That is, I’m trying to remember what happened at the Alamo. Which was not a hot topic in any of the history courses I took during my education. That’s because I went to school in New York and, if I recall correctly, the Alamo was a fort somewhere in Texas. New York school courses tended to focus somewhat on New York history.
Despite the official Alamo website (“The Mission, The Battle, The Legend”), I believe nothing particularly good happened to the Texans fighting to hold onto the land they grabbed from Mexico. Dying in an ugly war and then being elevated to legendary status doesn’t seem like a good outcome to me, especially when you realize that Kim Kardashian and her whole mishpocha have been officially designated as Legends.
So why does Texas worship this imperialist disaster? In my view, it’s become a sort of Texas Masada, and you do not want to ask my opinion of Masada. Or why, for many years, a Greenwich Village florist’s shop was named Masada. Would you want to buy your wedding posies from a place named after a mass religious fundamentalist suicide? I mean…
Another mystery: according to Wikipedia, the Alamo was a battle in the “Texian” war against Mexico. “Texian”? Okay, enough of my ramblings. Let’s go on.
All of this because I just noticed a quote within a New York Times article about the, uh, “Mission, Battle and Legend” of the National Guard troops: ‘A white National Guard commander called the standoff in Lafayette Square “the Alamo,” implying that the White House was under siege.’
I’d say that guy — is he a Texian? — is being way over-dramatic, as well as inaccurate in a cluster of areas. But on the other hand, calling the White House “The Alamo” is sort of suggestive in a promising kind of way. It’s certainly a break from other historical references to bunkers under siege.