Civil War 2

No one expected a second civil war in these United States...in these former United States, much less the globe. It came as a shock to most, although it really shouldn't have. The government had been failing for years, whether it was a Libby or a right-leaner on the presidential throne the crap was always the same. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

I once had a college professor (a community college professor mind you) that had stated with eloquence, "The government is here to serve its people. A government should never be built on the broken backs of its citizens. If that government should become a beast, we should rise up. No we must rise up and remove the head of the beast. Our constitution states 'we the people'." He did not end there, reciting without an 'um' or a stutter, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…" His thoughts trailed off as he stared at the miserable fall day outside the window. "…promote the general Welfare." Who of you would say, that our current regime promotes the general welfare of its people"

A preppy kid in the back put up his hand to answer. It was clear that he was well off. Too well off for his own good. He was born with a golden spoon in his mouth and his first diaper was diamond studded and of course he knew everything. "We have access to all we need" the preppy kid blurted out, "We are taken care of."

"We're taken care of mr…"

"John Summers."

"Mr. John Summers. You're a pretentious idiot. We live in a country where the wealthy gain more wealth and those at the bottom of the food chain are getting eaten alive. John?…"

"yes," he answered with hesitation.

"I'm going to call you Jack, because in your sheltered little preppy… 'dropped out of real college so daddy settled on this crap hole' existence you know Jack shit."

He inhaled deeply on the electric cigarette between his fingers. The only nicotine he was allowed indoors. He struck me as a pipe kind of guy, but the e-cig would have to do."Here are little current affairs for you Jack. One out of every six Americans is living in poverty. The number of American citizens living in poverty is now at a level not seen since the 1960s.

More than 146 million Americans are either poor or low income.

Twenty percent of all children in the United States are living in poverty.The number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain, that's the combined populations of Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, close to one out of every six Americans is on food stamps. So preppy Jack, tell me again how our Government is looking after us?

John/ Jack just stared stone-faced ready to leap and punch, but thinking better of it.

"We are on the precipice of war ladies and gentlemen. Our first Civil War began in 1861 largely over money. Oh history books will tell you it was about Slavery and yes, that was a very big, undeniable part of it, but wars are always fought over wealth. The slaves were a product. A product that worked for free while wealthy cotton and tobacco farmers made piles of ungodly money. Cut off the slaves, cut off the amount these moguls could make. Slaves were a terrible means to a more terrible end. What will start our next civil war?"

Nobody raised their hands, all entranced in the words of our professor who seemed like a general inspiring an army to leap into action.

"Well don't all stare like fish gasping for air. I'm really asking. What will start our next Civil war?"

"Greed" I blurted out the word before I could think to put up my hand.

"Greed indeed Mr. Brenton." He said as I stared back amazed he knew my name in such a large class.

"It has driven every war from the beginning of time. Nothing is new. It may be in coin or in land or some other object we attribute value to, but greed is the oil that greases the gears of war. We have bankers, investors, wall street buffoons and politicians in a giant circle jerk each making the other smile because of how much wealth they make at the expense of the slaves. We get a pittance. Make no mistake we're not much more than slaves. We're not slaves based on the colour of our skin, but by the disadvantage of our birth or by the lack of business savvy, or rather we were born with consciences that prevent us from lying and clawing and cheating our way to the top of the food chain. 'The meek will inherit?' Maybe someday, but for now it's the liars and cheaters. The backstabbers and the low lives who glare down from their ivory palaces while the slaves work for the pocket change they throw our way. Mark my words…" He inhaled deeply on his e-cig. "A war is brewing. In fact it has already begun. The masses are stirring. Discontentment is growing. The people will rise once more. People will only tolerate so much. Politicians earning wealth at the expense of the common man, on broken backs. 'We the people' will stand for that for just so long. How long jack do you think your trust fund will stay in your hands? How long before the ivory tower comes crashing down? A month, a week, a year. I don't know the time frame, what I do know is this; that we're all out of bailouts. We've been writing blank checks as a nation that we had no intention of keeping true to. Each bailout was used for nothing more than giving bonuses and raises to the very ones who created the mess we're in. The rich got richer and round and round we go. Mr. Jack Prep. You and your kind have numbered days. A civil war to free the slaves from greed is on the horizon and no amount of wealth will free you from the carnage that is coming your way."

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That prophetic uttering came 7 years ago. About three years after that lecture the first true shots were fired. No guns were used. Not yet. A group is known as LINCOLN, the largest hacking collective of it's kind.

Larger than Anonymous, its predecessor, they used a tool originally created by the US and Israel to be used as a controlled virus that was meant to bring down the Iranian nuclear program from within. Stuxnet was copied, reverse engineered and renamed Stuxnet by its faceless loosely connected group of anarchists. Although they preferred the term counter-revolutionists, It worked very well. It was placed quietly through back doors created by sympathizers to the cause. Left to incubate until all was in place until the switch could be flipped. The point of Stuxnet was not to destroy the US but to renew it. This could not be done by placing Stuxnet only in US systems. That would be suicide, leaving us bare to the attack of the New Soviets, The Peoples Republic, and various extremist groups. It all had to be taken down on a global scale.

I'm not sure how long Stuxnet incubated. How long the process had been brewing it could have been well over a decade. Maybe longer. Who held the 'flip-switch', I do not know. It could have been a single individual or the coordination of a million hacktivists synchronizing the single command that sent the code like domino's falling around the world.

We lived in a world where nothing was left up to the purely mechanical or tangible. Water systems? Run by a network of computers, that, for some bizarre reason were connected together on the internet. Electrical infrastructures, the global stock markets, and each countries 'war machine' controlled in one way or another through networks. Isolated or not Stuxnet found it's way in through those who identified with the cause. And the banks and more importantly those that made the most money from the banks, the putrid rich, through the click of a few keys on a keyboard and the flick of an eye were in an instant as poor as Joe Shmoe. When your wealth is really measured in ones and zeros it's not that difficult to make it all disappear.

The day the lights went out would seem to be the beginning of America's Second Civil War. Although the US of A was at the heart of it, this was a global war at first. The slate had been wiped clean. The playing fields had been leveled. The hacktavists weren't complete idiots. They still needed a way to stay ahead in this war. They controlled every cellphone provider and satellites ebb and flow of communication.

Stuxnet, as it turns out, was not meant to just destroy. It was designed to seize control and put the power back in the hands of the people. It created a new global network simply called "the underground railroad network" or TURN for short. TURN gave power to the people like never before. No single person or organization controlled TURN. No isp could spy on you or shut you down. TURN put the power of war into the hands of everyday people. Wars at this stage were fought almost completely by drones, bots and the sarcastically named "Tin Men". These are autonomous artificial intelligent bipedal robots. They don't have fake skin like some cheesy Hollywood crap. I mean they have the form of a human, but they're clearly not human. Metal, plastic, wires and circuit boards. All controlled by a faceless mobocracy known as LINCOLN.

LINCOLN had freed the slaves. The rich had been sent running for the hills. Equality was within reach. At least that was the ideal and a fine ideal it was. Everybody earning a fair and equal wage. Salary caps for the fat cats. War taken out of the hands of the government.

There was actually little to no retaliation from a single government. They were beat and they knew it. The Civil War came later, when the common folk began to realize that their faceless mobocracy was less benevolent and more malevolent.

I don't know if LINCOLN started out Honest Abe, but it ended up Tricky Dickie. Our victors, our freedom fighters, became our foes. The autonomous war machines of all kinds, be they flying, floating, walking or rolling were suddenly our police officers. Our captors our jail wardens. It started with pop up messages on our computers and smartphones, tv screens and what was left of the radio. Messages from LINCOLN.

"To the people of the world. We are your emancipators. We are the ones who cut your chains and freed you from the evil governments, be they dictatorships or dictatorships posing as democracies. We want you to learn a new word and learn it well. Mobocracy. We the people are in control. go to your browser and type in "vote now" no coms or orgs or infos or any other silliness, we've done away with these mundane protocols. VOTENOW will be updated daily with choices that you can as a global community decide on. Check a box and your voice will be heard. The most votes win. Simple. Today we have restored electricity and water to the major centres. We will begin regular food distribution again. They will be rations mind you as we wish to ensure that all citizens of the world get their equal share. We've put up a test vote for you to all join in with today. Go to your browsers now and give it a whirl. We the people are one. We are LINCOLN. We remain unvanquished.

I typed in 'vote now' and was greeted with a menacing looking smiley face that invited me to "click to vote". What I saw left me slack-jawed. Duct-taped to a dark leather chair in the oval office was the President…former president I guess, of the United States. He was beaten up, blindfolded and pale. Next to him stood a Tin Man at about 7 feet tall. The Tin Man was armed with a high calibre blaster called the X87. Stamped on the Tin Man's left side were the numbers 271B. He raised the blaster to the presidents head. A text ticker ran across the bottom of the screen. "In the next 60 seconds the fate of this filthy war criminal will be decided by you, the people of the world. You'll see three options below. Click on one and your vote will be recorded. The first one read "kill him" in bold red letters, then "life in prison" being the second and then in smaller letters "set him free". I clicked life in prison. The screen refreshed and billions of votes instantly began to tally next to each option like the spinning of cherries on a one-armed bandit. the numbers kept rising. Set him free scored in the hundreds. Death and life in prison were neck and neck. Then all at once the 'life in prison' numbers slowed and stopped as the kill him numbers skyrocketed. A message scrolled along the screen - you the people have spoken. That was the first of many live executions on camera. Politicians from around the world met a similar fate. The biggest execution was really genocide.

"We have one country that remains an enemy. An oppressor to our new found freedom. A threat if ever there was one. North Korea has been so isolated through all this that even with our best operatives we were unable to gain access with Stuxnet. Today's vote. Ignore them. Send in a drone to take out their pathetic little leader. Total Inhalation. I never expected our collective desire for blood to be so great. The vote leaned 90 to 1 in favor of the total destruction of a country. We were 'treated' to the view of drones entering Korean airspace and blowing up cities and villages with firepower I didn't think was possible from a drone. The capital was gone in a heartbeat. Then the view of smaller villages. Children running for their lives in the streets as flares of light filled the night vision view.

I watched for a few hours as it was always obligatory to put in patriotic viewing time for the people's channel. It was horrifying and empowering all at once. Horrifying to see human life crushed so carelessly. Without thought or stammer. Empowering to know what you did with the click of a checkbox had a purpose. Agree or disagree you could see your vote on a global scale. Instantly.

George Orwell had got it wrong. Oh, there was a big brother, but we were all big brother. Mobocracy was a powerful addiction and the people ate it up. The lie of the mob was fed to the people and they devoured it like sweetmeats and became fat on the thin veneer of a promise that was never meant to materialize.

The most clever an organization can be...no matter how loose that organization, is to make them believe that they hold the power, when in fact that is what you merely let them believe. Ah, the true conniving magic the slight of hand. The pulling the rabbit out of the hat is to let them feel in complete control while you slowly remove everything that looks like freedom, but doing it a little at a time and let them believe it's their idea. Never let people feel they don't have a choice. If we've learned anything from the "Arab Spring" it's to always let the people believe it's their idea.

LINCOLN played this tune well. Played the entire planet like a cheap fiddle. What's my role in this? The whole damn thing was my idea. It started as a seed. The inkling of an idea on some shady forum of people who were sick to death of the opulence of the wealthy. We were sick to death of entire continents suffering, failing and starving because of the greed of the minority. I created LINCOLN to be better than Annonymous before it. To secretly align with the very best "hackers". Boy has that term been sullied. I'm not talking about changing a friends facebook status update when they're not looking. That's not hacking. That's like playing a flight sim and calling yourself a pilot. Actually, it's more like playing tiddlywinks and calling yourself a pilot. No. These were hackers one hundred of the very best from around the world. We never used our real names. Of course. We chose LINCOLN as a symbol of freeing the slaves. As a collective, we made Stuxnet into the living breathing entity that would do our bidding. And then once the playing fields were leveled we rebooted the world. We'd wiped out any trace of national debt for any country. We introduced a digital currency based off of bitcoins, but way less silly and better controlled. Top, bankers, stockbrokers and politicians were tried for treason. The US president was the first execution and I thought I could handle it, but suddenly a man I had hated for so long was just a dad with two girls and a wife. I could not click the "kill box" something stopped me.

Humanity? Individuality? In the mobocracy could these things even still exist?