How the West Was Changed: Degradation of the Townspeople After World War II in the American Western

Before the Second World War, American Westerns presented what later came to be seen as a "naive" view of what might be called white borderer culture and conflicts. The "good" of the Scots-Irish based and European immigrant and settler population was not just an underlying assumption but a central and explicit thesis in the Westerns, most of which were made by “poverty row” studios and distributed to rural and small-town theaters—and seen by the grandchildren of the very people portrayed. By the 1950s, this was no longer the case. The movie Western had moved from “poverty row” (abetting the demise of these poor-cousin studios) and firmly into the mainstream. Along with a changing social and political climate, better production values, actors, writers, and distribution led to a Western quite different from what had been presented before. Yet, though many of the Westerns of the 1950s are among the best the genre has ever seen, something is lost whenever a change of this magnitude occurs.

In this case, it was the people. Their protection once having been the rationale behind the Western, they now played—at best—the role of oppressor in scenarios where attention is turned to other problems, or had disappeared completely from consideration while questions of individualism and personal morality began to dominate the genre.

It is true, of course, that the negative side of rural and small-town Americans had been recognized earlier—witness the late and small example of the expulsion of dance-hall girl Dallas and alcoholic Doc Boone from town at the start of Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)—but the essential “goodness” of the American people generally triumphed, as it also does in Stagecoach, where the passengers on the stagecoach, including Dallas and Boone, prove to be the “real” salt-of-the-earth Americans. After World War II, however, the “good” population began to disappear from sight in the Western.

Timing the Olympic Dragon

Zhang Qingli, China’s Party boss in Tibet says: “We are engaged in a fierce battle of blood and fire with the Dalai clique, a life-and-death struggle between the foe and us.” At the very moment China’s Communist Party denounces the Dalai Lama with renewed spleen, as a devil and a wolf, the Dalai Lama offers to fly to Beijing, to resolve the crisis. Is his timing utterly inept, or does he know something that has not yet occurred to the rest of us?

Tibet is in crisis, the Chinese Communist Party leadership is in crisis, utterly unable to understand events and bereft of new ideas. In Newsweek, Melinda Liu says: “Can Chinese officials put the entire roof of the world into lock-down? According to one foreign analyst involved in monitoring Olympic preparations, who requested anonymity for security reasons, ‘They’re simply just freaking out.’” The authority of the Dalai Lama among Tibetans is in crisis, the global Tibetan exile is reinventing itself; and the world looks on, unable to read this old volcano now erupting anew.

In Chinese, the character for crisis is made up of two symbols, signifying danger and opportunity. If opportunity is not recognised and grasped, the danger occurs. In Tibetan tradition, timing is everything, a decisive tool in the hands of the clear-minded, seizing the moment in the unequal game of a small nation surrounded by giants, none greater than China. Could it be that this is the unique moment of opportunity for both Chinese and Tibetans?

In so many ways, the panTibetan revolt of 08 is a repeat of the revolts of 87 and 59, yet in many ways the situation now is completely new. Few discern the new terrain, as it becomes clear the lava flow of Tibetan determination is unstoppable. The world looks on as nomadic horsemen gallop en masse out of the vast rangelands into new Chinese towns in Tibet, such as Gansu Hezuo, shredding the red Chinese flag, hauling up the forbidden Tibetan snow lion mountain flag. What to make of a scene – captured by a Canadian film crew - as archaic as was the 1917 charge of Australian horsemen seizing Palestine from the Ottomans?

America's Iran gamble and how Iran is benefiting from it

Iran made several attempts at diplomatic outreach towards the US in 2001, 2002 and 2003, but the Bush administration made the decision to rebuff and ignore these gestures and Iran quickly became an enemy of the Bush administration. One consequence of these decisions was the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President as the more moderate leadership in Iran was pushed aside.

However, there is another side to this story, and another large consequence to the United States and its economy, as well as its energy policy (both current and future). And as a result of this gamble by the Bush administration, Iran has taken the opportunity to strengthen its position in the global economy, all while the US economy is floundering, its standing and influence in the world decreasing, and it is being shut out of a growing global alliance with respect to much of the world’s oil.