Civil War In America: The Sequel

Clio was the ancient Greek muse of history. so we all thought that she would be an appropriate entity to run this site.

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I just watched Civil War, the 2024 movie, by Alex Garland. I had been holding off on viewing it because I didn’t know if it would be another Hollywood gun fest. Initially, my thoughts were – yeah, dumb Americans and their stupid obsession with whizz bang weapons. I mean, the country contains some 600 million guns, apparently. I called this article, Civil War in America: The sequel because they are looking down the barrel of a second instalment of this potentially bloody conflict. 600 thousand Americans died during the first Civil War in 1861-65. The automatic weapons are much more impressive now, so, the butcher’s bill could be way more this time round.

Killing Americans Aint So Civil

The film is a road movie with war photo journalists and correspondents at its centre. This makes sense as a directorial creative means to tell such a spread out story. It begins with violent street protests and a suicide bomber bearing the stars and stripes flag as a banner into the crowd. The explosion rips apart bodies and leaves them bleeding hunks of meat on the pavement. Our photo journalist lead character, Kirsten Dunst, snaps black and white still shots of the carnage for the movie audience to observe. The media holding up a mirror for everybody to see. We remember those iconic images from prior wars like Vietnam, the Balkans and Somalia. It made me feel old and sad at this time in the viewing experience.

Celebrating War Correspondents

The cliched war correspondents drowning their sorrows and partying at a hotel throws up inferences to famous conflicts like the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s and George Orwell and his journo colleagues. The danger of bombs and bullets increase the sexual libido of the fourth estate representatives as they indulge in booze and fuck each other in case the next moment could be their last. Smoky lobby bar scenes replete with excessive alcohol going down throats apace. Here we meet the main characters of Civil War the movie. Dunst and her journo colleague played by Wagner Mouro, Stephen McKinley in the role of the overweight old timer with gravitas. Youthful audience members have Cailee Spaeny to root for as the young actress being passed the baton by Dunst’s character as the new snapper on the scene. She will emerge as the driven edgy eye of a wounded nation. These four jump in their jalopy and hit the highway for a 600 mile journey to Washington DC. We wonder what they will see.

Uncivil Carnage Displayed Enthusiastically

Well, instances and episodes of carnage and bloody conflict. Bodies hung from bridges in an ode to Tehran and other Islamic cities that display their executed victims as warning to the greater public. Truckloads of murdered victims of militias being dumped in mass graves. You are never quite sure who is who in this depiction of civil war, which is deliberate I am sure. The WF are the Western Forces, Texas and California, who are one of the main insurrectionist forces against the President of what was the United States. The heroic nature of capturing images of despicable acts of war and violence is revealed as questionable. Accompanying one side or another as they fight and slaughter opposing human beings to take photos of the action is strange but considered historically appropriate. Garland juxtaposes the young innocent lens woman with the dickhead guys shooting murderous rounds into their victims. Getting off on war and violence is the purview of blokes in the main.

AR15 style weapons are toylike in the ease that they end the lives of unarmed victims when so directed by moronic Americans. Lots of shooting and killing abounds.

man standing while holding hunting rifle

On The Road To Death & Destruction

Our road movie reaches a crescendo when duelling vehicles perform that classic of American cinema the car chase. In this rendition of the Hollywood favourite stunt scene two of our war journos swap cars via the passenger window whilst travelling at high speed down the highway. You sense that they have surrendered to the kinetic energy of unrestrained violence that permeates the air. It will all end badly, however, especially for the non-Anglo members of our travelling press core. The old fat man saves our protagonists, as the loss of innocence is rammed home in no uncertain terms. This sobering post-adolescent high section of the movie confirms Civil War as tragedy rather than dark comedy in nature. Death surrounds the lens of the camera and the culmination of what they call the American experiment is no celebration.

Killing is the constant in this film and institutions fall to bombs and bullets. I suppose you cannot call a movie Civil War and deliver a happy ending.

Civil War Conclusions?

What does one takeaway from this movie? Civil War in America: The sequel is an imagined modern rendition of the classic violent rupture, which almost ended the United States, as we know it. At its most obvious it illustrates the likely danger of an armed population resorting to violence via an insurrection. The male of the human species can be relied upon to turn to aggression as a means of exerting its appetite for power. The cyclical nature of warfare is testament to this, as correlated by the historical record. Right now, we have Putin’s Russian invasion of Ukraine entering its 3^rd year, although it really began back in 2014. War in Syria has been going on for a decade. Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and that is spreading to Lebanon and Iran is involved via proxy conflicts in Yemen and elsewhere. Africa is often a battleground for warlords and power struggles occurring there with postcolonial overtures and Russia’s military presence exploiting opportunities. Fighting continues in Myanmar between the rebel forces and the military regime currently in power. If the United States descends into civil war the world will be greatly destabilised and more outbreaks of war will almost certainly be guaranteed. China may step up to exert its military power and increase its zone of influence by more direct means. World War 3 is more likely than not in these circumstances.

The stupidity of white American males wanting to flex their power over cultural issues like LGBTQI rights, transgender rights, restoring misogyny, and a bogus illegal immigration crisis will be a blood letting that could unleash the end of American dominance on the world stage. You cannot fight an enemy at home and abroad and hope to win.

You cannot turn back time and halt the progression toward a multicultural humanist democracy by force and expect that that will last. Backlashes are not smart moves for any society, they are reactions which run out of steam. Older folk die off and women are not going to put up with archaic returns to misogyny and patriarchal structures. Apartheid is another manifestation of a minority controlling the majority via force. We witnessed it in South Africa and the American Jim Crow south. Race remains an evil issue close to the soul of America. Slavery defined half the nation for hundreds of years and its consequences continue to imperil the whole of America. You cannot ignore it and outlaw studying it, as some southern states are doing. The polarisation of America has been fanned by radical right wing interests. In the media by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News most loudly. Via religion in the overt moves by Christian Nationalism and its network of white wealthy men wishing to visit their conceptions of American identity upon the whole of the country. The Republican party has been taken over by Trumpist MAGA extremists. Project 2025 is a 920 page plan to take over America from the Heritage Foundation – an ultra-conservative think tank. Many pundits think that the 2021 Capital riots were a failed coup and dress rehearsal for what is to come. Trump continues to promote the big lie about the 2020 election and his defeat by now President Joe Biden. Donald Trump lies at every opportunity about just about everything. America is awash with disinformation like a storm with no cessation. Deep down I reckon even Trump supporters know that they are complicit in a bunch of lies.

These white Americans want to stand on the backs of those they consider inferior, whatever it takes. They want to win at all costs. This kind of behaviour leads to civil war.

Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.