It's worthwhile you mention Sarajevo, and in reference to that I will post this tidbit posted by a MetaFilter user in 2009 regarding their experience in the siege of Sarajevo. I have it bookmarked and post it from time to time where it seems appropriate. The reality is though, you're correct, Americans by and large don't know what they're asking for.

Well, unlike the majority of you (I assume), I actually lived several years in a period of savagery and killing, during which nothing - food, water, electricity, phone, clothing, sense of safety, school, the ability to go out in public, etc - was available, except during totally unpredictable, brief and sporadic occasions.

Of those who couldn't leave my city, Sarajevo:

Some people (very few) were prepared for what they thought would be the "long haul" - this tended to be a couple of months. These people were widely seen as lunatics and dangerously pessimistic ones at that.

Most people were not at all prepared. This included my family. Many of those - like my family - considered the idea of "preparation" to be an affront to the decency we felt most people possessed. Were we wrong? Well, I don't know. We suffered greatly; my parents were killed. But speaking only for myself, I never felt I cheapened my soul by betting on calamity. Today, that still feels like it's worth something.

But here's the main point: "Preparing" for the disaster really didn't do anyone much good. Those who "prepared" ate a little better for a while. They stayed warmer for a few extra days. They enjoyed the radio for a while longer (via batteries.) But in the end, they ended up hungry, cold and bored too, just like the rest of us. Guns and weapons helped no one directly and were even of little to no use in the defense of Sarajevo, since they were toys compared to the shells, bombs and high-powered armaments of the attacking forces. The worst parts of war were psychological - the fear, anxiety, boredom, loneliness, paranoia, bad dreams. Respite from those things came with sharing food with a neighbor, finding a piece of clothing that would fit someone you knew, commiserating with others in your position, figuring out how to make make-up from brick or french fries from wheat paste and spreading this newly-acquired war knowledge around the mahala.

We knew who had extra food and supplies. For the most part, they weren't attacked or hassled or bothered. Contrary to what these survivalists say, those in dire times generally hold on to their personal sense of pride even more than they do in normal times. I'd take a bite of a friend's salad without bothering to ask in normal times. I'd never have done that in wartime, no matter how hungry I was.

Within the domain of those trapped in the city, civility greatly increased.

You often hear how Holocaust survivors felt guilt at surviving. Well, during war, that was a feeling everyone was aware of - people started dying right away (my parents were killed near the start of the siege, for instance) - and there was a palpable enough common sense of karma to make everyone into good Samaritans. None of us understood why we survived while others didn't. I shared food when I had it, even though I often knew I wouldn't have a crumb the next day. Which was no big achievement, because nearly everyone did the same.

Those who'd prepared, well, the majority of them shared their food and whatever else they had as soon as someone else was clearly in need. I can't swear it, but I think they felt a little foolish to have been so self-obsessed, and giving away that stuff might have lessened that feeling. There were a few people who hoarded things until they ran out of stuff - eventually everybody ran out of anything worth hoarding - and they soon became wishful beggars like the rest of us. Again, I can't swear it, but I hear stories, and it seems that these people suffer from post-war trauma, guilt and nightmares more than the rest of us.

Those survivalists, I feel sorry for them. It's no way to live.

posted by Dee Xtrovert at 9:33 PM on January 28, 2009

If you’re really gung-ho about it, go and ask a Veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan about it and see what they think. If anyone will know about it they will.

My uncle that served in Iraq still wakes up screaming in the night. He's a shell of the man he used to be. Another vet my age I knew was absolutely erratic after serving. He couldn't hold a job and ended up homeless and assaulted someone for their spot under a bridge.

My whole family bears the scars of the PTSD from what my grandfather saw from WWII. He also woke up screaming for years afterward.

I think there's gonna be a lot of Asian American stores getting looted if this happens.

Asian diasporas are always considered the universal "soft target", I mean just read the news.

We'd have LA Riots all over again, law enforcement will leave us to die while racist mobs lynch us.

More like This War of Mine, maybe.

A game so depressing I stopped playing.

I think the country splits into multiple nations before a true all out conflict. Maybe a 4 part split.

Old South Northeast Some kind of Texas southern alliance with other states in the Louisiana purchase Northwest and Pacific coast.

Not American, so feel free to stop reading.

It's ridiculous to me how you yanks go from zero to a hundred like this. Either normality or civil war. Like there is no in between? You have an authoritarianism problem. So resist authoritarianism. What makes you think that the only way to resist is shooting people? Resistance is a spectrum, and you have barely started using democratic means to fight back (you just started electing democratic socialists), much less active procedural and institutional warfare (is Bernie demanding a vote for every procedural point requiring a vote? Are the Dems actually using any rat fucking tactic to make the state ungovernable? Are your local and state governments really resisting beyond making angry noises?). You have barely tried non violent resistance (not the same as peaceful!) but you're such a violent culture that you jump straight to military solutions. Wtf. Those come at the very end, if everything else has failed. Has it? Nowhere near. So this talk about civil war, is that really useful?

Americans are sadly locked into the path of violence as the other path will force them to face their systemic racism, and corporate idolization which is clearly not going to happen.

It took Nicole Good to be face shot before people really started to react despite 4 other similar events with non white females and I am constantly shocked how many Americans defend corporations that are literally exploiting them. America is cooked unfortunately as like most humans, myself included, we tend to become blind with power.

The first U.S. civil war never really ended, it has just gone into a long "cold" phase.

Those times are ending.

Im glad you've said this. Before I saw The Death of Yugoslavia, I honestly believed that modern warfare was clean, clinical, and restricted to willing combatants. That the Geneva Conventions, various constitutional statements, and human honour and decency were a part of modern wars. At least since Vietnam.

No. I was disabused of that notion by this documentary. Yes, I agree, the BBC shouldn't have the last word on a war in Eastern Europe. The BBC probably shouldn't have the last word on anything. However, they did happen to have the first word — to me — on the importance of understanding how modern wars get started, how they progress, and chillingly, why they don't end. It's a sad, slow, solemn march into oblivion.

Man, I don't even own a gun.

YSK: The average citizen doesn’t have much control over the cork in the bottle.

This administration is repeatedly and consistently provoking people. Randomly shooting people in the face, and talking about sending the military to Minnesota is going to cause things to boil over if the other people we elected don’t step in and force them to cool down.

and the only good that comes out of it will be Americans will finally have first hand experience of real war torn violence.

Hey, it might result in the dissolution of the US, whcih as a firm believer in "death to America" I'd welcome gladly. Anyway in case anyone thinks a peaceful resolution is possible, yeah no.

"Do Not Split"

Learned about it from this episode of the Team Human podcast

But what is happening in Hong Kong is they come up with a slogan, which is translated as Do Not Split, which is, we know that some people are willing to be confrontational with riot police.

And when they are, that's going to cost the state in terms of not only resources, but it's going to cost the state in terms of political capital and support. And we know that there are some people who are not willing to do that. And we are going to abide by the protocol of Do Not Split, which means that we're not going to criticize them openly, and they're not going to criticize us openly.

If we're the pacifists, we're not going to have them criticize us for being sort of like, I don't know, limpid or flaccid or not courageous or whatever. And we're not going to criticize them for being more confrontational. And the thing is that the support is also tacit.

It's not like they have to come out and tell the media, oh, we approve of our more sort of confrontational colleagues. They just keep quiet. They just keep quiet.

Understanding that a range of tactics is probably going to be necessary. Nobody really knows what's going to work. But if everybody's pushing back against a particularly violent state, then everybody's really on the same side.

... Americans don't realize they're already in a civil war? Bro a city is occupied. Secret police roam freely. Tens of thousands disappeared.

The times may change but people stay the same. In the early days of the (first) American civil war, people expected it to be done and over with very quickly. To the point they went out with picnic baskets and sandwiches to view the battle. They might not have even understood how devastating the war was going to be even as the confederates won that battle.

src

Just a prime opportunity to correct Operation Paperclip and finish what our grandparents thought they did.

It's going to be insurgency terrorism

the problem with a civil war is collapse of the supply chain for most people, and you'll have to become useful to get protection

Well, Trump and MAGA have ensured that the US is cooked anyway no matter what happens

None of us want to live in a war-torn state. That's why I and most others voted for harm reduction. What we're facing now is terrorism. The USAmerican people are being terrorized by federal forces.

People are not calling for violence for a economic policy we don't like, which is what incited the Confederacy to begin the first USA Civil War. We're dealing with federal forces who are hell-bent on terrorizing us. What politically-aware people have been calling for, for the better part of a year, is the next degree of harm reduction. Targeted political assassinations. Fighting ICE agents. Storming the capital, perhaps. With each month, this government gets more empowered and more violent.

Violence terrorizes people. We all know war is terrible. No one thinks the USA going through a Civil War will be exciting. People see violence and they want it to stop, and they see massive peaceful movements that have not worked, in the face of a government that shows no hesitation in threatening or attacking its people; and those people are desperate.

What is the alternative? We let federal agents keep shooting and abducting people until some magical aspect of Democracy manifests and pushes them out? How do we actually envision that happening? What do we do for the three years until our next presidential election? Every person who is killed, abducted, disappeared is a life permanently lost.

For those who talk about peaceful protests and voting the fascists out, how do you expect to win elections when your voters are being killed? It's not just the ICE agents, either, though they certainly are violent. Consider: Layoffs, Homelessness, Imprisonment, Emigration, Suicide. The people here today are not going to be the same people here in three years.

The reality is, the people of the USA are under violent occupation. We are living the terrors of war. Violence does not require mutual-consent; and when only one side chooses to fight, you end with a massacre. That is what we have been living through -- a slow-rolling massacre. No one knows what will stop this, but maybe, just maybe, ICE agents would think twice before going on deployment if half of the last three squads never made it home.

Everybody know it not a game but st some point there is no othet options and fight oppresion

It very much seems like a setup to try and agitate the left into their own Jan 6th.

If the Dems don't sweep midterms and get majority after the shitshow that's been this administration, they just might get it.

Then it'll be dismissed because of Jan 6th.

I've been using Sarajevo as an example for a while. People will be getting shot by snipers just for trying to find food or water.

I'm not really expecting a "civil war" for the many reasons stated by others.

I'm more expecting total societal collapse combined with extremely violent capitalist repression - largely due to the ongoing destruction of the planet. Basically a continuation of what's been happening for centuries.

One side in this supposed civil war has a monopoly on weapons, training, tactics, supplies, and political power. The other side has legal weed dispensaries. It wouldn't be a civil war, more like a Gaza style genocide.

History repeats itself—if we let it.

When building power, some leaders pick a group to blame: Hitler targeted Jews, Trump vilified immigrants. Once momentum builds, the list of "enemies" grows—anyone who disagrees becomes a target.

Recognizing these patterns is the first step to stopping them. Let’s learn from the past and stand against division.

#HistoryMatters #NeverAgain #UnityOverHate

Great post.

However, from a European perspective all this has been a long time coming, ignoring all warnings and with open arms (pun not intended).

So for the US I don't see how it can be fixed without going through this.

I'm sorry.