What do you comrades think about the Wild West? How can we view it from a socialist of workers' point of view? Are there any good, detailed leftist/progressive or class-based articles or general perspectives about its social, political and economic structure?
What do you comrades think about the Wild West? How can we view it from a socialist of workers' point of view...
Nathaniel King
Isaiah Sanchez
A Nazi-tier Lebensraum masturbation fantasy
John Thomas
Retarded american genocide fantasyland.
Jack Evans
Never gonna make it
Logan Garcia
Check out the Green Corn Rebellion: en.wikipedia.org
The Wild West had a lot of prairie / rural populism at the time because you had this really harsh climate combined with overwhelming power of railroad companies (mainly). So you had socialist newspapers and parties sprouting up. World War I killed a lot of that off, though, unfortunately, as the war was used to split the working class into pro and anti-war factions.
Carter Cruz
wicky wild wicky wild wicky wicky wicky wild wild wild wild wild wild west, desperado, rough rider, no you don't want nada.
none of this,
six-gunnin this,
brother runnin this,
buffalo soldier,
look look it's like I told ya
Easton Morris
If you're talking about the popular mythos then it's mostly this plus the revisionist westerns.
If you're talking about actual history there is a lot to talk about, including colonialism targeting natives and the difficulty of big industry controlling society on the frontier. A lot of it was contemporary with socialist movements in Europe (Marx wrote to Lincoln during the US civil war), so there's potential what-if scenarios of settlers having socialist texts.
Aaron Martinez
wild west never existed as it is portrayed in movies. it's literally fantasy. western settlement was heavily regulated by the government via the homestead act, military action against indians and massive land grants to railroad companies. Cowboys were literally just cattle herders who worked for large corporations who attracted european capital by lying about potential for the west to raise large herds of cattle. It was extremely boring and dull work
Bentley Morales
I too just played RDR2
Andrew Jenkins
how was it?
Mason Sanders
What were others? Mining companies?
Cameron Miller
if you mean mining subsidiaries making tunnels for the railroad companies then yes
Dominic Sanchez
Banks (interlinked with railroads). Also large-scale land-owners and cattle companies.
Check out the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and the Johnson County War: en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Cowboys were also looked down on by ruling elites in frontier states, who tended to be the stuffy sort. The name "cow-BOY" had class distinctions. It's rare, but you'll still sometimes run into really, really old people from ranching families here in Texas who still take offense at the term. "My father was a cattle-MAN" they'll say with a lot of emphasis.
The cowboy mythos was a 20th century, Hollywood construction. But also constructed by big business. I'm most familiar with Texas when the urban business class developed and wanted to distance the state from the image of the Old South. The idea of Texas as a "Western" state only really began to be constructed by Gov. Branch Colquitt in 1910s, and started maturing in the 1930s with the state's centennial in 1936, which was specifically advertised to attract business to the state.
A lot of what makes Texas "unique" I think is because of the relative power and growth of urban business in the 20th century compared to the rest of the South. The archetypal Texan elite of that era would be an investment banker in a 10-gallon hat in a Dallas skyscraper. But in the 19th century Texan elites thought of themselves as Confederates pretty much.
Nolan Cox
God-tier aesthetics and probably the only interesting part of American mythology. Of course, like all mythology, it's merely a later justification.
Yeah, my great-grandfather was a "cowboy" in Indian Territory (which today is Oklahoma) but he never would have used that word.
Lucas Ward
The wild west was ok, but if these cool guys had've robbed just one more train, they'd have been ok :(
Nolan Clark
Populating the west was part of the "manifest destiny" program. Lots of black people moved their too after the civil war. So did people looking for gold. It was basically the ideas of starting a new life, "god has given us the right over this land", and fucking over the natives.
I imagine life back then and in that place was super harsh and violent. A lot of it is mythologized because of outlaws and cowboys
Adrian Edwards
Mountain men > Cowboys and basically all other colonizers/settlers.
Landon Ramirez
Tbf the remake of the Magnificent 7 was pretty anti-capitalist.
Elijah Diaz
no, it's American reality 3 years from now
Adrian Phillips
liberturd utopia.
Josiah Price
Didn’t Stalin like Western Movies.
Josiah Phillips
Young Stalin was basically a Western movie protagonist so he probably felt like reliving his younger years
Grayson Garcia
I wish Sergio Leone made a movie about Stalin's younger years.
Henry Green
The Wild East
Jaxson Ward
It was too undeveloped to germinate a Marxist condition. The role of Native Americans in the modern day far-left in the American West is pretty substantial.