"He's no more a hunter than Bush is a cowboy"

"Cowboys and hunters, lest we forget, in the American mythology are white archetypes, too.

The Republican Party snatched the mantle of "party of white supremacy" from the southern Democrats with Nixon's Southern Strategy. But it was also the mantle of white male supremacy.

White men with big hats and guns have seldom been a welcome sight to Black men or women.

Dick Cheney loves photo ops with guns, whether accepting a Dan'l Boone muzzle-loader at an NRA Convention or having the cameras chase him around while he shoots farm-raised animals on hunting preserves. Cheney shot 70 confined, semi-domesticated pheasants in one day at the Rolling Rock Club and Game Preserve in Pennsylvania, a place for men who wear those power suits to demonstrate their ability to kill and dress up like "woodsmen."

(snip)

However pathological the macho death-cult of guns is in this country, the people who have taken the trouble to learn anything about firearms at all now know that Cheney is what my dad used to call a pig-hunter and a fool that traipsed around after his "one beer" lunch on the quail preserve with his finger on the trigger. He's no more a hunter than Bush is a cowboy.

He's just another stupid, pampered, autocratic narcissist like Bush -- bullshitting his way through high office -- and leaving bodies in his wake with as little concern for them as he does for 70 pheasants. In the age of postmodern politics, when the impression is sovereign, the gendered spell is broken for a moment when the costume slips.

That's why I relish every jibe and joke, and I hope people milk this incident for all its worth. I oppose male power, and white power, and the reign of narcissists. With every grant of legitimacy, we grant power. Ridicule is a potent political weapon. It is a form of resistance."

From "The Shootist" / Stan Goff

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stan-goff/the-shootist_b_15860.html

as leaders except for the urgency of removing them from power and correcting the malicious damage they've caused. Also, neither of them should be allowed to touch anything as grown-up or dangerous as a firearm.

There were plenty of black cowboys and female cowboys.

The Reagan BS cowboy appropriation of stereotype is another matter entirely. As this points out, Reagan/Bush and John Wayne, for that matter, were not real cowboys. Cowboy culture has its own integrity, aside from the stereotypes.

Just making the point.

If you can find a copy, I recommend reading "Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War" by Mark Twain. Ridicule is a potent weapon indeed..

I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Phillipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.

-- Mark Twain, speech, "A Salutation from the 19th to the 20th Century" (December 31, 1900)

serving active duty for the third time. Unlike Cheney who's only active duty was to shoot his friend in the face.

Stan's bio:

"Stan Goff is a retired Special Forces Master Sergeant. He is the author of three books; "Hideous Dream - A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press, 2000), "Full Spectrum Disorder - The Military in the New American Century" (Soft Skull Press, 2004), and "Sex & War" (Soft Skull Press, 2006 ). He is the military affairs editor for From The Wilderness, and writes foreign policy analysis for Sanders Research Associates. He is a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), Veterans for Peace (VFP), and Military Families Speak Out (MFSO). His son is in the active duty army and is in Iraq now for the third time. Goff is on the coordinating committee of the Bring Them Home Now! campaign, and advises Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) on organizational development. His blog is called "Feral Scholar."

That's odd, for a Wyoming boy.

any more than the kids shooting things in a video game. In fact, all he wants to do is shoot things, the results don't matter to him a whit. For all of our safety, he should be parked in front of a computer and play Quake IV with some security-types. His real guns should be locked away.

n/t