Subtitles: Does This Imperialism Make Me Look Fat?
I Liked The Old One Better.
SOTU THIS, Chimpy!
Breaking: The State Of The Union Sucks large undesirable things that make you go Euwwww when you think about them.
I have always loved the myth of America…it is a GREAT myth. Even though it was not fashionable in my radical chic set back in the proverbial day…I even liked John Wayne, despite his Imperialist running dog tendencies….still do.
It wasn’t fashionable because he was/is a symbol of American Imperialism, even though his real name was Marion. One thing Conservatroids and us Hippies could agree on back then was that John Wayne symbolized America. To them it was a good thing, he was Strength and Manliness and simply ooozing confident unbeatable Jingoistic Manifest Destiny from every pore as he rode into the sunset after gunning down the bad guys and kissing the girl. To us the Cowboy, War Hero, Propaganda Tool simply ooozed the essence of America as an unthinking bully as he rode into the sunset after destroying some Native American or Vietnamese village. Ah, The Culture Wars! Now much and rightly derided, in some ways, by the New Post Boomer Post Partisan Generations.
The Duke was a symbol of them the Conservative, an icon of the Other Side. He was, to them….what America meant. But as much as I wanted to not like him, I did.
One thing you could ALWAYS say about the Duke….he played by the rules.
Sure the rules were kind of crappy, see that Native American village thing above. But the deal was, he had integrity. Heck, he even had compassion for the people he was cutting down by the score. He was a good man. Because he didn’t know any better, he didn’t fully understand the global socio-cultural implications of his actions. There was a bad guy, so ….he shot him. But never in the back and never before he other guy drew first.
So very much unlike our current cowboy.
Because the Rules are what it is all about.
Whether you call it Honor, or Integrity, or Fairplay, or Justice or even the Code of the West….there has to be some logical construct, some sort of philosophy….some ….reason….behind it all. That is what gives meaning. And without some sort of myth or meaning, naked slaughter for greed just looks too, well, naked. And it is. Naked greed, naked power for powers sake…no masks, no cover…just slaughter. And torture. And profit from the death and misery of others.
Right now, and until Mr. Bush and the Sith Lord Cheney are out of office, that is what America means, that is the new myth of America. That is The State Of The Union.
Perhaps if there was SOME…any…redeeming factor we could point to it would be different, but there isn’t.
Keeping America from becoming what it has become is what the Culture Wars were all about, so though we won them in some ways…over all we lost. So far.
What are the hopes for our Union? What can we look to in our future that can turn us off of this path of self-destruction and the destruction of others? We can look to where we WON the Culture Wars. For though we may have lost politically, the returns are now coming in and it looks like we won socially.
After going through this horrible, nasty, destructive Republican reign Of Terror where fear, intolerance and hatred ruled the day and our nation for lo these long years, we are seeing signs of backlash against the backlash of the Culture Wars. We are seeing young, bright, tolerant, enthusiastic young people get involved in the political process, clamoring for change. And it is not change towards more hate and destruction and xenophobia, but change in the direction of the values that America USED to represent. Freedom and Justice and Inclusion for all. The post Boomer generations repudiating the sins of their fathers and mothers on both sides of the Culture Wars and looking for NEW ways to be Americans and to provide and nurture new values and myths….and meaning, for America.
What will these new myths be? What will it mean to be America in the years to come? I don’t know, no one does. But the old myths are being rejected, and new ones are about to be made…and that can only be a good thing.
So I say to you, my fellow Americans, that the current State of The Union bites it…hard. But the State of The Union to come looks a little brighter than we have any right to expect, given our bloody past.
Perhaps a new redefined generation of American Cowboys (for we will never escape that part of our myth) is riding out of the sunrise, and coming over the hill packing those same values of integrity and honor that we have so horribly misplaced over the past decade. I, for one want to buy them a sarsaparilla and give them a pat on the back and wish them luck.
If the State of the Union is to be strong, it will be they who make it so. Lord knows they have a hell of a mess to clean up.
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I hope we look forward to the future backlash before it takes all by surprise….
I have watched the tides surge in and out for many years ……
each time we have idealistically overlooked the nature of our cultures tension and been suprised by the backlash of the scarcity minds…….
this time as we build this vision we must realize and premempt the backlash…..
or else in the next decade when it comes it will be the last curtian call for us all….
but, then, his stuff was a little before my time 😉
actually, im suspicious of anyone with that kind of certainty..be they a priest, a teacher, or…sigh…my brother.
things arent nearly as black-and-white as john, or the conservatives, or my brother would suggest.
and theyre especially dangerous because of their need for an enemy..and their willingness to create one where one doesnt exist.
ill wait for a REAL hero…
SPOON!!
(you may now congratulate me for refraining from embedding Live’s ‘beauty of gray’…teehee)
I was just watching a talk by DFH Tom Hayden
who The Duke probably loathed. He talks some about the culture wars and social dialectic, and backlash.
I liked it, it’s about an hour long and has some slow spots, but interesting overall, and good Q and A .
bookmark it peoples and watch when you can.
and support your local
gunfighterlibrarianhttp://www.alexanderstreet.com…
writers of old west fiction. Mostly because he writes about it like I was told about it and most heroics happened by accident ;). One of my grandfather’s rancher friends had his wagon stolen by a ranching bully who was my grandfather’s neighbor. My grandfather went and restole the wagon and returned it to his friend. The bully showed up at my grandfather’s front door. My grandfather had been suffering from some kidney problems, actually one of his kidneys harbored tuberculosis but not his lungs and was later removed and his health improved a lot after that. He knew he had one shot at the guy before the guy wailed the snot out of him though. He told me that he gathered together all of his might and threw his punch first before the guy could even cuss him out before wailing. He was so scared though that he completely missed the guy’s jaw and hit him square in the windpipe. My grandfather had never watched any Kung Fu movies to understand that he had delivered a disabling blow. The neighbor backed off the steps sputtering and coughing and hacking doubled over, and then he just went home. My grandfather became a local diety.
The civilization that makes up Old Europe has done soooo many stupid imperial things that it is my hope we decide to become more French before France stops being so wussy French 😉 They do sell a lot of arms around the globe so French without the selling weapons. Oh to hell with the French, how about Swiss without the Nazi bank accounts? Maybe the Danes? Who’s setting a good example around here because it sure isn’t us?
right here …
has any of the three dems openly advocated closing guantanamo ?!?……
and git rid of the gun-totin,’ rootin’ tootin, cowboy image FOREVER!
“Big Jim McLain” (1952) B/W
Big Jim is an investigator for the House Un-American Activities Committee, who goes to Hawaii (where he meets girl) to investigate some commies.
Big Jim McClain
I think that maybe, just maybe, it will mean what it means to be in most other countries.
That real people are not defined by the crap that the power hungry psychos who take over their governments do.
… another SOTU sent from the DCCC, winner of a contest:
Wish she was Pres.
thought you might like this…
…he wasn’t. When real americans were fighting, he was making bad movies…about war. A propaganda stooge at best…if that’s a contribution, then it’s a small one.
Is it unrealistic to expect an actor to join?
No. James Stewart, a much bigger star, joined in 1941 and flew bombing missions over Europe.
Marion was just a poseur.
of the wild wild west is that it has been used to twist the darkest parts of our history/psyche into the good. I’ve been reading over the last couple of years DeTocqueville’ Democracy in America.A Frenchman’s view of our culture about a hundred years into our nations birth. It’ amazing that we still have the same strains moving us as then. Manifest Destiny has run out of territory and seeks to eat the world. Exceptionalism ingrained blinds us to our ability to evolve, and become members of the world’s community. Empty macho posturing is hero.
The Germans had an old mythology steeped in violence that was touted as the super race. I hope we can grow out of thinking that we are always the good guys. Gunslingers in White Hats are killers too, gangsters of the past who have just changed technologies and are still regarded as heroes for killing. I too love the myths but can’t understand why they are not left behind as myths, or at least counteracted by the parts of our past that are what really make us exceptional. The myths that crown our good with brotherhood part.