The GOP, I mean NRA, is having a convention in Houston, which is named for the great Texan Sam Houston who refused to secede with the Lone Star state in 1861. The NRA’s new President (a figurehead since Crazy Wayne LaPierre rules the roost) is a Confederate irredentist from Alabama named Jim Porter. I’d never hear of this bozo until today but he’s a lulu, y’all:
In a June speech, Porter noted the NRA was “started by some Yankee
generals who didn’t like the way my Southern boys had the ability to
shoot in what we call the ‘War of Northern Aggression.’ ““Now y’all might call it the Civil War, but we call it the ‘War of
Northern Aggression’ down South,” Porter said to the New York State
Rifle & Pistol Association.
Not everyone down South calls it that. I don’t. I’ve never met a black person who calls it that. In fact, I’ve lived in the South for 30 years and have been lucky enough not to meet *anyone* who calls it that. I know that they’re out there and I’ve had people say equally Porteresque things to me because I’m a white guy. I think of it as the war to preserve the union that led to the slaves being freed. People of Malaka Porter’s ilk always skip that miniscule detail about the Civil War.
I thought the NRA was a national organization as opposed to a branch of the CSA. Guess I was wrong about that. Of course, the GOP is essentially a branch of the CSA and the NRA-an ostensibly non-partisan organization-is essentially a branch of the GOP, so I guess it all works out for those folks. By CSA, I mean Confederate States Of America, but you knew that already.
I was under the impression that people stopped re-fighting the Civil War years ago. Guess I was wrong about that too. I wonder if Jim Porter knows that Sam Houston refused to secede from the Union with the state he did so much to help found. I doubt it. Hell, I doubt that Rick Perry knows that. Ted Cruz might but he probably thinks that Houston was a “squish.”
Jim Porter is malaka of the week for obvious reasons. I really wish I’d never heard of him but now I have, alas. I’m sure he’ll continue to say stupid and inflammatory things that will play poorly in the Midwest and Mountain West, which is fine with me. When he’s done alienating people, they should send the stupid redneck peckerwood back to Alabama where he can sing this song to his heart’s content:
Didja see that crazy teabagger slide show? I had no idea that ole George Washington was a Skynyrd fan. I’m trying to picture stiff GW at an arena show flicking his Bic and shouting: “FREEEEEE BIIIIIIIIRD.”
One of my former students had a grandmother from either Virginia or Tennessee and she used to refer to it as “The War of Northern Aggression.” I think I was about 25 before I ever heard of it referred to as such. I also had a roommate at a summer program at Emory University who got half beered up, pointed to a confederate flag tattoo and told me, “Hey… Next time…” What? “I’m tellin’ y’all… Next time…” Good grief.
“The War of Southern Dumbfuckery” more like.
Seems like many of them are still caught in it.
I’ve been calling it “the war of southerner s are fucking babies who can’t handle the fact that an election turned out the way they didn’t want.”
It’s not SUPER catchy. But it’s more historically accurate than the northern aggression horseshit
“from Alabama.” Well, minus some very nice progressive people I know of in the State, that speaks volumes. They probably DID call it that in whatever school he attended.
If I remember right, the Alabama State constitution either says or until recently said explicitly that public education was not a right…