This article is thanks to Tinsoffish
NEW ATTACK!! YOU CAN NOW CAST YOUR OWN VOTE TO SAVE THE ALAMO CENOTAPH
This has been a long and fierce battle for over three years. Now is our last opportunity to save the Alamo Cenotaph War Memorial from being removed from the Alamo Battlefield.
Over 97 percent of the people of Texas voted to oppose this removal in March 2020. That had no effect on George P. Bush and his allies who continue to force their “reimagine” plan which includes removing the Cenotaph from the Alamo grounds. The Ladybird Johnson fountain is already gone as is the German Bandstand gazebo. Now heavy equipment lies in wait to take out the Cenotaph pending a September 22 permit vote by the Texas Historical Commission (THC).
The legal avenue didn’t work. Protesting didn’t work. Letters to Texas politicians to intervene didn’t work. The Texas Legislature failed to enact a law to protect it. The Alamo Cenotaph remains unprotected legally and, in fact, has suffered vandalism in recent months.
Moreover, Bush’s Alamo Trust CEO Douglass McDonald solicited the San Antonio Business Association to pressure the THC to fast-track the permit toward approval. They did so. But because of the Coronavirus pandemic, the THC vote was postponed.
The THC is being fed half-truths and wordsmithed falsehoods by the Bush machine. If the THC buys that garbage and the permit is approved, you can rest assured that workers will be out the next day dismantling this 80-year-old monument commemorating the defenders who died there in the name of liberty.
We must convince the THC that this permit to remove the Alamo Cenotaph is not necessary; it is disrespectful; it dilutes true history; and it will denigrate the honor that came from the 1836 Battle of the Alamo.
We now have the opportunity to personally vote on this issue. The THC has put a poll up on their website. We need everybody we can possibly get to go on there, register, and cast a “NO” vote. The registration is very short and simple. To stop this move, we will need the NO vote to be massively overwhelming. Therefore, please call, email, text, post, share, and communicate by all means available to quickly spread this information as widely as possible.
To cast your vote go to THC Alamo Cenotaph Poll. There you can register to vote. All you must give them is your name and phone number. Right after the registration is Number 7 where you vote.
Remember you do not have to live in Texas to register and cast your vote on this issue. We need everybody.
The deadline for registering and casting your vote is Monday, September 21, at 8:00 PM. Please vote now and spread the word!
Alamo Cenotaph Threatened
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ALAMO’S ENEMIES EXPOSED
Please see this excellent op/ed written by former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. It lays out the situation at the Alamo just about as well as anyone has done.
Of course the San Antonio Express-News, the unabashed mouthpiece for George P. Bush, Mayor Ron Nirenberg, and the rest of the San Antonio City Government cabal, did not have the guts nor the intellectual integrity to publish it. But now you can read it here.
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THE ALAMO BATTLE WASN’T OVER SLAVERY, AND THE CENOTAPH SHOULD REMAIN WHERE IT IS
By Jerry Patterson
Enter “Alamo and slavery” in your web browser and you’ll find innumerable articles claiming the iconic battle of March 6, 1836 essentially had no other purpose than to preserve and protect the vile institution of slavery. Last month a San Antonio Express-News columnist, Elaine Ayala, wrote a column titled “The Alamo will be remade into a 21st-century monument to the Confederacy.” Marina Starleaf Striker of the Express-News referred to the recent Black Lives Matter protesters as marching to the Alamo because of the Confederate monument there. In fact, the Alamo Cenotaph, a monument to those defenders who died there, was their target. Other than “C” being the first letter in the words “Cenotaph” and “Confederacy,” there is no connection or similarity.
San Antonio Council Member Roberto Trevino, the go-to guy in city government for all things Alamo, appears to share with Misses Ayala and Striker the opinion the Alamo needs to be viewed through a new and different lens.
In a press conference the day after the Cenotaph was defaced with spray paint, Mr. Trevino seemed more focused on expressing his belief that the future of the Alamo lies in promoting “unity,” “healing,” and “inclusion,” than he was focused on the heinous act of defacing what is in effect a grave marker to the Alamo’s heroic defenders.
No Mr. Trevino, “unity,” “healing,” and “inclusion” should not be the objectives of the massive Alamo project currently underway. A complete and factually accurate telling of history, with emphasis on the events of 1836, should be the only objective. Politicians trying to make us “feel good” instead of promoting history is not what San Antonians or Texans want for their Alamo.
If Texas’ rebellion from Mexico was all about slavery, the March 2, 1836 Texas Declaration of Independence, which is not without specificity, should tell us that. Listed therein are approximately twelve major grievances against the Mexican government and General Santa Anna. The Mexican prohibition of slavery is not mentioned anywhere. The primary grievance was Santa Anna’s abrogation of the Mexican Constitution of 1824 and his centralization of power in the national capital, Mexico City.
If Ms. Ayala’s belief that the Alamo was all about slavery had merit, how do we explain the non-slave holding Mexican states of Zacatecas, Yucatan, Tabasco, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas also seeking independence at essentially the same time? The answer is simple. Texas, and the other Mexican states, shared the same list of grievances, especially Santa Anna’s rejection of the Constitution of 1824 and replacing it with His Excellency himself. While the grievances were shared, the results were not. Texas became independent; the others didn’t.
It was rebellion against tyranny by a half a dozen Mexican states. The Mexican prohibition of slavery was not even being enforced in Texas. Texans didn’t die at Goliad and the Alamo defending slavery.
This historical stupidity by many politicians and much of the press is in large part responsible for the defacement and destruction of monuments happening today. The Alamo Cenotaph has been the target of several mob assaults over the past week. There will be more, both now and in the distant future. Inexplicably, the Texas General Land Office and the City of San Antonio are hell-bent on making the Cenotaph even more vulnerable to another anarchist, or anarchist mob, armed with cans of spray paint or sledgehammers.
They now intend to move the Cenotaph south and outside of the Alamo’s original footprint into what will be designated as a “Free Speech Area.” What can possibly go wrong? Forcing all the future protesters, a.k.a. unruly mobs, to assemble aside the Cenotaph is akin to providing a blank palette to those who think they have something to say using an aerosol can. As a retired Marine, I know that increasing the size of an area to be defended, and therefore increasing the perimeter to defend, makes defense more difficult and requires more resources. This is a really dumb idea.
There are other reasons the Cenotaph should remain where it is. Perhaps the most obvious is there’s simply no reason to move it. If we could recreate the Alamo as it was in 1836 moving might make sense, but we can’t. Moving the 80-year-old structure risks destroying some of the marble panels. Moving will disturb and desecrate the graves that lie in Alamo Plaza. And the Cenotaph was placed by the sculptor Coppini, the Governor of Texas, and the City Government of San Antonio specifically where it is because that is the very area where the largest number of defenders were killed.
The defacing and destruction of monuments in Austin and San Antonio and across the U.S., even the Lincoln monument at our nation’s capital, prove these thugs have no knowledge of or appreciation for our history. We should do more to protect our heritage and monuments instead of placing them in more vulnerable locations and inviting the mob to enjoy free speech with cans of spray paint.
It’s time to end the retroactive revision and destruction of our history.
The Alamo Cenotaph should remain where it is.
Jerry Patterson
Jerry Patterson is a former Texas State Senator, former Texas Land Commissioner and retired Marine Vietnam veteran. He is most known for his passage of the Texas concealed handgun law in 1995. He was chosen as “Texan of The Year” by the nonprofit Texas history preservation organization “Celebrate Texas” for his efforts to preserve and promote the histories of all Texans with special attention to the Tejanos of 1836. He passed legislation establishing the Juneteenth Commission for the purpose of placing a monument on the Texas Capitol grounds to that unique Texas holiday. He is retired and lives in Austin, Texas.
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