Guardian Jan. 2003: Never Trust a Christian Cowboy.

[madfloridian]

I am having to work on my older computer until my tech gets to work on my newer one. It is amazing what I am finding. I posted this article here in January 2003. It is still as true and biting, even more so.

Christian Cowboys like George Bush can be very dangerous indeed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,817274,00.html

SNIP...." war itself is often viewed through the prism of the movie cowboy mythology. Vietnam was described by American troops as "Indian country". George Bush even initiated the war on terrorism by declaring he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive". Now the focus has turned to Iraq Bush has once again returned to a familiar script. Saddam is an "outlaw", says Bush; an "international outlaw", echoes Blair....."

..."The image of the lone gunfighter who is suspicious of fancy talk and who acts fearlessly to defeat the forces of evil is the defining mark of a certain sort of US national pride. Some have argued that this pattern exemplifies a sort of redeemer myth. The hero is saviour to the town - thus the cowboy's violence is justified. For in the absence of the rule of law, or in a town where the sheriff is seen as weak (here we see the part assigned to the UN), the cowboy must carry the responsibility for defeating evil."

...."Bush seems to believe that this cowboy justification for war is also a Christian rationale for war. It isn't. For the cowboy film represents the development of a distinctive ethical stance that is defined in the strongest possible contrast to that of Christianity. "The meek ain't goin' to inherit nothin' west of Chicago" said Conn Vallian in The Quick and the Dead. In this cowboy film, Christianity is depicted as weak and ineffectual, something commonly practised by women and wholly incapable of dealing with the challenges of the frontier. In High Noon Grace Kelly begs Gary Cooper not to take up his gun and face the Miller Gang, but he ignores her Quaker principles. In order to create a safer future for them both he must return to unfinished business and kill the enemy. For the cowboy any sort of Christian forgiveness is never an option. Redemption only comes through violence.

...."However, there are other scripts to follow. Sam Peckinpah's 1969 groundbreaking The Wild Bunch provides an ominous reductio ad absurdum of the traditional western format. The heroes are thieves who get involved in the politics of another country simply for their own gain. The end is not safety but carnage. "Peckinpah's shrewdest insight lay in recognising how essential to the western a form of moral self-deception has always been," writes Lee Clarke Mitchell. Cowboy ethics always leads to death."

The Time cover says it is The End of Cowboy Diplomacy. I would like to think that. But I don't.

[efhmc]

1. This "person" is neither a Christian, nor a cowboy. He is a yankee

carpetbagging Pharisee wannabe.

[PDJane]

2. Good.

you shouldn't.