How refreshing

I never thought that I would agree with them.  I have long disagreed with many of the racially based protest groups/organizations.  I have not normally had issue with the basis for their message, but usually with how they go about pushing that message.  Usually we get caricatures of the issues in the form of either front men like Al Sharpton or criminals like Wesley Cook (murderer of Daniel Faulkner) who actually committed the crime and were justly convicted.  There are many cases of unjust prosecution and oppression that have actual innocent people involved, like George Allen Jr.  However, we tend to see the fiasco version, like the Michael Brown case (committed strong-arm robbery, assaulted the officer and attempted to get his gun, forensically proven to be the aggressor and not to be raising his hands to surrender).  

Then we have Chicago.  Historically known for corrupt politicians, corrupt police and corrupt judicial officials.  Enough books, documentaries, movies, television and radio shows (it goes back quite a while) have been produced to fill a library on the subject.  Thus I can't say I was surprised to see the list of failures in the State's Attorney office by Anita Alvarez.  The list of failures and (really) offenses is long and would make a great HBO series.  This woman makes the characters on Sons of Anarchy look fairly pedestrian by comparison.  But the fact that she made so many bad moves, so often and usually in spite of evidence at hand is simply amazing.  It was as if she was channeling William Hale Thompson.

So it is interesting to see that the Black Lives Matter group managed to get her voted out of office not by allying or even supporting her opponent, but simply by asking people to not vote for Alvarez.  No promises that her successor would make things all better, no plans to right wrongs.  Just a plan to get a corrupt official out of office.  Likely, this will be their game plan for further elections, possibly even the upcoming presidential election.  It will be interesting to see if they do, because they will have a choice between the giant clown and the dishonest former co-worker of the corrupt Chicago mayor.

Decisions, decisions...