The Case of the Turkish Hispanic....or "How to think in Liberal Democrat Terms all the time"

    This is a pleasant little blurb about the Obsolete Press rushing to classify the assailant involved in the murders of the folks in Macy's store as an "Hispanic".

     It also points up the obvious.  With Obama's immigration non-policy, and the restraints and restrictions placed upon the constabulary throughout the Southwest, including Texas, of course, it is certain that terrorists and unwanted, parasitical immigrants who are inclined to murder all Jews and Gentiles and people they opine to be non-compliant Moslems mix well within a group of Mexicans.  That is because of the Saracen Invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and much of southernmost Europe back in the 7th century.

     It is hard for some folks to imagine that the southeastern lip of Spain was still in the hands of the Knights of Mohammed even as Christopher Columbus was setting sail in search of a new seaway to India.  Seven hundred years of occupation left an indelible mark on southernmost Europe, and especially Spain.   It is well to remember that one-fourth of the Spanish language is composed of Arabic.

     But, who am I to complain, comment, or even observe?  We all know way down deep inside that what the world needs now, more than anything, is a good community organiser.   The following blurb was written by your humble servant as a comment upon an article in the alternative press concerning the overall ignorance, and at times even stupidity, of the social justice warriors and community organiser and the Black Occupation on Wall Street Matters Lives for Glass Ceilings crowd.

In any regard we wrote this little blurb and it had quite a few responses, all positive, oddly enough.  We eliminated almost all, but left enough of the endorsements to feed my ego and prove to the OROG community that we do "get around".   To wit:

David Christian Newton We owned and operated an excursion company for many years. One time I had a particularly obnoxious, commie-type professor on board, along with his pinko-quick-to-complain-and-be-offended wife. We had a couple of nights in Monterrey, and on the second night the folks were all pretty much in the hotel saloon...a very nice elegant place....conviviating.

      The professor actually signaled me over, which was strange, because our excursions were based on a conservative's lecture point of view and analysis. He asked me, ''Why do so many of these Mexicans have white skin? What do they use to remove their native colour?'' At first I genuinely thought he was joking. But he insisted, "No! There must be an explanation!!" 

    At that point I explained to him that all Mexicans are not like all Mexicans....bunches of them are similar....and lots of the them are different. I explained it in general terms but he would not accept it. He wanted specifics.

      So I told him, that the north of Mexico was historically White Mexico because the preponderance of the people who finally settled there during the colonial period were Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and other southern and western European peoples. That by 1700 the northern half of what is now Mexico was probably 60% Caucasian 35% Mestizo and 5% whatever. I also allowed that the Spanish were most numerous and they had all Caucasian backgrounds but melded various amounts of Hebrew, Arab, two major groups of German, Celtic, Latin, and other strains. Some of the more Arabic and Jewish had Phoenician antecedents.

     In the South of Mexico, at one time commonly referred to as "Red Mexico", I advised him, the Indian presence is much greater there and that there were still several different broad ethnicities within that race of Mexican, many of whom still did not speak Spanish,  I further informed him that  most of the white and mestizo grouping in that extensive and tropical area would be found in major cities, speaking in the most general terms. I finished with the proviso that exceptions to the "Red and White" rule were numerous and it would take most of a semester to simply list the various blood lines and mixtures that predominated any particular section of Mexico.

      We reached the ending with the point that the founders of Saltillo and Monclova, Cerralvo, and Monterrey were very Semitic and much of the population of those places descended from those people who were 3/8ths, and up to totally, Hebraic in terms of their ethnicity within the White (Caucasian) race. After procreating for 400 or so years in the same place....there were all awful lot of people with Jewish (but Roman Catholic) ancestry.

        The "enlightened liberal" professor, (head of the department of Human Sciences), finally, with a mouth opened  gaze, looked at me and said, "You are insane. The lightness in skin colour can only be because on the Americans who come over here because of prosititution being legal." The wife was actually a Brit....and had been a Labour Party official and, of course, a professor of "Modern and Post Industrial Literature" at the same university, that shall remain un-named.

Like · Reply · 2 · 2 hrs

Timothy Shea Wow. That's industrial-strength reality denial!

Unlike · Reply · 3 · 1 hr

David Thiel I'm not surprised in the least.

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Don Sherman Maybe we would be better off CLOSING all Liberal Arts studies at colleges and universities, so these libtard professors can't brain wash the gullible young students in their courses any longer.

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 29 mins

Thanks for your time and attention!!!

El Gringo Viejo

___________________________

A motion to enter into the record by El Zorro comments, evidence, conclusions concerning Senator Cruz

___________

     It is really not my desire to kibbutz and comment on the material of our main contributors.   But!....I did want to point out the path followed by El Gringo Viejo and the path followed by El Zorro were not intertwined....with two guys slumped over the bar surrounded by empty bottles, having come to a conclusion forged by emphatic, "Yeah!!! That's right !!!" and "You've got a great point, man!!!"

     If anything these have been serious moments for us both.  Both of us have had somewhat serious physical challenges during the past 60 days especially.  And, both of us have independently looked at the map of the United States of America, and wondered...."Then it really has come to this.....two narcissists, both leftists....both promising things that cannot be delivered, but which if delivered with securely seal the coffin into which the Republic is being delivered.

    Neither of us has wished to bother the other, but both of us at the same moment were moved by the well-stated reasoning of Senator Cruz to rejoin the battle at least by voting for the lesser of the obnoxious two contenders.  It was noted early on that the supposed alternative....the libertarian candidate, was as big or bigger an interventionist as the other two  (domestic interventionist) and that his campaign statements were so vapid that no good sense could be made of them.  Jabberwocky on steroids.

Below is the message from El Zorro.   Remember that we are both, like many, honourably discharged, El Zorro more honourably than I....we take our nation and our Texas very seriously.   As is said at times such as these, "If not the reason, Then the Force!!  :

Greetings and Salutations:

I will open one eye and come slightly out of hibernation to offer a position from one who is terribly discouraged by the predicament we are in.

Ted Cruz deserves a few words in his favor even though, quantum mechanics notwithstanding, what is said here makes no ripple anywhere.

He, in my humble opinion, did the right thing by announcing he would vote for Trump, not support, but vote for.  He had to do that for the obvious reason that we cannot have her majesty take the throne under any circumstances.  However, he could have made his point a little more strongly so that his supporters, yours truly included, would get the message loud and clear.  Most of us know what he said and what he meant.  The thing is, it has to be undoubtable and absolutely clear to everyone who holds Ted in esteem that the hag cannot be allowed anywhere near the White House.

Ted Cruz was and is my choice for any position to which he might aspire.  That being said, it is important that he be in the running for one of potentially four Supreme Court Justice positions that could become available during the next term. Should Trump prevail it is not likely he would pick Ted.  That is probably not a probability but one can be optimistic.  (We could support Mike Lee as was suggested by Cruz and we have that to possibly look forward to.)

Ted Cruz was ambushed and beaten by a rude, crude, nasty individual who has no sense of humanity for anyone.  Under any circumstances, Trump will never again gain our respect.  Ted is a man of honor.  He did not stoop to respond to Donald at his demise but he is a much better person and so far above Trump in that regard.  There is so much more to be said that has already been said by most everybody who is honest and compassionate for their fellow man.

I have ordered a book that might be of some interest if it is not too simple and that is Armageddon by Dick Morris.  I am hoping he has some inside information on Hillary and Bill that we don’t already know.  Just FYI.

Back to my comfy cave…

El Zorro

Si no la Razón, la Fuerza!!

________________________

Some are asking, commenting, opining about Senator Ted Cruz's Decision

___________________

     There has been a great deal of comment about Senator Ted Cruz's advisory, issued yesterday formally, concerning his opinion that he must join those voting for Donald Trump for the Presidency of the United States.   Diana and I have argued (in an academic sense) this matter back and forth for lo! these many weeks.   Our opinion was reached and we "inter-agreed" that it would be a distasteful but necessary thing to do.   We have voted for Gerald Ford in the General Elections, as well as G.H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney....all certain losers....all 'liberal lite" candidates.  We voted for those men with slight to nil enthusiasm, and never in the primaries.

   We are now presented with the re-incarnation of General Juan Peron....the quintessential leftist-rightwinger, the aristocratic common-man, the conservative Progressive,  and his nouveaux Evita from Slovenia.   Even that spectre is better than turning over the keys to the White House to a nouveaux Lady MacBeth.   It does bode ill when one considers that the best thing that can be said about Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she is a socialist elitist.
     The Facebook page we have was and is full of Cruz-type people such as us. We were surprised, but not so terribly much, to see that Cruz's choice was pretty nearly unanimously seen as a positive thing, perhaps even necessary.  However,   one individual, whom we shall not identify was in a horrible uproar, speaking of treason, back-stabbing and such.  At first I thought that there were many anti-Cruz commentaries, but it turned out that most of them ,  almost all, were from that same person.   So, we wrote this entry, and it became quieter on the Potomac after we submitted it to the Cosmos.

  To wit:
         Your point is made. You take things personally. The rest of us are choosing to fight the battle as it has evolved. Neither do we sacrifice ourselves uselessly like the Mexican Cadets at Chapultepec, nor do we flee like the cowardly 5th Maine Infantry when Longstreet launched upon them at New Salem, Virginia on 3 May 1863 as he began moving his four divisions to some sleepy little place called Gettysburg. We who continue with Ted are making our way to San Jacinto, and as was done there, so shall we do again.

And we shall leave it at that.
EL GRINGO VIEJO

______________________________

News about Mexico and the Peso and the American Elections Impact on such matters

__________________________

  Mexico is never quite what it might seem to be.  Then, on the other hand, newcomers will frequently say, "It's a lot like America in a lot of ways."   True enough.  Gravity functions frequently.  The sun usually comes up somewhere east of here.  Logic in terms of politics and cultural movement is totally out of whack.

     We recall that the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, recently invited the two candidates with the most probability of victory in the coming election for the Presidency of the United States of America to be his and Mexico's guests.  To be clear, he invited Trump and Frumpie.  

       The handlers for Frumpie wisely decided to follow the advice of her advisors, the ex-Mrs. Wiener and the Planned Parenthood Board of Directors,  to avoid going to Mexico.   This would  avoid the necessity of exposing her to seas and oceans of funny-looking little brown people who might come close enough to her to be seen....or worse....(shudder) touched.  Would the HOA at Chappaqua even let her back into that Island of Normalcy should that have happened?

     Trump apparently overrode his advisors and decided to do AirTrump 007 to Mexico City.

Clinton Digs in Chapeau

  Amazingly he actually acquitted himself pretty well, at least for the American audience.   He had already committed the offense of saying anything, after having declared, officially, that he was going to be, officially, a Republican.  In spite of the fact that he his not a Republican, and because of  the fact that he is running as a Republican, anything he does or says will be carpet-bombed by the American Obsolete Obsolete Media and much of the Mexican and International Press.

     But, strangely enough, this is and is not about the Clintons.  Or the Trumps.  The problem begins when the people in Mexico hear and see that Donald Trump landed in Mexico, talked with the President, and left without being arrested, held for three days, and then deported as an undesirable.

     He opened a topic with extremely harsh and pointless words that were not accurate, although they had an element of truth, and Tom'd to the crowds who know nothing about our historical and present day entanglements with Mexico but who know that they don't like any of it (Mexico or Mexicans).   These are the people who gave us Trump in the primary.   These are the people who are correct about their topic but who are not correct, wholly correct, or anything near correct about said topic.

     Hillary is happy to have "them" come over from wherever and procreate so as to make more dependent people who will forever be able to elect enlighten'd people such as Shiela Jackson Lee, the Castro Brothers (the ones from San Antonio), and Harry Reid.  But to conviviate or come within touching range?   ( n-e-v-e-r )

_____________________

The OROGs and other frequent visitors will remember the MITOFSKY Poll that we posted a couple or three days back:

Driving through this gate requires

seasoned professionals.  Do

not try this at home. Or at

this home (or else).

     One can notice that there is a decidedly pro-Hillary response to the MITOFSKY Poll.  We lament to say that this is not an error of intent such as many of the polls taken during these hours in Gringolandia.   The sympathies and the wishes and the  good feelings of many Mexicans during these days lie with the the ''nice lady from the North who wants to give us things and everything.''

     On the one hand, they voted in their present President who was a mediocre, at best, as Governor of the State of Mexico during his political formative years.   He was mainly known for being a pretty boy and he had a second wife who WAS a beauty queen of antiquity....(Mon Dieu! -  plus de 40 annes!!??).  She is also a revered relic of the industry of the Mexican Telenovela (Soap Operas).
   The electorate threw over the PAN female candidate because she looked like a "cara de changa" (monkey face) or whatever.    In Republican Democracy one must trust the "will of the electorate".   The only other choice was A.M. Lopez Obrador (AMLO) whose idea of solving the problems of Mexico was to tax the rich at 90% and nationalise your great-grandmother's mustache comb.
     We learned quickly why the Mexicans prevented women from voting until 1952. At this point, we can prove by testimony under oath that not one woman voted for Pena Nieto anywhere in Mexico or the known Universe, during this or any other century.

___________________

     So now we enter into the true meat of this matter.   Mexico has at its Central Banking helm the very best "gnomes del Banco de Mexico" and Latin America.  The board of governors of the Bank of Mexico truly are better than our "Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America".   They wait for our Dumboes to receive orders from the Wizard of Whatever in Switzerland or Yellowknife, and then they adjust to make a counter-punch.

     The number one objective is almost always to keep the value of the peso at some point of advantage in relation to the American dollar.   This is a tactic of countries with a complex tourism industry and with a major league, value-added, industrial export business.  Some countries have a trifecta, with a huge agricultural sector that also exports billions of dollars of high-quality fresh vegetables, fruit, and things like mangoes and avocados.

     In the above paragraph, of course, we have identified Mexico, tied for 10th place with Canada and Texas in terms of Gross National Product on Planet Earth.

     So here we are again.  The supposedly sophisticated and super-powerful super power-house United States entering into a quarrel....disagreement....with a neighbour about something that neither has been willing to discuss for the past 40 years.   I know, for instance, that the Tratado de Libre Commercio (NAFTA) has nothing to do with the "loss of jobs" in the United States.  We know, as citizens of Hidalgo County, Texas, that the increase of the population of McAllen, Texas from 32,000 to 140,000 from 1960 to 2015  came from the Maquiladora industries in Reynosa and other places on the nearby frontier.

     We know that for all that comes across the border from Mexico in the tractor-trailer rigs....thousands per day...from Brownsville to San Diego, California, there are a similar numbers going South.   Mexico sends Ford Escorts and various types of Volkswagens and a score of other types of vehicles north, and the Gringos send Caterpillars, Cadillacs, and other costly things.   Twice a day, huge long trains cross at Brownsville....connecting Houston with Monterrey....and they lug their mile-long cargoes for supplying the heavy industry in the industrial hub of all Northern Mexico, the Monterrey metroplex.  The engines chug up the face of the Sierra Madre Oriental towards the Saltillo metroplex and its automotive industry. Then they go back to Texas and points north beyond that, waving at the fellows driving the trains that are heading into Mexico....twice a day....both ways....every day....8 days per week, 400 days per year.  It is an amazing excercise in  industry.

     These activities in and along the Frontier, here and in Laredo, Eagle Pass, and El Paso, and elsewhere in Arizona and California, billions of dollars moved by tractor-trailer and rail to and from the United States and Mexico.  They continue moving even as these letters appear upon the screen.

     Mr. Trump has painted himself into a corner, due to his familiarity and comfortability with union labour, by castigating the productiveness of the North American Free Trade Agreement / Tratado de Libre Comercio.  The union workers want high wages and little work and protection from being harassed for pilfering tools and "grabbies" from the assembly line.   They also want to have perpetual displacement compensation as well as permanent disability payments and somebody to blame for the "dis-employment".  This is all understandable.

     The industrial and auto workers in the North who "lost" their jobs and who really wanted to work,  went South.  The others who felt that  there had to be some reward and compensation for having been a "slave" for 40 years and receiving the abuse of the bossmen, stayed in their neighbourhoods and blamed Mexico and rich people.    But, there comes a time when even General Motors has to act as if it is broke so that it, too, can receive free money from Father Obamaham.

       But no one wants to point out that paying a person 76 dollars an hour (wages, health and life insurance, SS, and other benefits) for bolting a bumper onto a GM Slothmobile or Volt cannot be sustained.   Solyndra, anyone?

     All of the posturing...and wall-building threats....and hypernationalism will yield nothing but misery for both sides. The careful, yet somewhat threatening, observations of the Gnomes of the Banco de Mexico, and certain well-placed advisories in the Mexican press aimed at the "investing community" indicate that the Banco de Mexico is willing to let the peso slide down in value, at least for the moment.   They are suggesting that their Florence Nightingale  (Hillary) is in bad health and has other "issues" and if she loses the election, Mexico might have to put up with the blustering demagogue, which is their typification of Trump.

     Their reaction is sophomoric at best.   It is a reaction to a person who is sophomoric at best.  And in the shadows lurks something worse, and the people of Mexico are self-deluded into thinking that she gives half-a-snit about Mexico or the Mexicans.....much less the Americans.

We include the analysis, built around Carlos Loret de Mola's (one of Mexico's most admired and accurate economic analysts)  thoughts and deductions concerning why the Mexican Peso has sagged so quickly during the past few weeks.   We hope that we have, in our way, cleared things up a bit.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

___________________

(sourced from Associated Press)

     The Mexican currency reached the psychological barrier of 20 pesos per dollar, and analysts and commentators cited the role of the U.S. presidential campaign.     Banamex, one of Mexico's largest banks, listed the peso at 19.96, and other banks and exchange houses listed it even higher.

     A Banco Base analysis said the strength of Republican candidate Donald Trump influenced the peso's decline.   "The possibility that Donald Trump could win the Nov. 8 elections has made financial markets nervous and that has been especially reflected in the Mexican peso," the bank said. Trump has been critical of Mexico and the trade agreements that give it access to the U.S. market. The U.S. has an outsize influence on Mexico's economy, buying about 80 percent of Mexico's exports.

     Newspaper columnist Carlos Loret de Mola said Clinton's health problems are key.  "Speculation broke out against the Mexican currency last week due to the poor health of the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton," Loret de Mola wrote in the newspaper El Universal.  Clinton had to leave a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony early, and later revealed she had pneumonia.

     Mexico's Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment on the U.S. campaign's effect on the country's currency.     Oil prices were once cited in the peso's decline, but they have risen somewhat from this year's earlier lows. Concerns about a possible interest rate hike in the United States have also been a long-term drag on the peso.

     The peso has dropped almost 17 percent in value in the last year.

__________________

El Gringo Viejo

Ya, que se termino' el Diez y Seis de Septiembre....(Now that the 16th of September is over!)

_______________________

     Some considerable noise is made every year at this time....or a day or two earlier, pertaining to the beginning of hostilities that brought on the ten to eleven year slog from the first battle to the last rubrics being placed on something like a cessation of hostilities.   The hostilities initiated as one type of Spanish subject fighting another, and ended up with the Spanish having lost their crown for a short lived Republic and the new country, Mexico, having established a short-lived new Monarchy that would be replaced by something like a New Republic.

     This event, The Mexican Independence Revolution, was similar to it American homologue in very few ways.   For one, save for the benefit of self-rule, with a capital and government close at hand, there was little parallel in the comparison between what would become Mexico, and what would become America.

 Viva, Her Excellence, Saint Mary of
Guadalupe - the first battle banner
of the Mexican Revolution for
Independence

    The people bringing War against the Crown of Spain, were doing so because Spain was overthrowing its Crowned ruler in Madrid (a brother to Napoleon I) and attempting to put into place something much akin to a Republic  The conservative element in the New Spain (the country to be named "Mexico" a bit later, did have intelligencia, and wealthy people with capital to invest, a labouring class that was somewhat capable but having its "quirks", and an indigenous population that still in the main did not speak Spanish or understand the absurd (in the Indians' minds) system of land utilization and distribution.  It also had a proprietor and professional class, and some decent schools of mining, engineering, some liberal arts and philosophy, and medicine.   It also had massive natural resources that, still to this day, are remarkable and abundant.  In short, they wanted to install their own Monarch and rule in the old established way as had been practiced for nearly 400 years in Mexico.  It was not a proletarian revolution by any means, but a reaction to the same forces the Mexican Conservatives thought  smelled much like Voltaire, Robespierre, Guillotines, and unbridled democracy of the mob.

     All these things considered, Mexico, in 1810, began a conservative (Scottish Rite) versus liberal (York Rite) political war that would not be resolved, literally, until the year 2,000.   The provocateur? Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo-Costilla y Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor, a parish priest, ultra-conservative, also known as "El Zorro" due to his quick wit and discernment ability, and also as Reverendo Padre Don Miguel Hidalgo y Castillo.   Perhaps we could say his motto could have been, "Out of many names, few".
     The intrigues and bravery of both the revolutionaries and the Spanish loyalists was remarkable, during this period.  The slaughter was immense.  It was the proverbial irresistible force meeting the immovable object.   More "revolutionaries" than Spanish loyalists, to be sure, but also much more advanced military strategists and tacticians on the side of the Spanish.   But, please remember that there have been well over 100,000 books written about almost every grain of sand on that beach.  Your story diverges here and takes the OROG in the direction of Texas and activity during the early stages of a Mexican Revolution against the Spanish Empire and how the population was dealt with by Spanish authority.

     We delve now into one of the reasons the Mexican "police action" in Texas during the period from 1835 up to and including 21 April 1836 went as well as it did.  Another man, whom we have discussed at length and at various times on this blog, Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrun, aka: Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.   What in the name of Jumping' Jehosophat does Santa Anna have to do with the Revolution of 1810?   What is going on here?  

     Let us accompany a boy, born to a lower level, but aristocratic, bureaucratic administrative family  of the colonial government. Antonio's father and mother were both "criollos" (creoles), meaning white persons who were subjects of the Crown, but not born in Spain.  While as full-blooded Spaniards, they carried a high position by birth in New Spain (Mexico), they, in truth, could only reach the rung on the sociological ladder just below the top rung.   "Peninsulares" had the full swagger of the deck and the first and second tiers of government, industry, agricultural, and even the pecking order in The Church.   Criollos, as it was said, ".....agarraron las migas was grandes  de abajo de la mesa.....luego los mestizos y los indios lo demas".....The Creoles gathered the largest crumbs from under the table, and then the mixed-race and Indians the rest.

     Antonio's father did have properties near Xalapa, an administrative centre in the colonial provence named for the True Cross....known as Vera Cruz.   The mother and father wanted Antonio to move into the dependable trade and commerce that seemed to keep the axis from Vera Cruz city (the port) and the abundant hinterland, the large sub-vice regency of Vera Cruz, flush with food and money.  With its perpetual production of quality fruits and vegetables as well as fish other seafood resources, perpetual Spring and Summer growing seasons, it seemed to be a reasonable calling.
     But Antonio saw himself as something different, at least a priest in some fine cathedral...or perhaps, even a soldier.   He completed a considerable amount of studies, both in academy and by tutelage, bending ever steadily to the idea of becoming something like his father, but more powerful, like a military officer.

     By the age of 16 Antonio Lopez had finished more studies than were taken by 96 per cent of his contemporaries.   He was also in uniform as a cadet (sub-lieutenant) in the cavalry detail of an infantry regiment, the Regimento Fijo de Vera Cruz.  If he had wanted action and glory, his wait was short because the time between his "swearing in" as a soldier and the starting of the Revolution under the command of Father Hidalgo, was about four months.   Antonio was serving in the State of San Luis Potosi' which is adjacent to the State of Guanajuato where Hidalgo had pronounced the Insurrection from the belfry of his Church of Dolores....a small parish between San Miguel (de Allende) and the capital of the administrative district  of Guanajuato full of mostly upper - Tarascan Indians

     Antonio Lopez sees action in the critical and strategically important San Luis Potosi area.   He is also wounded when an arrow penetrates, through and through, his right hand.   He was at the Battle of the Calderon Bridge outside of Guadalajara, it is thought, where the forces of Father Hidalgo met their first really bad defeat.   We can find no record of him serving at the battle that sapped the will of the insurrection, the Battle of the Monte de Cruces...where highwaymen had been crucified by the Spanish authority for many years during the latter Colonial Period.   It is known, however that the Spanish general Arrevelos had Santa Anna's commanding officer,  Colonel Jose Joaquin Arredondo on his staff. 

This is Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
in a uniform of the Emperor Agustin
de Iturbide Period, 1821 - 1822

     Once the Royal Spanish Army had dispatched the heroic but futile Father Hidalgo and his gaggle of 90, 000 willing but incompetent peasant "soldiers", another menace appeared to the north.   It was in a place known as "Texas" or "Tejas" which was mystical, lightly populated, and removed far from Mexico City and even further from Madrid.

     All of this brings us to why Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was so sharp when he went into Texas, disposing of all opposition, subduing Zacatecas State and the Yucatan before that.  When he finally overplayed his hand (in 1836) and became over-extended in the area around the swamps of the near-coastal San Jacinto River, it was because there was pitifully little left to fight against.

     His strategic and tactical understanding of the job at hand was guided by his previous experience...you guessed it...in Texas during the revolt against the Crown of Spain, back in 1813, in service to his very brilliant, but very brutal General Jose Joaquin de Arredondo.
     During the summer of 1813, a large group of Americans, coming out of New Orleans and southwestern Louisiana, crossed over  the Sabine River into still-Spanish Texas on their way to attempt to subdue and occupy Texas and pronounce it a sovereign State within a Mexican Republic.  It was led by the Spanish-turned-Mexican General Jose Alvarez de Toledo y Dubois and an American agent by the name of Augustus William Magee, openly invading and supporting the Mexican revolutionary cause and purpose.

      They had considerable success in their adventure, encountering lively but shallow, Spanish resistance all the way through a winding path running from East Texas, down all the way to La Bahia - Goliad - Victoria area, and then back up and over to San Antonio de Bexar with their force of Anglo, Spanish, Caddo / Coushatta Indians, Negroes (free and slave), and even some former Royalists who had changed sides.
      Augustus Magee suffered some nature of illness, we have seen written everything from a heart attack to food poisoning to a form of galloping cholera, etc. and he died at the Spanish fort near La Bahia near the coast at the Bahia del Espiritu Santo.   General Toledo made pronouncements upon occupying San Antonio that the new State of Texas, as a sister of other free and independent Mexican States would now govern the expansive territory previously held by the Spanish.  The original surviving partner in the invasion, Gutierrez, had been dismissed during a bit of a mutiny following the death of Magee, leaving General Toledo in full charge of the situation.

     But, of course, sometimes the fly and the ointment have other ideas.  The Spanish General Joaquin de Arredondo comes up from Laredo, arriving at a point to the south-southwest of San Antonio where the Medina and Atascosa Rivers come together.   In a battle named by the Spanish victors "La Batalla de la Selva de Roble y El Rio Medina" a great conflict is commenced.   The so-named Battle of the Live Oak Forest and Medina River resulted in the total destruction of the American / Spanish rebel effort, the insurrectionist general, Toledo y Dubois, and 90% of his army of 1,400 effectives were killed or executed mercilessly.   Toledo fell for the old "follow that detail over there" trick and was lured out of his forest...where he could win....and into a "llano" (rolling, sandy, plain) and attacked simultaneously on three sides.  The battle lasted four hours.
     The Spanish Royalist General, de Arredondo went on in to an unprotected San Antonio, and promptly rounded up 300 more suspected rebels, some of the women, and after a spate of torture and abuse put the all to the sword or hanged them.   Some were then decapitated and their heads placed on cavalry lances in key places of the city so that the people would understand the cost of conspiring against the Mother Country.
     It was, and remains, the greatest loss of life in any battle ever in the history of Texas.  It was the rebels almost 1,600 effectives and some civilian authorities, and de Arredondo, Antonio Lopez's boss, losing about 55 men.   There was considerable concurrence with those figures by all sides and historians over the years.

     But, all of the above is written really with only one or two points in mind.  Santa Anna was not a stupid Mexican general who was outwitted by great and better generals in 1836.  His true failure was that he really was the best trained, the best endowed with the native military acumen, the best experienced, and even courageous to a fault.....but his arrogance caught him napping.  Underestimating an enemy is never a wise idea, no matter how many times one has beaten him.

     By the time Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna made it back to his beloved Jalapa, Vera Cruz area for a bit of rest and relaxation, he was a Capitan, on his way to Coronel.   There is considerable material available concerning this encounter of Armies, some a little light in the understanding and other that is quite well researched, complicated, and compelling.  It is certain that President Madison had active agents poking and prodding to get the Spanish at least off of the mainland of the New World.   Some say that ideas were swirling around Washington, D.C. about establishing a commonwealth territory or another "in-between nation" (Texas) between the United States and what would become a new nation (Mexico) with which the burgeoning United States of America would have to deal.  It would have been nice to have an English-speaking nation full of troublesome blowhards "over there" so as to be able to have an intermediary with Mexico, if need would be.   Strategic thinking was a bit different in those days;  European geo-political rules.

   The clumsy Gutierrez - Magee Expedition needed more support, but at that time the United States was dealing with an enemy on the ground (War of 1812 with the British), and the French had their hands full in Europe on several fronts.  It was a pretty messy chessboard.
More on all of those matters at some happy time in the near future.
El Gringo Viejo

______________