As we head into tomorrow, please take note of history.

POLL: Are we heading into a Civil War?
my tomato plants are not ready for this.
I hope the hell not!!
You bet your boxers we are!
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This week in history.

Jun 13, 1966 The Miranda rights are established
Jun 14, 1777 Congress adopts the Stars and Stripes
Jun 15, 1215 Magna Carta sealed
Jun 16, 1884 First roller coaster in America opens
Jun 17, 1885 Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor
Jun 18, 1812 War of 1812 begins
Jun 19, 1953 Rosenbergs executed

[link to www.history.com]

War of 1812 coming up, lets see what might ring true?

The War of 1812, the Second American Civil War

"The United States believed that British deserters had a right to become United States citizens. Britain did not recognize naturalized United States citizenship, so in addition to recovering deserters, it considered United States citizens born British liable for impressment. Aggravating the situation was the widespread use of forged identity papers by sailors. This made it difficult for the Royal Navy to distinguish Americans from non-Americans and led it to impress some Americans who had never been British. (Some gained freedom on appeal.)[17] American anger at impressment grew when British frigates were stationed just outside U.S. harbours in view of U.S. shores and searched ships for contraband and impressed men while in U.S. territorial waters.[18] "Free trade and sailors' rights" was a rallying cry for the United States throughout the conflict."

Benghazi anyone?

"The Northwest Territory, comprising the modern states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, had been an area of dispute between the Indian Nations and the United States since the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787.[19] The British Empire had ceded the area to the United States in the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The Indian Nations followed Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet and the brother of Tecumseh. Tenskwatawa had a vision of purifying his society by expelling the "children of the Evil Spirit": the American settlers.[20] Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh formed a confederation of numerous tribes to block American expansion. The British saw the Indian nations as valuable allies and a buffer to its Canadian colonies and provided arms. Attacks on American settlers in the Northwest further aggravated tensions between Britain and the United States.[21] The Confederation's raids hindered American expansion into rich farmlands in the Northwest Territory.[22] Pratt says:"

Indian Nation? Muslims maybe? Boston...

"While the British government was largely oblivious to the deteriorating North-American situation because of its involvement in a continent-wide European War, the US was in a period of significant political conflict between the Federalist Party (based mainly in the Northeast), which favoured a strong central government and closer ties to Britain, and the Democratic-Republican Party (with its greatest power base in the South and West), which favoured a weak central government, preservation of slavery, expansion into Indian land, and a stronger break with Britain. By 1812, the Federalist Party had weakened considerably, and the Democratic-Republicans, with James Madison completing his first term of office and control of Congress, was in a very strong position to pursue its more aggressive agenda against Britain and attempt to further weaken its Federalist rivals.[54] Throughout the war, support for the US cause would be weak (or sometimes non-existent) in Federalist areas of the Northeast, though after the war, the self-destruction of the Federalists at the Hartford Convention led to broader, retroactive support from all parts of the country."

Two Party System, check...

"Perhaps the clearest sign of a new sense of national unity was the victorious Democratic-Republican Party, its long-time foes the Federalists vanished from national politics. The result was an Era of Good Feelings with the lowest level of partisanship ever seen."

yep I could see that happening, who inst sick of Democans?

"One indirect result of the War of 1812 was the later election to the presidency of war heroes Andrew Jackson and of William Henry Harrison. Both of these men won military fame which had much to do with their elections. Another indirect result was the decline of Federalist power."

so if the federalist power is now the democatric-republican party i'm guessing the new party is "Independent"? Who are the war heroes?

"In a related development, the United States officially abandoned its reliance on the militia for its defense. Moreover, Army Corps of Engineers (which at that time controlled West Point), began building fortifications around New Orleans as a response to the British attack on the city during the war. This effort then grew into numerous civil river works, especially in the 1840s and 1850s under General Pierre Beauregard. The Corps remains the authority over Mississippi (and other) river works."

sounds like we lose our guns out of this since were the militia right?

"As the charter of the First Bank of the United States had been allowed to expire in 1811, the federal government was ill-prepared to finance the war and resorted to such expediencies as the suspension of specie payment and the issuance of Treasury Notes. These actions set a precedent for future Federal responses to financial crises. Also, this exposure of the nation's financial weaknesses explained in part the Congressional decision to charter the Second Bank of the United States in 1816."

Didn't something recently just expire? speaking of which what are we going to do about the dollar??? hmm....

"Later on 18 July, the Treaty of Örebro formally ended the wars between the United Kingdom and Sweden and Russia. On 3 March 1813, after the United Kingdom agreed to Swedish claims to Norway, Sweden entered an alliance with the United Kingdom and declared war against France."

well they didn't call it the "War of the Sixth Coalition" for nothing I guess..

"War of 1812, including the capture and burning of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., in August 1814"

rut roh!



Here is a comedy on the subject, I wonder how close we are?
[link to en.wikipedia.org]

The Second Civil War - THE MOVIE - 1997

The 1997 film is set in a United States in which foreign immigration has skyrocketed: The mayor of Los Angeles speaks only in Spanish, Rhode Island is populated mostly by Chinese-Americans, and Alabama has a congressman from India. Politics is openly reduced to a matter of catering to various ethnic groups for their votes - the Alabama congressman will only support the president if his state receives more money for Hindu temples. When an atomic weapon is used in Pakistan, an international organization makes plans to bring orphans to Idaho.
Idaho governor Jim Farley (Bridges) orders the state's National Guard to close its borders, as Idaho has already received more than a million refugees; he acknowledges this even though the Governor himself routinely indulges in Mexican food, Mexican soap operas, and an affair with a Mexican-American reporter (Peña). Despite the best efforts of his press secretary Jimmy Cannon (Kevin Dunn), Farley remains largely oblivious to the national crisis he's the center of, since Farley is more concerned with rekindling his romance with his mistress rather than dealing with national matters.
Meanwhile, the President of the United States (Hartman) turns out to be an equally ineffectual leader, ruthlessly exploiting immigration to fill districts and states with those most likely to vote for his own party. He will move more Koreans to New York since Koreans are one of his core constituencies. Reputed as indecisive, the President delegates his decision-making entirely to his advisors, most notably his unofficial chief advisor, lobbyist Jack B. Buchan (Coburn).
Buchan, however, is less concerned with the good of the nation, and more concerned with politics, especially how the President's actions will play on television (resulting, for example, in a 72-hour deadline being shortened to 671⁄2 hours to prevent the news from interrupting Susan Lucci's farewell appearance on the soap opera All My Children). Buchan regularly influences the President's decisions by manipulating his desire to emulate previous U.S. presidents, even going so far as to pepper presidential statements with fictitious "quotes" from President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Meanwhile, the NN cable network is reporting the events and influencing them at the same time. News director Mel (Dan Hedaya) attempts to time events to maximize ratings, while his staff becomes polarized over the political issues involved in the conflict between the Governor and the President. Standard fare for the cable network is to show footage of crying immigrant children, which is done with the Pakistani orphans waiting to move to Idaho.
As the deadline approaches, the Governor and the President call in, respectively, the Idaho National Guard and the United States Army. Tensions rise when the commanders of both units turn out to be bitter rivals from the Gulf War. Meanwhile, governors from other states send in their own National Guard units to aid one side or the other, causing the conflict to escalate into the national arena. Mexican-American pro-immigrant rioters bomb the Alamo, while anti-immigrants retaliate by bombing the Statue of Liberty because of its plaque, stating that "We no longer want your tired, your poor or your huddled masses."
Eventually, the Governor's girlfriend convinces him to back down from the conflict and resign, but a series of misunderstandings and mutinies leads to a major battle between anti- and pro-immigrant armed forces at the Idaho border, culminating with the president's decision to invade Idaho in what becomes the second American Civil War. At the movie's close, news reports indicate that hostilities have ceased, but the immigration issue is unresolved.