I
Back in 2010 I published a post called Tea for Two about the Tea Party and affiliated groups such as the Oath Keepers. I ended with a warning that we should be prepared for some "wild and woolly" times akin to Italy's "Years of Lead". The anni di piombo refers to the 1970's, when political violence between left and right-wing extremists was tearing Italy apart.
At the time, people castigated me for being alarmist and completely off-base. I would present the mob violence of January 6th as validation of my prediction. And today, WaPo has two articles/editorials about civil conflict in the USA. One is about a CIA analyst who applied her criteria for countries susceptible to civil war. She, and other NGO's, claim the US is a lot closer to a civil war than many of us would like to believe. Her job is to track and predict these things, so I'd assume her book How Civil Wars Start is probably an alarming read.
In a second editorial, three retired US generals warn that the military must prepare itself for civil war. They are not just referring to dealing with mob violence like we saw in January, but the possibility that Trump-supporting governors might refuse to obey the President; they cite the commander of the Oklahoma civil guard refusing to obey Biden's order that all soldiers must be vaccinated, arguing his Commander in Chief is not the President but the Governor of Oklahoma.
I don't know if he is correct or not, but these generals are genuinely concerned that some military units could choose to support Trump or a Trumpian figure if Trump is defeated in 2024. They evoke not only the possibility of civil insurrection, but of military units obeying different orders and recognizing opposing authorities. Civil war, in other words.
Maybe their fear is unwarranted, but given the number of vets and even active-duty personnel who participated in January 6th, I think we should heed their advice....
II
I've written quite a few posts about the removal of Confederate memorials, changing flags, and even city seals. In The Politics of Removal I mentioned an agency whose job is to review place names and, when appropriate update them. I think we can all agree "N-word Creek" is no longer a viable official name. At the time I learned that the word "squaw" is not a word we should use, either, as the meaning is not merely "wife" or "woman" as the old Westerns have it. It's actually quite vulgar and offensive. So I found this WaPo article interesting. It talks about changing the names and how a replacement isn't always so straightforward. Sometimes a Native American name is considered, but as the article observes, different tribes don't always agree on which word. And of course White people are often reluctant to countenance any change at all.
This process isn't limited to the US. In France a town called La Mort aux Juifs was changed in 2015, now split between the hamlets of Les Croisilles and La Dogetterie. Similar requests were made in 1992 and 2014. The reason is clear. The French translation can be translated as "The death of the Jews" but also "Death to the the Jews".
Similarly, in Spain a place once named Castrillo Motajudíos ("Jew hill camp") in 1035 was changed to Castrillo Matajudíos ("Jew-killer camp") in 1627. In 2015 the town voted to change it again, to Castrillo Mota de Judíos, something like "The hill camp of the Jews" which sounds better than "Jew hill!"
Yet we'll always have Santiago Matamoros: Saint James the Moor Slayer....
