Old Cowboys

In all of Shakespeare's finest westerns the young, fast gun finally falls to a younger, quicker hotshot. The tragedy always follows the same course. The new kid with the white hat is looking for peace and justice. Usually he's looking for a little love, too.

As he grows older our hero has typically been tested, tempted by dark forces hidden behind every sage brush, every cactus.

The U.S.A. got its white hat quickly and fiercely, shooting the villains in the back when necessary, stealing the land, itself, from the original inhabitants; building a new system of wealth on the back of slavery and taking other gunslingers' land through drummed up war and patriotism. We didn't steal Texas and California from Mexico because Davy and Sam and the boys liked to sing the Star Spangled Banner. We took it because Mexico had outlawed slavery and that act threatened the ancestors of those rich white guys who still run that burg. 

Obviously, the next big wars won't be fought with bombers longer than football fields or even drones. We won't be dropping G.I.'s out of airplanes over the middle east. Computers will shut down infrastructures, banks, utility grids.

We're still building those bombers and those tanks. The wealthy crooks who bought our government some time back make a great deal of money with the stocks of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about.

Oh, we have some heroes fighting the good fight. Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and a handful of other brave, noble cowpokes with noble dreams and nerves of steel.

In the final chapter, however, Willy The Shake would have the young China Kid ride into town and pin the star on his own vest. 

I'm already looking forward to the sequel. I'm waiting for the really good guy to ride in.