Posted on 03/15/2004 4:01:23 AM PST by aardvark1
REMEMBER THE ALAMO
"I am beseiged. The enemy has demanded surrender at discretion...I call on you in the name of liberty, of patriotism, and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid...If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due his honor and that of his country."
These are the words of William B. Travis, who commanded the Alamo when Texas rebelled against Mexico's despot, Santa Anna.
March 6 was the 168th anniversary of the Alamo's fall, which cost Travis his life, along with almost 180 others who went down fighting on freedom's behalf.
That, at least, is how America once viewed the Texas Revolution, which ultimately led to Texas winning its independence from Mexico.
In recent decades, this explanation has been challenged by another revolution. Starting in the late 1960s, a "counterculture" emerged from the fever swamps of the hard Left and began its long march through our civilization, leaving nothing untouched.
Not even the Alamo.
Next month, a new movie about the Alamo will likely reach a theater near you. If it embraces the counterculture's critique, watch out: Travis, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and their other heroic friends may well be tarred and feathered with crackpot revisionism.
The Left's critique goes something like this:
The Texas Revolution was a devious scheme hatched by Washington to snatch the future Lone Star State from the Mexicans. Moreover, critics claim, even if it weren't, it couldn't possibly have been about freedom, since Texans were for slavery. According to this view, the Revolution was a racist struggle by whites who chafed under Mexican authority.
This critique is wrong on all counts.
Travis' famous words were indeed a plea for help from America. But that help never came. As the whole world watched, neither Congress nor President Andrew Jackson lifted a finger. As for the Texans, though they declared independence later, they initially fought only for their rights under Mexico's U.S.-style constitution of 1824, a constitution which the dictator Santa Anna had shredded.
As for alleged racism as a motive, why were so many of the Alamo's defenders themselves native-born Mexicans? And why did Mexican pro-democracy author, publisher, diplomat and politician Lorenzo de Zavala join the Texan cause as its first Vice President, leaving behind a lifelong career in Mexico and Spain?
As for slavery, even raising the argument misses the point. Slavery remained legal at the time across most of the world, including the United States itself, both North and South. Moreover, despite the unique evil of race-based slavery in the Americas, throughout time slavery cut across all racial lines. Just this week, The Washington Times reported on a new study from Ohio State University describing African Muslim slave raids into Europe down almost to the time of the Alamo, capturing at least a million white Europeans and denuding coastal towns as far north as Iceland. It is no marvel that 1836-era Texans -- or Mexicans, or Algerians, or Ibo owned slaves: the shock remains that, by the end of that century, slavery had been all but eradicated from the Earth.
In this same vein, the revisionists ignore how many of the Alamo defenders hailed from other states and even other nations. Why would they join Travis in the first place? To defend slavery? Hardly.
No, the Texas Volunteers -- whatever their human flaws -- fought for freedom. They fought against a wanton, authoritarian regime far richer and far more powerful than they. And their wisdom speaks for itself: one hardly need travel to Mexico to see the disaster the century and a half of socialism and one-party rule since Santa Anna has wrought upon that resource rich land and its proud, hard-working people. One need only visit the endless stream of Mexicans coming to gleaming modern Texas to grasp the point that liberty matters, that freedom works.
Gripped by their loathing of our civilization, academia's tenured radicals can't bear this truth. By debunking past heroism, they hope to cut off our culture from what inspires and sustains it. By rewriting the past, they hope to hijack the future -- and remake America.
The new Alamo movie's director is "Happy Days" and "Andy Griffith's" Ron Howard. Let's hope that in the making of the movie, this icon of Americana hasn't surrendered to its harshest foes.
Let's hope he remembers the Alamo -- the real story, of one of the most pivotal moments in all history.
Copyright: Rod D. Martin, 12 March 2004.
Maybe we need to do it all over again?
The article tells me that the director is Ron Howard. I guess I know the quality of the movie now.
Maybe????? There aint no maybe about it. When that mindset is understood by conservatives and acted upon with conviction and determination, then and only then will we have any chance of winning this war. America's second civil war. The "War of the Constitution".
This weekend Spain lost. Does the same fate await America next November?
We need the spirit of Nathan Hale now more than ever.
Like hell we do.
Hale botched his first operation and got himself killed. Everyone wants to remember the Alamo but I prefer to remember San Jacinto. Attack and beat an overwhelming force, end the war with victory, and change the future of mankind. Travis, Crockett, Bowie, and those guys may have had all the good movies, but Houston actually accomplished something.
Which is the primary reason why I don't get my history from Hollywood ... or anything similar.
Ballad Of The Alamo
In the southern part of Texas
In the town of San Antone
There's a fortress all in ruins that the weeds have overgrown
You may look in vain for crosses and you'll never see a-one.
But sometimes between the setting and the rising of the sun
You can hear a ghostly bugle
As the men go marching by
You can hear them as they answer To that roll call in the sky.
Colonel Travis, Davy Crockett, and a hundred eighty more
Captain Dickinson, Jim Bowie
Present and accounted for.
Back in 1836, Houston said to Travis
"Get some volunteers and go
Fortify the Alamo."
Well, the men came from Texas
And from old Tennessee
And they joined up with Travis
Just to fight for the right to be free.
Indian scouts with squirrel guns
Men with muzzle-loaders
Stood together, heel and toe
To defend the Alamo.
"You may ne'er see your loved ones,"
Travis told them that day.
"Those who want to can leave now.
Those who'll fight to the death let 'em stay."
In the sand he drew a line
With his army sabre.
Out of a hundred eighty five
Not a soldier crossed the line.
With his banners a-dancin'
In the dawn's golden light
Santa Anna came prancing
On a horse that was black as the night.
Sent an officer to tell
Travis to surrender
Travis answered with a shell
And a rousing rebel yell.
Santa Anna turned scarlet
"Play deguello!" he roared.
"I will show them no quarter.
Every one will be put to the sword!"
One hundred and eighty five
Holding back five thousand.
Five days, six days, eight days, ten
Travis held and held again.
Then he sent for replacements
For his wounded and lame
But the troops that were coming
Never came, never came, never came...
Twice he charged and blew recall
On the fatal third time
Santa Anna breached the wall
And he killed 'em, one and all.
Now the bugles are silent.
And there's rust on each sword
And the small band of soldiers...
Lie asleep in the arms of the Lord...
In the southern part of Texas
Near the town of San Antone
Like a statue on his pinto
rides a cowboy all alone
And he sees the cattle grazing
where a century before
Santa Anna's guns were blazing
and the cannons used to roar.
And his eyes turn sorta misty
And his heart begins to glow
And he takes his hat off slowly...
To the men of Alamo.
To the thirteen days of glory
At the seige of Alamo...
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