USA is 1850's-level Sick! A 2nd Civil War Next?

Mon. Aug. 6, 2012:          [Part One]


I.
          A discerning new Bitesfromedwin reader, from Carmel Avenue in a New England town, said something that had also rattled chains in your faithful blogger's brain too, before getting fearfully banished to the attic:

                           [Reaction to Senator Charles Sumner's Speech "Bleeding Kansas," 1856]


The USA's current sickness has the polarized, unworkable feel of the USA of the 1850's -- and that ended in the Civil War, which killed over 618,000 of us.  Could we be headed there again?
[After the recent Aurora shooting, gun sales rose -- not sank.]

For Dem. & GOP readers, the 2012 General Election will likely continue our dysfunction:

"There is no doubt that voters believe Washington is broken," said David Wasserman, the House editor of The Cook Political Report.  "But most believe it is broken because the other side broke it . . .

Voters in Boehner's district believe they are sending Boehner there to fight Obama, and Pelosi's district believes she is there to fight the Tea Party.  It is a retrenchment, not a referendum."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/us/politics/republicans-and-democrats-fight-for-control-of-the-house.html?pagewanted=all


II.
           David Brooks, one of The New York Times's few Third Way-type moderates
[i.e. neither Gail Collins-left nor Fox News-right],
agrees with The Wall Street Journal's conservative Peggy Noonan
-- that both both Obama & Romney are squandering an "incredibly consequential"
2012 Campaign, with shallow Gaffe-Attacks, and no real issues.

Here is the paradox, Brooks concludes:  "As campaigns get more sophisticated, everything begins to look more homogenized, less effctive and indescribably soporific."
Sound 1850's-ish to you?  The 1852, 1856, and 1860 elections were similarly messed up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/opinion/brooks-dullest-campaign-ever.html


III.
          Speaking of guns, this past weekend saw yet another USA gun-massacre.  This one was at a
Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.  Only 6 deaths.
Count on more citizens rushing out to buy more -- not fewer -- guns.

But even before this latest evidence of "American Exceptionalism," last week's newspapers ran
several pieces, in the wake of Colorado, about guns in this country:

Perhaps most notable for a concerned citizen:
"Mexico City Journal:  At a Nation's Only Gun Shop, Looking North in Disbelief"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/world/americas/in-mexico-a-restrictive-approach-to-gun-laws.html?pagewanted=all

Or:

If the Aurora theatre shooting had happened in Texas, where more folks carry guns, a Republican Congressman said that James Holmes "could have been quickly terminated."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/opinion/armed-but-not-so-safe.html

Or:  "A tangled link between gun laws and violence"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/us/other-states-and-other-times-would-have-posed-obstacles-for-gunman.html?pagewanted=all

PERHAPS THE MOST NONPARTISAN OP-ED on GUNS:

"To end an impasse, liberals and the N.R.A. must each give ground":


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/opinion/a-way-out-of-the-gun-madness.html