From: firstinitiallastname@texas.net   
      
   GTT wrote:   
      
      
   > But I imagine there is a whole lot more to the movie than someone   
   > from outside the CONUS would immediately grasp.  (you ARE in   
   > Canada, are you not?  IF not, pardon me.)   There's a lot of uniquely   
   > Texan myth and lore which were supposed to be either verified or   
   > exposed or something to help clarify.    I am sorry you didn't get a   
   > glimmer of why both Texians and Tejanos were upset with Mexico.   
   >   
   > And, FYI, it WAS both segments of the Texas population, not just   
   > what you describe as "white" Texans.   
   >   
   > IF you're really interested in learning reasons, I'm sure there are folks   
   > on here who could oblige, eh Gerald?   
      
   Shoot. I don't think one on a thousand native Texans could relate any   
   reasonably coherent account of what was happening - not one that would   
   bear any examination. I think a lot of it was grounded in the sort of   
   person who came to Texas. I think that probably explains more than the   
   political facts. That's a factor that's still at work today, although   
   success has just about ruined us in many ways.   
      
   I think that the human factor was what set this Mexican state apart from   
   the others. And maybe not so far apart, at that. The outcome here   
   depended heavily, as events do more often than popular history likes to   
   admit, on the happenstance or small events. But for Deaf Smith's unit   
   riding down one way and not up the other, Sam Houston might have ended   
   up as a Louisiana planter or a lecturer or something equally useful.   
      
   In a real way, The Alamo may be more a story of personalities. If Santa   
   Anna had taken the entirely reasonable military approach of simply going   
   around San Antonio and leaving it as a matter that could be dealt with   
   later, the whole bunch would likely just be the guys who got to San   
   Jacinto after it was all over. What that bunch would have been up to,   
   had they survived to run loose in the new Republic, would have been   
   interesting.   
      
   Travis would no doubt have made something of himself. Crockett would, I   
   suppose, have run for President or maybe have come to a bad end in New   
   Mexico. Mrs. Dickerson would have gone on to make her husband wish he   
   had died. Clara Driscoll would have saved the $75,000 she spent to save   
   the Alamo chapel. And several dozen San Antonio businesses would have   
   had to think up different names for themselves.   
   --   
                          Gerald Clough   
       "Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)