Sleight of Hand

Amazing. Astounding. President Bush just found a way to take the focus off his administration's mishandling of Hurricane Katrina. Clearly there are many many people who are still reeling, helping, surviving, organizing, relocating, assisting, grieving, and giving and for whom Bush's recent Labor Day weekend supreme court coup will mean very little. I understand this. The Bush administration understands this. That is why it is such a clever decision. It's a win-win situation. Either we turn our attention away from the federal government's abandonment of the poor and suffering in the gulf coast states and therefore stop the barrage of criticism of the humanity of the administration or we keep our focus on rescue, recovery, and relocation efforts and let the nomination of Roberts to the Cheif Justice position slide right by.

I intend to keep working here in CT with community based Katrina relief efforts. But I also just took a moment to call both of my senators and to e-mail Arlen Specter and Ted Kennedy, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter (R, PA) is the chair of this committee and although a republican has been an outspoken advocate in the struggle for recognition of collective bargaining rights for academic employees. Kennedy (D, MA) is an obvious choice for me as he is a veteran senator and I was born and raised in MA. In my communications to each of these senators, I explained that although I am still focusing on Katrina relief efforts in my community, I felt I had to take time out of this to address my serious concerns regarding the nomination of Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I'm hoping to make a quick phone call tomorrow as well since I know an e-mail from out of state will be very unlikely to reach anyone or anything but a big e-mail trash folder.

Does it matter? I don't know. Honestly I don't. I think that so many people rightly feel disconnected from their government, but I believe this is in part a self fulfilling attitude. We let the politicians coast, we don't say anything because we believe our voice doesn't count. And by maintaining that attitude, we collude in our own alienation from our political process. My attitude is it doesn't hurt to try.