Scott's other articles can be found at http://www.examiner.com/...
There seems to be ample evidence, depending on your right-wing source, that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a raging reverse racist, she rules from the bench with horrifying empathy, her last name is an affront to proper American pronunciation, and even butchers the English language worse than George W. Bush on a three day coke binge.
Clearly this wise Hispanic woman, with her richness of experiences, is unfit to serve on our nation's highest bench?
To say the mud is being slung about Sonia Sotomayor is an insult to dirt and water. When a person listens to opponents of this judge one can only form the opinion that she obviously wants to send every white American to a remote prison farm (probably Utah) and give all the powerful and high-paying jobs to her dozens and dozens of Mexican (probably illegal) family members. In fact, this so-called Judge Sotomayor most likely has a doctored birth certificate and wasn't even born in this country.
So where are all the Sarah Palin apologists now? Why aren't they rallying around Sotomayor and crying foul at the harsh conservative media and their brutal assaults on this woman? Well, because they are two-faced cowards clearly only interested in brash partisan politics. When a conservative woman is scrutinized by the media it's sexism. When a Hispanic woman with a liberal slant is treated in much the same manner it's fair game.
But the problem, at its core, isn't Judge Sotomayor or her over-the-top critics. The problem is with the process itself. The media, in its ever growing obsession with ratings and creating a public furor over an issue (Michael Jackson anyone?), has taken the confirmation hearing of this woman and turned it into SCOTUS-Stock '09. They've taken the Republican Extremist Party's comments and criticisms and bloated them into larger than life damnations of a liberal empathizer who can't come to a sane decision without first looking into her heart.
Yet the real problem lies in the fact that when the dust settles, and Sotomayor is confirmed onto the Supreme Court, nothing, I repeat, nothing in America is going to change unless the people unite and defy when they feel a particular law is unjust.
And if one listens to renowned historian and professor Howard Zinn, author of the bestselling classic text, A People's History of the United States, we damn well better already know this.
Throughout the history of America the Supreme Court has been relied up by the powerful for one thing: to maintain the status-quo. We've learned through the coverage of Sotomayor's nomination and subsequent confirmation hearing that to suggest a Supreme Court Justice may implement policy is akin to suggesting that it's okay to kick a baby provided she first looked at you funny. In the Right's vicious arguments that Sotomayor will use the bench to fulfill her quest of being an activist proves to the rest of us that the Supreme Court is in reality nothing more than a collection of judges used to rule in favor of the ruling class, and that's the way they want to keep it.
Howard Zinn points this out vividly in his book, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, by stating,
"It would be naive to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, and dissenters of all kinds. Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel, and violate the law in order to uphold justice.
The distinction between law and justice is ignored by all those senators – Democrats and Republicans – who solemnly invoke as their highest concern 'the rule of law.' The law can be just; it can be unjust. It does not deserve to inherit the ultimate authority of the divine right of the king."
So if the United States Supreme Court is immune to defending justice and may only uphold "the rule of law," then whose job is it to decide whether that law is just? Only the people may decide this.
Right-wing critics use the Constitution as the centerpiece of their arguments against Sotomayor, saying she would invoke her own personal perspective when deciding cases and ignore completely the sacred text of the Constitution. A document Howard Zinn describes as follows,
"The Constitution, like the Bible, is infinitely flexible and is used to serve the political needs of the moment."
He also points out that,
"The Constitution gave no rights to working people: no right to work less than twelve hours a day, no right to a living wage, no right to safe working conditions. No right to treatment by a doctor when in need. No right to take time off to mourn a death or celebrate a new birth. No right to a place to live. Workers had to organize, go on strike, and defy the law, the courts, and the police to create a great movement to win an eight-hour workday, and caused such commotion that Congress was forced to pass a minimum wage law, Social Security, and unemployment insurance."
Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that most credit with the legalization of abortion, is reduced by Zinn as being nothing more than an inevitable response to the will of defiant people. He writes,
"Women's right to an abortion did not depend on the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. It was won before that decision, all over the country, by grassroots agitation that forced states to recognize the right. If the American people, who by a great majority favor that right, insist on it and act on it, no Supreme Court decision can take it away."
In other words, the policies and laws of the United States depend not on the Supreme Court or even the government as a whole, but rests squarely upon the will of a citizenry who must decide for themselves what laws are just or unjust.
So when Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in as the next Justice of the Supreme Court and the right-wingers stop calling her a racist and bleeding-heart and move on to the next hot topic remember that the nine justices sitting on that holiest of benches aren't really there to make life better for the average American. Their duty is to keep order and keep the status-quo secure for those in positions of power.
Only the average American, by demanding their rights and privileges, can make their lives better. To listen and take to heart all the right-wing media bashing and fear-mongering of Sonia Sotomayor is to admit we've forfeited all of our rights to the ruling class.
Howard Zinn seems to know this better than anyone.
Scott's other articles can be found at http://www.examiner.com/...