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So, why Cinco de Mayo? And why should Americans savor this day as well? Because 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the French and traitor Mexican army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5, 1862.
The French had landed in Mexico (along with Spanish and English troops) five months earlier on the pretext of collecting Mexican debts from the newly elected government of democratic President (and Indian) Benito Juarez. The English and Spanish quickly made deals and left. The French, however, had different ideas.
Under Emperor Napoleon III, who detested the United States, the French came to stay. They brought a Hapsburg prince with them to rule the new Mexican empire. His name was Maximilian; his wife, Carolota. Napoleon’s French Army had not been defeated in 50 years, and it invaded Mexico with the finest modern equipment and with a newly reconstituted Foreign Legion. The French were not afraid of anyone, especially since the United States was embroiled in its own Civil War.
The French Army left the port of Vera Cruz to attack Mexico City to the west, as the French assumed that the Mexicans would give up should their capital fall to the enemy — as European countries traditionally did.
Under the command of Texas-born General Zaragosa, (and the cavalry under the command of Colonel Porfirio Diaz, later to be Mexico’s president and dictator), the Mexicans awaited. Brightly dressed French Dragoons led the enemy columns. The Mexican Army was less stylish.
General Zaragosa ordered Colonel Diaz to take his cavalry, the best in the world, out to the French flanks. In response, the French did a most stupid thing; they sent their cavalry off to chase Diaz and his men, who proceeded to butcher them. The remaining French infantrymen charged the Mexican defenders through sloppy mud from a thunderstorm and through hundreds of head of stampeding cattle stirred up by Indians armed only with machetes.
When the battle was over, many French were killed or wounded and their cavalry was being chased by Diaz’ superb horsemen miles away. The Mexicans had won a great victory that kept Napoleon III from supplying the confederate rebels for another year, allowing the United States to build the greatest army the world had ever seen. This grand army smashed the Confederates at Gettysburg just 14 months after the battle of Puebla, essentially ending the Civil War.
Union forces were then rushed to the Texas/Mexican border under General Phil Sheridan, who made sure that the Mexicans got all the weapons and ammunition they needed to expel the French. American soldiers were discharged with their uniforms and rifles if they promised to join the Mexican Army to fight the French. The American Legion of Honor marched in the Victory Parade in Mexico, City.
It might be a historical stretch to credit the survival of the United States to those brave 4,000 Mexicans who faced an army twice as large in 1862. But who knows?
In gratitude, thousands of Mexicans crossed the border after Pearl Harbor to join the U.S. Armed Forces. As recently as the Persian Gulf War, Mexicans flooded American consulates with phone calls, trying to join up and fight another war for America.
Mexicans, you see, never forget who their friends are, and neither do Americans. That’s why Cinco de Mayo is such a party — A party that celebrates freedom and liberty. There are two ideals which Mexicans and Americans have fought shoulder to shoulder to protect, ever since the 5th of May, 1862. VIVA! el CINCO DE MAYO!!
A shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician.
This is another of that set of extroverted and fanciful words that originated in the fast-expanding United States of the nineteenth century (I see a snollygoster as a outsized individual with a carpetbag, flowered waistcoat, expansive demeanour and a large cigar). These days it’s hardly heard. Its last burst of public notice came when President Truman used it in 1952, and defined it, either in ignorance or impishness, as “a man born out of wedlock”. Many people put him right, some quoting this definition from the Columbus Dispatch of October 1895, with its splendid last phrase in the spirit of the original: “A Georgia editor kindly explains that ‘a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnacy’.” But an American dictionary fifty years earlier had defined it simply as a shyster. The origin is unknown, though the Oxford English Dictionary suggests it may be linked to snallygoster, which some suppose to derive from the German schnelle Geister, literally a fast-moving ghost, and which was a mythical monster of vast size — half reptile, half bird — supposedly found in Maryland, and which was invented to terrify ex-slaves out of voting.
World Wide Words: Snollygoster.
Source and additional pictures: The Washington Independent » Scenes from the New American Tea Party
India – the largest consumer of gold..
We’re a coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government. This website is specifically dedicated to the Washington, D.C. effort specifically sponsored by the American Spectator, the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, the Institute for Liberty, the Coalition for a Conservative Majority and the Young Conservatives Coalition.
What Are You Doing?
On February 27th, getting a group of activists from around the country to participate in a big event, that, while we have to skimp on the details for now, will resemble the classic tax revolt that jumpstarted the American revolution. We’ll be holding it near the Washington Monument. More details will follow.
This isn’t a conservative or liberal thing.
This is about government forking over billions of dollars, OUR MONEY, to businesses that should have failed. This is about taking money from responsible people and handing it over to CEOs who squandered their own.
We are not opposing any specific legislation or politician. We are instead addressing the broader philosophical implications of a government that has grown too large and too distant from the very citizens it taxes. This is scary stuff.
Who designed the site?
J. Peter Freire of The American Spectator. But he’s not leading anything but the Washington contingent of the national tea party movement. You can follow him on Twitter here. He tinkered with the yashfa theme for WordPress and is hosting with ThinkHost.
Who gets to blog?
You do, if you’re helping to organize one of these events locally. Email us, and you’ll be able to jump onto the blog. The side effect of this, however, is that the opinions expressed by the bloggers are the authors’ own and do not represent a consensus of the sponsoring organizations.
New American Tea Party » About Us.
YouTube – President Bush Attacked By Shoes.
Fast-Fingered Domain Squatters Flip Bush Library URL For $35KDoh. Domain squatters snatched away the domain name GeorgeWBushLibrary.com and made an easy $34,990 profit on promptly selling it to back to Yuma Solutions, the web development company that let it expire. Yuma has been a contractor for the Bush family for quite some time, and the domain name they accidentally let expire belonged to the George W. Bush Library Foundation. It originally bought the domain in 2007 from another squatter for $3,000.
Fast-Fingered Domain Squatters Flip Bush Library URL For $35K
Leasing Pike may pay off, but at cost
Lawmakers cautious of a quick debt fix
Whoever agrees to take over the turnpike would also have to consider the price of maintenance, estimated at $1 billion over the next 10 to 20 years.
Leasing Pike may pay off, but at cost – The Boston Globe
By Bob Oakes
Mass. Pike toll plaza. (Photo: Flickr/freakapotimus)
BOSTON, Mass. – December 02, 2008 – Amidst the debate over what Massachusetts should do about its turnpike costs and Big Dig debt, we thought it would be interesting to compare it with similar toll roads outside the Bay State.
In a survey earlier this year, The Reason Foundation ranked the Mass. Pike as the most inefficient toll road in the United States.
Robert Poole is Director of Transportation Studies at Reason, a non-profit public policy research institute. He joins WBUR’s Bob Oakes to talk about the Pike.
Outside View of Mass. Pike (WBUR)