SWJ and the tea party insurgency

[Mr Furious]

OK, I get that it's a scenario and they are trying to convey their point. I think they could have used Pineland or something else and ruffled a few less feathers with this.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...-of-the-future

[Streck-Fu]

That's pretty scary....

While mainstream politicians and citizens react with alarm, the “tea party” insurrectionists in South Carolina enjoy a groundswell of support from other tea party groups, militias, racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigrant associations such as the Minutemen, and other right-wing groups.

What the .....

[Sigaba]

Given the research interests of Professor Weber, it may well be that the focus of the scenario is South Carolina and not the TPM.

[Streck-Fu]

and not the TPM.

Then why make them the principle actors and use language that equates them with the KKK, racists, and anti-immigrant groups while refering to others as 'mainstream'.....?

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by Mr Furious

OK, I get that it's a scenario and they are trying to convey their point. I think they could have used Pineland or something else and ruffled a few less feathers with this.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...-of-the-future

It certainly provoked discussion. They, at once, show their (perhaps) misjudgment of how many view the moniker "tea party" (capitalized or not) - and throw a potential boomerang bone to those who might find use for it in the next few months.

The scenario is hardly original; probably at least a handful of fairly current fiction pieces use that as their basis, with varying results depending upon which OPFOR is made the prime villain. I suspect the novels sell better too.

Then there are the threat-liaison officers, trained at sessions with their .gov and .mil Anti-Terrorism counterparts, with DHS and DSCA money, then sent forth, collecting on US persons & reporting to fusion centers...
So mix a borrowed basic story-board, add some MIL-approved methodology, pick a current ankle-biter (yeah, like OWS is gonna militarize themselves) and, voila!

Can you picture such a thing featuring an overtly armed and militant group such as OWS?

OK, sorry I didn't mean to insult; how about the NBP party?
The authors would probably find they can't get their parking stub validated anymore.

[Paslode]

There does appear to be an increase of training within the civilian population, even though there many mock cities available on bases throughout the US. As for whom is they target.....if they had chosen CAIR or the NBPP rather than the Tea Party people would have thrown a fit.

[Streck-Fu]

The responses on SWJ are interesting...

[Inflexible Six]

I vote Sarah Palin as CINC of insurgent forces.

[Streck-Fu]

...with a man wearing a tricorn hat and carrying a musket over the motto “Today’s Minutemen.” When a reporter asked the leaders who are the “red coats”

Taking a swipe at Apple Seed Project?

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Streck-Fu

Then why make them the principle actors and use language that equates them with the KKK, racists, and anti-immigrant groups while refering to others as 'mainstream'.....?

Originally Posted by DocIllinois

My thoughts, exactly. Is she veiling a suggestion that these groups are flying a false flag through the TPM?

A good way to find out is to go to the source.

http://www.history.ku.edu/~history/faculty/weber/

(Keep in mind that an Americanist, regardless of his/her political POV, is likely to have a much different take on the TPM than its supporters if not also its critics.)

[Streck-Fu]

(Keep in mind that an Americanist, regardless of his/her political POV, is likely to have a much different take on the TPM than its supporters if not also its critics.)

You are going to have to explain that...

Is an Americanist one whom maintains that the union is absolute and cannot be fractured?

Edit: Ok, I looked into her book Copperheads....she is defineatly a 'preserve the nation at all costs' historian.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Streck-Fu

You are going to have to explain that...

Is an Americanist one whom maintains that the union is absolute and cannot be fractured?

An Americanist is an academic historian who focuses on America's past and the historiography thereof. Historians who focus on Europe are Europeanists, (and historians who focus on naval and military affairs are SOL-oists. But I'm not bitter.)



Okay. Maybe I'm a little bitter.

According to the premise that builds up to the movement and insurection, all the "ingredients" are there and in place. Really all that need be done is to understand that part of the equation and for us as a country to choose not to go down that path to begin with, kind of difuse things before they ever get that far. Take the needed steps to make sure those resulting actions do not occour.

Unless of course this is a road that many believe will be travelled at some point, and this type of training is about things that may be comming down the pipeline. If that is the case, the approach to this scenario is highly motivated in fear.

One thing that is not mentioned is the interconectedness we all share as a society, and with our troops. Many of them are constantly in touch with family and friends back home, and at times on a daily basis. "Sympathizers" would be high in numbers, IMHO.

So, in addition to the premise mentioned above that fires this insurection, communications would need to be controlled and censored to a fine degree, and the less communication the more society is separated and isolated, and that would probably just about create the kinds of circumstances required in this scenario for this type of training.

[bluebb]

Kevin Benson, Ph.D., Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, Asshat

"Oh man I don't like Officers" Oddball Kelly's Heroes

Blue

[Inflexible Six]

If we are to fight our own citizens in the streets someday, a far more realistic scenario might be an insurrection by a Marxist rabble incited by class-envy and greed, with its origins in the Occupy Movement, with the forcible redistribution of wealth as the object; to be joined by the disaffected everywhere, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, radical environmentalists, gays, anarchists, students, aided and abetted by millions who might sieze the opportunity to riot for fun and plunder. I can even fit the TPM types into this if you like, not as insurgents, but as organizing self-defense groups at the outset and later as counter-revolutionaries.

If the authors of this SWJ piece had bothered to exercise some rational thought, they would've discovered that historically the Left is far more prone to large scale civil disorder and insurrection than the Conservative Right, which tends to be supportive of law and order.