Posted on 01/15/2013 6:29:53 AM PST by artichokegrower
The National Park Service does not usually approve of graffiti. "It's a federal offense," said Marcus Koenen, site supervisor for Alcatraz, the former prison that is now part of a national park.
However, the government has made an exception for graffiti left behind during the Indian occupation of the island - and it helped restore signs painted by hand on a landmark water tower.
"PEACE AND FREEDOM WELCOME HOME OF THE FREE INDIAN LAND," the writing says in red letters 4 and 5 feet high.
"We restored it because it has a social significance," Koenen said recently. "It is part of what this park is all about."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Alcatraz is “sacred”?
The Chinese & Soviet commies did the same thing - but at least they eventually restored the old names.
There are no words to describe how much I despise these people.
How about a compromise on SFO and call it Dan White International.
Split the difference and call it Twinkie Field.
I took a tour of Alcatraz 15 years ago. I really enjoyed it. But I didn't go there to see where a protest took place. Nor did anyone else. We went to see the prison.
The Indian occupation was really just a very minor minor part of the history of the island. The Indian occupation took place after the prison was abandoned.
I would guess that the grafitti will be viewed as anachronistic by most visitors. And re-painting the grafitti on the water tower just sort of has that Disney-esque fakeness to it.
What is happening here is that (what is essentially) a footnote has been made into a central point. Glorification of an otherwise meaningless protest, simply because it was a protest.
Did the tour of Alcatraz years ago when I lived near San Fransico.
What a waste. The Parks Service people are all a bunch of beret-wearing commies.
They split the group, and we opted to see the “lighthouse” (as featured in “The Rock”). We were led a short distance down a path, nowhere near the lighthouse, and read “poetry” by this beret-wearing, acne-faced Che-groupie.
There is a room on the tour where they “celebrate” the Indian occupation. There are some good before-and-after pictures there that show some rather handsome little billeting quarters there fore troups that served there when Alcatraz was a fort that guarded the Bay. They looked like a piece of history, preseved reasonably well before the occupation. After the occupation they were demolished. They had been so filled with human filth that they had to be destroyed.
If you want to lower Federal spending, getting rid of the National Parks Service would be a great place to start.
I recall the ‘occupation’ ended only after the leader’s daughter was killed in a fall from a collapsing flight of stairs. I wonder if they cover that in the exhibit.
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