he would be the first President in American history to lose control of parts of his nuclear arsenal. It would cripple his personal legitimacy as well as for the entire Federal government. There would never be a question of forming new countries. Within what the United States is, and what modern Civil Wars are, it would be considered an ideological struggle for the soul of America. And, for the "Patriot" faction, fighting against a tyrannical government, and fighting to protect and preserve the Constitution. Way of life, et cetera et cetera. Even though, obviously, various groups have different interpretations for what that means. But general and overall, the political "Right" side of these conflict, as far as my knowledge goes, stays cohesive. In Spain the Monarchists fully aligned with the Nationalists, even though there was never any sort of restoration as long as Franco remained alive. ------ The situation in the cities would most likely be disastrous. The death toll in the Rural parts of the United States is mitigated by room to breathe and room to grow food. The situation in the cities could get really bad really quickly. I have often seen people discus a potential "2ACW", and they point to the GDP of the cities, and the GDP of the Eastern Metro region and the West Coast. That they have industry, et cetera. But cities collapsing through Civil War can get nasty really quickly. But the urban areas would be just that. There are no significant military assets in the cities. The chaos of the cities remains in the cities. We are not in a Russian situation during their Civil War a century ago, that is just not how this would play out. Where you had the whole thing divided between Red and White, and with professional soldiers and people from across the entire country fighting for both sides. Nor are there any sort of conditions like during the breakup of the Soviet Union, where various regions wish for independence. The Unted States is the most cohesive major country in the world. Canada, Spain, Britain, France, Germany, China, all have actual and significant independence movements. Talks of Texan independence or Californian independence is not a real thing. But in many other countries, its real. ------ An actual American Civil War would most likely be a 3-way struggle, just as we saw in Northern Ireland. Where you have the extremists on one tip and the extremes from the other tip, with the Federal Government trying to hold it together. I included Yugoslavia as an example, not because of the fact that they broke up, but because of the racial and religious elements to the struggle. Yugoslavia was a new and made up country. The United States is fully integrated in culture, economics, and politics. Remember, 1/3 of the Reddest State voted for Hillary Clinton and 1/3 of the Bluest State voted for Trump. A breakup, is highly unlikely. But racial and religious violence would be an enormous part of the struggle. While the actual fighting of the Civil War, would look a lot like Northern Ireland. With bombings all across the country by both opposing sides. And earlier back in the 1920s, the British would use groups such as the "Black and Tans" to crack down on the insurrectionists. And later they just sent in the army and militarized the police to be an army on its own. The police stations becoming fortresses. And for Spain, as you reach a point where the conflict is going to need a central body of control for it to truly become a Civil War. And for the "Right", this generally is some sort of Military man. While the "Left" are far more decentralized. And in the case of the United States, you would probably have an independent "Left" organization for each split off Metro region, or something to that effect. As they would not be able to organize and work together. Compared to the "Right", who would hold and operate out of a more cohesive area. ------ I would still fully believe that the United States would leave the Civil War as a cohesive unit. First you would have gone through years and years of bombings and terrorist activity, while the actual full-blown Civil War would probably only take a couple to a few years. Which would probably be followed by years of what one could call "Serbian" conditions, until such time that people, collectively, would have enough. And we get a new period of Reconstruction.
Kind of off topic, but I'd suggest reading *"Zero Day Code"* by John Birmingham, it's one of the few plausible (ish!) novels of a cyberwar I've read. I won't spoil it for you but, people need to consider such things outside the usual BS Hollywood tropes and sheer simplistic idiocy. I don't have any links etc to the author, just one of my fave novels, even if it is grim (without being "grim dark")
Saw this recently and found it thought provoking, more about photojournalist trying to be impartial and dealing with consequences of their work. Some great cinematography
I have an inescapable sense that some kind of civil conflict will erupt before 2050. Can't see any how any leader or platform that can slow let alone heal current division. Only a slug match is going to burn out the pent up frenzy. Wish I didn't believe this; but just as the movie and history shows, we are not immune.
It's long seemed to me that most of the bitter contention stems from various levels of government exercising powers that were never constitutionally granted and those powers being used to force people into compliance. But of course we're far past the stage of simply decentralizing powers back to the state and local level, letting people live as they choose and take their own risks. Too many people are locked into the control mechanism, either as masters or dependents. Sadly, I think you may be right.
I share your worry. With the demographic collapse of much of the world. The end of the unprecedented golden age that began when the Soviet Union fell, collapse of the Russian industry, which flooded the global markets with cheap resources that would integrate with the near slave labor of China, and having the perfect period of having the bulk of the population of the West in the age of high earning, while at the same time having few children. But the golden age is now over. We will never go back to how it was before Covid. The golden age is over. China is about to descend into absolute horror, as their population is going to near halve by 2050 by age alone. And also jumping into the worst financial crisis in human history. The Italian banking sector is on the verge of cracking in the same way the Greek one did, but the Italian economy is far larger, and will take down the entire European Union with it. The United States will tip, going from majority White to White being a minority in the following years. This will change the rhetoric. People think certain parts of America can be cruel and nasty now, just you wait until the tipping point is reached, and I expect the language to change with it, and not for the better. As the era of cheap capital is coming to an end, sectors like the tech industry is about to completely collapse. Billions upon billions of dollars are spent on fantasy products that have produced zero benefit or profit, instead having created enormous pyramid schemes of investment fueling value to collect more investment. But with the cost of capital going up, this while house of cards is facing a horrid dive. Rise in families breaking apart. Rise in extreme crimes committed by the children of broken homes. Resulting in unimaginable crimes. This will only increase. Application of AI in everything. The government fusing AI to make an already cold and faceless bureaucracy even worse. Soon to be applied to law enforcement to prevent the rise in extreme crimes. Some form of a snap is, to me, inevitable. What that actually looks like is impossible to predict. We think about Civil Wars, and Civil Wars can be theorized and considered. But the fact is that we simply have no idea how this will manifest. And we have no idea how things are and how thing look when they snap. But what is likely, is that at some point we will have to eat every problem at the same time. And something like that has never happened in human history before.
@Hugebull It did happen once, the Bronze Age Collapse. The "world" at that time was interconnected economically, militarily, and technologically. It was a microcosm of globalization, with Egypt at the center. You'll see people harp on about "The Sea Peoples" dooming the Bronze Age societies but that's really reductive. These nations were struggling long before with famines, bloated bureaucracy and ethnic tensions. The end result was horrifying.
“Civil War” (2024) was so fascinating. The visuals of typical American Car-Centric planned communities bombed out by recent battles part of a far larger conflict. Strip-malls, apartment complexes, subdivisions, and rural communities all affected by the civil war. A JCPenny common in many American malls and shopping centers with a collection of military vehicles abandoned by whatever ambiguous side had left them in the parking lot. I suppose it’s the visuals you expect (as an American) to see in some far away land, seen on our familiar soil. It’s haunting. The fall of Washington D.C. really reminds me of the Battle of Berlin in April, 1945. An urban capital being completely leveled by an invading military force, with speckled die hard forces desperately fighting to the death inside and amongst huge elaborate monuments to their failed government. Only for all of it to be crushed in the end. It’s the ending of this movie that is really fascinating to me. War correspondents running into the White House behind military forces to take out a president, a hated figure. Its depiction reminds me somewhat of the collapse of the Communist Party of Romania which inevitably lead to the violent execution of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife in December, 1989 all filmed by correspondents. I’m totally rambling. But all of this juxtaposition of a Civil War on American soil is so alien (but also so probable and profound as of the typing of this comment) that I can’t help but align the plot of this movie to previous historic events to make it make sense lol.
There is something haunting about familiar imagery from overseas warzones transposed over everyday Americana. Ceaușescu is exactly the example that crossed my mind as they dragged the President out.
I also use that to understand other conflicts sometimes, or explain them to others. "So if there was a massive siege of Detroit with chemical weapons and a Canadian expedition force... Would either side send much to stop a weird sect suddenly taking five towns in the hinterlands." It is a nonsense situation, but it hopefully brings some light on how weird little groups can find room within a larger conflict.
@@feralhistorianFor me, Americana is the foreign stuff. I'll be comparing the movie with conflicts closer to me like the Balkans. Another fellow already drew an Arkan's Tigers parallell in comments above.
@@SusCalvin But you literally can't do that It's a false equivalent There are less than a dozen countries on this planet that are the same size or bigger than the US, and not a single one of them are even remotely as populated, almost all of their people live relatively close to the border on either the eastern or western side(save for austrialia who's entire population is tiny), scale of war doesn't work when comparing them it's just logistically dishonest in pretty much every way
@@victorkreig6089 Like watching Red Dawn, and either interpreting it literally or by comparing it to the fears of a Pact invasion in Europe? European armed forces were preparing for pockets of partisan war behind the front of an initial Soviet advance.
I do think it would be hilarious to have a civil war movie where media is reporting on what they call a war everyone is camming up a war but then you follow just a regular family and they come out of like a bunker or something and it's just a normal suburb or City there was never any War, the war was entirely in the media. Like a reverse 10 Cloverfield Lane.
I watched Second Civil War right before A24's Civil War was announced. And when I watched A24's Civil War, I was oddly left lacking. If another movie came out, with the wacky satirical story of Second Civil War with the lights and action of A24's, I think it would be something beautiful and maybe even poetic.
A satirical Civil War movie would've been a far better move. You just can't take the concept seriously without a lot of backstory which the A24 movie obviously did not give. It seems less like Alex Garland wanted to make the sides of the war ambiguous and more that he doesn't understand US history or politics at all.
@@pastelcastiel1481I will not be comparing it to the USA when I see it, but to the Balkans. I care less about the grand world building this time and more about the smaller stories they capture.
Could be my own biases showing but I feel the idea of Journos in America trying to be objective about an American Crisis to be an extremely dated element of the story. The Mythology around Watergate still holds strong in entertainment it seems.
I don't mind editorial content. If the journalistic content holds to basic factual standards I don't mind it either. When the president or PM says you should not trust media, and sets up a personal or party platform for completely unfiltered communication, that gets me nervous.
This has been repeated before, but I'll mention this again: A Second American Civil War will be a Troubles type situation, or Years of Lead, or La Violencia. Basically expect a LOT of bombings, assassinations, disappearances and parts of the country highly influenced by one side of another, with state and city governments taking sides. But, there will still be a functional federal government and a functional military, which will either take a side or be paralyzed as units defect to a side or another or 'donate' weapons to their preferred side. Oh, and ethnic/racial wars in parts of the country (think when the Russian Empire collapsed there were lots of independence movements)
God Bless President George Van Horn Moseley. Our General in the hour of need. Who broke the joint forces of Reed and Olsen, with their corruption and evil. Who now most honorably hold the Executive Branch as our Guardian and Protector, now that Long has so disappeared. God Bless President Moseley! And God Bless the United States!
As a writer, having your main characters be journalists is perfect. It gives you the perfect excuse to observe events together with your characters. It gives you the perfect excuse as to why your characters don't know everything about the topic the story is about, allowing grownups to learn together with the audience. If your main character for this recent Civil War movie had been a soldier, the entire story would be about him as a soldier in the Civil War. It locks you in, sort of. But if you have a journalist, it allows you to be in meetings between Generals, see interactions between soldiers, interview civilians, and the characters can experience extreme events without necessarily being participants of such actions, such as an execution, et cetera. As a tool for storytelling, it's a pretty awesome tool. But, as with every tool, it does not guarantee that the tool is used properly.
@@Hugebull Narratively, I agree. But as FH mentioned, there is so much taint associated with the Ministry of Propaganda that it makes it impossible to care about these characters, at least for me and possibly others. I assert it would have been possible to have a non-reporter be our eyes and ears; it might have been harder but it would have been better.
I find it interesting that no one ever thinks about the fact that California and Texas share a lot more in common than not. They have the highest GDP's in the nation, are both major tech centers and both sway the majority of the national conversation. They represent an economic imbalance that would see their interests align even more if the end goal was greater financial control of their contributions.
People wonder why California and Texas would work together, but for the context of this movie, it makes perfect sense. If I had to choose the two states that would have the most outrage at an unlawful 3rd term presidency, I'd say Cali and Texas. They both agree that they don't like this, and decided to temporarily team up to stop it.
Like Vegeta teaming up with Goku to bring down a big(ger) bad I'll let the youtubers argue in the comments over which State is represented by which Saiyan >_>
Not really, Tehas is the most cuckd state in the union. The very definition of all bark and no bite, every inch is taken all they do is blather and sit by while what they screech about continues. Now New Hampshire and California is a different story
Mine would be kinda boring for a movie. It would just be a bunch of microcommunities coming together that simply arent dominated by giant megacorporations making a life for themselves lol
Wars can have jarring divided between the front, or between everyday life and the conflict. People still had to pick up the paychecks during the Troubles and the Years of Lead.
I liked the modern civil war movie for the fact that in any even you never see the full picture until the dust finally settles. I find it kind of laughable that some people wanted more explination but those same people would have complained about the lack of action or even worse the endless exposition dumps required to fill the viewers in on a multi year milti sided conflict.
@muhammadashshiddiq8752 the 2024, I should have been more specific. The 1997 one is very clear what happens and continual compounding of miscalculations, assumptions, and not knowing when to jump out of the way when playing chicken
The problem is that the movie doesn't excel at anything. The action scenes are pointless because you have no context for why they are happening and the characters are unlikable cardboard cutouts who you spend the entire movie following
Maybe the actual 'reasons' and 'ideologies' for the fighting are not important for the story being told. In Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," we were never told the 'reasons' for the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. Maybe the point was, they didn't know, themselves. My Like is in the 1.2Ks.
In a way the movie being vague about alliances does fit the current context of the States. We don't have so much a set of sides, as a multiplicity of sides, some with overlapping interests. Though I hope it would not happen, what I see is not so much a mass civil war as localized civil unrest amongst competing interests. Least that is a thought.
The 90's movie look like a much more rational take on the scenario, I'll be at grounded in some classic movie tropes, whereas the 2024 movie looks like an overloaded Netflix miniseries, with all the usual maladies of multiple layers of invisible embedded nihilism and a complete blindness to the fact that it is trying to be smarter than it really is. There is something - although only a little something perhaps redeemable and trying to present a generic conflict without really putting in the stakes as to what it is in order to try to examine some of the universal themes. Ironically, to my mind, the variant that does take some more explicit sides, even partisan positions, is actually better able to more authentically examine some of those universal themes precisely because once it has accepted it has staked out a position, even performatively, it no longer has to carry around all that extra baggage in every scene and every line of dialogue trying to maintain the facade. If anything the more modern renditions suffers from one of the most debilitating issues in contemporary cinema, which is the perception and reality - self-reinforcing - of audience stupidity. The idea that contemporary audiences simply cannot understand anything beyond what is literally presented, if you present anything explicitly it must be an endorsement, and the people are not capable of rotating a scenario or a concept in their heads unless you walk them through it has ruined a lot of good things.
I like this movie. Everything is ambiguous and is up to interpretation. Especially the sniper scene, just a couple that is caught in the fight where they just want to be left alone. Are they gay hating? Or just shooting everyone in uniform? No idea
Nah it wasn't people didn't understanding the film, I think when people came to the Civil war they are expecting what was advertised in trailer which is a war film about a 2nd american civil war, instead people got a bait and switch and got a road trip for War journalists experiencing it, which isn't as interesting when you are using a fictionized war as the setting more people are more interested in how the world and politics of that fictional world works rather than the journalists experience that can be presented in any other war.
@Methyll True, on the other hand, use of war journalists in the setting did make me think of our relationship to people going out there to capture grotesque images and our consumption of them. Almost like they're making a socially acceptable snuff film. Also, in response to the OP making it an explicit red state vs blue state conflict could easily make it "Confirmation Bias: The Movie." Nobody wants to watch a movie that spends it's runtime pointing fingers at them scolding them the whole way through.
@@Methyll My relatives who watched Jarhead without the marketing seemed to like it. I don't know if It's marketing who sometimes misunderstands movies at times.
90s one is better since they actually put an effort in putting the reasons and actions that cause the war as the main point for the movie, while the new Civil war film is not really a movie about a second Civil war but just a story about War Journalists experience in a war setting, which is fine but if your using a fictional setting with it being the main selling point for the movie, you should concentrate of the lore for that instead of a character driven plot that can be used with any other war setting
I held off on watching The Second Civil War for many years because Joe Dante, the director, had written the episode of Masters of Horror "Homecoming" and I was a little less than impressed with just how on the nose it was. Essentially, dead US soldiers return from the grave to vote George Bush out of office. Explicitly. I have no kind words for the Bush administration, but the episode is cringeworthy after eight years of Obama choosing to escalate Afghanistan and generally continuing the Patriot Act and its associated policies. Second Civil War is a lot more balanced though, pretty much no side or point of view escapes unscathed, and when it ended I was sort of dumbfounded that Dante would later go on to make something as one-sided as Homecoming. If anyone out there is holding off for the same reason, definitely give Second Civil War a watch. Joe Dante's other Masters of Horror Episode is also a lot better.
@@feralhistorian To be fair, its actually a pretty funny episode. Joe Dante regular Robert Picardo plays a great sleazy reporter, and there are plenty of on the nose jokes about journalism and reporters. its just literally all at the expense of republicans and Bush, its hard to ignore.
The Revolutionary War was a revolution in the sense of renouncing one's loyalty to a government. It was NOT a revolution in terms of the power infrastructure, just who ran those parts. The Revolution in that sense was about Revolt, not great systemic change.
The key feature of war is the flames of war consume everything even the reason why you're fighting. As a war drags on there is no ideology left it's all just survival. It's telling to look at the broad strokes of war fiction overtime. War is the best war is the solution to everything. War is bad we shouldn't do it again. War is trendy again because of our ideology and technological superiority. because of our ideology and technological superiority war is now even worse. We all hate war and are all still here but war never changes and we will be forced into the cycle again by politicians if we like it or not. Give it 10-20-30 years and repeat again. War is the best war is the solution. War is bad not again. War our ideology and technology. because ideology and technology worse. Hate war forced into the cycle again. Give it 10-20-30 years and repeat again. War good. War bad. War good. War worse. Hate war.
3:53 I wouldn’t say that as in the same part of the film there is a sniper battle also they’re not the federal government as they don’t shoot the journalists on site
I'm drawing a distinction between something like the Spanish Civil War, where factions are fighting for control over the whole country, vs a separatist movement that starts off by claiming a specified territory and they just want to leave. But it's mostly academic if you're standing in the middle of it.
Yes in a sense, but they are different. In both the American War of Independence and the American Civil War, you had a region trying to rip itself away from the other. But when you look at full-blown Civil War Civil Wars, such as there was in Spain, the Yugoslav Wars, The English Civil War, the French Civil War, The French Revolution, The Russian Civil War, The German Revolution, The Northern Irish Troubles, or the Chinese Civil War. In these cases, the fighting really happened everywhere, and the destruction and suffering was insane. During the American Civil War, the GDP of the North, which was 2/3 of the United States, doubled. While the South was battered by the invading Union Army. In more standard Civil War Civil Wars, as the chaos is everywhere, and they are fighting over the soul of the nation, animosity becomes extreme. Purges and massacres and eradication becomes normal.
@@feralhistorian I mean I guess I would disagree about the conflict in which we call it a civil war. The US never recognized the confederacy and also civil war is not just one group wanting to take control over said country/territory. Civil wars are mostly interstate conflicts. But I guess that just plays into how people view historical conflicts
Watching a couple of photographers travel through America while barely seeing any of the war: I sleep Watching a couple of reporters be indirectly responsible for a civil war that claims tragic casualties with a nice ending: REAL SHIT??
the elder Journo said that after they take over the US gov they will fight amongst each other , so they are in a tenous alliance, reminds me when the Afghan Mujahadeen besieged Kabul after the Soviets left in 89, the so called allied Mujahadeen factions started fighting each other, which ironically helped in the survival of the former Soviet Puppet Afghan gov in Kabul.
Until the Taliban found something that united most people: a Reformed Islam (Deobandi/Wahabist Islam). It did not fully unite Afghanistan until after the US Occupation/Deployment/Involvement.
I think people respond to pretty simple things. Will there be doped-up goons of a warlord harassing me on the road. The USA has two ideas here. One hearts and minds campaign at the best of the central government and one where they used warlords as deputized auxiliaries. And people were surprisingly not happy with goons on the road. I think you could have instituted the old communist government, and afghans would have accepted them over the warlords.
@@SusCalvin Part of the problem was the Taliban rose to power in the mid-1990s to protect the people from the Warlords. Islam, particularly the Wahabi and Deobandi forms of Sunni Islam, had a level of legitimacy due to the relief efforts made by relief workers from the KSA and Pakistan in the Pakistani Refugee camps in the 1980s war with the Soviets. The Taliban actually improved their legitimacy during the 20 years we were in Afghanistan. By the time the Afghan Gov't evanesced, there was no "Northern Alliance and there basically still isn't.
If some of you wish to read a story that has a cynical non-comedic take on a Second American Civil War which includes the leadup? I highly recommend the "And our Flag was not there" timeline on Sufficient Velocity. Its written by someone I knew, but I can vouch for its quality. It starts with a Leadup called "2020: Shots Fired." Essentially it imagines a world where everything that could have gone bad in 2020 does go bad. (Bernie Sanders is Assassinated in late 2019, Trumps airstrike on Soleimani leads to an Invasion of Iran that devolves into brutal vietnamesque mountain warfare with Tactical Nukes and COVID spreading in the trenches, Civil wars in Peru and Israel, Saudi Collapse, Trump dies of COVID... lots of bad shit.) The timeline follows two principles as it goes from 2020 well into the future (like 2060s) 1. The Civil War is a gradual one. Shots Fired tells the story of an American Years of Lead. Political Violence will grow steadily as boundaries continue to be crissed and segments of the public continue to be radicalized against the American Systems increasing dysfunction. Bombings, shootings, riots, attempting uprisings. 2. When the bough breaks the war wont have any clear borders. Enclaves and Exclaves dovided by Ideology, allegiences to state and federal governments, foreign interventions... It will be a chaotic, bloody, and most importantly lengthy mess. The best historical comparison for the actual collapse will be something akin to the Chinese Warlord Era. America will likely not be united again, not in the Civil War Generations lifetime at least. Eventually, borders will stabilize, and America will be Balkanised, a failed experiment, an empire that died, like all eventually do. Not from those we feared without, but from the hatred we harbored within.
I would like to counter your point about the "diverse pile" with red glasses guy he's doing an ethnic cleansing, and he's lumping in anyone who dares defend others who aren't "American". It's like how Germans who didn't approve of the failed Austrian painter ended up in camps right beside the minorities. Just because you're the target demographic of the extremists to "protect" doesn't mean you're safe.
@@avus-kw2f213 it's the same basic idea. In-groups and out-groups. Us vs Them. Even if you're one of Us, if you show mercy to Them you are no longer truly one of Us
Nobody seems to have picked up on red glasses guy saying "What, Hong Kong like China?" before shooting the guy. Not only is this quite a controversial statement, it might be the only clue in the entire film as to the political or ideological justification for the killing, if not the actual reason for the war itself. Overall I though "Civil War" was a poor film that had little to say. I think even less of it now I know the Jesse Plemmons scene was improvised.
The two tandem forces that constantly lead developed civilizations back into internal conflict are always the same: 1. A [bodily, nutritionally, intellectually, mentally, spiritually, characteristically, financially] -degraded populace who surrenders their responsibilities to operate their portion of the vast machinery of state. 2. Factions of motivated, psychopathic bad-faith persons, who by nature of their personalities almost always migrate to occupy high positions in government, military, and culture, who are not only A) happy to absorb the power surrendered by the former group, but B) happily use it for ends that devastate and eventually crack the foundations of the nation. Most people in the USA, most people around the world, and most people watching this video fall into camp #1. The people owning and funding the infrastructure that we're posting these comments on fall into camp #2.
It seems to me like lazy writing and the film makers being unable to fully dedicate themselves making a fantasy of a civil war or dealing with implications of a 2024 civil war
Americans have to call the war between the States a "civil war" because calling it a secessionist movement would raise too many uncomfortable questions about the legitimacy of the northern cause and everything that was subsequently built atop that foundation.
Sadly I left academia several years ago with an unfinished dissertation and wide open eyes about the financial prospects of a humanities degree. Went feral, you might say.
@@feralhistorian I know the feeling. I, myself, am trapped in perpetual adjunct gig work. However, in the unlikely chance that you're ever in South Jersey, drop me a message, 'cause I'd love to grab a Zima with you and talk history.
Civil War got a lot of hate for the wrong reasons in my opinion. I think most of the people hated it are mostly COD veterans and gun bro's who carried bias. Overall a misunderstood film by people in this era.
Nah it's a bad movie plain and simple, what little positives can be extrapolated from it are mostly unintentional by the people who made the movie It heavily leaned on retard tier levels of understanding of the modern political landscape to make strawmen for it's plotline and was insulting to a degree even.
if i was given all of the monetary power in the world i would make movie like this John Doe is member of national guard, forced to fight against foe who isnt evil, you dont know why, but war is here and he has to fight encounter after encounter with fellow americans on opposite sides distinguishable only be armbands and tape, maybe some talks with prisoners of war overall slow meaningless war seen from eyes of a soldier, not journalists,then movie ends after taking the capital, and question is asked what for, in the background of destroyed city and politicians? i wouldnt make totally not trump and evil roicists, nah, its one unnamed party wants power while other cant get it, make it as neutral without suggesting towards republicans as the bad guys here it work much better me thinks
I loathed Civil War, the way they stormed in at the end and murdered the 'cowardly U.S. president' - terrible, all of it. You just don't know what the motivation is for the two different factions lol
It's a bit of a cop-out, sure, but I understand the choice. Civil wars after a while have rarely anything to do with with righteous causes and ideology when they descend into secteric wholesale slaughter. I believe this is what the movie is trying to portray through the lens of objective reporters.
@@Emanon... Exactly :( The first US Civil War was almost unique in it's degree of "civil" behaviour (at least to most folks), usually such conflicts are horrific, pointless slaughter. That naivety and mercy for civilians etc is long gone
@@romanmanner leave it ambiguous so as not to alienate your Democratic / Republican voters and to not cause real world controversy, I get it. But even so, the inferred alliances (Texas and California) are not very credible which takes me out of the film. You just don't really now why things are occurring that are happening right in front of your eyes on screen so it's just a little confused mess I thought - like a monster movie with people running around scared all the time.
If you want anything resembling objective legacy press, you need to source it from South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. US and the general western media report without showing key nuances and crucial "tones of grey" in the discourse. Ukraine and Gaza are perfect examples of how these very same issues can be presented as either justified or criminal depending on the nation in question. Hypocrisy, not information, has sadly become the main export of US news media, it seems.
@@DrVadGun The Middle East is always set separate to Asia. The mountains are enormous and cut off mainland Asia into 3 entities. Middle East, India, and East Asia (including southeast Asia). When someone introduces themselves as "Americans", I'm not going to assume that they are Panamanians.
Sure, it's West Asia. But just as the Global South isn't literally always in the Global South, it's a way to describe it geopolitically as well as geographically to a certain extent.
@@fds7476 Freedom of the Press is a fickle thing. My people invented it, and it was immediately used against us, and after around a decade our entire movement collapsed and Charles II was restored to the throne. High Press Freedom walks hand in hand with yellow journalism and the legal right to lie for profit.
I have to say, it doesn't put me at ease when you say "you dont know" if America is going to have a civil war, thats because, you couldn't say with certainty that "it will not happen", thats the real danger zone.
It's not impossible, just improbable. I know there's talk by some people over the internet on how "imminent" another American civil war supposedly is, but despite how politically polarized we are at the moment, I just don't think a full-scale civil war is currently in the cards. The worst case scenario I can realistically foresee this decade is a "Years of Lead" scenario, with isolated terrorist attacks from Far-Left and Far-Right groups. Not nearly as glamourous as an actual war with dramatic battles, and while I can imagine some lazy historians calling such an event "another" civil war, it's not something that'll rip the country apart.
@@dx-ek4vr Yeah, most "normies" are still just going to work, going home to their families, and just living their regular lives. All the crazy talk is confined to the internet, which doesn't really matter too much (there will always be crazies on the internet). The only really noteworthy thing is that everyone understands the media isn't trustworthy (and I can confirm as a news editor - the media isn't and really never has been trustworthy) and they just sort of pick their preferred news station and that's it.
You ignore that the internet is were people live these days and can freely express themselves- or at least more then they do in real life. Also, even during the lead up and during the first civil war people lived their lives as normal.
@@dx-ek4vr "They sound so very cautious and correct, these deadly words. Soft, quiet voices purring, courteous, grave, exactly-measured phrases in large peaceful rooms. But with less warning cannons had opened fire and nations had been struck down by this same Germany. So now the Admiralty wireless whispers through the ether to the tall masts of ships, and captains pace their decks absorbed in thought. It is nothing. It is less than nothing. It is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of in the twentieth century. Or is it fire and murder leaping out of the darkness at our throats, torpedoes ripping the bellies of half-awakened ships, a sunrise on a vanished naval supremacy, and an island well guarded hitherto, at last defenceless ? No, it is nothing. No one would do such things. Civilisation has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, Liberal principles, the Labour Party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible. Are you quite sure ? It would be a pity to be wrong. Such a mistake could only be made once - once for all."
I like my Civil War movies like, I like my hearts of Iron 4 mods, utterly schizophrenic and absurd to the 10th°.
Amen, dog. Amen.
Average TNO enjoyer
Average TNO enjoyer
Yeah extremis ultimus is pretty good.
@@calvenknox8552 really confusing ideology system though
“Civil War” just made one thought echo in my head for hours after I left the theater:
“I need thermal optics, bad”
😂😂 on god
and NVG's. In wilderness combat tests, youre able to walk up within 5 ft of people who cant see u in pitch black and u see them from a mile away.
FLIR breach and pvs 14 is on my “when I have disposable income” list for sure.
@@warweasel2832 fr. also the german WA 2000
Based
I didn't care about what the civil war was about in Civil War.
I cared that it never really seemed like it wanted to say anything but then it also, in the same breath, carried itself like it had a big message.
I think it was trying to say conflict is bad but they didn’t want to antagonize anyone’s political beliefs.
The point is that it doesn't matter, it's meant to get you to question the civil war itself.
It'd be easy to make it about conflicting ideologies of today, that's why certain states are allies in the movie, to prevent clear lines.
The point is that for the people on the ground it really doesn't matter.
Ta muchly.
All I can share in response is an interaction between some journalists and a Lebanese shopkeeper in 1975: "You are journalists? Stop calling this a "civil war". This is the most uncivil of wars"
the civil in civil war isn't derived from civility but civilian, a war of the people against each other instead of a foreign invader
A generic American movie President? You mean he is Mitt Romney
Have you seen the Mike Pence speech about the creation of the Space Force with the Halo theme added to it?
Dudu du duuuuu, duu du du duuuuuu
@@Hugebull no but now I want to so so bad
--- IS THERE A DUD RIGHT-WING POLITICIAN BLANDER . . . than Mitt Romney?
I kinda like the 90s movie because it really shows how in a bad situation a bunch of stupid mistakes and misunderstanding can go out of control especially in the modern world. Sure the powder kegs have to be set, but once they are then the accident will eventually happen. After all, during the Cold War nobody would have guessed that one of the final nails to the Soviet Union's coffin was going to be a couple idiotic power plant managers, an inexperienced night shift and a safety test, but even Gorbachev says Chernobyl was a lot of why they fell apart, and even that took years to finally die.
What ruined the soviet union was the weakening of state control over the population. Glastnost and parastrioka were mistakes. If Gorbachev would've held strong and gradually liberalized the economy, he would've been able to hold the union together.
I think you forgot Afghanistan. 10 years trying to shoehorn communism (a centralized system) in a tribal "country".
@@ErickSarabia-z5c very true, Afghanistan followed by Chernobyl and the general mismanagement were inescapable.
I also prefer the hbo movie. long live the free and independent democratic Republic of Idaho and its allies.
@@ErickSarabia-z5c And yet Regan thinks he did it, oh wait, I don't think he can even remember that. lol
What kind of American are you? Deep Impact American or Armageddon American?
To elaborate somewhat on the analogy, I think those two movies pretty well encapsulate the cultural divide in America right now.
On the one hand, smug, self-righteous, educated, urbanite, elitards (scientists and bureaucrats) decide the best way to handle an impending comet impact (Deep Impact) is to keep it secret, dooming most of the population to death, because they won't have the forewarning they need to make their own preparations, all so they can keep the economy humming along as before and make it a little easier to save themselves by digging enough bunkers for like 1% of the population (chosen by them of course.) The monstrosity of this betrayal and the destruction, waste, and loss of life it causes, is never really examined within the context of the film and it's just taken for granted that no better solution or outcome is feasible.
VS. (Armageddon) A bunch of practical, rough around the edges, working class heroes, with tons of real word experience, come along and save humanity from a looming asteroid impact, and the corruption and incompetence of clueless elitards who can't figure out how. The main thing they ask in return is to never have to pay taxes again.
"2010": an INTELLIGENT space story, and I'm not a Yank, thank God :P
You know, I think you're on to something there.
You left out “Meteor”.
@@chrisbullard5901 Now that was a MUCH better film than those bloody piles of crap :(
Yeah the way Armageddon vs Deep Impact showed a cultural dichotomy and total divorcement from reality, is really emblematic of the gulf in US culture
And sorry , kind of indicative of the US today and alas, the whole damn Western world, sigh
I'm more worried about a French Revolution type scenario happening than another American War of Succession one. The Revolution route makes enemies of everybody to each other. Especially when there are two sides of the political spectrum clamoring for one.
Honestly I'm very much the same way. I fear the reign of terror
That is the root of most terrible politics
Everyone mentions this. A Second American Civil War will be a Troubles type situation, or Years of Lead, or La Violencia. Basically expect a LOT of bombings, assassinations, disappearances and parts of the country highly influenced by one side of another, with state and city governments taking sides. But, there will still be a functional federal government and a functional military, which will either take a side or be paralyzed as units defect to a side or another or 'donate' weapons to their preferred side.
I've lived in Europe where there are multiple parties. It doesn't stop ANY polarization it just has more corners for fractionated factions to run. There are coalitions to form majorities that simply run right along the EXACT same left/right lines are ours do. To sum it up as Dr Thomas Sowell said, " there aren't any solutions only trade-offs"
--- A PROPER REVOLUTION À la française . . . is exactly what the U.S. requires so that we can OUTGROW religion-justified white supremacy and so progress onwards and upwards from right-wing mediocrity to be all that we can be.
I honestly really liked that Civil War made its conflict more like the yugoslav wars. It's probably the most realistic part of the film.
The scene everyone quotes from "Civil War" is the one with Jesse Plemons. He shows up and WHAM we're in a new movie--for five minutes. The irony is he was just at the set with his wife Kirsten Dunst when the actor cast in the role quit and they needed a replacement.
Most actors: "I'll need a week of boot camp and some pages about my motivation."
Jesse: "Okay. You got some red sunglasses?"
If THAT is the big moment in your picture . . . you need to do some more planning.
The character looked like he had been out of Basic for a long time )and had been recycled a couple of ties before finishing it. It was a nice performance because of that, not in spite of it . . . .
I absolutely love Hollywood stories like that. Random people showing up on set or an improv line making it a legendary unforgettable moment
@@klaykid117it was pretty...bad imo but maybe thats because I dont respect journalists
I like how many great scenes are unplanned.
"Some call me... Tim."
@@wisemankugelmemicus1701What do you respect instead, influencers and party communicators? Because those are next in line to spread information.
Right Wing Historian: "History is the struggle of people groups, great men, and ideas.
Left Wing Historian: "History is the struggle of the people against the ideas of 'great men.'
Feral Historian: "History is messy."
I like very small niches. Like the history of shit logistics. All humans produce shit, any stationary group must learn to deal with it.
If I have to say one thing that most reviewers have missed, is that the 2024 movie is also a road movie. Until the last 20 minutes it never really covers the front line of the conflict. It travels through a civil war america where Americans are fighting Americans and shows us what such a country would look like. What does it show? It shows that even places that try to stay out of it will have to post armed guards to protect themselves. You can't rely on cops alone. If somebody tries to steal from your local community, you can either beat them up or kill them(then hang their bodies off an overpass as a warning), because jails will be non-existent. Any travel becomes dangerous as wackjobs can start looting and killing in the name of any cause you care to mention. The Big battles? Yeah, that will go into the history books, but there are thousands of smaller battles going on all across america.
Its an atomized society where anything beyond your neighborhood is the other, the stranger, and the enemy.
To the point that the victor will be welcomed for bringing an end to it. No matter their ideology.
I liked the game This War Of Mine. Siege of Sarajevo the survival game. You are three or four people holed up in a building. Outside, the army conducts a security operation. You no longer trust the promises on the radio.
I like civil war novels and movies that show the little details of moving about in a warzone. How characters react when three weirdos with guns and a "sergeant" who might be high are suddenly on the road. How to keep going to the factory or office or farm because conflict or not you need a paycheck. Trying to get medication or prescription glasses or diesel from who knows where. Random mortar fire at night. Trying to persuade the dude from the same football team to let you get off the truck on that little slip of familiarity.
Not necessarily all the deep worldbuilding but the everyday bits pulled from previous civil wars around the world. Even if only to understand those conflicts by viewing them through the home front lens.
With the scene with Jesse Plemons, I got a vague Arkan's Tigers/Serbian Paramilitary vibe from it, the fact you don't know who they are aligned makes it more scary. My theory is that they are a aligned with US government, but only nominal and acting on their own accord and the US government lacks the means to reign them in, and tolerates their actives because they are useful to them when it comes to keeping some semblance of control of their territory, so their basically operating like warlords. The movie was basically Red Dawn meets Oliver Stone's Salvador, with a tad of Apocalypse now. People complained that the movie was vague and you don't learn much at all about what's happening, But I liked that way because It allows a lot for the audience to fill in the blanks and fact you don't much makes things more scary, putting the horror in the minds of the audience and let their own imagination do scaring, a very Hitchcockian approach to storytelling. The movie was basically a popcorn move with intellectual disposition, a typical A24 formula which why that studio has been on a role a lot lately and very successful at a result and on the up and up in the film industry.
I suspect the memoir, My War Gone By, I Miss It So, informs this movie (as does Michal Herr's Dispatches).
The war depicted in Civil War is very much like the Wars in Yugoslavia. Arkan's Tiger came to mind during the Jesse Plemmons scene.
But, the whole thing starts out as conventional was between factions and became, to some degree, gun law. On a slightly smaller level, that is also Somalia. The guys of the roof tops probably become like the Warlords running Mog in 1993 at some point.
@@JohnMinehan-lx9tsI read that in college so many years ago. Now I want to read it again.
I haven't seen the movie but I like that the uncertainty came through. If I was going down the road in a truck and five unmarked paramilitary guys are on it, would I really be guaranteed to know what side they were on. Or if they are some opportunists looking to pick up a road tax, or if they want me for a labour platoon.
Im so glad you put out a video on the Alex Garland Civil War. If anyone was going to have a fantastically nuanced take and give it justice it would be you. Thank you so much!
The Second Civil War was underrated when it came out, and is criminally forgotten today. I was a college senior in 1997, and I remember laughing out loud with my friends at the succession/secession mixup. The movie was full of brilliant satire like that. Funny as hell, but also 100% something that you know could really happen.
I saw a bit of it and thought it looked like Command & Conquerer cutscenes. In a good, hammy way.
Is it really satire when Obama point blank did exactly what caused the war in the movie to dozens of states?
I'll say the same thing Margaret Killjoy said: Civil War is centrist propaganda. It's about the center left (CA) and the center right (TX) teaming up to fight an "extremist" President. As a result, it appeals to people who want their centrism affirmed, and doesn't appeal to people who wanted a well-conceived, realistic movie.
Well said. The movie ends up saying almost nothing by extent, any true civil war film should honestly be extremely hard to watch.
Liberals And Conservatives Both Do Not Follow God, Jesus Is King ✝️
@@theeternal2734 GFY
@@ericcampbell503 All Morality Derived From Man Is Evil, Only By God's Authority Can We Triumph ✝️
@@theeternal2734 GFY
War... War never changes.
Though after VaultTec is through, there won't be any war for a while!! ;)
"War has changed..." Solid Snake Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots 2008.
@@Gruntvcbeat me to it
but the status of your settlements do! There's a settlement that needs your help, I'll mark it on your map.
War, War always changes.
I am going to make 2 separate commends. 1.
I believe the odd alliances established in the movie is part of the point, and it serves a necessity. Being confusing should be part of the point, as people on the ground would have a very difficult time figuring out what was actually happening, as every Civil War has a whole bunch of groups all over the place with various alignments and fighting for their own cause within the greater conflict.
If you were a 19-year-old student in Sarajevo, you would have a hard time figuring out what was actually going on. You have obvious sides in generic terms, sure. But then all of a sudden the American launch an airstrike on your house and school.
Or in Afghanistan. America invade. They encounter village leaders that thinks that the Americans are Russians. And the Americans primarily end up fighting against Pakistani soldiers.
Or when the Nazis signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
And, it was the only way of avoiding any sort of "Red vs. Blue / Liberal vs. Conservative / White vs. Minority" connection, which would have made the movie impossible to make, and impossible to watch.
And for the "Red glasses guy".
The biggest enemy to the regime in Germany during the war, were fellow Aryans within the Protestants and the Catholics.
The Germans even tried to make a new Denomination called "Positive Christianity", which bans the Old Testament and heavily edits the Book of Matthew, as well as anything that has to do with the "Jewish prophecy".
The Protestants and the Catholics serving as giant thorns in the sides of the regime for the entire rule. Being the only two forces that prevented the Nazis from having absolute ideological supremacy.
And, of course, there was the whole struggle with the long knives.
I am not a big fan of the recent Civil War movie. As a chronic worldbuilder, it feels like an odd creation.
Yes, it carries the generic "War is bad" mentality, and especially that a civil war in America would be horrible.
But it doesn't go nowhere near enough to what a Civil War like that would actually be on the global scale. The global calamity of a collapsed Bretton Woods system, the disappearance of the Dollar, no global free trade, no American security guarantee.
80 years of paused animosity would erupt all at once the moment the Americans no longer force the world to play nice.
It's very much a movie about how ambitious journalists' appetite for shock value, breaking news, hard hitting photo disregard the wellbeing of everybody inside the conflicts, including their own. It's blockbuster nightcrawler. Global politics dont matter that much within the confine of this intention.
If you put this "American" civil war in any other actual currently happening civil war, it would work and it would work even better. Imo the only reason they specifically went for the US setting is commercial. Easier to sell, easier to cast and far far easier to market.
@@mdd4296 My wife compared it to Nightcrawler as we were watching it.
The odd alliances only exists to be purposely vague. The writer director wanted his thing to not be a commentary on current day politics and because of that he tried to make 'politically neutral'. Except you can't have a politically neutral civil war by definition.
@@BoneistJ Exactly. When you make a film about a Second American Civil War, you can't sacrifice worldbuildin' in the name of "political neutrality". Such a notion is pretentious. Alliances have to feel realistic and both sides have to have clear causes. The Second Civil War in the film needs to feel like a war, not a vague shallow backdrop for a road trip with unlikable characters and a bunch of actions scenes that exist for the sake of havin' action scenes.
I actually like the recent one. The only way it could work is being neutral
I think a key part of the "What kind of American are you" scene is that red glasses guy is Kirsten Dunst's husband in a cameo role. Looking at that scene, no way would you think they are a couple. This just underlines the ambiguity that would arise should this play out.
I suspect that couple will get "His & Hers Oscar Nods" out of this.
Dude, you are really good at this. I love you insights and conclusions delivered with alacrity. Thank you.
From how you describe the scene, I like it. Part of the dread with weird, unmarked dudes on the road is that you might not know who they are and what the heck the "right" answer is. Are these weirdos high, are they looking to extort a road fee, do they want the truck itself, are they looking for some others...
Oh this is a treat! Didn't expect you to cover this movie. Grabbing my snacks and will be right back.
Yay finally a video comparing the 2 movies
I wish you would talk about "Threads", "The Day After", "The War Game", and "Testament".
Threads is nice. I played a barely veiled reference to the Traffic Warden mixed with Postman in a game.
'Civil War' is more of a road trip flick with unlikable characters. On the upside, the 'combat' scenes are unintentionally hilarious.
Real, the journalists seem so out of touch while people are fighting for their lives and seeing their world crumble around them. Presumably profiting off the destruction around them. They’re really despicable characters.
Hilarious? They were brutal
@@dragon_ninja_2186 No small group tactics, no comms, no NODs, no drones, ND's with white lights, no use of defensible positions...in a movie called 'Civil War'....hilarious.
“Alone and despised by all” - sounds comfy ❤
Wonderful breakdown and analysis of The Second Civil War and Civil War. 🤔
Hi Mr feral historian I'm a new subscriber but I've watched every single one of your videos from start to finish I like what you got going here very entertaining very informative and intellectually stimulating I have one small complaint however not in any particular video just in your recording method I do like the outdoor appeal when you talk about jets flying overhead I like hearing the birds and I like seeing the landscapes but your audio perhaps you need to wear a mic or a headset or something because you have a very distinct casual voice which can be somewhat quiet at times but then the audio makes a loud sharp squeal I know nothing about audio but I like this channel and I want to see it grow and it's very noticeable in your early videos I think you're probably already figuring it out
Also if you want an idea on a video Tom cruises Valkyrie
Welcome to the channel and, yes, the audio on the early videos is often horrendously bad. Recently I've been using a wireless lav mic that, while not perfect, seems to be the optimal balance between sound quality and being able to lug it up mountains without too much hassle.
But there's always room for improvement.
I'm not sure of the details yet, but I think Valkyrie is going to come up in connection with a few other things.
My 4th vid of yours and I’m glad I found you!
Comment 2. A more realistic approach to what a Second American Civil War would actually look like. Let's have a bit of fun.
Whenever people talk about a potential Second American Civil War, the first words you hear are "Red versus Blue" and "Urban versus Rural". This carries a little bit of truth, but it is too simplistic. They look at the electoral map, with the Red and the Blue, and think that the Civil War would follow these lines.
This is not how it works.
War has changed drastically since the 1950s. We no longer have fronts and great tank battles. And the same is true for Civil Wars. The fighting takes place everywhere in various forms.
And now, we are about to have a fun dive into a more likely scenario.
And I would like you to consider, that a Second American Civil War, would be a mixture of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia, and the Spanish Civil War.
Children in Northern Ireland were able to distinguish between Catholic and Protestant on the pronunciation of the letter "H".
To me as a Norwegian and you as an American, the Catholic Belfast and the Protestant Belfast accent is identical. Yet they were able to pick up the difference.
That is polarization.
Now, for the Second Civil War.
For this exploration, we can take America some months away, after the elections. And for the sake of argument, let's say that the Blue team wins.
Now imagine that there is another Waco or Ruby Ridge that happens a year or so into his second term. The Blue President and his crew screw the pooch, just as they did the first time. But this time, as America finds itself in a very different situation, the repercussions are worse.
Social Media and Alternative News Media takes this to the hills, and the wickedness and overreach of Washington and the Elites have now fully proven and on show. And the fire is set.
There is an event similar to the Oklahoma City Bombing. But this time, the action is done by a small group of people. One man can do a lot of damage. But imagine what a group of 6 have the ability to do, as they start targeting Federal institutions somewhere in Middle America.
Now, things happen slowly. There is no grand moment of Secession. Instead, there is a slow steady buildup, as the fringes on both sides detach. And they organize.
In the Rural areas, small radicalized Militia groups use Thermite on rail tracks and pipelines. Raiding or cooperating with someone in the demolition business is an easy thing to happen, and road and rail bridges are blown up. As well as tunnel entrances are blown up.
The damage in infrastructure would be felt world-wide.
Trade between Asia and Europe has 3 paths to go. Through the Suez Canal (already at max capacity), Panama Canal (drought and is operating at max capacity), and over the United States by railroad.
With attacks on the rail infrastructure, the trade between Europe and Asia is extreme hampered, as supply chains are entirely thrown up in the air. The problems wont manifest immediately, but they will in 6 months to a year.
In the inner cities, the situation is not much better. Some police shooting brings people to the streets once more. Students and activists take over portions of various major cities. Fueling the rage and the fury from the opposite detached side.
All while the Federal Government is sitting with a situation that is spiraling out of control.
They have no choice but to act, and they have to act hard.
The President Nationalizes various National Guard Units and deploys them, some to the cities to secure law and order, while others are sent to patrol and protect the enormity of the American infrastructure network.
Fueling the ill-will even more.
But the problem does not go away.
Now, we can give names to the various sides. For the sake of simplicity, I have decided to use "Patriot" for the Rural Militias, as I find it to be a likely term that they would use for themselves. And, a very common term used in fiction.
For the Urban, Revolutionaries. A likely name they would use for themselves.
And, in the center, we just have the Feds. Or, lets use the full name, Federalists.
Now, to explore the factions.
The Patriots:
The Patriots would generally be radicalized Republicans, generally from the Libertarian, the Nationalist, and Evangelical factions of the Republican Party. Many of their members will have military background. They are overwhelmingly towards exclusively White. In their eyes they are fighting for the Constitution and what America is and was supposed to be.
This is a very cohesive group of people. One of a more Nationalist persuasion has no problem with the other two branches. And so, this is a very cohesive group.
Remember, similarly to the Spanish Civil War, where you had the Nationalist and the Monarchists walking hand in hand.
Revolutionaries:
The Revolutionaries would be an incredibly diverse coalition of peoples of all sorts of backgrounds. You have persons with racial reasons to being there, and you have people of ideological reasons being there. Anarchistic, Communist, Social-Democratic, you name it they will be there.
Ranks filled with Students and activists.
Federalists:
Over 90% of the American population.
Now, with soldier and Federal agents patrolling and doing what they can do quell the chaos, events such as the "Boston Massacre" are bound to happen. Innocents will die, and those deaths will be used to cause further radicalization. Just as we see in every conflict in the past decades.
Instead of quelling the chaos, the fringes grow.
Until a tipping point occurs.
When people in Congress start agreeing with the Patriots or Revolutionaries.
You don't need many.
But if you have a handful of Republicans siding with the Patriots, and a handful siding with the Revolutionaries, and the entire Federal Legislature locks down. Forcing the President to rule by decree. Radicalizing even more of the population.
All the while, the news all around the world, are entirely dominated by images of bombings of buildings and infrastructure in America. Political assassinations of politicians and judges, causing a situation similar to what we see in Mexico and what we saw in Columbia, where the entire legal system locks up from a lack of judges, and local and State governments lock down from a lack of people to fill basic functions.
The President has no other choice, and decided to start using air strikes and drone strikes against enemy targets in Rural America, while the Marines are sent into the cities.
Governors of fly-over States, now suffer from air strikes and bombings by the Federal Government, and have no other choice but to align with the Patriots, while other Governors are outright couped.
While the cities descend into chaos.
The economy breaks apart. Occupying the entire country with the National Guard is very expensive, but people across America have simply stopped paying taxes, and collecting taxes becomes impossible. The Federal coffers run dry, and the Dollar becomes an unreliable currency.
While at the same time, more and more fall to the fringes, and entire brigades disobey direct orders to attack their own countrymen.
Then the last flip happens.
It has always been easier to placate the Right than the Left. The demands of the Right are always straight forward and direct, while the Left demand complete and fundamental revolution.
The Pentagon, the Elites, the Corporate interests, and other such top assets depose the Blue President, and talks begin with the Moderate elements of the Patriots.
The radical wing of the Patriots are cast aside, as the Old Elite and the Patriots join against the Revolutionaries.
As the United States goes through a generational conflict.
But, without any outsiders telling them to stop.
So, you can imagine, a Yugoslavia situation, but without any sort of UN or NATO to stop the horrid actions.
Where the United States goes through a generational struggle, where they will have some sort of Franco-esque military man at the center of this scarred America.
Where the conflict would boil over to include both Mexico and Canada, as there would be no way to contain the struggle within arbitrary borders.
And even with this chaos, the world beyond North America would have it even worse, having been without the American security guarantee for a whole generation.
80 years of animosity and anger all boiling to the surface in countries like Spain, Italy, France, Russia, China, India, and all across the world.
I forgot to mention, military bases would be attacked. And everybody knows where the nuke silos are. Imagine for a second what would happen to the prestige and legitimacy of the sitting President, once militias start taking over nuke silos.
Imagine how global news and the world would react.
Fascinating scenario. Would make an excellent series of novels.
@@ab5olut3zero95 Someone else will have to do it. I'm already knee-deep in my Mass Coronal Ejection story. :)
The broad strokes are pretty much how it strikes me as well. The big variable on the world stage is the simultaneous end of the Dollar-based economic order and the sudden emergence of new pseudo-states with uncertain levels of political stability and access to nuclear weapons.
@@feralhistorian I don't necessarily think there would be new pseudo-states as such. The "Right" tends to be far more cohesive in its ideology in such events, and this would be the dominating ideology within the areas of the nuclear silos.
In the beginning these groups would be nothing but terrorists, until they either fizzle out into generic lone-wolf activity, or they unite, generally under a Military General, and so formalizes itself into a relatively cohesive faction.
This would operate as an underground movement operating in a vast area, until they are either wiped out. Or, they are able to get the support by people and attract more fighters to effectively take over entire regions.
Taking over military bases, and having active servicemen join their ranks, supplying them with significant military hardware.
As this would probably be a slow and gradual process with very loose "borders", the ordinary operations of local and municipal governments would probably still go on very much as it had before.
In Mexico as an example, I would argue most of the country is not actually run by the National Government, but by the military and by the two large cartels.
Yet, the basic functions of infrastructure is still being done by the National Government, even when they are not actually in control of it.
The presence for the "Patriots" being in the area between the Rockies and the Mississippi. But of course having groups and strikes and operations beyond. Reaching across the Midwest, down to Texas and the Northern and Southern corridor of the Appalachian mountains.
And, as we saw in Spain and Northern Ireland and in Yugoslavia, the "Right" tends to be pretty cohesive in these situations.
Their demands are few and straight forward, and they tend to have a view of wanting to go home to their families once the 'enemy' has been vanquished.
Their area of control would be pretty cohesive, their ideology is pretty cohesive, and they don't really step on each other's toes.
So I wouldn't say the United States would splinter as such, instead I think a new Military government of sorts would develop, then grow and grow until it becomes the effective military government of a certain area of the United States.
While stability for most people would be pretty stable, at least considering the situation. There is room to breathe in the region. People can leave the cities and towns and work for food on the farms for the duration. While arrests and generic modern Civil War things would happen in a limited number of locations, generally in large towns and cities.
And the question of nukes.
The big thing here would be the humiliation of the sitting President, in the fact that he would be the first President in American history to lose control of parts of his nuclear arsenal. It would cripple his personal legitimacy as well as for the entire Federal government.
There would never be a question of forming new countries. Within what the United States is, and what modern Civil Wars are, it would be considered an ideological struggle for the soul of America. And, for the "Patriot" faction, fighting against a tyrannical government, and fighting to protect and preserve the Constitution. Way of life, et cetera et cetera.
Even though, obviously, various groups have different interpretations for what that means.
But general and overall, the political "Right" side of these conflict, as far as my knowledge goes, stays cohesive.
In Spain the Monarchists fully aligned with the Nationalists, even though there was never any sort of restoration as long as Franco remained alive.
------
The situation in the cities would most likely be disastrous.
The death toll in the Rural parts of the United States is mitigated by room to breathe and room to grow food. The situation in the cities could get really bad really quickly.
I have often seen people discus a potential "2ACW", and they point to the GDP of the cities, and the GDP of the Eastern Metro region and the West Coast. That they have industry, et cetera.
But cities collapsing through Civil War can get nasty really quickly.
But the urban areas would be just that. There are no significant military assets in the cities. The chaos of the cities remains in the cities.
We are not in a Russian situation during their Civil War a century ago, that is just not how this would play out.
Where you had the whole thing divided between Red and White, and with professional soldiers and people from across the entire country fighting for both sides.
Nor are there any sort of conditions like during the breakup of the Soviet Union, where various regions wish for independence.
The Unted States is the most cohesive major country in the world.
Canada, Spain, Britain, France, Germany, China, all have actual and significant independence movements. Talks of Texan independence or Californian independence is not a real thing. But in many other countries, its real.
------
An actual American Civil War would most likely be a 3-way struggle, just as we saw in Northern Ireland.
Where you have the extremists on one tip and the extremes from the other tip, with the Federal Government trying to hold it together.
I included Yugoslavia as an example, not because of the fact that they broke up, but because of the racial and religious elements to the struggle. Yugoslavia was a new and made up country. The United States is fully integrated in culture, economics, and politics.
Remember, 1/3 of the Reddest State voted for Hillary Clinton and 1/3 of the Bluest State voted for Trump.
A breakup, is highly unlikely. But racial and religious violence would be an enormous part of the struggle.
While the actual fighting of the Civil War, would look a lot like Northern Ireland. With bombings all across the country by both opposing sides. And earlier back in the 1920s, the British would use groups such as the "Black and Tans" to crack down on the insurrectionists.
And later they just sent in the army and militarized the police to be an army on its own. The police stations becoming fortresses.
And for Spain, as you reach a point where the conflict is going to need a central body of control for it to truly become a Civil War.
And for the "Right", this generally is some sort of Military man.
While the "Left" are far more decentralized.
And in the case of the United States, you would probably have an independent "Left" organization for each split off Metro region, or something to that effect. As they would not be able to organize and work together.
Compared to the "Right", who would hold and operate out of a more cohesive area.
------
I would still fully believe that the United States would leave the Civil War as a cohesive unit.
First you would have gone through years and years of bombings and terrorist activity, while the actual full-blown Civil War would probably only take a couple to a few years.
Which would probably be followed by years of what one could call "Serbian" conditions, until such time that people, collectively, would have enough.
And we get a new period of Reconstruction.
Kind of off topic, but I'd suggest reading *"Zero Day Code"* by John Birmingham, it's one of the few plausible (ish!) novels of a cyberwar I've read.
I won't spoil it for you but, people need to consider such things outside the usual BS Hollywood tropes and sheer simplistic idiocy.
I don't have any links etc to the author, just one of my fave novels, even if it is grim (without being "grim dark")
Saw this recently and found it thought provoking, more about photojournalist trying to be impartial and dealing with consequences of their work. Some great cinematography
Civil War: "This horrible dictatorial president has declared journalists enemy combatants!"
Me: "Whoa whoa whoa! Don't go making me like the guy!"
I have an inescapable sense that some kind of civil conflict will erupt before 2050. Can't see any how any leader or platform that can slow let alone heal current division. Only a slug match is going to burn out the pent up frenzy. Wish I didn't believe this; but just as the movie and history shows, we are not immune.
It's long seemed to me that most of the bitter contention stems from various levels of government exercising powers that were never constitutionally granted and those powers being used to force people into compliance. But of course we're far past the stage of simply decentralizing powers back to the state and local level, letting people live as they choose and take their own risks. Too many people are locked into the control mechanism, either as masters or dependents.
Sadly, I think you may be right.
I share your worry. With the demographic collapse of much of the world. The end of the unprecedented golden age that began when the Soviet Union fell, collapse of the Russian industry, which flooded the global markets with cheap resources that would integrate with the near slave labor of China, and having the perfect period of having the bulk of the population of the West in the age of high earning, while at the same time having few children.
But the golden age is now over.
We will never go back to how it was before Covid. The golden age is over.
China is about to descend into absolute horror, as their population is going to near halve by 2050 by age alone.
And also jumping into the worst financial crisis in human history.
The Italian banking sector is on the verge of cracking in the same way the Greek one did, but the Italian economy is far larger, and will take down the entire European Union with it.
The United States will tip, going from majority White to White being a minority in the following years.
This will change the rhetoric. People think certain parts of America can be cruel and nasty now, just you wait until the tipping point is reached, and I expect the language to change with it, and not for the better.
As the era of cheap capital is coming to an end, sectors like the tech industry is about to completely collapse.
Billions upon billions of dollars are spent on fantasy products that have produced zero benefit or profit, instead having created enormous pyramid schemes of investment fueling value to collect more investment.
But with the cost of capital going up, this while house of cards is facing a horrid dive.
Rise in families breaking apart.
Rise in extreme crimes committed by the children of broken homes. Resulting in unimaginable crimes.
This will only increase.
Application of AI in everything. The government fusing AI to make an already cold and faceless bureaucracy even worse.
Soon to be applied to law enforcement to prevent the rise in extreme crimes.
Some form of a snap is, to me, inevitable.
What that actually looks like is impossible to predict. We think about Civil Wars, and Civil Wars can be theorized and considered. But the fact is that we simply have no idea how this will manifest. And we have no idea how things are and how thing look when they snap.
But what is likely, is that at some point we will have to eat every problem at the same time.
And something like that has never happened in human history before.
As someone who is interested in global politics & conflicts I think any conflict would be like a South American insurgency
@Hugebull It did happen once, the Bronze Age Collapse.
The "world" at that time was interconnected economically, militarily, and technologically. It was a microcosm of globalization, with Egypt at the center.
You'll see people harp on about "The Sea Peoples" dooming the Bronze Age societies but that's really reductive. These nations were struggling long before with famines, bloated bureaucracy and ethnic tensions.
The end result was horrifying.
Definitely, there are differences currently that are unconsolable with people, and that only leaves force. See you on the battlefield down the road
“Civil War” (2024) was so fascinating. The visuals of typical American Car-Centric planned communities bombed out by recent battles part of a far larger conflict. Strip-malls, apartment complexes, subdivisions, and rural communities all affected by the civil war. A JCPenny common in many American malls and shopping centers with a collection of military vehicles abandoned by whatever ambiguous side had left them in the parking lot. I suppose it’s the visuals you expect (as an American) to see in some far away land, seen on our familiar soil. It’s haunting.
The fall of Washington D.C. really reminds me of the Battle of Berlin in April, 1945. An urban capital being completely leveled by an invading military force, with speckled die hard forces desperately fighting to the death inside and amongst huge elaborate monuments to their failed government. Only for all of it to be crushed in the end.
It’s the ending of this movie that is really fascinating to me. War correspondents running into the White House behind military forces to take out a president, a hated figure. Its depiction reminds me somewhat of the collapse of the Communist Party of Romania which inevitably lead to the violent execution of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife in December, 1989 all filmed by correspondents.
I’m totally rambling. But all of this juxtaposition of a Civil War on American soil is so alien (but also so probable and profound as of the typing of this comment) that I can’t help but align the plot of this movie to previous historic events to make it make sense lol.
There is something haunting about familiar imagery from overseas warzones transposed over everyday Americana.
Ceaușescu is exactly the example that crossed my mind as they dragged the President out.
I also use that to understand other conflicts sometimes, or explain them to others.
"So if there was a massive siege of Detroit with chemical weapons and a Canadian expedition force... Would either side send much to stop a weird sect suddenly taking five towns in the hinterlands." It is a nonsense situation, but it hopefully brings some light on how weird little groups can find room within a larger conflict.
@@feralhistorianFor me, Americana is the foreign stuff. I'll be comparing the movie with conflicts closer to me like the Balkans.
Another fellow already drew an Arkan's Tigers parallell in comments above.
@@SusCalvin But you literally can't do that
It's a false equivalent
There are less than a dozen countries on this planet that are the same size or bigger than the US, and not a single one of them are even remotely as populated, almost all of their people live relatively close to the border on either the eastern or western side(save for austrialia who's entire population is tiny), scale of war doesn't work when comparing them it's just logistically dishonest in pretty much every way
@@victorkreig6089 Like watching Red Dawn, and either interpreting it literally or by comparing it to the fears of a Pact invasion in Europe?
European armed forces were preparing for pockets of partisan war behind the front of an initial Soviet advance.
I do think it would be hilarious to have a civil war movie where media is reporting on what they call a war everyone is camming up a war but then you follow just a regular family and they come out of like a bunker or something and it's just a normal suburb or City there was never any War, the war was entirely in the media. Like a reverse 10 Cloverfield Lane.
As a very smart sponge once said that's not just a boulder. It's a rock 🥲
I watched Second Civil War right before A24's Civil War was announced. And when I watched A24's Civil War, I was oddly left lacking. If another movie came out, with the wacky satirical story of Second Civil War with the lights and action of A24's, I think it would be something beautiful and maybe even poetic.
A satirical Civil War movie would've been a far better move. You just can't take the concept seriously without a lot of backstory which the A24 movie obviously did not give. It seems less like Alex Garland wanted to make the sides of the war ambiguous and more that he doesn't understand US history or politics at all.
I saw a bit of the 1997 movie and it was wonderfully hammy. In that Command & Conquer cutscene way.
@@pastelcastiel1481I will not be comparing it to the USA when I see it, but to the Balkans.
I care less about the grand world building this time and more about the smaller stories they capture.
Could be my own biases showing but I feel the idea of Journos in America trying to be objective about an American Crisis to be an extremely dated element of the story.
The Mythology around Watergate still holds strong in entertainment it seems.
My choice in news are anyone who makes no bones about their biases.
exactly!!, hypocrisy is my most hated sin of modern media.
I don't mind editorial content. If the journalistic content holds to basic factual standards I don't mind it either.
When the president or PM says you should not trust media, and sets up a personal or party platform for completely unfiltered communication, that gets me nervous.
This has been repeated before, but I'll mention this again: A Second American Civil War will be a Troubles type situation, or Years of Lead, or La Violencia. Basically expect a LOT of bombings, assassinations, disappearances and parts of the country highly influenced by one side of another, with state and city governments taking sides. But, there will still be a functional federal government and a functional military, which will either take a side or be paralyzed as units defect to a side or another or 'donate' weapons to their preferred side. Oh, and ethnic/racial wars in parts of the country (think when the Russian Empire collapsed there were lots of independence movements)
Kaiserreich American Civil War
Long live the American Caesar
God Bless President George Van Horn Moseley. Our General in the hour of need. Who broke the joint forces of Reed and Olsen, with their corruption and evil.
Who now most honorably hold the Executive Branch as our Guardian and Protector, now that Long has so disappeared.
God Bless President Moseley! And God Bless the United States!
get domed peasant, go back to europistan where you belong if you like boot licking that much
Any movie that has a journalist as the main character is already a hard sell for me. Absence of Malice (maybe) excepted.
As a writer, having your main characters be journalists is perfect. It gives you the perfect excuse to observe events together with your characters. It gives you the perfect excuse as to why your characters don't know everything about the topic the story is about, allowing grownups to learn together with the audience.
If your main character for this recent Civil War movie had been a soldier, the entire story would be about him as a soldier in the Civil War. It locks you in, sort of.
But if you have a journalist, it allows you to be in meetings between Generals, see interactions between soldiers, interview civilians, and the characters can experience extreme events without necessarily being participants of such actions, such as an execution, et cetera.
As a tool for storytelling, it's a pretty awesome tool.
But, as with every tool, it does not guarantee that the tool is used properly.
@@Hugebull Narratively, I agree. But as FH mentioned, there is so much taint associated with the Ministry of Propaganda that it makes it impossible to care about these characters, at least for me and possibly others.
I assert it would have been possible to have a non-reporter be our eyes and ears; it might have been harder but it would have been better.
Generation Kill is a good one with a journalist among the cast.
i prefer the 1997 movie because it have actual teeth to it it's targe everybody on the political spectrum both left and right
Second Civil War is vastly under-rated, I think.
@@feralhistorian yeah i agree it should release in theaters
I had to watch Civil War '97 after seeing the 2024 version. It was a nice palette cleanser after the nightmare fuel that was Alex Garland's movie.
The little part I have seen of it reminded me of old Command & Conquer cutscenes. Wonderfully hammy.
I find it interesting that no one ever thinks about the fact that California and Texas share a lot more in common than not. They have the highest GDP's in the nation, are both major tech centers and both sway the majority of the national conversation. They represent an economic imbalance that would see their interests align even more if the end goal was greater financial control of their contributions.
wow - president Troy McClure. you may remember him from such shows as the Simpsons and SNL back when it was funny. RIP Phil Hartman.
The Florida alliance definitely has the best college football 🙂
It was very disappointing that there was no explanation on why there was a war .
It doesn't have to be realistic, just entertaining
People wonder why California and Texas would work together, but for the context of this movie, it makes perfect sense. If I had to choose the two states that would have the most outrage at an unlawful 3rd term presidency, I'd say Cali and Texas. They both agree that they don't like this, and decided to temporarily team up to stop it.
Like Vegeta teaming up with Goku to bring down a big(ger) bad
I'll let the youtubers argue in the comments over which State is represented by which Saiyan >_>
Not really, Tehas is the most cuckd state in the union. The very definition of all bark and no bite, every inch is taken all they do is blather and sit by while what they screech about continues. Now New Hampshire and California is a different story
Mine would be kinda boring for a movie. It would just be a bunch of microcommunities coming together that simply arent dominated by giant megacorporations making a life for themselves lol
If we ended up in a civil war we’d have to get over our overwhelming addiction to f**king off and instant gratification.
Wars can have jarring divided between the front, or between everyday life and the conflict.
People still had to pick up the paychecks during the Troubles and the Years of Lead.
I liked the modern civil war movie for the fact that in any even you never see the full picture until the dust finally settles. I find it kind of laughable that some people wanted more explination but those same people would have complained about the lack of action or even worse the endless exposition dumps required to fill the viewers in on a multi year milti sided conflict.
What kind of full picture you talking about here?
@muhammadashshiddiq8752 the 2024, I should have been more specific. The 1997 one is very clear what happens and continual compounding of miscalculations, assumptions, and not knowing when to jump out of the way when playing chicken
Exactly
The problem is that the movie doesn't excel at anything. The action scenes are pointless because you have no context for why they are happening and the characters are unlikable cardboard cutouts who you spend the entire movie following
@@pastelcastiel1481 sounds like actual war then lmao
Great video, you articulated your points very well
Maybe the actual 'reasons' and 'ideologies' for the fighting are not important for the story being told. In Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," we were never told the 'reasons' for the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. Maybe the point was, they didn't know, themselves.
My Like is in the 1.2Ks.
'What kind of rock is it?' Aha!
In a way the movie being vague about alliances does fit the current context of the States. We don't have so much a set of sides, as a multiplicity of sides, some with overlapping interests. Though I hope it would not happen, what I see is not so much a mass civil war as localized civil unrest amongst competing interests. Least that is a thought.
If they don't play "The Girl I left Behind" constantly I'm not coming.
The 1997 film aged well and told a better story to boot
The red sunglasses - does he wear them to not see blood, or to always see blood...
Just watched the new one yesterday, good spectacle, didn't really move me.
11:53
Wait what?
*goes back to BOS Kapital part 1*
Ho-ly shit...
Check out Wrong is Right starring Sean Connery.
From Vancouver Canada, I found it amusing the Canadian dollar is worth much more than the USD.
Old version is better.
The 90's movie look like a much more rational take on the scenario, I'll be at grounded in some classic movie tropes, whereas the 2024 movie looks like an overloaded Netflix miniseries, with all the usual maladies of multiple layers of invisible embedded nihilism and a complete blindness to the fact that it is trying to be smarter than it really is.
There is something - although only a little something perhaps redeemable and trying to present a generic conflict without really putting in the stakes as to what it is in order to try to examine some of the universal themes. Ironically, to my mind, the variant that does take some more explicit sides, even partisan positions, is actually better able to more authentically examine some of those universal themes precisely because once it has accepted it has staked out a position, even performatively, it no longer has to carry around all that extra baggage in every scene and every line of dialogue trying to maintain the facade.
If anything the more modern renditions suffers from one of the most debilitating issues in contemporary cinema, which is the perception and reality - self-reinforcing - of audience stupidity. The idea that contemporary audiences simply cannot understand anything beyond what is literally presented, if you present anything explicitly it must be an endorsement, and the people are not capable of rotating a scenario or a concept in their heads unless you walk them through it has ruined a lot of good things.
I like this movie. Everything is ambiguous and is up to interpretation.
Especially the sniper scene, just a couple that is caught in the fight where they just want to be left alone. Are they gay hating? Or just shooting everyone in uniform? No idea
The reason Civil War 2024 isn't understood is the same reason society is divided. People struggle with ambiguity
Nah it wasn't people didn't understanding the film, I think when people came to the Civil war they are expecting what was advertised in trailer which is a war film about a 2nd american civil war, instead people got a bait and switch and got a road trip for War journalists experiencing it, which isn't as interesting when you are using a fictionized war as the setting more people are more interested in how the world and politics of that fictional world works rather than the journalists experience that can be presented in any other war.
@Methyll True, on the other hand, use of war journalists in the setting did make me think of our relationship to people going out there to capture grotesque images and our consumption of them. Almost like they're making a socially acceptable snuff film.
Also, in response to the OP making it an explicit red state vs blue state conflict could easily make it "Confirmation Bias: The Movie." Nobody wants to watch a movie that spends it's runtime pointing fingers at them scolding them the whole way through.
@@MethyllLike going to watch Jarhead and expecting an action movie.
@@SusCalvin true that was a real complaint.
@@Methyll My relatives who watched Jarhead without the marketing seemed to like it. I don't know if It's marketing who sometimes misunderstands movies at times.
90s one is better since they actually put an effort in putting the reasons and actions that cause the war as the main point for the movie, while the new Civil war film is not really a movie about a second Civil war but just a story about War Journalists experience in a war setting, which is fine but if your using a fictional setting with it being the main selling point for the movie, you should concentrate of the lore for that instead of a character driven plot that can be used with any other war setting
I held off on watching The Second Civil War for many years because Joe Dante, the director, had written the episode of Masters of Horror "Homecoming" and I was a little less than impressed with just how on the nose it was. Essentially, dead US soldiers return from the grave to vote George Bush out of office. Explicitly. I have no kind words for the Bush administration, but the episode is cringeworthy after eight years of Obama choosing to escalate Afghanistan and generally continuing the Patriot Act and its associated policies. Second Civil War is a lot more balanced though, pretty much no side or point of view escapes unscathed, and when it ended I was sort of dumbfounded that Dante would later go on to make something as one-sided as Homecoming. If anyone out there is holding off for the same reason, definitely give Second Civil War a watch. Joe Dante's other Masters of Horror Episode is also a lot better.
I have not seen that Masters of Horror episode, and based on that description it seems I'm quite fortunate in that.
@@feralhistorian To be fair, its actually a pretty funny episode. Joe Dante regular Robert Picardo plays a great sleazy reporter, and there are plenty of on the nose jokes about journalism and reporters. its just literally all at the expense of republicans and Bush, its hard to ignore.
@@Ghoulonoid Robert Picardo has a habit of elevating any project he's a part of.
The Revolutionary War was a revolution in the sense of renouncing one's loyalty to a government. It was NOT a revolution in terms of the power infrastructure, just who ran those parts. The Revolution in that sense was about Revolt, not great systemic change.
It's "Under Fire" (1983) story line. I didn't like the movie, Red Eyes was the only actor acting.
The key feature of war is the flames of war consume everything even the reason why you're fighting. As a war drags on there is no ideology left it's all just survival. It's telling to look at the broad strokes of war fiction overtime. War is the best war is the solution to everything. War is bad we shouldn't do it again. War is trendy again because of our ideology and technological superiority. because of our ideology and technological superiority war is now even worse. We all hate war and are all still here but war never changes and we will be forced into the cycle again by politicians if we like it or not. Give it 10-20-30 years and repeat again. War is the best war is the solution. War is bad not again. War our ideology and technology. because ideology and technology worse. Hate war forced into the cycle again. Give it 10-20-30 years and repeat again. War good. War bad. War good. War worse. Hate war.
3:53 I wouldn’t say that as in the same part of the film there is a sniper battle also they’re not the federal government as they don’t shoot the journalists on site
What’s the difference between a separatist movement and civil war? It seems like there is a lot of overlap no?
I'm drawing a distinction between something like the Spanish Civil War, where factions are fighting for control over the whole country, vs a separatist movement that starts off by claiming a specified territory and they just want to leave. But it's mostly academic if you're standing in the middle of it.
Yes in a sense, but they are different. In both the American War of Independence and the American Civil War, you had a region trying to rip itself away from the other.
But when you look at full-blown Civil War Civil Wars, such as there was in Spain, the Yugoslav Wars, The English Civil War, the French Civil War, The French Revolution, The Russian Civil War, The German Revolution, The Northern Irish Troubles, or the Chinese Civil War.
In these cases, the fighting really happened everywhere, and the destruction and suffering was insane.
During the American Civil War, the GDP of the North, which was 2/3 of the United States, doubled. While the South was battered by the invading Union Army.
In more standard Civil War Civil Wars, as the chaos is everywhere, and they are fighting over the soul of the nation, animosity becomes extreme. Purges and massacres and eradication becomes normal.
@@feralhistorian I mean I guess I would disagree about the conflict in which we call it a civil war. The US never recognized the confederacy and also civil war is not just one group wanting to take control over said country/territory. Civil wars are mostly interstate conflicts. But I guess that just plays into how people view historical conflicts
civil war was the wizard of oz and a character study
Watching a couple of photographers travel through America while barely seeing any of the war: I sleep
Watching a couple of reporters be indirectly responsible for a civil war that claims tragic casualties with a nice ending: REAL SHIT??
Just going by the title alone, i pick The Good The Bad and the Ugly.
the elder Journo said that after they take over the US gov they will fight amongst each other , so they are in a tenous alliance, reminds me when the Afghan Mujahadeen besieged Kabul after the Soviets left in 89, the so called allied Mujahadeen factions started fighting each other, which ironically helped in the survival of the former Soviet Puppet Afghan gov in Kabul.
Until the Taliban found something that united most people: a Reformed Islam (Deobandi/Wahabist Islam).
It did not fully unite Afghanistan until after the US Occupation/Deployment/Involvement.
I think people respond to pretty simple things. Will there be doped-up goons of a warlord harassing me on the road.
The USA has two ideas here. One hearts and minds campaign at the best of the central government and one where they used warlords as deputized auxiliaries.
And people were surprisingly not happy with goons on the road. I think you could have instituted the old communist government, and afghans would have accepted them over the warlords.
@@JohnMinehan-lx9ts Quite true. It will be quite ironic the USA becomes a massive Afghanistan after this civil war.
@@SusCalvin Part of the problem was the Taliban rose to power in the mid-1990s to protect the people from the Warlords.
Islam, particularly the Wahabi and Deobandi forms of Sunni Islam, had a level of legitimacy due to the relief efforts made by relief workers from the KSA and Pakistan in the Pakistani Refugee camps in the 1980s war with the Soviets.
The Taliban actually improved their legitimacy during the 20 years we were in Afghanistan. By the time the Afghan Gov't evanesced, there was no "Northern Alliance and there basically still isn't.
@@JohnMinehan-lx9ts I thought the Afghan government had it's part in the tension with the warlords it was then dependent on.
If some of you wish to read a story that has a cynical non-comedic take on a Second American Civil War which includes the leadup? I highly recommend the "And our Flag was not there" timeline on Sufficient Velocity.
Its written by someone I knew, but I can vouch for its quality. It starts with a Leadup called "2020: Shots Fired." Essentially it imagines a world where everything that could have gone bad in 2020 does go bad. (Bernie Sanders is Assassinated in late 2019, Trumps airstrike on Soleimani leads to an Invasion of Iran that devolves into brutal vietnamesque mountain warfare with Tactical Nukes and COVID spreading in the trenches, Civil wars in Peru and Israel, Saudi Collapse, Trump dies of COVID... lots of bad shit.)
The timeline follows two principles as it goes from 2020 well into the future (like 2060s)
1. The Civil War is a gradual one. Shots Fired tells the story of an American Years of Lead. Political Violence will grow steadily as boundaries continue to be crissed and segments of the public continue to be radicalized against the American Systems increasing dysfunction. Bombings, shootings, riots, attempting uprisings.
2. When the bough breaks the war wont have any clear borders. Enclaves and Exclaves dovided by Ideology, allegiences to state and federal governments, foreign interventions...
It will be a chaotic, bloody, and most importantly lengthy mess. The best historical comparison for the actual collapse will be something akin to the Chinese Warlord Era.
America will likely not be united again, not in the Civil War Generations lifetime at least. Eventually, borders will stabilize, and America will be Balkanised, a failed experiment, an empire that died, like all eventually do. Not from those we feared without, but from the hatred we harbored within.
I would like to counter your point about the "diverse pile" with red glasses guy
he's doing an ethnic cleansing, and he's lumping in anyone who dares defend others who aren't "American". It's like how Germans who didn't approve of the failed Austrian painter ended up in camps right beside the minorities.
Just because you're the target demographic of the extremists to "protect" doesn't mean you're safe.
Nationality is not ethnicity
@@avus-kw2f213 it's the same basic idea. In-groups and out-groups. Us vs Them. Even if you're one of Us, if you show mercy to Them you are no longer truly one of Us
@@avus-kw2f213right but it can be an ideological bracket for a country that (currently) has no ethnic center.
@@noahjohnson935bingo
Nobody seems to have picked up on red glasses guy saying "What, Hong Kong like China?" before shooting the guy. Not only is this quite a controversial statement, it might be the only clue in the entire film as to the political or ideological justification for the killing, if not the actual reason for the war itself. Overall I though "Civil War" was a poor film that had little to say. I think even less of it now I know the Jesse Plemmons scene was improvised.
The two tandem forces that constantly lead developed civilizations back into internal conflict are always the same:
1. A [bodily, nutritionally, intellectually, mentally, spiritually, characteristically, financially] -degraded populace who surrenders their responsibilities to operate their portion of the vast machinery of state.
2. Factions of motivated, psychopathic bad-faith persons, who by nature of their personalities almost always migrate to occupy high positions in government, military, and culture, who are not only A) happy to absorb the power surrendered by the former group, but B) happily use it for ends that devastate and eventually crack the foundations of the nation.
Most people in the USA, most people around the world, and most people watching this video fall into camp #1.
The people owning and funding the infrastructure that we're posting these comments on fall into camp #2.
It seems to me like lazy writing and the film makers being unable to fully dedicate themselves making a fantasy of a civil war or dealing with implications of a 2024 civil war
Well? I'd feel like my descendant would be at Babylon 5.....
Americans have to call the war between the States a "civil war" because calling it a secessionist movement would raise too many uncomfortable questions about the legitimacy of the northern cause and everything that was subsequently built atop that foundation.
The war of a growing southern plantation aristocracy, maybe.
@@SusCalvin that's how the victorious northern industrial aristocracy would have seen it.
@@CanadianPale The agricultural manor estate just looks like a pretty common end result in slave economies.
@@SusCalvin that is certainly a post you have made in the comments section of this video essay.
Where do you work, and do they need a professor of ancient and classical history? Any school that employs you has got to be a cool place to work.
Sadly I left academia several years ago with an unfinished dissertation and wide open eyes about the financial prospects of a humanities degree. Went feral, you might say.
@@feralhistorian I know the feeling. I, myself, am trapped in perpetual adjunct gig work. However, in the unlikely chance that you're ever in South Jersey, drop me a message, 'cause I'd love to grab a Zima with you and talk history.
The adjunct gig is brutal. If we ever do get that drink I'll buy the first round.
Civil War got a lot of hate for the wrong reasons in my opinion. I think most of the people hated it are mostly COD veterans and gun bro's who carried bias. Overall a misunderstood film by people in this era.
Nah it's a bad movie plain and simple, what little positives can be extrapolated from it are mostly unintentional by the people who made the movie
It heavily leaned on retard tier levels of understanding of the modern political landscape to make strawmen for it's plotline and was insulting to a degree even.
Strange to see Phil Hartman in a serious role.
Civil War was so corny.
if i was given all of the monetary power in the world i would make movie like this
John Doe is member of national guard, forced to fight against foe who isnt evil, you dont know why, but war is here and he has to fight
encounter after encounter with fellow americans on opposite sides distinguishable only be armbands and tape, maybe some talks with prisoners of war
overall slow meaningless war seen from eyes of a soldier, not journalists,then movie ends after taking the capital, and question is asked what for, in the background of destroyed city
and politicians? i wouldnt make totally not trump and evil roicists, nah, its one unnamed party wants power while other cant get it, make it as neutral without suggesting towards republicans as the bad guys here
it work much better me thinks
2:25 it seems more to do with of country of origin then anything else
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
I loathed Civil War, the way they stormed in at the end and murdered the 'cowardly U.S. president' - terrible, all of it. You just don't know what the motivation is for the two different factions lol
besides I think suicide would have been the way he took himself out
It's a bit of a cop-out, sure, but I understand the choice. Civil wars after a while have rarely anything to do with with righteous causes and ideology when they descend into secteric wholesale slaughter. I believe this is what the movie is trying to portray through the lens of objective reporters.
@@Emanon... Exactly :( The first US Civil War was almost unique in it's degree of "civil" behaviour (at least to most folks), usually such conflicts are horrific, pointless slaughter. That naivety and mercy for civilians etc is long gone
I found it very cathartic.
And bud, the movie doesn’t need to explain why the civil war started. We’re all living in its prequel.
@@romanmanner leave it ambiguous so as not to alienate your Democratic / Republican voters and to not cause real world controversy, I get it. But even so, the inferred alliances (Texas and California) are not very credible which takes me out of the film. You just don't really now why things are occurring that are happening right in front of your eyes on screen so it's just a little confused mess I thought - like a monster movie with people running around scared all the time.
Spoilers- IT'S THE SAME MOVIE!
If you want anything resembling objective legacy press, you need to source it from South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. US and the general western media report without showing key nuances and crucial "tones of grey" in the discourse.
Ukraine and Gaza are perfect examples of how these very same issues can be presented as either justified or criminal depending on the nation in question. Hypocrisy, not information, has sadly become the main export of US news media, it seems.
The middle east is in Asia
@@DrVadGun The Middle East is always set separate to Asia. The mountains are enormous and cut off mainland Asia into 3 entities.
Middle East, India, and East Asia (including southeast Asia).
When someone introduces themselves as "Americans", I'm not going to assume that they are Panamanians.
Sure, it's West Asia.
But just as the Global South isn't literally always in the Global South, it's a way to describe it geopolitically as well as geographically to a certain extent.
How about we do not source our news from countries with press freedom lower than ours?
@@fds7476 Freedom of the Press is a fickle thing. My people invented it, and it was immediately used against us, and after around a decade our entire movement collapsed and Charles II was restored to the throne.
High Press Freedom walks hand in hand with yellow journalism and the legal right to lie for profit.
Tldr, Glory to the independent republic of idaho.
I agreed
I have never liked an A24 movie.
I have to say, it doesn't put me at ease when you say "you dont know" if America is going to have a civil war, thats because, you couldn't say with certainty that "it will not happen", thats the real danger zone.
No one can ever be certain.
I think that's why he chooses to say that.
It's not impossible, just improbable. I know there's talk by some people over the internet on how "imminent" another American civil war supposedly is, but despite how politically polarized we are at the moment, I just don't think a full-scale civil war is currently in the cards.
The worst case scenario I can realistically foresee this decade is a "Years of Lead" scenario, with isolated terrorist attacks from Far-Left and Far-Right groups. Not nearly as glamourous as an actual war with dramatic battles, and while I can imagine some lazy historians calling such an event "another" civil war, it's not something that'll rip the country apart.
@@dx-ek4vr Yeah, most "normies" are still just going to work, going home to their families, and just living their regular lives. All the crazy talk is confined to the internet, which doesn't really matter too much (there will always be crazies on the internet). The only really noteworthy thing is that everyone understands the media isn't trustworthy (and I can confirm as a news editor - the media isn't and really never has been trustworthy) and they just sort of pick their preferred news station and that's it.
You ignore that the internet is were people live these days and can freely express themselves- or at least more then they do in real life. Also, even during the lead up and during the first civil war people lived their lives as normal.
@@dx-ek4vr "They sound so very cautious and correct, these deadly words. Soft, quiet voices purring, courteous, grave, exactly-measured phrases in large peaceful rooms.
But with less warning cannons had opened fire and nations had been struck down by this same Germany.
So now the Admiralty wireless whispers through the ether to the tall masts of ships, and captains pace their decks absorbed in thought.
It is nothing. It is less than nothing.
It is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of in the twentieth century.
Or is it fire and murder leaping out of the darkness at our throats, torpedoes ripping the bellies of half-awakened ships,
a sunrise on a vanished naval supremacy, and an island well guarded hitherto, at last defenceless ?
No, it is nothing. No one would do such things. Civilisation has climbed above such perils.
The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention,
Liberal principles, the Labour Party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible.
Are you quite sure ? It would be a pity to be wrong. Such a mistake could only be made once - once for all."
Rural vs Urban Civil War 🎉😅
So my cousin the trucker is supposed to fight my other cousin the software engineer. A large chunk of people in cities are former townies.