Civil War: Casualty Number One

The First Casualty of War...is the Truth

Civil War is defined as, generally speaking, a war between citizens of the same country.

There exists, today, much pontification, conversation, consternation, anticipation, aggravation, predication and bloviation about a "coming civil war" in the United States. To all of this I say tut-tut; or as U.S. President Joe Biden would more pointedly say, "malarkey". There are a multitude of other more "colorful" words for it. To the reader, I propose you let your imagination be your guide as to what term is most appropriate for you; the mere fact that you are reading this article would be indicative of some level of mildly advanced intelligence considering the prevailing societal aggregate. Congratulations, most sincere.

The truth of the matter is that the United States is in a perpetual state of civil war. It was born of civil war when it fought its own government in the so-called "American Revolution". The truth is, the Vampiric scions of that civil war would repeat the process eighty-six years later in an apocryphal event known as "The" Civil War; not "A" civil war. The truth is, the United States has been, is, and always will be a civil war, for war provides the nourishment of which the vampire needs to survive.

As a young boy, I had a teacher named Mrs. Jane Hansen (née Jane Bancroft). Mrs. Hansen was married to a famous author and was a lesbian. Her husband, Joe, was a homosexual man. Mrs. Hansen was academically brutal and had one not achieved the scholarship she expected there cometh hellfire and, along with its spouse, damnation. Jane and Joe (save the Dick and Jane jokes) cared for me in a way that is difficult to articulate. Joe was a famous writer Jane and Joe Hansen.

Mrs. Hansen took absolutely zero caca from anyone, especially her plebes. Her intellect would have to be measured on a Richter scale and she was unknowingly racist, yet she seemed to admire me in a way I have rarely experienced. I was the chink, so to speak, in her blustery armor. The truth is, I admired her too. She is with me at this very moment, though she transitioned from this world decades ago. She consistently weighs on my soul almost as heavily as my father does. Life, I think, is needlessly, unfairly and unflinchingly complicated but its complications are grand, to be sure.

In any event, Mrs. Hansen spent a great deal of time with me; she would often tell me fables and tales of allegory. One of those tales is a rather common one that involves a frog and a scorpion. When she told me that story, some forty-five years ago, I must admit struggling to really understand what it meant; but I most certainly was not going to tell her that.

Whether she be looking at me from above, below, or sideways, I want to publicly state that I now understand (and have for quite the time). Were she in this dimension today, Mrs. Hansen would say something to me akin to 'it's called maturation.' I'd make book on it. In fact, she is saying it this very instant because she made me write the preceding sentence.

My first remembrances of United States history are of all manners of war and bloodshed. The very symbol of the United States, its flag, is an homage to bloodshed and violence. The American Revolution, The Civil War, The Spanish American War, The War of 1812, the so-called "Indian" War(s), World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War, Afghanistan War; to speak nothing of the "police actions" in places like Grenada and Panama as well as untolled clandestine/proxy wars. Ergo, my previous descriptive adjective of the United States as Vampiric, for it has an insatiable appetite for blood and must have it, even if it must drink from itself as history has evidenced.

Abortion and the bombings of clinics. Black People in the United States requiring federal law to keep their Churches from being bombed and burned (and it still happens). Violence and subterfuge over "voting rights" (whatever that is). "Civil Rights" (whatever that is). Furor over the Death Penalty. Segregated education whether it be busing, school choice or so-called Critical Race Theory (notice I did not state segregated schools, a distinction and an extreme difference).

Cow dung looks different from horse dung. Dog turds look different than cat turds. Rabbit excrement looks different from human excrement; but it all smells like what it is, because it is what it is, and I shall not have my intelligence insulted by someone who doesn't know shit.

The current state of affairs signals the same type troubles of the "civil rights era." The United States has never not had troubles. There have been times where the pot of trouble simmers, there are times when it boils and there are times when the rolling boil spills over. It is the child of troubles. Its name is trouble, and it cannot exist without trouble. Trouble is the gravitational pull from which the United States revolves. If nations were assigned to define words in a dictionary, next to the word "trouble" would be the United States.

No need for further pontification, conversation, consternation, anticipation, aggravation, predication and bloviation about a "coming civil war" in the United States. Such folly is the product of madmen and idiots. The United States is civil war and has always been at war with itself (quite fitting, I proclaim).

There are simply varying degrees of it. The United States, like the fabled scorpion, says to both it and the world at large "I am sorry, but I could not resist the urge. Its in my nature." And, in its defense, I can attest to the fact that it cannot resist the urge because it is, indeed, in its nature.

There are times when, as a writer, one must acquiesce to the fact that someone has had, or has, a better ability to articulate a point than the writer him or herself. Anyone who chronicles life and thought via written word knows the bitter-sweet manifestation of which I speak and no one has more credibility, if you might call it that, on the issue than Founding Father Thomas Jefferson who so eloquently stated: "And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure."

Natural manure.

The man said "natural". Let us pause in reverence.

Greek tragedian Aechylus stated "In war, truth is the first casualty". The civil war is here, for the truth, in the United States, has always been dead. Its perpetual conflicts are not resultant of any righteous aspiration to moral ascension or decency, whether they be domestic or international. Its bloodlust is not a manifestation of some truth sought-after; it is the preservation of lies. The United States is a nation in which no one can discern lies from truths, Ergo, not only is the truth dead, so are lies because one cannot be distinguished from the other.

The end result can, and will, be nothing other than sheer chaos. While the United States spooks its own with whatever bogeyman is the order of the day, the world knows that the United States is its own bogeyman; and will, eventually, scare itself to death. The world watches and waits. The world sees, we choose blindness. The pot that contains civil war, which is the main ingredient of the United States has never left the stove. The only valid query and observation is it about to boil over and, if not, when will it?