Re: The Westerns

The Magnificent Seven!? Archie, if you are going to get involved in a filmography discussion, you ought to do a little more research than watching old Cheers re-runs.

Speaking of Shane. Has anyone ever noticed that Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider was a re-make of that classic Western?

In preparation for this exceedingly important thread, I researched the matter (I just cannot say "googled" here; that term will need to ripen a few more decades before I can deploy it in good confidence) and found only a few varied and variegated comments mostly by the obscure.

The interesting thing is that Pale Rider is a re-make that is more like a re-imagining, uncovering deeper religious meanings in the Old West laying under some sort of post-modern erasure in the standard text of the classics. The Preacher, who is Clint Eastwood, who is Shane, who is Tom Doniphon and Ethan Edwards, is not at all some random rugged individual who happens to confront injustice, but more like an Avenging Angel purposefully sent by God.

It is as if Mr. Eastwood wants to jump completely over any necessity for individuals to civilize America, and gesture at a Manifest Destiny of civilization that only a God-given miracle could bring about.

That said, I now must go. Unlike the rest of you, I am more of a doer than a writer, and must now return to watching movies on my 512 cable channels rather than writing about them.

Re: The Westerns

Click the title to see all posts in this thread.

What about The Magnificent Seven? I don't know much about motifs and such, but the theme-song alone should put it at the top of anyone's list.

Re: Medicare and the GOP

Easy, Mr. Barlett makes another (uncharacteristic) error in his essay. He writes:

The 'slippery slope' argument has been a staple of conservatives' thinking for decades--they claim that every government program is the first step on the road to socialism. And, as economist F.A. Hayek argued in his 1944 book, The Road to Serfdom, that inevitably leads to totalitarianism.

This argument continues to be made today in the health care debate, even though it is transparently false. The nations of Europe have governments much larger than ours and long had national health insurance without suffering the sort of tyranny that was certain to have come about by now if Hayek was even remotely correct.

I haven't read Hayek in a while and can't attest to the context of his remarks on totalitarianism, but I do know that in the 1920's 'totalitarianism' was coined to promote the elimination of the distinction between the government and a private sphere, collapsing all of civil society into the bureaucratic state.

Mussolini was the clearest articulater of this new form of society, and at the time his vision was almost universally accepted as good. It was only later (1930's? Post WWII? 1950's?) that 'totalitarianism' came to be seen as a barbaric oppressive Gulag-ridden system of tyranny that Mr. Bartlett seems to be referring to.

In the original 1920's definition of the term, European National Healthcare did, indeed, result in totalitarianism. Europe long-since has become a bureaucratized culture with its governments intruding into every nook and cranny of its citizens lives.

But even under Bartlett's assumptions, that Europeans seem generally happy with the situation does not mean Europe is not a tyranny. If you slowly swath people in the cotton of government care for a few generations, it is not surprising they will be unaware that they are now bound and gagged like so many mummies.

Re: The Westerns

Click the title to read all posts in this thread.

Ezra, I did not overlook Lonesome Dove. Augustus McCrae and Captain Woodrow F. Call are right up there with the greatest Western iconic characters ever put on the screen, large or small. And the performance of Robert Duvall as Gus McCrae ranks with the best of John Wayne himself, while Tommy Lee Jones portrayal of Captain Call tops all but a handful of other performances in this genre.

But the reason Lonesome Dove does not make the list is because it is in fact a conscious summation and exemplification of all that the great Westerns had on offer. As great an achievement as it is, Lonesome Dove is not, ultimately, original in the sense the three movies I chose were.

Re: The Westerns

Click the title to see all posts in this thread.

Whit, an intensely tragic motif of the classic Western is that the rugged individualist who is necessary for the Great Wilderness to be transformed into civilization is himself incapable of living in civilization. The very noble traits which mark him as an invincible defender against Evil seem to rub civilization the wrong way. This says something about civilization that I can't quite put into words right now.

Searchers and Liberty Valance express this perfectly, both using the family as symbol of civilization. In Liberty Valance, Tom Doniphon has a personal dream to marry the girl and live happily ever after on his ranch. However, in helping Ransom Stoddard, he in effect is sacrificing his own dreams. To his credit, he knows what's happening, and helps Ransom Stoddard anyway. But the scene where he burns his ranch down vividly expresses the pain his sacrifice causes him, as all sacrifices of great import must, and that he ultimately dies in obscure poverty multiplies this pain for the audience.

Searchers expresses this same tragedy in one single unforgettable cinematic moment.

Continue .....
Ethan Edwards, having delivered the niece safely home, finds that he cannot stay. He turns and walks outside, slumped and tired. As the movie ends, John Ford frames Ethan in near silhouette in the doorway, the dark cabin behind him, the vast reaches of the Old West in front of him. The End.

In this respect, Butch Cassidy doesn't quite measure up to the other Westerns. The parallel between the exuberant spirit of Butch and Sundance and the rugged noble individual of Tom Doniphon and Ethan Edwards is certainly apt. But beyond some vague recognition of the various harbingers of their death (most significantly when Etta Place declares she will go back to America, after previously telling them both she would do anything except watch them die), they go to their destiny simply because they have no other choice. They are what they are. But Tom Doniphon especially, and Ethan Edwards as well, have choices, hard choices, choices that are painful in the extreme, and they willfully choose their destinies anyway.

In this respect, I would have put Shane in the place of Butch Cassidy. And as one of the great Westerns of all time, it's hard to exclude Lonesome Dove from any such list. Although at 6 hours and made for TV, it fails the classic format.

Medicare and the GOP

Bruce Bartlett, normally a very reliable political analyst, weighs in on purported Republican demagoguery on National Healthcare in their attempts to turn senior citizens against the Democrat's plans.

The upshot for him is the biggest flip-flop of a political party "since the Democrats went from being the party of Southern racists for 150 years to being the party of civil rights in the 1960s." Republicans, long opponents of entitlement programs of every stripe, but Medicare in particular, are now the Party that believes "that Medicare must be protected at all cost," and are using this new position to club the Democrats who are trying to impose some cuts in this near bankrupt entitlement program.

Mr. Bartlett believes Republicans have lost a golden opportunity to reign in the Medicare Behemoth by making "Democrats do the heavy lifting on getting Medicare under control." And by failing to seize this opportunity, Republicans have insured that when the time comes for "fundamental Medicare reform" that they will "unquestionably ... face unified Democratic opposition."

To which I respond, that's some bold prognostication. In fact, I can say with a reliability of about 110% that no matter what the Republicans might do this political season, no matter how bad the fiscal situation becomes with Medicare, even to the point of bankruptcy of the United States, Republicans will unquestionably face unified Democratic opposition to fundamental Medicare reform.

Continue .....
Beyond the obviousness of his conclusion, however, Mr. Bartlett's error is in forgetting the fundamental problem with Medicare entitlement in the first place. He rightly tells us that Republicans opposed Medicare in the 1960's, at least in part, because of a concern that it was a first step onto a slippery slope towards the nationalization of healthcare, which in turn would lead America into Socialism and over the cliff into Totalitarianism. But he then puts all of this aside to argue that "Democrats want universal coverage badly and are willing to pay a lot to get it. Republicans could have used this desire to get Democratic cover for fundamental Medicare reform."

There's an idea. Republicans should give the Democrats universal healthcare in order to reform Medicare. Mr. Bartlett is in essence counseling us to leap past the slippery slope and go directly to nationalized healthcare, where we can then take our satisfaction in slapping around the original camel's nose of government healthcare, Medicare.

This is perverse. In fact, the most important political point to make in all of this is that Democrats are not the grand defenders of the Elderly of their rhetoric. At the first real opportunity to get National Healthcare, they are more than willing to throw Medicare and the Elderly under the bus, cynically and with cold-blooded intention. For Republicans, this is not a golden opportunity to "think strategically and negotiate with Democrats in good faith," but to high-light the fundamental callousness of Democrats, and separate them from one of their more knee-jerk (and important) constituencies.

Conservatives do not like Medicare or Social Security, nor any other entitlement that serves to confuse citizens about the role of government in American society. But Conservatives appreciate the fact that over the years American citizens have fashioned their lives in reasonable expectation of the continuation of these government benefits. It would be a betrayal of trust for Government at this point to take away these programs.

It is for this reason that Conservatives are actually the ones the public should trust more to save Medicare and Social Security. This was shown nowhere more clearly than when Ronald Reagan went against all his most cherished principles and raised Social Security taxes rather than let it go bankrupt. Mr. Bartlett mentions this, but sees it only as a betrayal of Republican principles. As in most of his essay, he completely misses the point.

The Elderly need to understand that the Democrats care more about maintaining their own political power through demagoguery over Medicare than they do about insuring that Medicare is a viable program over the long haul. They will continue this game if need be right up until Medicare - and America itself - goes bankrupt, arrogantly sure that they will survive such a fiasco for the Elderly the same way they have survived the failure of so many of their Big Government initiatives.

And I think the Elderly are starting to understand this. That's why Republicans are right in their approach and Mr. Bartlett is wrong. The Republican's mantra is and should be, "We want to save Medicare (and Social Security)!" albeit on terms that will actually make these programs sustainable.

This would be a winning political formula. And, as Richard Nixon once said, "It has the added advantage of being the truth."

Re: The Westerns

Click the title to see all posts in this series.

The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It is no accident that two out of my top three movies star John Wayne as the rugged individual of American myth. As they say in Olympic gymnastics, he simply nailed the part. On a scale of 1-10 he was a 50. Without John Wayne, the actor, it is quite possible that John Ford would never have achieved such perfectly realized visions of the American myth as Searchers and Liberty Valance.

John Wayne as Tom Doniphon in Liberty Valance is the purist version of the iconic Western character, still rough and rugged, but cleaned up, so to speak, so as to be acceptable in polite society. Kept just below the surface of his civilized veneer, however, is the clear-eyed willingness to recognize and deal with evil in the world, even unto death.

In contrast, Ethan Edwards in Searchers hides nothing.

Continue .....
Indeed, it is clearly Director John Ford's intention to reveal that the noble passionate thirst for justice rightly praised in men is not so very far from the wild frenzy that can grip the soul with a base desire for death and destruction. All it takes, he seems to say, is for good men to confront one horror too many, and ultimately, even the great American mythic hero can betray human frailty. Ethan Edwards is not just a racist who hates the savage American Indians, he despises them, so much so that he is willing to murder his own niece - the very niece he has dedicated his life to find - because she has "gone native."

In the end, Ethan Edwards does the right thing, redeemed by the simple expedient of seeing his niece, face to face. In loco parentis, Ethan, for all his anger and hatred, cannot forget his humanity nor his duty.

Butch Cassidy is almost post-modern in its handling of the Western, and as a result, just barely made this list. Almost post-modern, but not quite. It deviates from the standard Western in that the rugged individuals pursuing justice in a wild teeming wilderness are all kept off-stage. "Who are those guys?" asks Butch and Sundance. They are Tom Doniphon, Ethan Edwards, Wyatt Earp, and all the rest of America's mythic heroes.

In truth, it is the classic Western told from the perspective of the Outlaws. But not Outlaws as evil, but Outlaws exhibiting another trait essential to the taming of the American West: sheer youthful exuberance at the thrill of it all, living on the cutting edge of life. Butch and Sundance are the Hollywood version of that which drove the popular glorification of Jesse James: they are not immoral, just immature, two wild colts caught up in the joy of just being alive.

In the end, theirs was a life-style nourished by the American West, that ultimately had to give way to the historical necessity of progress. George Roy Hill, the Director, symbolized this impersonal historical demand in an unforgettable way: in the distant thundering hoof-beats of the Posse relentlessly following Butch and Sundance across the vastness of the Wilderness. Their time was over, their friend the Sheriff tells them, while in the real world of Butch and Sundance's time, the U. S. Census of 1890 concludes that, indeed, the American frontier is gone.

Gone but not forgotten. And we have Hollywood, of all things, to thank for that.

A Contest

I am thinking of a contest. In lieu of a thousand + page Healthcare Bill replete with cross-references, fine print, foot notes and whereases, what reform would you propose for Healthcare that can be stated in, say, 25 words or less?

Whit has already put in his entry here. If I may boil down his intricate (and voluminous and large and detailed) argument, he says all will be well if we simply pass a law saying something like, "All medical services shall be accompanied by an itemization of the cost of said services in the absence of insurance."

A nice sentiment, and valid in its way, but without the intricate (and voluminous and large and detailed) argument that accompanies it, I am not sure it leads us anywhere close to a good result. In other words, in itself and without going beyond the 25 word limit, it is quite inscrutable as a solution to our Healthcare crisis.

I am looking for something pithy that goes to the heart of the problem.

The prize for the winner? I'm thinking of a certified 92.4% sterling quality sentimental keepsake No-Prize, suitable for No-Framing and No-Displaying in the toniest homes of Martha's Vineyard. We will even include a No-Certificate of Authenticity, of course. (H/T Stan Lee, c. 1962-1965).

If that's not enough, let me know, and I will shake the tree of the Media Conglomerate that owns this Blog and see what falls out.

Scottish Degeneracy

270 people, 189 Americans, murdered in cold blood on Flight 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The murderer, convicted by a Jury of his peers - a right he would not have had in his home country - gets life in prison.

As we all know, however, the Scottish Criminal Justice system let him free this week on grounds of "compassion," because he had terminal prostate cancer. The murderer then flew home to Tripoli, Libya, to a hero's welcome.

In one sense, he is getting what he deserves. To be celebrated by a people who would celebrate someone like him is itself a profound condemnation. Think of being roundly applauded for your life's work by the likes of Hitler and the Gas House Gang.

But still, in the real world, what Scotland did is disgusting, and I am not sure I will ever be able to indulge again in the pride of my (admittedly) remote Scotch-Irish heritage. As I shouted the other night at the TV screen, compassion in this circumstance means providing the best medical care and comfort available to this (or any) prisoner when he is facing the ultimate judgment of death, no matter how heinous his crimes might be. It does not mean letting such vermin go back home to die among the cheering crowds of his fellow citizens. To do as Scotland officials did in so elemental a moral situation indicates that the Scottish culture can no longer distinguish between right and wrong in any substantive way, and is irrefutable evidence of irretrievable moral degeneracy.

As usual, a national commentator put it much more succinctly, and better, than me. Charles Krauthammer on Fox News tonight said it thus, "This was not compassion, but decadence."

Decadence, indeed. And amidst my anger, there is also a profound sadness, at the passing of a centuries old Scottish heritage into the hands of squeamish sons who are not fit to swab out the spittoons of their Forefathers.

Naked Manipulation

Courtesy of Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO's The Corner, we have this story from the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security, asserts in a new book that he was pressured by top advisers to President George W. Bush to raise the national threat level just before the 2004 election in what he suspected was an effort to influence the vote.

After Osama bin Laden released a threatening videotape four days before the election, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushed Mr. Ridge to elevate the public threat posture but he refused, according to the book. Mr. Ridge calls it a “dramatic and inconceivable” event that “proved most troublesome” and reinforced his decision to resign.

Let's see. Mr. Ridge resigned in December of 2004, with not a hint that the White House had attempted a naked manipulation of critical Homeland Security operations for purely political reasons.

It is now 2009. As Ms. Lopez asks, why did it take the Secretary of Homeland Security so long to inform us about such a serious threat to the nation's security?

The only answer I can come up with is Mr. Ridge is attempting a naked manipulation of Homeland Security to sell his book.

I am truly tired of the coarseness of our political class.