What makes people rebel against the status quo?

Every time time the feds hire another rude, obnoxious TSA agent, or the city hires another jackass clerk or the state hires another pricky, menacing road reaver, a potential insurgent is created. That's what Steven Metz's study published at the Small Wars Journal seems to say.

"Insurgency arises from a combination of two conditions:", says Metz, "significant unmet psychological needs, and the feasibility of violence (via both attitudes receptive to it and the actual tools of armed action).  To grapple with this, a psychological conceptualization of insurgency would be more powerful and useful than a political one."

So I gather the boiling frog scenario doesn't always work after all.

Would the Army let itself be used against us?

Up until recently I would have said no, but today I'm not so sure. Neither are some others who have a better handle on this than I do. Starting a few decades ago the armed forces started becoming its own class that has different goals, values, and loyalties than the rest of the population. A bad omen to be sure.

Book Review: Grab Their Belts To Fight Them

A review of Warren Wilkins' book Grab Their Belts To Fight Them a critical study of Vietcong/PAVN tactics against the US Army and Marines during the Vietnam war by Youssef Aboul-Enein a faculty member of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces posted at the Small Wars Journal website.