By
Attorney Rees Lloyd
September 20, 2010
NewsWithViews.com
"We Americans may all be of different ancestral roots, but we all must be Americans first."
Victoria Taft was apparently the first radio journalist to report on her "VICTORIA TAFT SHOW -- The Tea Party Of The Air" (KPAM 860 AM, www.KPAM.com, 11-3pm. PDT, M-F), that September 16th, 2010, is now to be officially celebrated as Mexican Independence Day by at least three Oregon cities: Portland, the Principality of Political Correctness which operates a taxpayer-paid illegal alien hiring hall while Oregon has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation -- and the second highest tax rate; Sandy; and Beaverton. A strong backlash erupted when it was announced these cities would spend thousands of taxpayer-dollars to honor the independence day of the failed state of Mexico on September 16, the anniversary of the "Grito de Delores" of Padre Miguel Hidalgo, whose grito por libertad, cry for freedom, launched the Mexican fight for independence from Spain.
These Oregon cities reportedly announced they would fly the Mexican Flag on September 16th over their respective city halls, i.e., governmental buildings supported by American taxpayers. Flying the Mexican Flag over city hall, or over any government building or installation -- and thus over the American Flag -- is not only a despicable pandering to potential voters exported from the failed Mexican state to the U.S., but is a violation of the U.S. Flag Code which mandates that no foreign flag shall be flown higher than the American Flag. (4 U.S.Code Section 7(c).)
Apparently, after Victoria Taft, and then other media, broadcast the kowtowing to Mexico by pandering politicians, igniting a considerable backlash, Beaverton announced it would not to limit its September 16th celebration to only Mexican Independence Day.
Although I am opposed to raising any flag on any day on any government building other than the American Flag, and opposed to "officially" celebrating any foreign nation's independence day, the decision of these cities to officially celebrate September 16 as Mexican Independence Day, although Mexico and Mexicans contributed nothing to the independence of America, raises the question of why not celebrate the "Owain Glyndwer Day," observed by the Welsh, who contributed so many of America's Founding Fathers?
That is, September 16th is not only celebrated bv Mexicans as Mexican Independence Day; it is also a day on which the Welsh in Wales and around the world, including Americans aware that they are of Welsh heritage, of which I am one, annually honor the great Welsh warrior hero Owain Glyndwer. who drove the dastardly English invaders out of Wales and into the sea, establishing an independent Welsh state free of English rule way back in 1400.
Owain Glyndyr and his Welsh rebels established a free, independent, Welsh-speaking state under a Welsh-speaking Parliament which established its own laws, in Welsh. Unfortuantely, independence was short-lived. The Celtic-hating English re-invaded and occupied Wales in 1417, under Edward II, plunderer of Wales and thereafter Scotland. (Americans may know of this English despot from the academy award winning movie "Brave Heart.). When the son of the the Edward II was born as his father raped, pillaged, plundered Wales for jolly old England, the English tyrant promptly named his infant son the "Prince of Wales." The title has stuck through the centuries as Wales was reduced from an independent state to a "Principality" of England, although then and now the "Prince of Wales" has been without a drop of Welsh blood. It would be like King George having a son born on American soil in 1776 and declaring him the "Prince of America," and Americans generations later kowtowing to such a non-American "Prince" had George Washington and the American Revolutionary Army not secured American Independence by defeating England in the American Revolutionary War.
Wales has remained a "Principality" of England ever since 1417, still with a non-Welsh "Prince of Wales." But the Welsh, have long memories, and a history of producing rebels. All these years later, the Welsh still observe September 16th as Owain Glyndwr Day. Also, the Welsh, like their Celtic cousins, the Irish and Scots, have gifted their sons and daughters as fighters for freedom in many lands--including in particular to America, in which the Welsh were disproportionately represented in the Revolutionary Army, and disproportionally represented among the Founding Fathers who created the United States out of the then Anglo-Celtic nation and culture of America.
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It is perhaps unknown to most Americans, since the Welsh are not an oppressed but an invisible American minority, is that so many of the Founding Fathers of the United State were Welsh. But in fact the Welsh American descendants of Owain Glyndwr who are numbered among the American Founding Fathers include, among others, the author of the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, and at least at least half of the signers of that Declaration; a similar percentage of the signers of the Consttution; four of the first six presidents of the United States -- John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams -- and, among other presidents, perhaps America's most revered president, Abraham Lincoln, whose mother was Welsh.
In contrast, alas, and I say this only by way of contrast and not to disparage, diligent research has not revealed a single Mexican, or person of Latino or Hispanic descent, among the Founding Fathers, or among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, or among the signers of the Constitution, or among those who gave their lives for American independence in the Revolutionary War. Odd, it appears then, that Portland and Sandy and Beaverton politicians would be so anxious to celebrate Mexican Independence Day, and not Welsh Owain Glyndwr Day, the Welsh having given America so many of its Founding Fathers.
Oregon, of course, has a special connection to the Welsh in the person of Merriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame. Lewis was the principal aide to President Thomas Jefferson and like him a Welsh American. Lewis became an iconic American hero along with William Clark for their historic journey founding the Northwest Passage across America. It was the Welsh Celt Merriwether Lewis and the Scottish Celt William Clark who walked the "Oregon Trail" at the end of their long journey to the Pacific.
Interestingly, MerriwetherLewis wrote his dispatches on the progress of the journey to President Thomas Jefferson in the White House in Welsh, since Jefferson, like Lewis, read, spoke, and wrote Welsh. They did this on the theory that if the dispatches were intercepted, no one could read them (since many believe that Welsh is called by the Welsh as "the language of heaven" because only God and angels can learn it gracefully after the age of five). Thus, Lewis and Jefferson perhaps were America's first "code talkers," using Welsh as their "code." The correspondence between Lewis in the wilderness and Jefferson in the White House, in Welsh, was a precedent for the use of "American Indian Code Talkers" in WWII," the"code" the Japanese were unable to break becaue it wasn't a code but a language.
Therefore, with all respect to Americans of Mexican descent -- and, all that is due, if any, to the 10.8 to 20-million illegal aliens that Mexico has exported to the U.S.-- and with all due respect to the politically correct politicians of Portland, Sandy, and Beaverton who are spending public funds pandering to Mexico and its exported citizens for votes, I must respectfully suggest, and request, that Portland, Sandy, and Beaverton rescind their new policies of celebrating the independence day of a foreign nation, i.e., the utterly corrupt and failed state of Mexico, or any nation, including the Welsh.
But if the politicians of Portland, Sandy, and Beaverton insist on recognizing and flying the flag of the failed state of Mexico on American government buildings and officially celebrate Mexican Independence Day, then those same politicians should treat equally all the nations from which Americans are descended, and each of them, including without limitation Wales (which is a nation if not a state); and that said cities should recognize also on September 16th Owain Glyndwr Day honoring the liberator warrior hero of Wales, the nation which has given America so many of its Founding Fathers.
Indeed, it was from the Welsh American heart of Thomas Jefferson, perhaps America's greatest genius, that rose the words of the most profound and magnificent cry for human freedom ever writ, the American Declaration of Independence, launching the fight for American independence which changed the world, and created the most free constitutional republic in the history of civilization, a nation and republic over which only one flag should fly, a flag to which an undivided allegiance must be given if that free constitutional republic is to be preserved as bequeathed to us by the Founding Fathers.
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On this 16th Day of September, 2010, and on every day, of every year, we Americans, whatever our ancestry or cultural roots, must be willing to unreservedly pledge our undivided allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all, and to no other flag, nation, or state.
We Americans may all be of different ancestral roots, but we all must be Americans first.
� 2010 Rees Lloyd - All Rights Reserved
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REES LLOYD is a longtime civil rights attorney and veterans activist whose work has been honored by, among others, the California Senate and Assembly, and numerous civil rights, workers rights, and veterans rights organizations. He has testified as a constitutional expert at hearings before the U.S. House and Senate representing The American Legion.
He has been profiled, and his work featured, by such varied print media as the Los Angeles Times and American Legion Magazine, and such broadcast media as ABC's Nightline and 20/20, Fox News In The Morning, and, among others, by Hannity. His writings have appeared in a variety of national, regional, and local newspaper, magazine, and other publications. He is a frequent radio commentator, and a sought after speaker.*
[*For identification only. The views expressed here are solely Rees Lloyd's and not necessarily any person, entity or organization he may otherwise represent. ]
E-Mail: ReesLloydLaw@gmail.com
