Rabble-Rousers

     What is a rabble-rouser? Why do I want to talk about rabble-rousers?
    A rabble-rouser is simply a person who tries to stir up masses of people for action by appealing to their emotions rather than their reason. Rabble
    The first part of the term rabble-rouser is significant, because it describes the kind of people that the rabble-rouser affects. In this case, rabble means a group of people who have little education in logic and tend to deal more on emotions. Such emotions are generally hate, feelings of injustice, grudges, and the like. The picture then is a person with good voice standing on a soapbox in a crowd surrounded by people whose emotional mindset is favorable to the issues being described by the speaker. If one needs a clearer picture, look at some of the old issues of the TV series Gunsmoke and find those where somebody is inciting riot in a crowd. Usually that incitement involves breaking into a jail and hanging the supposed criminal without due process of law. It is a highly emotional situation and most times the examples show that the riot crowd has made an incorrect judgment based not only on law but also based on the moral aspects of the situation.
I am writing about rabble-rousers, because they are important, primarily from the damage that they can do to a society. For example, if a Gunsmoke mob hangs a supposed criminal and that person is later found to be innocent, there is a strong aftermath of regret and guilt which unsettles the community. This could be exacerbated by subsequent criminal charges against some of the rioters, all of which is destructive to the moral tranquility of the society.
In the case of the Zimmerman trial, George Zimmerman was found innocent of murder by a Florida jury. In that extensive trial, there was no indication of any kind of racial bias.
Subsequently, various rabble-rousers have addressed the general public to connect the Zimmerman situation with racial overtones. These addresses have appealed specifically to the poorly educated, highly emotional motivated individuals of the black community. The result is that we have seen some rioting of various sorts with the destruction of property and attacks on some whites by black rioters. This has occurred because of the effectiveness of the rabble-rousers. If the trial had been left to its own normal interpretation of satisfying the requirements of law, there would have been no subsequent reaction of this sort.
In the case of the Zimmerman trial, who were the rabble-rousers? In this case, they appear to all have been blacks, with their motivations likely stemming from long perceived feelings of injustice. The starters were likely Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. This created a sort of general feeling of unrest in the rabble black community.
More significantly, the unrest was later exacerbated by Eric Holder, the US Atty. General. With the general black rabble unrest at a low level, Eric holder used this as an excuse to come on television, ostensibly with the purpose of calming the black rabble by assuring them that the United States government would be investigating the Zimmerman situation more closely to determine whether there was some racial injustification. He could have done that in a few words and made his point very clearly, but he did not. He spoke at great length, as does the normal rabble-rouser on the soapbox and has actually further inflamed the rabble of the black community.
Today, the rabble of the black community was further inflamed by Pres. Obama. He may have had intention of calming the community, but he failed miserably, essentially because he spoke at great length in a rabble rousing manner. He mentioned the supposed social injustice of white people holding their purses closer to them when black people were with them in an elevator, or hearing the click of car doors being locked as black persons walked by in stopped automobile traffic. Why did he mention these riot-inciting examples? The likelihood is that he himself is not a completely rational person dedicated to the rule of law and the advancement of all Americans, no matter what their race color or creed. He has given us a perfect example of a rabble person inciting riot in a similar rabble group.
I can feel sorry for Pres. Obama in his feeling of insufficiency as a black person, but I cannot excuse him nor Atty. Gen. Holder for their reverting to emotional riot inciting rhetoric which does damage to this great country. We are Americans. We do not have to hear about color, previous injustices and the like. We need a positive approach of all Americans being equal in moving ahead to solve some of the other problems which we now face.