Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Make 'Em Squeal?

I see a direct correlation between the 2014 midterm elections and the Ferguson crisis, even though there were no major elections in Missouri in this cycle.
As we all know, progressives suffered a major and possibly fatal setback when Republicans took over the Senate, expanded their House majority to an historic high, and gained governorships, including in Democratic Massachusetts and Maryland.  Several of the most appalling Republican governors in the nation got re-elected in the process. Also, the best and brightest up-and-comers in the Democratic Party saw their political careers ended before they'd even begun.  (Fortunately, that's not very serious.)  The attitude of the Republicans after the election is that they are now in charge, they're calling the shots, and anyone who doesn't like it can go to hell - and, since anyone who's against the Republicans must also be against America, they're going to hell anyway.
Since blacks are a major component in the American progressive movement, we can safely assume that blacks - who remain under the yoke of voter ID laws in numerous states - will be treated as a whole like anyone else on the progressive side (women, environmentalists, anti-war activists, etc.) by the GOP.  What are the Republicans going to do to progressives?  Pig farmer Joni Ernst, the new right-wing Republican senator-elect from Iowa - whose election victory sealed the Republican Senate majority in the 114th Congress - said it for all time.  The Republicans are going to emasculate them - that is, they're going to "make 'em squeal!"      
To wit:  The sound you heard coming out of Ferguson, Missouri over the past few days is the sound of black people squealing when the white power establishment tried to emasculate them by refusing to indict Darren Wilson and the Republicans dismissed the complaints of blacks as irrelevant.  Implicit in Ernst's incendiary slogan is that the Republican party's opponents - including racial minorities - are no better than livestock.  An overwhelmingly white party is treating non-whites in this country like . . . animals.  
I don't know if Darren Wilson is guilty of anything or not, but he still should have been indicted and the process should have been played out.  The fact that he wasn't indicted only made a bad situation in Missouri and across the nation worse.  And by the way, keep an eye on Joni Ernst, whose throaty laugh at her victory party on Election Night made her sound ridiculous and somewhat scary.  I predict that she will become the most dangerous woman in Congress.  

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