About 15 years ago I was working in Crested Butte, Colorado, at a local resort. While there I met quite a woman who had this crazy notion that the United States was on the road to another Civil War. She was just a little crazy. Most of the people in that small town had strange ideas about class, class warfare, and the economy. When you’re in a community with no middle class, you also tend to find ideas which rarely meet the middle of the road. Crested Butte is an interesting place. You have millionaires, and you have the poor. There’s no inbetween.
After all this time I think I’ve come to the conclusion that Crested Butte is a microcosm of the rest of the country. After all, there are only a few hundred people who live there year around. The rest own vacation homes, and have little care about the community. They have no vested interst in the daily affairs of the lower masses. While they have great influence on the laws and the economy, they have no regard for the people.
I was thinking about all this the other day when I rememberd a few things about the history of rebelion. Louis XVI ascended to the throne in France during enormous financial strife. The country was bankrupt. After many poor financial decisions, and a foreign war which drained the budget (namely the U.S. Revolutionary War), it was time to make major changes. However, due to political prressure Louis was able to do little to help the country move back from failure. The nobility held great power, and felt they had no responsiblity to provide for the country, and with political pressure ensured any financial burden be moved onto the lower classes. In addition to this stress, pamphlets and other materials were distributed throughout the country, spreading rumors, and unsubstantiated inuendo on the daily activities of the monarch. The purpose was to gain traction for revolution. This had the benefit that, by 1789, France was in all out war with itself.
By 1861, the United States entered its own Civil War. While the most popular reason given for the war has been slavery, the more accurate would be economic. When Lincoln was elected in 1860, the south was losing all political power. The north had built a large agrerian society, and most emmigrents moved to the north. While the south, and their ways were failing, they saw the north as a threat to their ideals and way of life, blaming their failures on the north and “New Comers.” The north was becoming more modern, metropolitain, and liberal. All this combined with the south’s economic and moral failures (namely slavery), the increase in political rhetoric, and the lack of compromise, led to our nations most tragic war. When northern Senators blocked the sale of slaves to the western states, what started as a war in the Senate, soon became all out bloodshed when the first shots were fired at Fort Sumner.
Now when I look back at our history, and the history of the world, I wonder if we aren’t moving toward another Civil War. We entered into foreign wars which have drained our financial resources. We have politicians who want to turn back the clock to our old ways, as if they were better. We blame our problems on the “New Comers.” We have a speaker of the house who wants to not only repeal healthcare, but to also repeal the 18th amendment (the one that made slaves citizens and not 3/5ths a person). The economy is in the gutter, and there’s a fire being fueled by pundits on both sides which is driving a wedge so deep between us that we can’t even see there’s another side.
So it’s been 15 years since I walked away from that woman thinking what a nut she was. Now I’m not so sure. Perhaps she wasn’t crazy. I’m thinking she might have had some insight on the world, which I was not aware. It makes me wonder. We are definately moving through dangerous waters. Maybe she is like most prophets, just a little ahead of her time.