LUBBOCK CENTER OF TEXAS SECESSION MOVEMENT
By JONATHAN WOLFMAN
Little Things You Say And Do
Make Me Want To Be With You
Rave On!
It’s A Crazy Feelin’, and
I Know It’s Got Me Reelin’…
When..
…Buddy Holly first wrote and sang the number in Lubbock, Texas, he’d no idea how perversely ironic his words would become. Lubbock, called by one prominent voting research firm our second most conservative city, is now the center of the Texas Secessionist Movement whose self-styled leader, County Judge Tom Head, has warned of/called for armed insurrection against the United States should Barack Obama be re-elected. Judge Head, a sincere secessionist-minded supporter of cynical secessionist-rhetoric-spewing Governor Rick Perry, is, according to New York Times writer, Manny Fernandez, Lubbock County’s highest elected official.
Judge Head, representing, he claims, many more people than himself, has made television and official appeals for a local tax increase to fund “a paramilitary to create an insurrection and rebellion against the United States” in case Mr. Obama’s bid for a second term is realized.
Specifically, Judge Head is concerned that a re-elected President Obama will try
“to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to U. N. troops …I’m thinking worst-case…civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war….” And, the judge says, “we’re not talking about a few riots…I don’t want ‘em in Lubbock County…we’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the guy.”
Judge Head wants the tax increase to pay for crack, paramilitary soldiers. “I don’t want a bunch of rookies.” He says the county sheriff is with him. To the sheriff’s credit, he says Judge Head and he have never had a chat about the plan; still, he refuses to say whether or not he’d join such a rebellion.
There are more clear-minded folks in Buddy’s Crickets’ hometown; many are chagrinned that their top local official speaks as he does. The NYT piece quotes 74-year-old Ms. Grace Rogers who says that there is an element in her city that “has lost a grip on reality.” She says she called the Secret Service. Some local business leaders wonder if Judge Head has “the mental competency to hold office.”
And yet many in and around Lubbock hold with Mr. Kim Wade Gatewood, an agricultural contractor. While not a lawyer, Mr. Gatewood claims to be “the counsel general of the interim government of the Republic of Texas” and says there are many who will be “active in a split-second” should Texas…or Lubbock…seceed.
Now, I am unwilling to suffer any immediate Insurrectional Consequences of the president’s re-election and so I won’t be in Lubbock to celebrate the 10 p.m. Central Standard media announcement that California, Oregon, and Washington State have put the president over the top. Perhaps a few calmer months thereafter I’ll drive down legendary old Route 66, hang a left on Twenty-seven at Amarillo, and an hour or so later, stand on Buddy Holly Avenue and belt out Rave On! Or The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Or both.
Jonathan Wolfman blogs at http://open.salon.com/blog/jlw1.
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