The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
or
How the West was won.
A very quick glance at the history of the West, -where the cowboy thrived- from a slightly different perspective. yep-hee-ahoy... [or something like that]
They spoke their minds and they spoke the truth, regardless of what people thought or "political correctness," which no one had ever heard of back then.
wooooooaaa... woooaaaa woooooaaaa horsie...
Is that right? Well, I am glad for you Tex.
Will you let me speak my mind? Or would that be a privilege given to cowboys with white hats only?
See, I am not a vaquero (that would be a cowboy), and I am not into hats, any hat, I like the wind in my face and my head, it feels good; although I loved watching westerns when i was a kid, -although i got really bored watching Hopalong Cassidy, man the guy was a bore... the Lone Ranger was 'ok' -I loved that mask, you know it gave you the idea of doing something 'under the table' no one knew who the lone ranger was... that's something that in today's Arsecrotch's Patriot Act, would make it impossible to do... but never mind that shit, we are talking fun stuff... I liked Tonto... he spoke funny, in Spanish; they called him Toro (Bull), since Tonto means FOOL... I always wondered if there was a message there... I really liked the Cisco Kid, he had that bozo of side kick Pancho he always looked like a fool... hmmm there is that subliminal message again... i wonder why? -g
Zorro was superb... man his mask was BIGGER than the lone ranger... oh yeah... and he wore always BLACK... HAT, CAPE, AND EVERYTHING WAS BLACK... he was one macho dude... you know, he had that BLACK LEATHER whip, and he always had big bosomed sexy women after him, he grabbed them by the waist and kissed them with them jugs hanging out... -LOL... I mean THAT was my cowboy hero... unlike that dude Gene Autry and similar...man they were some boring 'charritos' at best, with all that singing and super-clean clothes... geez... i always wondered if there was something wrong with them singing dudes.... - Lawrence Welk types... -lol
But what I really, really liked... were the 'Italian Westerns' (aka spaghetti westerns), no... Not the ones wearing the Gucci tight leather pants, i sort of dislike that type you know, like the Lawrence Welk type, i am talking about the really tough ones like the ones in the most famous of all.... Sergio Leone's
The Ridiculous, The Portentous, and The Brilliant... oooops... I mean The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly... -g
And the music... ah I really love Ennio Morricone's title song for that one... (and others like... "Man with No Name" movies that made Clint Eastwood a movie star (A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More) and from Leone's towering masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West. (Remember? in the heyday of Italian Diva Claudia Cardinale... wow... I would become a cowboy in a flash with a 'cow' girl like that... suck them up heehaw! -g)
There were others less famous.... like: Gunfight at Red Sands, Guns don't Argue [oops], A Gun for Ringo, Ringo Rides Again, Seven Guns for the MacGregors, and Death Rides a Horse.... wow.. So many guns!
Ah yes... i remember... guns, guts and glory!
Unfortunately... some of the lyrics were really atrocious... (Ennio Morricone had nothing to do with them, he only wrote the music, btw)
For example: in the movie...
"A Gringo like me"... the song goes like this....
Keep your hand on your gun.
Don't you trust anyone.
There's just one kind of man you can trust:
That's a dead man or a gringo like me.
-roflol that's a hoot!
Anyway, let's get back to the point...
I have always looked up to a guy/gal who is a positive thinker, particularly when he tries to get himself up from a down situation and become a productive individual. Indeed and proud of his/her heritage... including being a cowboy.
But i always double check the facts. You know what they say there is a thin line between genius and fool. I say, nothing wrong with being a cow-boy, so long you have what it takes to meet the challenges of today's world. Since living off the fat of the past is not really a smart idea... right? I thought so.
So, when the URL you selected says...
Those were the days when there was such a thing as right and wrong, something blurred in our modern world, and denied by many.
I need to check it closer... you know, to make sure...
So check this out and make your own call. And i mean it... so truly check it out, don’t dismiss me, thinking i am attacking you. --i am not. i am just giving you an outside view of the same thing.
Let’s start with one of today's 'popular Chinese sayings'
"The Chinese make the televisions. The Americans watch them."
Old western films maybe? -just kidding -g
Sort of funny uh ? But not really. I will let you be the judge of that.
Well, I mean the ones in the white hats, not the black hats, who were usually the bad guys.
wooo, wooo, wooo... wait, wait, wait... did you really mean that?
I mean... what about the cowboys in the brown hats... you now, they call them 'vaqueros' which arguably, came with the term first... I mean is vaquero a translation of cow-boy, or is it the other way around? I wonder... or the ones with the grey hats? and you know... if I am not mistaken... good ole' Hopalong Cassidy, the Paladin, Virgin, Morgan and Wyatt Earp, [not to mention John (Doc) Holliday, gambler and gunfighter extraordinaire]... they ALL wore BLACK hats. and they were all -presumably- 'good guys' (don't forget Zorro, but i suppose he is in a class of his own -g)
there were a share of mean bastards that wore 'white hats' too the most famous of them was good ole' Doroteo Arango, a general who beat the crap out of the good ole' Texas Rangers... indeed, he is deemed to be the ONLY military commander who successfully invaded the US of A and got away with it -gg
Of course the Texas (notice the 'x' please) propaganda machine always said he was just a damned bandit! -g
Shhhh don’t tell, he was more widely known as Pancho Villa... truly a good guy at heart, unfortunately too wild and a real bastard in his methods as to how he wielded his 'goodness'
KEY POINT: all those values that you defined as "Good Values"... those are the values of good people, --regardless if they are cowboys or not.
after all, there are good cowboys and bad cowboys, (as there are good and bad people)
Let’s not forget... (again)
They spoke their minds and they spoke the truth, regardless of what people thought or "political correctness," which no one had ever heard of back then.
I am glad... let's see... the truth? Ok...
Let's face the truth first, as the world was, then... i.e. the wild, wild, West...
If there were so many of these good ole' cowboys... the question is... to whom were they good? and under whose standards? Remember, back in the old West, there was no channel five to watch good ole Hopalong Cassidy, or the Lone Ranger... no movie theater to watch super-hero John Wayne... right?
What about the 'rustler'? Did you know that many ole large cattle herds were built-up by rustling cattle?
That’s a cow-bandit; there were two types... one who stole the branded cow, then altered the brand. (that's the stupid one) the other, took advantage of the calf (unbranded yet) who ran astray from the mother... it was tough in those days of unfenced ranges to keep track of all the cow-calf pairs.... so many were eaten by the coyotes, or killed by the weather... but some, found their home in those... less-than-honest-cow-bandits (i.e. rustlers.)
Enter the cattle gunman. A sort of armed guard working for the large ranchers like Pat Garret who worked for the very large LS ranch in West Texas...
Pat Garret, a buffalo hunter (later turned lawman, he captured and killed his own buddy and outlaw 'Billy the Kid'; later turned [failed] ranchman; later turned drunkard; and finally turned dead corpse by a bullet)
Did you know...?
in 1800's there were close to 60 million buffalo heads... for centuries, they served as main food source to the Plains Indians (Native Americans)...
The building of the Transcontinental Railroad (five lines in all) sheds a little light in upper echelon of military strategists... As early as 1832 the nation had realized a need to tie California to the rest of the states through the means of a transcontinental railroad system.
There was a small detail though... California (at the time) was still part of Mexico... but never mind that shit... -g they could change that... by 'aiding and abating' (-g) in creating the independent Republica de Tejas y Coahuila"...
tamu.edu
tamu.edu
Getting the tales straight... (Or get up your arse and learn the truth) which is at best, hard to come by when we all know that history (deemed to be the truth) is written by the victor...
texianlegacy.com
The point here is that as mentioned early, by 1832, as the struggle for the independence of the Republic of Texas was beginning, The US government was already looking into linking the East coast with California... a land that did not become part of the US formally until 1848 (that's a 13 year difference)... land grabbing, i suppose was ok in those early days... of course it helped that an idiot such as Santana considered himself the ... 'Napoleon of the West' -roflol and was wiped out not once, but twice, first at San Jacinto, then in Mexico City. Napoleon would have been proud -LOL
Ever read about the growing problem of the 'illegal immigrants' -g
Read this and see if it gives you a different perspective, after all... good cowboys do like traditions yes...?
tamu.edu
tamu.edu
Ah those pesky northeners, illegally coming across the border... where have I ever heard that... if you do a bad deed, it will come back to hunt ya... lol!
Illegality, I suppose, is a matter of geographical location... but one can always move the defining lines... -g
No matter... let's go back to our main story...
By 1845 the leather companies bought over 100,000 buffalo hides from the Indians. The building of the Transcontinental Railway encouraged the killing of the buffalo herds as it provided easy food for the enormous crews... many of them... of Chinese origin... (I wonder if their effort has ever been recognized... hmmm ... they probably wore 'yellow hats' so... according to the established standard of the 'good guy' (you know, the 'white hat')... probably not.
By 1870... the leather companies were paying $3.00 per buffalo hide... the .55 Sharps Riffle became the weapon of choice... in a depressed time, after the civil war, the buffalo hunters took on the task... many of them 'famous persons'
Messrs. Wyatt Earp, Pat Garrett, Wild Bill Hickock and William Cody (aka Buffalo Bill), all deemed 'good guys' in the wild, wild, West besides being, gamblers and hired guns (aka mercenaries in today's world), they were also buffalo hunters....
As early as 1872, a million buffalo were killed for their hides alone and the carcasses left to rot on the plains, no FDA, EPA or McDonalds to sue hu? no ecoli either... -g
For a decade, this slaughter continued causing many a fight with the Indians as they observed the extermination of the buffalo as a death to their way of life and personal existence
When one herd was gone the hunters simply moved on to another region. By 1884 nothing remained of the massive buffalo herds but the piles of bones by the railroad that the farmers had collected and sold to fertilizer factories
In 1897, the mass extermination was almost complete with only a small herd of 20 wild buffalo existing in Yellowstone National Park and the rest in private hands
from 60 milion to near extiction in less than 50 years....
today, there are wildlife preserves (aside from Yellowstone) where they are trying to bring back the Bison (Buffalo)... The National Bison Range
bigskyfishing.com
…at the foothills of the beautiful Mission Mountains...
bigskyfishing.com
I wonder what happened to the 'red skinned [Native American] Indians’?
Was that Rawhide's Rowdy Yates shooting all them Indians there? hmmm... or was it buffaloes he was shooting at from the train?
I wonder if they were 'color' blind and never distinguished one from the other...?
would that have been the...
.... beacon of integrity in the wild, wild West. ?
I know... there were good cowboys, and bad cowboys... like there were good and bad people.
but let's forget the past, (assuming we can), and let's look at the future... where is this 'wonderful' cowboy taking us? So let's take a look at the world today
Remember the Chinese saying...
"The Chinese make the televisions. The Americans watch them."
where are the jobs going? Detroit? Akron? not really, it is more like Shanghai and New Delhi and such cities. Although, there are some jobs going to Spartanburg, North Carolina, USA at the BMW plant.
bmwworld.com
that's good you say, right? well that is relative in terms of 1) who owns the facility (i.e. BMW a German company, and 2) what % of the overall manufacturing capability of said company this particular plant represents) check it out:
BMW's manufacturing plants:
bmwworld.com
1 out of 16 (6.25%) (9 in Germany including a new one coming on line in 2005; 3 in Great Britain (one producing the MINI, one producing the Rolls Royce and one for BMW's) 1 in Austria, South Africa, USA, respectively, and one just approved... in China. and YES BWM, a German company owns the MINI and the Rolls Royce, both formerly 100% British marques.
Let's look at Toyota: (a greater participant in the US manufacturing landscape) 12 in the USA, 1 in Canada and Mexico respectively
toyota.com
building an auto plant is no small potatoes
sanantonio.bizjournals.com.
but then... Toyota is a large company. Global Operations:
toyota.co.jp
46 'overseas' manufacturing pants so 12/46 = 26% (not bad)
Japan operations: they have 15 plants, plus 9 warehousing/distribution points
toyota.co.jp
Regional breakdown: (THIS IS IMPORTANT, KEY POINT: LOOK AT THE BAR CHARTS; SEE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN 1) THE US AND EUROPEAN MARKETS AND 2) THE REST OF THE WORLD. --PARTICULARLY WHAT IS HAPPENING AFTER 2001 TO 2003 AND NOTE ALSO THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN 'REGIONAL PRODUCTION AND SALES)
toyota.co.jp
Big Three playing 'catch-up'
detnews.com
Chrysler, as you know is owned by Daimler-Benz, a German Company...
My point you ask? we are losing the manufacturing base... there is no science based jobs that will absorb the great masses that are either underemployed or what a growing population will demand... (particularly when the overall population seems not to take well to science and math...)
Let's look at China:
for starters... they are gobbling up anything to do with steel and oil.
i.e. Metal buildings (for inexpensive and efficient manufacturing plants and energy to fuel them...
check steel and oil prices (and most other industrial commodity for that matter...
take a peek at steel buildings...
miami.com
Now.... let's take a look at demographics....
Muslim population by country...
islamicweb.com
Growth rate...
islamicweb.com
Religion distribution...
adherents.com
Careful here... do not assume...
"Christianity” includes Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses... etc (33% of total)
Muslims... (as far as I know) are more homogeneous, but then again, that's debatable as there are Shiites, Sunnis and other... (22% of total)
btw... the third largest 'religious' group Hinduism (15%) followed closely by Non Religious or Atheism 14%
So what's the point of all this...
I would be careful and less enthusiastic looking up as a positive when someone says... 'The president is a cowboy', particularly based on false Hollywoodesque characters with 'white hats’ that bear no relationship to the real McCoy... AND in a world where to follow up in a crude way the cowboy reference...
the cowboys are being surrounded by a faster growing groups, who are closing in the circle by extracting jobs out of the US, and with diverse populations within the USA itself... who knows... soon (as I have already mention this)... the joke of Keemo Sabe and Tonto will no longer be a joke...
we are surrounded Tonto...
"We” Keemo Sabe?
you make your own mind... just watch out for the arrows when you wear the white hat... Tex. -g |
