Grand Jury Aftermath

I was right about the Grand Jury decision, wrong about waiting until the coldest, snowiest day they could to have the Grand Jury vote on Darren Wilson's case. They might have waited until January, but I did say the Grand Jury probably couldn't stand it that long. No coincidence, in my mind, that they voted on it right before the holiday season started.

I really thought it would stay peaceful afterward, I guess because I really hoped for that. But, as the night progressed, and I was listening to police radio, it became apparent that things were quickly going to Hell. Ferguson sounded like it went into full riot with arson, looting and gunshots. There was less of that in and around the city's Shaw neighborhood, though in the Central West End, two officers were shot. 

I might have predicted that any investigation based on evidence gathered by Darren Wilson's buddies, while they were wearing "I am Darren Wilson" bracelets, was going to have absolutely zero credibility.

As long as the police feel they have so much latitude to kill people, protests like this are not going to stop.

Afterthought: The Huffington post said that grand juries declining an indictment was exceedingly rare: out of 168,000 federal cases taken to a grand jury, on 11 were voted "No Indictment."

Now I know why the assistant prosecutor (and everybody else I met in that office) hated me so much. I think maybe eleven cases were probably declined in just my term as foreman! I probably ruined her career.

Good! 

Darren Wilson Grand Jury Predictions

First, I'll say, I hope above all else that there is no violence due to the verdict. I've always thought there was no way Darren Wilson would be indicted. Violence in the face of this would aggravate the fear that makes the majority so irrational about racism. Conservatism, and its partners, fascism and racism are all based on fear. I hope people continue to protest, and don't let this die. But I hope it can be accomplished without picking a losing fight.

I think the grand jury has already reached its decision, and Darren Wilson has already been declared not indicted.  I judge that by reports of police readiness and the speech by the governor. If it's in any way legal to withhold the verdict from public release, or to ask the Grand Jury to delay their "official" vote, I think that's what they're doing.

Now, prosecutor Bob McCulloch has given them until January to reach one. When I heard that months ago, I thought they were going to time the announcement of the verdict with the worst weather possible. They hope to use a blizzard to suppress the violence they anticipate. That would be the smartest thing to do.

But how long can the Grand Jury stand it? Having been a foreman, I'll testify that Grand Jury duty isn't easy. Sitting on a case like this, especially if it has been decided in all but formality, must be terrible. So, though it might be the intelligent thing to delay announcement of a "no bill" verdict for coming of the next polar vortex, the human element might interfere.

I never thought there was a chance in Hell Wilson would be indicted. There was no incident report, the crime scene evidence was not properly collected.  I think Wilson's guilty, simply because his story of what happened doesn't make sense, and I know that cops lie and fudge things all the time, in front of Grand Juries and especially when covering their asses. Yes, despite my strong suspicions, I couldn't vote him guilty if I were on a jury.

The criminal justice system being what it is, it was never realistic for protesters to demand that, not realistic in the sense that a crime investigation can't be bent to political demand. It may get bent against Black suspects all the time, but that's what the protestors are seeking to end.

Wilson won't be indicted not because he didn't commit manslaughter, but because I know how grand juries think. The least contradiction in civilian witness testimony is going to be taken as evidence that all their testimony is unreliable. In absence of really good physical evidence (like a video) Wilson's story is going to be considered the most reliable. Meanwhile, general principles like "innocent until proven guilty" will carry the day. 

But mostly it's because Wilson and his buddies have already put the evidential fix in. They're lack of investigation into Michael Brown's death already decided the "no bill" verdict by this grand jury.

Therefore, it's counterproductive to make political demands on the criminal justice system. However, the protesters can demand that the Ferguson Police department pay for what it's done. They should demand that it be decommissioned and everybody be fired. Put it out of business.

Ouch! Break My Crossed Fingers

"Those voters look fraudulent!" --The GOP

Well, break my crossed fingers. This election was as horrifying as Carrie White's prom. I really see a door closing now. This was our last chance to change Citizens' United, our last chance to stop Republicans from their targeted disenfranchisement of Democratic voters. Call me bitter, but I think that after the GOP knocked millions of Democratic voters off the rolls across the country, their victory in this election was sealed. Gerrymandering, the Koch Brothers, and Citizens' United did the rest.

I don't believe the Supreme Court didn't stop Texas from disenfranchising 600,000 voters, likely Democratic voters. For that ruling alone, I thinking people should spit Scalia's name and picture where ever they see it for the next century.

I'm convinced that elections in the US will joke from here on out. Conservatives have the upper hand now, and they're choosing to bring us back to the good ol' days, which for them was Jim Crow and the Gilded Age.

What surprises me is how little these tactics have been mentioned as the cause of the election bloodbath on progressive sites like Dailykos and The Huffington Post. I guess if denial gets you through the day. After Carrie has slammed the doors, you might as well just enjoy a dance with your date.

Fingers crossed.

The weather here in St. Louis is cold and rainy. Just miserable. It's just the sort of weather that will swing a midterm election to the Republicans. I went to vote this morning. I aggravated my ankle again over the weekend while gargoyle watching (see my personal blog Life After Shocks). So, I had to walk eight blocks to get to the poling station, a community center. Fortunately, I got to do a little shopping for necessities while I was there.

My state, Missouri, will have very limited impact on the nationwide results. We have neither the governor nor a senator in a race. For most other states, however, if there is one midterm election Democrats need to vote in, it's this one. If the senate turns Republican, as the odds are saying it will, we might anticipate a crisis. Also, if they capture the senate after what they've done, and haven't done, since 2012, truly the connections among the voting booth, morality and justice have been cut.

The Republicans now can't win the popular vote, and their strategy for holding on to power is to selectively suppress the vote and gerrymander. The conservative majority on the SCOTUS has given its approval to both. Apparently, SCOTUS conservatives think of the Gilded Age and Jim Crow not only as the good ol' days, but as exactly what the Founders had in mind. As a result, perhaps seven million people have been disenfranchised this election. If that doesn't make Democratic voters angry enough to show up at the polls, then the Democrats are truly a party of losers. Fact is, reversing all the damage will only get harder in subsequent elections.

At least this morning I saw some sign that voters are taking this election seriously. The turnout looked quite good despite the rain. There was actually a line. The number of votes tallied in the paper machine read 82, and there's was probably an equal amount of electronic votes.

So, I'm cautiously optimistic that the Democrats might retain the senate, and get the majority of governors. I'll see after my writers' meeting tonight.

Eugenics and the Myth of Racial Superiority

Internet commentary has certainly demolished some myths. One of them is that we're in a post-racial society, or anything like one. You can cite the millions of openly bigoted comments, especially those made after Barrack Obama's election in 2008. Besides the ARWP's, there's a whole host of commentators and trolls that don't even try to hedge or redefine their racism anymore.

This does have the pretense of being scientific, but there's no credibility to it. First of all, six cubic inches is huge. Asians would need a second head for that. Even if the poster used the wrong units, the average brain volume (according to Wikipedia, for a quick answer) is 1260 cubic centimeters. Six cubic  centimeters would be within the margin of error of that figure. In other words, insignificant.

Second, everything one talks about with genetics--with all of science really-- is a matter of probabilities. At best, discrimination judges someone not where their abilities fall, but where they're guessed likely fall.

Third, intelligence is not a well-defined term.

However, eugenics itself is flawed to its very core. It's not actually "Survival of the fittest." Evolution doesn't select for the best traits. It selects for ones that are best for survival and reproduction in the organism's environment. This seldom matches what a human being would consider an improvement. Such as, when human beings learned to cook, we began to get crooked teeth, because the genetics for well-meshed teeth were no longer needed, and the resource expenditure to make teeth straight and keep jaws strong was unnecessary. This is not something that eugenicists would consider superior. 

Therefore, a eugenic dictator is likely to choose "superior" traits that suck in the environment that his subjects actually have to live in--since life is inherently unpredictable. So, eugenics would reduce survival and reproductive success. 

I'm not sure if anybody else has this reaction, but whenever I hear of the eugenicists of the late 19th and and early 20th century (and during that time, almost every well-educated Caucasian who came of age then was a eugenicist) I'm struck by how naive they were. The whole reason the ideology was evil was that it would cause a lot of suffering, and for nothing, because it wouldn't work. Anybody who understands Darwinism now knows that. It's better to let the environment tell our genes what it wants. That's what genes exist for.

So, any claim of racial status based on so-called science is fraudulent. At best, it's a biology dropout who would make the claim. 

Protesters Unemployed?

On snide remarks that many of the Ferguson protesters are unemployed, most of the critiques are unaware of the irony conveyed: that only the unemployed can afford a conscience.

To sneer at the Ferguson protesters requires a callous of racist cynicism.

The Supreme Court Lays An(other) Egg

The Supreme Court has allowed Texas to keep 600,000 people from voting. Most are minorities. Most are, presumably, voting Democratic. This is not just a bad ruling, it's a crooked one. Like Bush vs. Gore. Like voter ID laws themselves, this just reeks of political opportunism trumping the strict constructionism all of the conservative justices preached.  

These five awful justices, Roberts, Scalia, Aleto, Kennedy and Thomas, really do believe that Jim Crow and the Gilded Age were both the good ol' days and exactly what Founders had in mind (short of Plan A: slavery). I really believe the only thing they'd correct about that utopia is to make it more religious (Christian that is).

 We're getting the worst Supreme Court in history at a time we could least afford it: i.e. right after the wort presidency in history. This court is gift from Bush and his dad (for those who thought he was any good). At the same time, we have the worst Congress in history. The country won't survive too much more of this onslaught of corruption supported by demented stupidity. And if you look at the growing secessionism in the polls, that's probably a contingency plan.

The joke will be on conservative voters: they'll depart from a nation they ruined to be governed by state governments that are worse.