Take a drink from his special cup

Posted February 9th, 2008 by Michelle

I just made an embarrassingly elaborate dinner for… myself. I won’t go into details, since that is NOT going to be the topic of my blog, but I will say that I also opened an embarrassingly expensive bottle of wine (given to me at a fundraiser) and I’m well into the deep of the bottle. “War Games” is on the tele and I’ve, in my usual form, forsaken all Saturday night invites to do zorky things at home.

However, I was not home last night.

Instead, I was at an Alliance for Justice meeting up in St Helena. Now, I consider myself to be reasonably politically active, aware, and awake, but somehow some of the recent Supreme Court decisions- and horrific track records of Roberts and Alito- escaped my radar. I remember being stunned and disgusted when both Roberts and Alito were confirmed, but somehow, with every last little thing I have to worry about, I managed to stop freaking out about it. Last night I realized that I should be still freaking out about it- especially since these guys are in reasonably good shape, and will be justices until they resign- or until they are dead. I’m thinking about sending them daily gift boxes filled with hamburgers and cigars.

Even more embarrassing than my elaborate dinner was the real thing that got me to go to an event a half hour away after a 12-hour day:

Oh, Brad Whitford. You are dorky and smart and handsome and unassuming. You work for reproductive rights for women, against the death penalty, and you had the good grace to come speak to a group of devotees last night, here in this tiny corner of the world. You narrated “Supreme Injustices”, a most disturbing film that details two utterly terrible decisions of the Roberts court. You hung out in the same room as me all night, as I wistfully and contentedly (and probably disturbingly) stared at you from not so much of a distance.

“It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.” These were the words of Justice Stephen Breyer, in regards to some of the decisions made by the Roberts court. In just two rulings, those on the radical right- including Alito and Roberts- made major decisions in favor of big business, sexual discrimination, and against racial diversity in schools. It’s enough to make you throw up. I realize that these days, there is too much information coming at all of us, too much bad news, but if we don’t lean on our elected officials to make sure that freak-wad nutballs like Roberts do NOT get confirmed, then we are screwing our children and ourselves out of basic human rights.

I know we all have to pick our battles. And I know that the Alliance for Justice website at www.afj.org sucks. But check it out anyway, and order the film “Supreme Injustices”. Not only will you be far better informed; you’ll get to see Brad Whitford strut his stuff. Whatever it takes.