Contemplations: Bull-cows and girly-men, clocks that run backwards, and the plate ran off with the spoon.

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High diddle diddle,

The Cat and the Fiddle,
The Cow jump'd over the Moon,
The little dog laugh'd to see such Craft,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.

 

    Bull-cows and girly-men.  We have dwell't far too long in the morass.  The strange reductions that come from the stinking cauldron after all the fluid is gone and only the rot remains to reveal the labours of a civilisation ruled by bull-cows and girly-men.   During these moments it appears that the reawakening occurs more on the Left than the Right, when various Rip van Winkles stir from their slumber and see Helen Thomas waddling to the lectern that Helen sees to be a pulpit-cum-tabernacle and they listen to her say wizened things such as ".....Ah ain't no ways taihred."

   The young people (those under the age of 90) shriek in revulsion and think they are having an ecstasy-marijuana-alcohol induced delayed throwback to a better time and flee from the messenger of Death.




A surreptitious photo taken of Po ca hon tas
 ('naughty girl' in English)....whose real name
 was Ma ko at ah....during her swearing-in as
United States Senator for Mass ah Choo setts.
(which in English means Small Land - Many
 Foolish Palefaces) 

     The fact is that the leftist...even the most left-wing...press is dive-bombing (Sir Edmund) Hillary, relentlessly, after having just found out that she is a serial murderous, mendacious, marxist hag who regards all other humans as lower life forms.

     Of course, they have known it all along, but something better has come along, and she is a better bet because she is just as much a Marxist but she is a lot younger (17 months) and prettier (not a witch ugly hag) because several mirrors she has used over the years did not break.   And, of course, she has more legislative experience than (Sir Edmund) Hillary, having been entertained at the Court of HRH James I and received there essentially as the princess she is.  She was also a baptised Anglican, whereas (Sir Edmund) Hillary was expelled from the only church she has known since being kicked off the Senatorial Watergate committee in 1973, that being the Holy Tabernacle of Mother Margaret Sanger.

      Where good ole' HDR22@Twitter goes wrong....(who does bear a strong resemblance to Helen Thomas)....is that she has a problem that is due (but not limited) to:




1.         Vince Foster's office invasion by Maggie and Bernie immediately after Vince was found in Fort Marcy Park well into stage II rigor.


2.          Corkscrewing into the Bosnia.


3.         Worrying about her daughter trapped below the burning Twin Towers.


4.         Making 100,000 USD profit on a 1,000 investment in cattle futures in less than 10 months....by studying articles in the Wall Street Journal.  (Statement declared ''inoperative" by Bernie and staff shortly afterwards)


5.          Repeatedly lying to a Washington, D.C. grand jury, and failing to "remember" points about her involvement in felony fraud at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock.  Forewoman said they were ready to indict, but the prosecutor suddenly dropped the proceeding.


6.           Direct involvement along with Janet Reno in the planning and execution of the assault on the idiotic Mount Carmel religious cluster of David Koresh (real name Vernon Howell) where finally 42 children were immolated by overreaction by the central government police and military on the scene.

7.          Benefitting very directly from the crash of an Air Force passenger plane in Bosnia, during a landing in perfect weather conditions, killing all on board except the stewardess, who escaped without injury, almost miraculously.  She died later in a hospital, later that same day.  Ron Brown, Secretary of the Department of Commerce died in the crash.  He was to give a deposition in a criminal proceeding, while trying to prepare a plea deal by "singing" on the Clintons after his return to Washington, D.C. three days later.

      One can remember how Web Hubbell, number 3 man in the Department of Justice, lamented when his near hysterical wife called and said that he would have to take another term for "them" or something terrible could happen.  She indicated that she had just come from conferring with "them" and they were most emphatic.   Web Hubbell, Hillary's fellow partner at the Rose Law firm, declared to his wife, "Well, I guess I'll just have to roll over one more time for them."  And he did.

     Ron Brown's lady friend, and a major Democrat fund-bundler, also withdrew her willingness to testify on the record after the plane crash, after first agreeing to go on the record for a reduced charge to a misdemeanour count.

(8)         The framing of the employees of the White House Travel Office, under orders from (Sir Edmund) Hillary, by the FBI so as to remove them to make way for (Sir Edmund) Hillary's friends and relatives to take said positions.   It took them less than a year to drive the office into a shambles.

(9)         The holding of well over 1,000 FBI personal raw data files, that were all rifled and in disarray after being "lost somewhere in the White House" for several months.   The mere holding of one personal raw data file by Nixon staffer Charles Colson, unopened , resulted in his imprisonment for 3 years.  But quickly we remember that Sandy Berger, heroic Clinton staffer, literally stuffed his underwear, pants, and socks with ORGINAL DOCUMENTS FROM THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES,  in order to destroy them and keep ''hot evidence"  from surfacing about lies that Billy Jeff Blythe told under oath to the 9 - 1 - 1 Commission.   (the Bush Administration deferred prosecution of poor Sandy, and suggested that he had suffered enough just by being caught lying about having stolen and destroyed the documents)

     And on, and on.   The thing is that there are a lot of people who would like to have a piece of (Sir Edmund) Hillary's hide.  The Benghazi matter is so gross and corrupt that it defies description.  New scuttlebutt indicates not only gross mendacity and arrogance on the part of (Sir Edmund) Hillary (and Barry Soetoro & Company) but also complicity in a process that even Muammar Khadafy advised the State Department was crazy. 

    These matters listed above are just a distillation of very, very few points of Hillary Clinton's despicable, dishonest, and massive record of dishonesty and corruption.   It is for this reason that people are bringing the wood chipper up to Hillary's back door.   When she is gone there will be few tears, even among her posse.  Sorry Huma, but what you thought you hitched your star to was really a broken down garbage wagon.

El Gringo Viejo

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Interesting Notes - Popular Will

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       This is just a brief note about a couple of radio audience polls that have been conducted on our local rightwing crazy talk and news and information station down here on the Frontier.   The Station, for those who might be interested, is KURV - 710 AM located in the McAllen - Edinburg - Mission complex of Hidalgo County of Texas.   We were one of the four back in 1988 who decided to drop 1,500 USD on the sponsorship of a visit and show called "Rush to Excellence".   It was a one man show that was somewhat reminiscent of a combination of Will Rogers, Jackie Gleason, and Clem Kadiidlehopper (Red Skelton).  The rest, of course, is history.

      In any regard, this station has a weekday audience poll (not pretending to be scientific) that measures the attitude of the audience.   That audience is about 70 per cent Latin, and about 90 per cent centre-right to really hard-core, such as your friendly Gringo Viejo curmudgeon.

      Yesterday's poll pertained to the question, "Would you support the idea of Texas becoming a separate Nation?"   The response?  72% yes   -     28% no

      To-day's question is "Would you attend Netanyahu's speech to-day if you were to be a member of Congress?"       The response?     97% yes  -     03% no

      If the OROGs will tolerate our analysis for a bit, these voters are, for sure, tending to be disposed to answer in this manner.  We are, frankly, a bit surprised at the high percentage of positive response concerning withdrawal from the American union.  My estimate was that the response would be in the neighbourhood of 38 per cent.   Recent polling across the entirety of the Republic of Texas has continued to show a steady, slow increase of those seriously responding in favour of what I choose to call, "...an amicable withdrawal".

     The hysterical, bigoted, Jew-hating refusal to take a seat on the floor of the Congress to hear a well-argued point of view from one of the Planet's wisest Statesmen speaks volumes about the quality of elected and appointed officials that compose the Democratic National Socialist Workers' Party.   It is very apparent that they would prefer to allow the Rulers of Persia,  a gaggle of seriously psychotic Bozos, to finish the job the earlier Democratic National Socialist Workers' Party almost completed.  The thing I would like to ask the new, improved DNSWP members is, "How are you going to give Palestine back to the Palestinians when it will be too radioactive to re-occupy occupied Phillistinia?"

     Furthermore, we ask, "Where will the 'Palestinians' be able to put their open sewers and tons of filth and garbage?  Where will they be able to relieve themselves against 'other peoples' house walls?  Where will they be able to graffiti every available surface with profane, obscene, hate-filled epithets and slogans against the Hebes and other Palestinian factions that wore their beards too short or too long?  How long will it take for them to re-establish their three mafias, Muslim Brotherhood,  Hamas, and Hezbollah, to murder 'Palestinians' of their lives and extort them of their wealth?

     When the Jews of Israel, Europe, and the United States are immolated and microwaved into oblivion, and the Wizards of Teheran can then take their scimitars out after small bunches of Jews hiding in the mountains or in the backwaters of the Amazon,  then perhaps the ''Palestinian" mothers can try to start loving their children at least as much as they hated the now dead Jew children.

     What a disgusting bunch of people.  I recant, lament, and confess that at one time I hoped that there was health in them and that equitable solutions could be found for those forgotten masses.  But, truly, how can one assist those who could and would not self-assist.

    For the Egyptian, yes....and various other groups here and about among the Arabs...but groups that cannot believe without killing those who do not believe in like manner, I am tired beyond tolerance or any understanding or any forgiveness.

     We must forever remember that the "Palestinians" were given something and they turned it into nothing.   The Jews were given, and and sometimes even purchased, nothing, and they turned it into something.

El Gringo Viejo

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(Repost), appropriate because it deals with Lorenzo de Zavala, who wrote the Declaration of Independence from Mexico

(We introduce new news about Lorenzo de Zavala, about something that had puzzled us over the years.  It turns out that Sr. Lorenzo married after the death of his first wife.  He second and last wife was an Anglo-American woman of high position.  More will be entered as some soon time, as my Granma used to say, about this intertwining.   The family's genealogy is very, very interesting.)

This is known as the Zavala Flag.   It is perhaps the first official flag of the Republic of Texas 1836 -1845, being designed by and named in honor of the first Vice-President of the Republic of Texas, Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Saenz who guided the erswhile State, part of the Mexico City assignment of the Estado de Coahuila y Texas, during its earliest formative moments.   He wrote the Declaration of Independence, thereby legalising the separation of the entity of Mexico from the entity of Texas in terms of political inter-relation.

 

     Lorenzo de Zavala essentially financed the Texas Revolution against Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, spending a sum of 3,000,000 dolares in backing the effort.   He was also involved in recommending a firm Republican form of governance, following the template of the United States of America, and steering away from democratic formulas that were being bantied about in Europe and in South America.    Lorenzo de Zavala was also a Scottish Rite Mason as well as a devout Roman Catholic.   He thought that men of substance should be members of agencies of good, both in the spiritual realm as well as the secular.   As a side note, in that day, many Roman priests and officers of the Roman Catholic Church were member s of the York Rite Masonic order, and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was a member of the Roman Church, the Scottish, and the York Rite Masonic Order.   he wanted to have his bases covered, perhaps, but it is certain that Lopez de Santa Anna never guided his life or politics by the lamp posts established by those august organisations.

     M.L.J. de Zavala Saenz was  a very close friend of Stephen F. Austin, who is generally regarded as The Father of the Texas Republic.  It was Austin who remained loyal to the limit to Mexico and even to Antonio Lopez....the man who served nine times as President of Mexico and eleven times as Vice-President.   There are those who doubt that the Flag envisioned by de Zavala was ever approved, authourised, or sewn.   Frankly, some of the students of Texas History who come to that conclusion are among those who do not want to allow any credit to any Latin individual for any positive contribution to the Texian cause.    The problem with that notion is that it would reqjuire one to disallow contributions of Eisenhower and  Nimitz during World War II because they had substantial German ancestry and German surnames.
     Conjecture allows that de Zavala might have proposed a variation of Jane Long's first non-Spanish flag in Texas, which was a solid red rectangle with a five-pointed star in the very middle.   This flag was presented by Mrs. Long to her husband in 1819, during the last moments of Spanish dominion in Texas.

      In "The Lone Star Flag of Texas", an article which appeared in the September 1948 issue of Frontier Times, author Adina de Zavala suggests a meaning for each point of the star. According to the article, the five points of the star represent the characteristics of a good citizen, which are fortitude, loyalty, righteousness, prudence, and broadmindedness.   Once again, various Texans were inculcated with this legend....although it might be a "Washington and the Cherry Tree" moment in history.   But!  On the other hand!   M.L.J. de Zavala y Saenz could well have proposed that the points did stand for something like what his great-granddaughter suggested, because they are core principles of Scottish Rite Masonry.   It would have come from a translation from the words, "fortaleza, lealdad, moralidad y catecismo, prudencia, y optimismo en el porvenir''.

 

    This is all but a fuzzy prologue to point out that "Here we are again".   We were treated shabbily by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna when he abrogated the Mexican Constitution of 1824 (written in large part by M.L.J. de Zavala y Saenz).   We were treated shabbily by the United States after annexation, and they failed to strictly adhere even to the agreements solemnly made by Texas with the Caddo, Alabama, and Coushatta nations and other indigenous tribes, and committed all nature of arrogance against Texas and Texans up to and during the War Between the States.   The liberation of the Negro resulted in little or no improvement in his lot, proving that the process of manumition would have been immensely superior to the release of the Negro by sudden emancipation from the wretched institution of slavery.    Manumition would have made better citizens of freed slaves than would have any emancipation and flood of laws.   Manumition papers would have been something a Black person could stuff in front of the nose of any white person to show..."The people who know me best said that I am worthy of liberty!"   And the white skeptic would have had to yield, then, to the obvious truth of the statement.   That would have been something far better than laws written, essentially, in a foreign land, to control and manage something the writers could never really understand.   They could hate slavery, but they had no idea how to end the institution in such a way as to be beneficial in the long run to all.

     From that point, through Reconstruction and then finally into the Progressive Movement, we find ourselves ever more surrounded by wise fools who  want to improve and regulate our lives.  Income tax, public assistance, programs to solve this problem and that problem.   Housing, health, urban problems, education, family disintegration, energy problem, farming and ranching, wildlife and fish conservation, postal service, train service, how far parking metres are spaced, one from the other....it is never ending.
      We now live in a Nation wherein all the problems we are facing are traceable to a central government program and/or initiative.    Efforts by the progressives to control everyone's lives and form a Utopia on Earth have left the central government bankrupt, and in the position of changing all the rules concernng our previously agreed association with that central government.    In cyber-jibber, it is Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna 2.0 .   Throw in the repeated disasters of the Progressive marxist agenda's affect on Texas, and we have  Destroy Texas 3.2 .

     At last best count, there are probably 1,200,000 Texans who are affiliated with a non-militia Texas Nationalist or Texas Re-establish the Republic movement.   There are many more who are beginning to move from the posture of "should re-establish" the Republic, to the default setting, "We never should have joined the Union."
     When the "control" group....someone like Barbara Bush can tell the world that she and her husband really like Billy Jeff Blythe...he's like a son to us..." then there are real problems with the perceptive and procedural processes of the Poobahs.   Billy Jeff is a piece of marxist white-trash who managed to brutally assault and/or criminally sexually assault various women of different category.   He was in no way a purposeful or great economic thinker or fiscal magician.   He was surrounded by a Republican Congress for three-fourths of his term, a term that was marked by four years of economic stagnation and malaise, but that now is regarded as some kind of Golden Epoch.   It was not.   It, in fact, laid the groundwork for the mess that Barak Obama and his marxist minions have managed to foist upon us...and Texas is left with no control.   We are governed by earmarking robots, taxing and spending automotrons, and organic law national socialists working to impose total control on every aspect of human activity in Texas.

     We must withdraw, in the calmest and friendliest way.    Texas can live without the United States, although it is doubtful that the United States can long endure without Texas.   We must turn in our tribute back to the Republic of Texas, settle our own arguments among ourselves, reduce our taxes, establish schools that are primary and secondary -  grades 1 through 9 - and then University or Advanced Blue Collar Academies offerring two and/or three year  BA diplomas and Master Technician Certificates depending on the chosen field, and run from unions, FmHA, FHA and the panoply of alphabet program ruination.

      We are arriving evermore to this conclusion, along with increasing numbers of Texans.   If it is possible that an election could generate polling numbers by Rasmussen that would show that there are more Americans who would vote for Obama than Romney at this stage, pretty much means that the Republic is lost.   The stupid, the gimme-gimme people, the people who couch their desires for government action based upon what they want or "need" for themselves,  the lazy, those who hate and resent the next person who "has" the least one smallest thing that the "exploited person" does not have, the people on marginal disability, the people who take unemployment compensation for 99 weeks, the people who live on AFDC and Lone Star Card as if it is their Divine Right.....are now dangerously close to that point where their mass overwhelms the Little Red Hen's ability to pull the wagon.    We are nearing the storming of the Bastille and the assault of the bread factory.
     It is drawing nigh the time to say "Good Bye".

More later.   I am sad this dark night.
El Gringo Viejo    

Those of 2 March 1836 compared to those of 2 March 2015: Tale of Two Washingtons

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   There are two Washingtons.  One rests comfortably in the present, fat and self-indulgent by the gleaning of the gain of the productive classes, while moving steadily to further enslave those same masses of foolish people who think something good can come of sending their hopes and fortunes to such a rancid place.

    The other Washington is installed deep within the confines of The Republic of Texas.   It is known as Washington on the Brazos, and it is the official place of birth of the Republic of Texas in 1836.  It is there where apparently the last great hope for a non-socialist, republican democracy, based upon Judeo - Christian life principles and the concepts of common law, private property, self-defence and self-determination began to make its stand.   After 179 years, it has come down to Texas to lead the way back to the Shining City, high on the side of the beautiful mountain.

     We have in the other Washington, the one between Virginia and Maryland where this week finds a supposedly conservative party, led by supposedly conservative men, overwhelmingly elected during the past by-elections did not have sufficient reserve of moral clarity and/or testosterone, to stand up to the forces of certain ruin for the American Republic.  Those forces, of course are the secular humanists within the ranks of both parties and the leftist Obsolete Press.  It is truly a shame when the supposedly free press of the American nation has now passed through forty years of increasingly mendacious and obfuscative posturing.   Reporting the news for them has long since become something, that if it occurs, is accidental.

     The men at Washington on the Brazos had little, risked it all, met in the mud where of the 10 or 12 structures in the community, only three had even plank floors.   Mud was the theme of their stay, Death was the plot.  Even as they met, there were two major columns of increasingly  victorious Armies, worthy of the name, coming within two day's march....in spite of the mud.   They would have to finish their meeting and retreat...not flee.   Their women would have to do very heavy lifting, lugging what could be carried and children to the east.   Wagons were shared, buggies were very rare, provision would have to be provided by Providence.

     The persons at Washington on the Potomac have fine offices, heating and cooling, fancy sanitary facilities and restaurants in their capitol building and all around them in a city full of marble and granite monuments and lofty memorials.   They all had numerous boot-lickers, secretaries, yes-men, handlers, and focus group analysts, along with finance managers. The Democrats uniformly are unabashed facilitators, fully dedicated to the political axiom of "Tax, tax; Spend, spend; Elect, elect."  Their duty is first to self, and then to actively put other peoples' money where the politicians' mouths are.
     The Republicans are shadows of real men.  Scared of obfuscators and liars with press credentials....is this what real men are made from?   Fright ?   I pray not.   I know that there are a few left who have voted on the floors of their chambers as they said they would....but they are never enough.

    To think.   May the Saints intervene as the walls crumble.   We celebrate this date, not this day, but the date of the same number and month, 179 years ago when the Last Republic Standing was founded.   You have beaten us down once during the Reconstruction, but hopefully we can rise as the Phoenix and re-establish the wondrous culture of liberty again.

El Gringo Viejo.

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Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Texas Congress to Consider Celebration of Re-Independence!!! Hear Ye! Hear Ye!!

Help TNM get more bills filed and passed. 23% to goal and only 2 days left until bill deadline! View this email in your browser

Thank you, thank you to all of our generous donors. TNM is now 23% to our goal with JUST TWO DAYS LEFT until the Texas Congress bill filing deadline! Even better news is that we now have 3 bills we are supporting filed!!! The Independence Day bill is filed as HB 1150 to allow the sale of fireworks for Texas Independence celebrations. The Bowie knife bill HB 92 removes the restriction on carrying Bowie knives (an iconic knife made famous by a Texas Hero). Texas gold bullion depository bill is also filed HB 483 which would allow for the creation of a gold depository in Texas allowing gold stored in federal reserve banks and owned by the State of Texas to be brought back home. Celebrate this good news with us this week as we also celebrate Texas Independence! The work is far from over for the Texas Nationalist Movement and we still need your help to apply pressure to file the referendum of Texas Independence bill as well as getting the bills we have filed scheduled for committee hearing, the next step in the legislative process. Please contribute your support today. Time is CRITICAL on filing the referendum bill and every dollar helps. Contribute $3 today to make your voice heard in Congress! ONLY $3 to be a Spark for Texas! Share Tweet Forward

More detail and filling in as the Siege of the Alamo begins more than in earnest

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     The events pertaining to the Battle of the Alamo, and the six months prior up to the year after, have absorbed analysts, historians, demagogues, archaeologists, run-of-the-mill Texians (if there be such a thing), and all manner of person starting around 1880, especially.   The popular perception is not all that bad, but it is also, frequently, not all that good.

     For instance in the posting two back from this one, we have a sign off song by Marty Robbins, the "Ballad of the Alamo" that is very good and inspiring.  Marty did not make much, if any, crummy work.  But, the song and its back up graphics have a few weak spots.

      For instance, it speaks to the fact that 185 men were going to face down 5,000 soldiers from the Mexican Centralist government.  Well....close, but no cigar.  The 185 might have been a few more, because there has been talk about a number of extra of the Tejanos coming in from the Yorktown area of Texas (south of San Antonio by a 100 miles) who were not tabulated into the roster of effectives due to their late arrival.   There were a few other of the Latin group who literally crawled into the Alamo through a window at night during the last days before the final assaults.   Still, and true enough, although it is probably true, there would have been only another 20 or so to have joined the ranks in defence of the noble old chapel.    So let us say that  there were 200 or so, plus two Negroes, and a large number of mainly Latin women (wives of Anglo and Latin Texians) and a fairly significant gaggle of children, possibly totally as many as forty.

     The entire Mexican Centralist combined armies under Lopez de Santa Anna, along with the Messrs. Gen. Pedro Urrea coming from the Matamoros to San Felipe along the coast,  the Italian Filisola coming up on Lopez de Santa Anna's right along what would become closely related to what is now Texas Highway 16 (an excellent wildflower highway with very little traffic....a delight in March and April), along with Reserves and special action battalions associated with General Pefecto de Cos (Lopez de Santa Anna's brother-in-law), Colonel Juan Almonte who had many friends among the Anglo-Texians, and the likes of Gen. Pedro Ampudia, a Cuban who was afraid of nothing and a cunningly brilliant tactician.....did not total 10,000 effectives.   Those arriving at the outskirts of San Antonio de Bexar did not exceed 1,800 combatants.

     So, when Marty sings about the Texians holding back 5,000, that could be construed as factual if one interpolates the value of distant troops lending doubly indirect assistance to the main body travelling with the Generalissimo Presidente Santa Anna.  That group directly involved however with the siege and final solution of the problems presented by the Alamo were never more than 1,800 effectives.

     And while it is not my wish to diverge widely, it must be pointed out that under reasonable conditions, any investigating body would have been correct in convening a courts martial action against both William Barret Travis, Colonel Commanding, the Alamo and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, General Commanding, for defending and attacking the Alamo.   It was folly for both.  Neither could win, and in the final analysis both lost, but the Ghosts of the Alamo had the last laugh.

     Another of the problems presented by the graphics and lyrics of the song is that there is one scene that shows the Alamo with a Texas Lone Star Flag.  No such flag existed at that time.  Further, the flag as it is depicted is unfurled up-side-down.   The white field must be atop the red.

     We have that continuing issue with the flags.  Still, as last year, we must admit that there are several researchers who adamantly deny the existence of a Mexican tri-colour with the gold numbers 1824 on the middle white field.  While I give them deference, it is necessary that they should be disposed of their useless pretences by the following:

Phillip Dimmit's Flag



      During the first few months of the Revolution, many of the Texian leaders were simply trying to lend their part in the larger Federalist Revolution that was being waged against the Centralist Regime of Santa Anna in other parts of Mexico. The first reference to a banner resembling the 1824 Flag is one which appears in a letter from Philip Dimmit, commanding the garrison at Goliad, to General Stephen F. Austin, Commander in Chief of the Army of the People, dated October 27th 1835. Dimmit writes:

"I have had a flag made - the colours, and their arrangement the same as the old one - with the words and figures, 'Constitution of 1824,' displayed on the white, in the centre."

    Later, Philip Dimmit left Goliad to take part in the Storming of Bexar in late 1835. I think we can safely assume that he had his "Constitution of 1824" flag with him. Even during the Storming of Bexar, Dimmit was an ardent supporter of Restoration.

   The next reference to an 1824 Flag can be found in the proceedings of the General Council of the Provisional Government of Texas. I believe that from the Dimmit design, evolved the design that was adopted by this General Council for the banner which was to be flown by ships bearing "Letters of Marque and Reprisal". These were privately owned and operated ships that were granted permission by the government to attack and seize enemy ships and cargo. In return for this license the government received a percentage of the value of the seized property. On November 29, 1835 the General Council passed an ordinance which reads in part:

"...Sec. 2. Be it further ordained and decreed, That all vessels sailing under Licenses, as Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which have been, or may be hereafter granted by the Governor and Council, or by the Governor, as provided in this supplementary Ordinance, or under any register or license of this Government, shall carry the flag of the Republic of the United States of Mexico, and shall have the figures 1, 8, 2, 4, cyphered in large Arabics on the white ground thereof....Passed at San Felipe de Austin, Nov. 29, 1835."
  
This flag and another, the Coahuila y Texas Dos Estrellas, celebrated the region of the two States that had been combined into one by statute of the Mexico City central Congress.  The two States had a common political understanding and both were anti-centralists, pro-federalist, States' Rights places, and the "Two - Star Flag" flew over the Alamo most of the time during the siege.  The following analysis is presented:
 



DeWitt Colonists lived under the State Flag of Coahuila y Tejas in the 1820’s and 1830’s. The two stars signified the two regions that comprised the State of Coahuila and Texas. Col. Juan Almonte, aid to Santa Anna, states "the enemy, as soon as the march of the division was seen, hoisted the tri-colored flag with two stars, designed to represent Coahuila and Texas" in his journal entry about the Siege and Battle of the Alamo. Mexican officer and engineer Carlos Sanchez-Navarro, who participated in the siege of the Alamo in Mar 1836 in his memoirs, La Guerra de Tejas, Memorias de un Soldado, shows in a illustration the flag of Coahuila y Tejas flying over the Alamo. It has also been speculated that this banner may have been carried by Capt. Juan Seguin's company at the Battle of Bexar and taken with them to the Alamo garrison.
 
      There was another, the banner of the New Orleans Greys, a body of two companies of infantry totalling about 120 men, well-supplied and trained, relatively.  They had a banner on grey-blue silk, and a group of those men left La Bahia del Espiritu Santo and entered the Alamo after the Texian victory in December that expulsed the garrison of Pefecto de Cos, and remained until they were killed-in-action on the 6th of March.   One last banner may have been the "bonny blue flag's" first appearance on a battlefield. It has been said that there was a "blue field flag with a single five pointed star in the centre" at the Alamo, but it is our opinion that it is confused with the first efforts of establishing an official standard for the new Republic of Texas, and one of the first of those was such a standard.

     Another depiction of the three big cheeses, Crockett, Bowie, and Travis, is okay for a glamour shot or a marquis poster, but Bowie, after 12th of February, could barely walk across his tiny cloister room.  So, the "crossing of the line in the sand, made by Travis's army sabre" if it occurred would have required Bowie to have been carried across said line.   The song's lyrics also indicate that "not a soldier crossed that line"....when supposedly Travis's admonition was to cross the line, if the soldier intended to stay to the death.

    The "crossing the line" matter is also disputed by some historians who say that it was fanciful, romanticism at best, and that none of those surviving souls saw the event or testified to it.  That is not exactly true, because the women and children and the two Negroes, one a slave the other a runaway "extralegal" from Louisiana, were kept inside the great room so as to be away from any harassing canon fire from Lopez de Santa Anna's ever tightening ring of six-pounders.

     These matters can go on and on....they become more interesting and riveting, not less, as the years go by.  We shall continue our communion with the Ghosts of the Alamo to-morrow, along with other things.  Thank one and all for your kind attention and time.

(material in blue print is Copyright © 1998-2002 Texian Legacy Association )

El Gringo Viejo

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