Ferguson went up in flames last week when a grand jury decided that there was not sufficient evidence to hold accountable the white police officer who killed unarmed, black teenager, Michael Brown. It was the finding that the most seasoned and, hence, cynical observers expected, although there was also a tiny, but persistent hope that those expectations would be disproved. No one should have been surprised that the reaction to that disappointment resulted in what the Guardian characterized as “one of the worst nights of race-related rioting in the US for a generation.”

Angry people act out in the way they did last week when they feel powerless to affect events and to make themselves heard in less violent ways. It’s de rigueur for folks like me to piously declare that we don’t condone the violence and that it only hurts the innocent. The first point is obvious and the second only partly true, but the fact that violence is usually bad should not be used, as seems to be the case locally, to obscure the nature of the provocation. It would be great if we could all emulate the Ghandis and Martin Luther Kings of world, but Malcom X had a point when he observed that “the chickens would come home to roost.” That given, there’s no way I’ll overmuch criticize Michael Brown’s stepfather who greeted the grand jury decision with exhortations to “burn this bitch down.”

Nor does it help that after the transcripts documenting the Grand Jury deliberations were made public, they suggested a flawed process which news sources often politely referred to as “exceptional.” There are by now many analyses of the problems with this particular grand jury. (I’ll try link to some of those that I’ve read in a separate post.) The upshot seems pretty clear: It starts with a prosecutor who should have either recused himself or been replaced in order to insure that the local perception of his bias against African-Americans and in favor of the police not be allowed to taint the process. It continues with a grand jury supervised by that prosecutor in such a way that, as the Guardian concludes, it looks like he “conducted what amounted to a secret trial with no adversary to challenge what was presented to the jurors.” Did anyone ever doubt what the response to the failure to indict would be from those who live with a sense of ongoing injustice and who are now told that the grand jury has done its job and they need to just suck it up and get on with business as usual?

Meanwhile, those of us who have observed the level of incompetence that has characterized the handling of this situation by all levels of state and local officialdom are expected to devote our energies to hand-wringing about the damage done by the the more volatile elements that rampaged through the streets of Ferguson. Sure, the refrain goes, it’s bad for hair-trigger cops to shoot unarmed young black men – a relatively common event, incidentally – but let’s spend our time talking about the riots because damaging property is so bad that it mitigates our need to take the anger over the death of Michael Brown seriously.

Oddly, however, when another group of mostly white folks threw a far more prolonged – and still continuing – temper tantrum, one that has had vastly more negative consequences than the rioting in Ferguson, it hasn’t generated nearly the same degree of pious sermonizing.  I am referring to the ongoing social and political tantrum that got rolling about the time of the election of the first African-American president.

The fear that Barak Obama’s election has inspired has been both instigated and exploited by the Republican party and the various corporate funded right-wing groups for whom the GOP does due diligence. No matter how many indignant denials it elicits, it’s pretty clear that among the 20% of Americans that form the hard-core Republican base, racism is an animating force. These are the folks for whom code words and phrases such as “welfare-queen,” “black-on-black crime,” Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comment, and Newt Gringrich’s “food-stamp president” dig were devised. The success of these race-baiting dog-whistles has created an environment wherein some politicians feel empowered to make overtly racist comments of the type that would have forced them from office just a few  years ago.

But our angry conservatives have gone even further down their furious rabbit hole. These are also the folks who began arming themselves against their fellow citizens, the ones they consider “other,” the liberals (just as frequently designated communists, socialists, or, in defiance of logic, facists or Nazis) along with the various dark-skinned people who, in the mind of many such people, make up Romney’s 47 percent. After Obama’s election, they rushed out to buy more and more guns, and, in increasing numbers, join right-wing “patriot” groups in response to the paranoia inspired by a liberal black president. The increasingly triumphalist gun culture has encountered little opposition and so terrified any politician inclined to oppose it that it has entrenched itself to the extent that we may never recover.

Worse yet, the rage against President Obama that these people express also provides both the motivation and the cover for the GOP’s corporate-serving obstructionism – never doubt that ALEC types were first and foremost among the people funding the incipient efforts to stir up what became the undeniably racist Tea Party. They’re the reason we cannot have a rational response to energy and climate-change, or address issues of income inequality that are destroying our middle-class. They’re the folks who, in the name of discredited free-market theology, have restrained economic growth with their failed austerian policies, and who scheme to destroy Social Security and Medicare, not to mention their continuing hysterics about Obamacare. It is true that they are bought and paid for by the big money boys, but they get away with it because of the enthusiasm of the overtly and covertly racist Obama-haters whose fear and fury they placate manipulate and occasionally share.

When the local columnists and op-ed writers, news show hosts, and average Joes spend as much time decrying the destructive GOP-enabled gun-culture that surrounds us, the refusal of Republican politicians to address our welfare while instead fighting against Obamacare, which is, sorry folks, fait accompli, I’ll take seriously their far too self-righteous condemnation of angry, hopeless, and ultimately helpless people in Ferguson, Missouri. When local media tries to make Roy Blunt accountable for telling racist jokes about “monkeys” in order to please the “family values” crowd, I’ll express some indignation about a few nights of rampage. We all know that lots of innocent people were hurt by the fire in the streets last week, but why does that trump the many more innocent people who have been devastated by injustice and the complacency of the well-off and powerful – and why is it more important than the political ravages the right-wing has perpetrated in their quest to neutralize the black man in the white house and render powerless the black men in the streets.

In Dostoyevsky’s novel, The Idiot, one of the characters,  Nastassya, who has been seduced by a rich nobleman, is offered the chance to redeem her social standing through marriage to an ambitious young man, Ganya, whom the nobleman has offered a large sum of money to marry her. In an act of mad defiance Nastassya, in the presence of most of the individuals involved in her situation, refuses not only Ganya, but a disinterested offer of marriage from the hero, Prince Myskin, takes money offered to her by another admirer, Rogozhin, in return for the promise of her favors, throws it in the fire, telling Ganya to pull it out and take it if he wants it. She then leaves with Rogozhin, cementing her future as a demimondaine, exiled from respectable society. Through her act she denied the nobleman, Totsky, a way to escape his guilt for, in the terms of the time, “ruining” her, as well as showing up the moral emptiness of her society.

Nastassya’s grandiose, self-destructive gesture has always fascinated me. Was the momentary satisfaction worth it? She herself, after all, embraces the world view that will put her, as the mistress of Rogozhin, beyond the social pale. But powerless though she may be against the male-dominated world she lives in, she  has, nevertheless, asserted her autonomy and embraced  her destiny through her own free will.

Why am I talking about a nineteenth century novel now? In a word, Ferguson, and all the fallout thereof. If the connection doesn’t seem that obvious to you (and why should it?), just bear with me – although I may come  up short on the melodrama when compared to Dostoyevsky.

One manifestation of the Ferguson fallout is today’s news that a coalition of African-American officials in St. Louis County have decided not to support the Democratic candidate for St. Louis County Executive, Steven Stenger, but rather to endorse Republican Rick Stream. Yes, that Rick Stream. Proto-Tea Partier, pal of the corrupt, massive beneficiary of lobbyists, sharia-fearing fantasist, cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face type of right-wing ideologue, etc., etc. Just the kind of guy who’ll be doing his best for the rich and powerful in St. Louis County, and to hell with the type of folks who’ve been out in the streets protesting the treatment African-Americans have received from the power structure.

But hey, it’s a poke in the eye for Steve Stenger and the Democratic aparatus that supports him, and to those doing te poking, I’m sure it feels as glorious as when Nastassa watches Ganya grovel in the fire for Rogozhin’s money. The coalition members claimed that they were angry about “what they characterized as “years and years of disrespect” by party leaders.” I’m sure that’s true. The timing of this announcement suggests, however, that Steve Stenger’s firm support of the County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch’s role in overseeing the investigation into the Michael Brown shooting may have been just one slight too many. According to one of the coalition members, “Steve Stenger’s unbreakable alignment with Bob McCulloch shows he will be unable to run the executive office independently and without influence.”

Maybe. I personally am not impressed by Stenger’s support for McCulloch which smacks of an effort to appease those folks who think a few nights of rioting in Ferguson are vastly more horrifying than the shooting of an unarmed teenager by a man entrusted with the safety of the public – and who were, no doubt, more than ready to toss a black county executive out on his backside. Nevertheless, the old cliche leaves us to believe that there is such a thing as out of the skillet and into the fire. Do these black officials really believe that Stream represents a party that will be inclined to show them much respect in the long run? Do they really think that he’d abandon McCulloch if given his druthers – no matter what  he might say behind closed doors?

But don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticizing these folks. If I had the wherewithal, I’d be willing to jump from my own skillet into the GOP fire. For me the target would be Rep. Keith English (D-68), the SOB who sold out his party and gave legislative Republicans the last vote they needed to override Governor Nixon’s veto and enact SB509, a rich-man’s tax cut that has the potential to wreck the state’s social and economic infrastructure. That’s not all. He’s a real piece of the smelly stuff. He has, for instance, played an active role in the Missouri front of what is usually a strictly GOP war on female reproductive choice. In 2013 he brought SB298 to the floor of the Missouri House, a bill that would “require an ultrasound to be conducted and reviewed with the pregnant woman prior to the 24-hour waiting period for an abortion.” A real sweetheart for sure.

English was unopposed in last month’s primary and will likely win another term in the legislature. While, as I indicated above, he’s bad news, I do have to admit that he probably has the potential to vote occasionally in ways that are preferable to  his Republican opponent, Rehka (Becky) Sharma. He’s been a reliable vote for labor in the past. Nevertheless, what he did in regard to SB298 is so egregiously bad that if it were up to me, he’d be exiled to the ninth ring of Hell.

Since I don’t live in the 68th district, English isn’t really my direct problem. But, while I don’t think I could tell people they should vote for Sharma, I couldn’t tell them to “suck it up” and vote for English either, which is almost as bad as voting directly for the Republican. So, I do understand just why the anti-Stenger officials have done what they did, and while I wish they were better, smarter than me, I can’t condemn them. I’d love to see Keith English burning in Hell and if they’d like to see Stenger twist and turn a little, I can’t play holier than thou.

And if, because we’re self-indulgent, we, in our little ways, help hand the state over to the GOP wrecking crew, to borrow an image from Thomas Frank, maybe it’ll be all for the best in the end. Maybe the sooner the Republicans take us the full Kansas route, the sooner Missourians will throw the clowns out. There was no happy ending for Nastassya, but, perhaps the inevitable, crashing right-wing failure will be enough to finally put Missouri back on the right track – even though we’ll all have to pay dearly for the nasty little detour we will have taken.

* First sentence of 5th paragraph amended slightly for clarity.

Last night (Tuesday) the city of Ferguson held the second of what is projected to be a series of Town Halls motivated by the recent unrest in the city. Two meetings were held, one at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Ferguson and another at the First Baptist Church of Ferguson. They were mediated by representatives of the Justice Department and only citizens of Ferguson were admitted. ID was checked by police at the door and no media representatives were permitted.

Based on the TV reportage that I saw on St. Louis Fox2Now, one might conclude that thanks to the meetings everything is beginning to come up roses. Attendees were quoted as saying that this meeting was more “civil,” “most every one was respectful,” with “only a couple of emotional shouts.” According to reports, emotions were running high at previous town halls which I understand might have been distressing to many present.

This set of town hall meetings were meant to deal with issues of communication. An important topic. However, the account in this morning’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggested that while the folks that were attending were happy with the tenor of the meetings and came away feeling better, the actual communication that took place may have been less than optimal. It seems that fewer folks came to the meetings, and it seems that those few were not the folks who are nursing the biggest sense of grievance; one attendee noted that the meeting was “three-quarters filled with white residents,” while the group at Our Lady of Guadalupe were by all reports “overwhelmingly white and older:

“There’s a disconnect in there [i.e. at the First Baptist Church meeting],” Phillip G. Duvall, 51, said. “Look at the demographics. There are three black men. About eight African-American mothers and grandmothers. Almost all of us are over the age of 30 – there are two teenagers.

“There’s nobody there to represent the fury and the anger …” he added. “The people they need at the meeting are absent.”

And that’s the sound of the hammer hitting the nail on the head. I’m sure the meeting was reassuring to many citizens who were shocked by the reaction to the shooting of Michael Brown and that’s an important outcome – especially since many of those quoted seem to be people of genuine good will. But if they aren’t part of these town hall discussions, how is the town planning to deal with the folks who are enraged by the actual shooting and by their experience of African-American life in Ferguson ?

I understand why the meetings are restricted to Ferguson residents (though not why media were barred), but I wonder how many of the angry souls who need to be part of the solution – because they are the ones affected most by the problem – were put off by Ferguson police, not exactly trusted players, checking ID’s at the door? Just asking. I might be wrong, but I’m willing to bet that nobody is going to find out where the problems are without the participation of some of those rowdy, perhaps less than civil, deeply enraged and engaged folks who have been out on the streets night after night. That won’t happen if they don’t feel confident about the process – and safe about taking part.

Maybe also, if there’s to be a meaningful outcome, somebody official has to put up some earnest money, figuratively speaking. As one attendee put it:

“As an African-American, we’re tired of hearing talk. We want to see action,” she said. “On the other hand, we need to find out where the problems are, so we can correct them.”

A little real “action” might be just the lubricant needed to inspire trust. And an excellent place to have started would have been to replace of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch and appoint someone else to oversee the case. The perception of bias on McCulloch’s part is so overwhelming that, even were he totally evenhanded – which even to  me from my distant perch in West County seems unlikely – any inquiries that he oversees will necessarily be too tainted to inspire the trust that is essential if there is to be a meaningful resolution of the issues surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown.  

From what I’ve read about McCulloch, he comes off like a wannabe John Wayne in a situation that requires not only integrity but circumspection. Nobody needs McCulloch’s tough-guy act gumming up  the works. If people are sincere about change and about addressing the events of Ferguson, getting McCulloch out of Dodge might be just the way to set the right tone. McCulloch is on the record saying that if Governor Nixon wants him to step down, Nixon ought to “man up” and take him off the case. Probably true, but if McCulloch had any concern about producing a reliable, trusted outcome in an explosive situation, he’d be the one to “man-up” and recuse himself. Don’t good people try to make things better, not worse? Doesn’t the heroic tradition honor the act of falling on one’s sword for the greater good?

Of course, there’s the alternative. Lots more feel-good meetings with fewer and fewer, but very well-behaved citizens talking with great sincerity about the all too real problems of Ferguson. Remember all the high-profile, often televised town-halls and panel discussions that took place in the aftermath of Sandy Hook? And what did we get? More guns and even more lenient gun laws. I’m not a citizen of Ferguson, but if I were, I know I’d be insisting that they “show me the money” before I put much stock in efforts to use talk therapy to calm me down.

Chris Koster won the election for AG, and my colleague, Michael Bersin, is happy to accept that and move on.

I’m not that far along. I have one more bone to pick, and it’s with Robert McCulloch, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney.

Not only did McCulloch endorse Chris Koster, he produced a robocall for him on the day before the election. I got one.

The point of his call–the same point Koster himself made in ad after robocall after ad–is that Koster was the only candidate with prosecutorial experience. Right. So? Since the Attorney General does no actual prosecuting himself, and since the duties have mainly to do with setting policy and administrating, Koster’s prosecutorial experience is worth … more than a tinker’s damn, but not a whole lot.

So Robert McCulloch could be said to have cost Margaret Donnelly the election. She lost by an eyelash, and that robocall that McCulloch produced easily added enough votes to Koster’s column to make the difference.

And yet, McCulloch did not consult grass roots leaders in the metropolitan area before coming out in favor of a candidate without any actual Democratic street cred. Approving of a candidate simply because he is in your club, the club of prosecuting attorneys, is insufficient reason to endorse.

I’ve said before and repeat it now, that I’m glad to see a Republican come to our side, but Koster’s votes as a Republican were often heinous. My personal (un)favorite was his attempt last year to introduce a bill revoking what little local control over CAFOs Missourians had. The Senate leadership didn’t force him to carry water for the Farm Bureau like that. Working on behalf of corporate agriculture over small farmers was his own idea.

So, without taking time to see whether a man with that kind of history is actually going to start sharing our values, McCulloch acted on his own. He dumped a fine local candidate with impeccable Democratic credentials.

What’s done, unfortunately, is done. But if I were Donnelly, I might just consider challenging McCulloch in the next primary. Not that I can see Margaret as a prosecutor, but still, there would be poetic justice in it if she won.