I challenge myself last weekend to view for the first time No Country for Old Men, the Coen brother's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's book by the same name. I read reviews from "notable" critics of the 2007 film, including A.O. Scott and the late Roger Ebert. I didn't find myself "squeamish," and I viewed the film on two consecutive nights, untroubled by the presence of an Anton Chigurh. But I wondered about the sheriff, Sheriff Bell, so "overwhelmed" by the cold-blooded violence of a "principled" serial killer.
The sheriff is sympathetic to a townsmen, Llewelyn Moss who just stumped upon two million in cash and dead Mexicans. A drug bust gone wrong. Moss needs to stay a step or more ahead of Chigurh and his killing contraptions and the poor sheriff is trailing them both. Not to mention, the accumulating dead humans and a couple of dogs.
Carson Wells, in his suit and cowboy hat, all swagger, tells Moss that Chigurh is pure evil. Terror. The latter is out of control. Someone needs to rein him in. That would be Wells, of course. Chigurh is too big for Moss. But Moss, acquiring swagger, thinks he can kill the killer off. Keep the money and kill him off. But Moss, in over his head, is killed by representatives of the drug cartel. Carson Wells is killed first, however. A direct blow of the contraption by Chigurh.
Times have changed, for the worse, Sheriff Bell grumbles. He can't figure it out. All the violence is all about money and drugs. Yeah, and when did it all start?
Chigurh is a mere apparition on a screen, scary, for the innocent, for just about two hours.
But when the real thing appears at your door, he may smile that strange smile of his. But he's not funny because he's "principled," remember. Nine times out of ten, you will be killed. It must happen: your death. It's out of his hands. Your death, bloody death, is to be expected with his arrival at your door. Many a grandparents and great-grandparents remembered those days. As migrants know them now. No life form gets in the way of taking control of that money!
At the end of the film, Chigurh's all bloodied, but he'll just keep on.
That much is real.
I thought about all the kinds of "principled" folks who had a duty to fulfill, and showed up on the door steps of many Indigenous and black homes. Before the Declaration of Independence. And after the Emancipation Proclamation. Sheer terror visited upon peoples who had no recourse. Not even a Sheriff Bell on their side.
One hundred million Indigenous people, according to Dunbar-Ortiz. Dead from disease. Or deliberately starved to death. Many shot dead. A matter of principles. Quoting historian John Grenier, Dunbar-Ortiz reminds readers that the origins of military culture began with the spilling of Indigenous blood. Whole civilizations were wiped out, one family at a time. One resister at a time.
Lebensraum: Living space for white America. Long before fascism takes hold in Europe!
The Declaration of Independence (1776) symbolizes, writes Dunbar-Ortiz, the "beginnings of the "Indian Wars" and the 'westward movement' that continued across the continent for another century of unrelenting US wars of conquest." No more playing it nice. No more trade in goods or friendship.
War!
In Loaded, Dunbar-Ortiz, citing Grenier's analysis of US colonialism in which he argues that it's not racism that leads to the hatred of Indigenous or black people, but violence, war, conquest with impunity that leads to the systemic practice of racism within US borders and on foreign lands, points to how deep-seated violence is in American culture. "Unlimited violence"! Dunbar-Ortiz recognizes in Grenier's study of US warfare, the advancement of the US "way of war." What else were those "special operations" and "low-intensity conflict" carried out in Afghanistan and then in Iraq after 911 if not the advancement of the US "way of war," first applied "against Indigenous communities by colonial militias in the British colonies of Virginia and Massachusetts."
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