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> Important stuff. PLEASE READ THIS AND ACT TO SAVE WHAT LITTLE DEMOCRACY WE HAVE! > >Subject: Jesse Jackson: Our entire way of life is at stake > >Jesse Jackson speaks out on judicial filibusters and the "nuclear option". > > > >http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse17.html > > > >Our entire way of life is at stake > >May 17, 2005 > >BY JESSE JACKSON > > > >And now the ''nuclear option.'' Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill > Frist vows to blow up the Senate by getting the Republican majority to > outlaw any filibuster against President Bush's judicial nominees. Democrats > have approved 208 of Bush's 218 nominees, but are blocking 10 as too > extreme. That is unacceptable to Frist. > > > >Bush might sensibly have defused the situation in the hope of moving > forward on the business of the American people, but instead he threw > gasoline on the fire. In a direct insult to his opposition, he renominated > the same handful of extremists previously blocked. Now he demands an > up-or-down vote on them -- essentially ordering Frist to blow up the Senate. > As in the run-up to the war in Iraq, he's intent on winning, with little > sense of the costs and consequences of what he's driving the country into. > > > >Outside groups on both sides are mobilizing. The right of the Republican > Party has called blocking a handful of Bush's nominees an assault on > ''people of faith.'' (The president apparently is so infallible that to > question even 10 of more than 200 nominees is to risk eternal damnation.) > Liberals have started touting the filibuster as the bedrock of democracy. > > > >But this debate isn't about freedom of religion. And it isn't about the > filibuster. It's about the judges and the direction of the country. > > > >Bush's mantra is that he simply wants judges who will follow the law, not > legislate their own will from the bench. He wants judicial restraint, not > judicial activism. But that is simply nonsense, and the president knows it. > Bush isn't nominating conservative judges as his father did; he's nominating > radicals, vetted by the right-wing Federalist Society, and dedicated to > advancing the movement's agenda through the courts. He's naming judges who > will overturn precedents that the conservative movement doesn't like -- from > Roe vs. Wade that gave women the right of choice, to Brown vs. Board of > Education that outlawed segregation, to the core jurisprudence of the New Deal. > > > >This is central to the right's battle to remake America in its image. > Whenever a movement pushes for dramatic social change, it naturally runs up > against the status quo bias of the courts. The New Deal movement ran > headlong into the free market doctrines that conservative judges had > implanted into the Constitution. Those doctrines made labor unions an > illegal restraint of trade. They deemed the 40-hour workweek, or > health-and-safety regulations, to be unconstitutional infringements on the > market. For Roosevelt and the New Deal to wrench America into the modern > age, new doctrine was needed. The result: a brutal struggle over the courts. > > > >When the civil rights movement challenged apartheid in America, it ran into > the racist doctrines that segregationist judges had implanted into the > Constitution. Once more, those doctrines -- separate but equal -- had to be > overturned. And a Republican chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl > Warren, led the court in doing so -- and the courts came under vicious > attack. ''Impeach Earl Warren'' signs went up across the South. And a > right-wing backlash against the courts began. > > > >What does the right-wing movement want from judges? It wants judges who > will overturn the precedent set by Roe and outlaw abortion. It wants an end > to affirmative action, with many saying the Brown ruling that outlawed > segregation was wrongly decided. > > > >But it wants much more than this. The Federalist Society is dominated by an > obscure sect that believes in the ''Constitution in exile.'' Essentially, > adherents argue for a return to the 19th century jurisprudence of the Gilded > Age -- calling on judges to overturn the New Deal jurisprudence that > empowered Congress to regulate the economy, defend workers, protect the > environment and consumers, and hold corporations accountable. No, I'm not > kidding, and neither are they. > > > >Will the right be able to use a current Republican majority in the Senate > to ensconce zealots on the bench to enforce their agenda over the next > decades? This answer will say much about what kind of country we will > become. No one should be on the sidelines in this one. > >-0- > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! 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