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Another Fake Cowboy

Thelma Hopkins writes:

Cudos to William Springer PHD for his comments titled "The Cowboy Myth".

Won't be back

Scott writes:

On Friday my brother Mel and I went to the Gene Autry Western museum adjacent to the LA Zoo in Griffith Park. It was crowded with school bus loads of 8-12 year old's looking at displays of western history with their teachers. Multiple exhibits titled "Cowboy Diplomacy" were on display with various pictures and memorabilia of past presidents Regan, Carter, LBJ, etc. But! when they got to president W. Bush they had a large poster we all have seen posted on the side of buildings next to his portrait calling him a War Criminal and Murderer. I believe the Autry family gifted the museum to the City of Los Angeles and is no longer involved.

Scott

Cowboy for president

Greet Gatlin writes:

Perhaps Roosevelt was a true cowboy that became president. Of this I am not sure. But I am sure he was the closest thing to a cowboy president that we have ever had.With this in mind I have written a poem titled cowboy for president. The poem consits of thoughts of what a true amarican cowboy president might do in modern times.

When I was a young an old man told me

All about how the old time cowboys used to be

About how they stood talked and walked with pride

How they told the truth none of them ever known to lied

How their six gun and fast draw

Were all they needed to inforce their law

Well now that I,m a man I started thinken what we need is an old-time cowboy for president

Now in the new world order wouldn't that put some kind of dent

Could you imagine a president who always did what he thought was right

Didn't shape policies worrying only about his partied delight

There would be some draws backs maybe even a war or two

but one thing I,m sure of terrisom wouldn't do

And by now I think Alquida would be wearing the USA brand

They would know not to be trespassing on this old ranchers land

Oh I know it could never happen but isn't it fun

To think about your president walking in to congress with a six gun

And saying boys this here is right this is wrong and this is why

If you don't like it meet me on the front lawn and have your try

I do beleive pary politics would go mighty fast

If it didn't not to many of those congress men would last

Oh I know this was just a little day dream that I had

But the more I think about it and old-time cowboy for president wouldn't be bad

Romance and Reality in Politics

Ray White writes:

The American Cowboy resonates positively among Americans as one of our most enduring cultural symbols. As historian William Savage points out in his book, The Cowboy Hero (1979), the cultural significance of the cowboy is the marketability of his image. In view of that reality, it is natural that politicians and their promoters use the image to market themselves for public office, particularly if the politician has a connection with the West and is running for President of the United States. Usually, this image romanticizes the cowboy to something that never meets reality, both past and present. Folks from around the world likewise find the cowboy fascinating, and like most Americans, gain their impressions from popular culture. When critics of American foreign policy, both American and foreign, characterize the cowboy nature of American presidents, they select the stereotyped popular culture images of the cowboy, rather than the reality of the hard working, self possessed cowhand who spent and spends lots of time in a saddle (or today, a pickup truck) methodically and carefully tending cows. While the stereotyped criticism may have validity in regard to some aspects of the nation's foreign policy, it springs directly from the romanticized image that Americans themselves have shaped for their most revered hero. It will be interesting to see in the presidential campaign of 2008 how a western senator squares off against a black male or white female in the use of western or cowboy, cowgirl images.
Ray White, author, King of the Cowboys, Queen of the West: Roy Rogers & Dale Evans

The Cowboy Myth

William Springer PhD writes:

The cowboy is a living mythological "hero" who is honored for killing "bad guys" . Law and order come out of the barrel of his gun. Let's stop kidding ourselves that glorifying "the cowboy" is harmless bravado. It's what gave us Bush-Iraq, and possibly a generation of future horror.