I've been looking at the LA Riots a lot lately and wondered: What if the Riots became a Second Civil War?
WI: The LA Riots 0f 1992 exploded into a new civil war?
- Thread starter apocalypticwarrior
- Start date
Not really possible barring Martians using mind control rays. Riots are one thing, civil war another. The US govenment has a monopoly on military power and had no realistic chance of losing it in 1992.
A civil war is impossible, a largescale race war might be possible with some extreme and unlikely events that followed the riots. But, if it didn't happen in 1968 it very likely wouldn't happen here.
About as likely as Russia conquering all of Eurasia in Gurkani Alam(one of my favorite TLs, btw), or the *U.S. successfully conquering and assimilating Peru, Chile, Canada, and Argentina with thriving slavery and every 'white' citizen owning a slave by 2012 in DoD(yes, hardcore dystopia fans, it is that implausible).....or Kramer Associates turning into the equivalent of the United Nations in For Want of a Nail.....That is to say, pretty much ASB.
But, on the other hand, you could see a major problem erupt on a bigger scale if a white supremacist, or some other extreme right-wing group were to throw themselves into the fray.....perhaps an American Breivik decides that he'd like to go 'hunting', perhaps? That, IMO, isn't hard to do.
I remember watching those on the news and thinking "holy s**t, all this over a guy that got beat up?" Years later, I lived in Los Angeles and figured out why. South Central Los Angeles is not hell on Earth, but its a sad place, and it has to be said that the Los Angeles Police Department does have an astoundingly large number of bad apples among its ranks. I can see why a riot could come out of such a place. Then, of course, there weren't as many Hispanics as there are now. If another riot was to happen tomorrow, it would be a bigger one than in 1992, just because the community at the center of it all is now divided among two groups of people who do have a rather considerable amount of animosity towards each other.
If the TV news cameras hadn't caught Reginald Denny being beaten half to death by black rioters but had instead caught a Trayvon Martin situation (i.e. a white cop killing a black man in cold blood), the whole damn city would have gone up like a dry forest in a lightning storm, and probably riots would have erupted in several other places (Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit and Washington being the most likely places for such eruptions), and the nastiness would have been a lot bigger and longer-lasting. But civil war? Not happening.
The sad part is I know where that comes from......
That's something to take pride in.
You could cause real problems with armed anarchists or race fascists especially if they buy uniforms of some government entity from a costume store and customize them with real logos. Add in a custom-painted car or two like the fake DOT truck from Texas used as a drug running vehcile a few years back and look out.
In 1992 as much of the Black community in Los Angeles was against the riots as were in support them, and the Hispanic community was the same. Other minorities were really against. Korean shop owners went so far as to take up arms to defend their businesses from rioters - and one of them killed one of his own security guards by accident - as they were being targeted by angry members of the Black and Hispanic communities. Get those people to overwhelmingly support the rioters, and have other communities take up arms against the rioters, and you get much more ugliness. You don't get anything like a civil war, but the riots spread to a bunch of other cities, and take the best part of 3-4 weeks to fully put down, at the cost of probably $100 Billion in damage and probably 600-800 lives lost, half of those in Los Angeles. That level of rioting would create much deeper rifts than those that remained after May 1992.
You may get a few larger riots, and maybe if the stars allaine just right you will get the start of the another civil rights movement. But no way would you get a second civil war.
UrbanRedneck
Banned
I think it depends upon the local police departments in each city.
Part of the problem in LA was the slow police response. While businesses burned the cops didnt have a coordinated plan on what to do so we had scenes of rioters going crazy and Geraldo on camera saying "where are the police?".
Now in other cities it was different story. Cops came out in force. They put every available officer into uniform including full riot gear and had them march into areas in cadence, military style. Even in LA itself the violence didnt spread to other communities because the police there were out in force. Cop cars patrolled in convoys with a dozen police on hand ready to jump onto any troublespot.
Also the politicians got involved. Here in Kansas City the black community wanted to have a march and demonstration in a predominantly white business area (The Country Club Plaza) and our black mayor at the time told them no.
Part of the problem in LA was the slow police response. While businesses burned the cops didnt have a coordinated plan on what to do so we had scenes of rioters going crazy and Geraldo on camera saying "where are the police?".
Now in other cities it was different story. Cops came out in force. They put every available officer into uniform including full riot gear and had them march into areas in cadence, military style. Even in LA itself the violence didnt spread to other communities because the police there were out in force. Cop cars patrolled in convoys with a dozen police on hand ready to jump onto any troublespot.
Also the politicians got involved. Here in Kansas City the black community wanted to have a march and demonstration in a predominantly white business area (The Country Club Plaza) and our black mayor at the time told them no.