Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Keeping the focus on Ferguson




Just because Ferguson isn’t dominating the headlines at the moment, doesn’t mean nothing is going on. In fact, plenty is happening…most importantly the activities of #HealSTL.

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Buy tee-shirts to support the movement


The shirt is free if you volunteer one hour or you can pay $9 for it and we will use that to pay a Ferguson youth for one hour of work organizing his/her community.

#HealSTL – The struggle continues in Ferguson

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HealSTL still has a wishlist at Amazon for supplies.

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Heal STL: Ferguson Nonprofit Braces for More Violence If Darren Wilson Isn’t Indicted

The nightly violent standoffs between police and protesters in Ferguson may have stopped, but the anger that fueled two weeks of unrest here — anger at police, at elected officials, at oppression — remains.

And if Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson isn’t charged with a crime for shooting and killing unarmed teen Michael Brown, anger could again swell into chaos.

“If there isn’t an indictment, we’re going to see the same thing again,” says Antonio French, a St. Louis alderman who has emerged as one of the leaders behind the movement for change and peace in Ferguson. “That’s predictable. It’s going to get bad.”

But this time, community leaders won’t be caught off-guard and “flat-footed,” as French says, by the anger. By the time the grand jury decides on Wilson’s fate five or more weeks from now, things will be different.

That’s where Heal STL comes in.

I’ve thought about this too, and since few of us reading here are in St. Louis, seems to me that the best thing we can do is offer support to #HealSTL….and wait.

The TM will beguile us to shift swiftly to another story, another outrage…but we have a responsibility to see this through and give whatever support we can to the folks who live there, grieving, angry and determined to change the status quo.

In case you missed coverage of the August 30th march – here’s a video recap.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 14 Comments

14 comments

  2. bfitzinAR

    but do they have any choices?  If nobody’s running for change you get “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”  

  3. JanF

    I think it was eye opening to a lot of folks just how endemic racial profiling is and that “breathing while black” can get you in trouble in some locales. I was not surprised at the racism in Missouri, I have seen it first hand, but I was saddened to find the level of disconnect that citizens there felt when it is in their power to change things.

    This situation is tailor made for Rev. Barber’s message, and really, Barack Obama’s message. You can change things … if you vote. The most inspiring thing to discover from the coverage of Ferguson was the story from Jennings MO (the town where the shooter used to work). The city council there disbanded the police department and fired everyone because it simply could not be fixed, the institutional racism and graft was too entrenched. The people of Ferguson need to elect people to their city council who will do the same thing. But it starts at the polls. And it starts by getting people hopeful that you can change the things that are wrong. As long as we are governed by people who do not respect us and our rights, we run the risk that our rights will be trodden upon.

    I saw this quote in an article about how to defeat the right-wingers I read recently.

    It’s become obvious in the GOP’s approach to Obama that obstruction is at least partly intended to demoralize the reluctant, occasional voters in the Democratic base. For if there’s no action on those “gosh darn” issues, in [Mitch] McConnell’s words [at the Koch brothers’ retreat], like a minimum wage hike, student loan relief or extended unemployment insurance, let alone immigration reform or climate change, even after Obama became the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to win more than 50 percent of the vote twice, those of us who say that voting is the most reliable path to social change sound either foolish or dishonest. People say, why bother?

    We have to bother – and get others to bother too. Every victory for the right-wing gives them the power to whittle away at our voting rights, really the most basic right in a democracy. Remember that their fervent wish is to restrict the vote to property owning white males; so each time a person of color or a poor person or a woman votes, it is a poke in the eye to their “vision” of America.

    Let’s keep our focus on electoral change and help the people of Ferguson show others: Yes, We Can … Look, We Did!.

  4. Diana in NoVa

    Going to check ye olde bank account and see whether I can send some things through Amazon. It’s the easiest thing to do for one who is sling-bound. 😉

  5. JanF

    Police Arrest Young Black Politician For Distributing Voting Rights Leaflets

    The stars of North Carolina’s Moral Mondays movement took the stage on Labor Day at Charlotte’s Marshall Park to condemn the state’s record on voter suppression and racial profiling, and urge the community to organize and turn out at the polls this November. Just a few hundred feet away, police cuffed and arrested local LGBT activist and former State Senate candidate Ty Turner as he was putting voting rights information on parked cars.

    “They said they would charge me for distributing literature,” Turner told ThinkProgress when he was released a few hours later. “I asked [the policeman] for the ordinance number [being violated], because they can’t put handcuffs on you if they cannot tell you why they’re detaining you. I said, ‘Show me where it’s illegal to do this.’ But he would not do it. The officer got mad and grabbed me. Then he told me that I was resisting arrest!”

    Apparently there is an ordinance against distributing leaflets but the people interviewed for the story suggested that they are rarely enforced and certainly not using handcuffs. The good news is that people were afoot and the young man’s arrest did not go unnoticed:

    This happened as the Moral Mondays leaders lead a small but enthusiastic crowd in prayer, song and chants of “Forward together, not one step back!” and “Fired up, ready to vote!” When they learned what had happened to Turner, they urged the rally attendees to join them on a march to the jailhouse to demand his release. About 30 people did so, walking silently behind the clergy and friends of Turner.

    Rev. Barber reminded people of what the vote means:

    “Police are hired by police chiefs, who are hired by people that are elected,” he said. He then turned to Turner’s friends, who were crying. “I want you to be angry. Rosa Parks got angry and she changed the world. Take this incident and turn it into power. Anyone who says they’re upset about this profiling of black men, ask them if they’re registered to vote. That’s how we change this system.”

  6. Diana in NoVa

    The organization should receive them on Friday. I am so glad to be able to help! Hope their efforts are crowned with success.

  7. DeniseVelez

    The Justice Department intends to launch a civil rights investigation of the entire Ferguson, Missouri, Police Department, according to administration officials.An announcement of the investigation is planned for Thursday.

    With the help of the FBI, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has been investigating last month’s fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, who was wounded several times by a Ferguson police officer. The shooting touched off several days of sometimes violent protest.

    But this new investigation would be much broader, looking at the conduct of the entire Ferguson Police Department over the past several years. The Justice Department will also look at the practices of the county police department, but that will be a more cooperative investigation, an administration official said.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli…

  8. Rashaverak

    Unless I have missed something, the putative front-runner for the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has not been part of this conversation.  I find her silence both disappointing and troubling, but not all that surprising.  It seems as if she doesn’t want to soil her white gloves and to alienate the Harriet Christians of the world.


  9. Rashaverak

    Apparently there is an ordinance against distributing leaflets but the people interviewed for the story suggested that they are rarely enforced and certainly not using handcuffs.

    What would Thomas Paine say about such an ordinance?

    It is hard to believe that such an ordinance comports with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Maybe it’s time for a lawsuit invoking 42 U.S.C. Section 1983.

    http://www.constitution.org/br…

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