Tea Party Supporting Texas GOP Governor Backs Away From Suspiciously Old Confederacy Threat To Secede From The Union

Rick Perry, the Republican Texas governor on Friday began to backtrack from his absurd threat of Texas to secede from the United States. Like a blow-back to old 1861 Texas Order Of Succession that allowed for Texas to join the Confederacy during the American Civil War, Perry's original statements supporting the possible secession of Texas were in support for an outrageous resolution supporting state sovereignty as reserved by the 10th Amendment as some sort of right wing political reaction against the leadership of the Obama Administration. Perry's original statements in support of the secession resolution were questioned by some as being similar to the old "States Rights" racism of the South that sought to avoid civil rights compliance. Perry's statement are especially suspect now that the U.S. has it's first African-American president as well.

Although a long serving figure in Texas politics, Perry continues to be a very controversial figure nationally for his close associations to racists and other controversial elements. For his second inauguration as governor, Perry invited his old friend Ted Nugent to play the music for the black tie event, and Nugent managed to turn the event into a racist orgy that brought a great deal of criticism. Nugent used machine guns as props and dressed skulls in Native American headdresses to represent dead Indians. Nugent performed on the stage wearing a Confederate flag t-shirt and shouted racist statements about non-Whites during his performance according to press reports of the event. Nugent's performance was throughly offensive to many non-whites living in the state of Texas. Perry sometimes only acts as though he's just the governor for just the White voters of Texas, and not all of the citizens. By comparison, George Bush who Perry succeeded has always been an inclusive figure, who speaks Spanish fluently, and who never once ever pandered to racist elements as governor of Texas unlike Perry.

Perry also has pandered to those anti-homosexual rights elements, and spoke out against the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down most sodomy laws in the United States with the Lawrence v. Texas decision. Perry apparently believed that it was appropriate to allow prosecutors and courts to arrest and sentence homosexuals for up to 20 years in Texas prisons merely for engaging in consensual sexual relations.

Kinky Friedman, the popular Jewish-American cowboy independent candidate for governor of Texas once felt that there wasn't much difference in the Taliban and far right Christian beliefs of Governor Perry. Perry has attended church services at the far right Cornerstone Church run by defrocked former Assembly Of God minister, John Hagee. Hagee was forced to resign his membership in the Assembly Of God Church after he was accused in an infidelity scandal, and eventually divorced his wife. Hagee is great for condemning everything that he calls sin, all the way from homosexuality all the way to rock and roll. Yet, Hagee never seems to condemn adultery.

Perry seems like an old time blow-back to 1960's Southern racism in too many ways. Often Perry seems way too much like a largely unreconstructed figure of the Old South such as George Wallace rather than a modern age governor of a major state. At times, Perry may make a few minor overtures to progress, such as offering a pardon to a Black inmate who faced life in prison for only smoking a little marijuana while on parole. But at too many times, Perry seems to pander to the worst of old Confederacy instincts.

Perry's threats this week for Texas to secede from the union deserve to be held up to the light of day. Perry hasn't had much problem spending tax dollars in Texas during his long rule as governor, yet hypocritically offered support for the Tea Party revolts this week. In a great many ways, Perry is about as close as you can get to an Old Confederacy figure in this modern age. He's certainly no credit to the image problems of the Republican Party. If anything, Perry has only further racially polarized Texas politics for the most part.

Rick Perry offers the Tea Party a pretty embarrassing supporting figure. In fact, the entire Tea Party movement seems like a highly suspect right wing racist reaction largely aimed as more of a revolt against America's first elected African-American president than anything. For the modern Tea Party movement to claim to align themselves as a similar historical reaction as against the rule of the King of England is nonsense. This movement is an old time racist reaction against the 100 day rule of the Obama presidency by a fringe of neo-Old Confederates like Perry. Perry's image of "God and Country" is unfortunately all too similar to that old dream of Jefferson Davis.