Web Commonerprogressive politics, social commentary, and ramblings on pop culture

What exactly is “judicial activism” anyway? Contextually speaking, it’s a rhetorical catch phrase used by the political right to counter years of judicial precedence. The phrase picked up great momentum during the Bush and Cheney years and, today, Republicans use it when referencing high court nominees who, they claim, may or may not “legislate from the bench.” Behind closed doors, though, operatives within the party use it as a tool to foster change for their base, which sets in motion a concept that conservative court appointees will ignore traditional objectivism and actively seek to reverse ill-favored decisions made in the past. These cases, which set precedence spanning the history of the United States, embody a slew of rulings that touch on issues of civil rights, church and state, gun control, corporate litigation, states rights, right-to-privacy, and abortion.

Washington insiders confined within the rarely seen, but often heard, chambers of political think tanks conjure ways to package complex political concepts into compact, succinct, and portable rhetorical gems like “judicial activism,” which trickles down from the higher ranks of the party, in talking-point fashion, to its outer regions via the mainstream media. Anyone who played the game “telephone” as a child knows that messages usually encounter static as they travel from one person to the next, finally losing their luster and becoming freakish giants of little meaning or substance by the time they reach their intended target. Still, base underlings propagate these loaded words into social settings and family gatherings throughout the country, often inverting their meaning by denying or reinterpreting historical fact, as they relay personal problems in the context of government intervention.

While discussing the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor, I recently had an encounter with a person who withheld support for the judge, fearing that Sotomayor might uphold abortion “law” if confirmed. Of course, the government never passed a law making abortion legal, and it actually passed laws to ban the practice instead. However, Roe v. Wade’s significance is that the case interpreted those laws barring abortion to be unconstitutional. Still, regardless of the case’s historical context, most conservative Republicans seem to agree that the case allowed women a private right to choose if they wanted to have an abortion. In this context, the term “judicial activism” simply implies that judges have been wrongly upholding that decision since 1973. It could be more accurately argued, though, that judges have actually been rightly using Roe v. Wade as precedence to guide future decisions.

In Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, the judge explained that the federal court system is constitutionally bound to follow the policy of “stare decisis,” which determines that court decisions must stand by precedent, or acts, decisions, and cases that serve as guides for subsequent situations. Landmark cases like Roe v. Wade serve as precedent for future cases that come before the Supreme Court, and logic dictates that the longer each precedent stands, the more difficult the burden will be on the court to find just cause for reversing it. In fact, this is extremely difficult to do since lawsuits that seek to reverse decisions, which previously set precedence, need to challenge the illegality or unconstitutional merit of laws already determined to be unconstitutional. Ultimately, precedence sets a very high standard that federal judges must use and, contrary to political rhetoric coming from the right, acts that covertly seek to reverse it should be more regarded as attempts to “legislate from the bench” than acts seeking to uphold it.

While nervously stumbling through a nearly 20 minute speech at a press conference in Alaska last week, Sarah Palin officially announced that she will resign from her post as governor in the coming weeks. Despite spewing a hodgepodge of approximately 3,000 words at a news media tasked with deciphering her language, I am hard-pressed to find a coherent quote from Palin that successfully summarizes her reasoning behind the decision.

Fidgeting through the exchange, her reasons for leaving involve (prepare yourself) energy independence, politics, media, federal stimulus money, “frivolous” accusations of ethics violations, wounded soldiers, and her family’s encouragement to positively effect change via outside endeavors. Palin stressed the latter point on several occasions, also arguing that her lame duck status would only influence further squandering of Alaska’s time and resources. The governor is not interested in politics as usual, she said, and her time would be better spent pushing the politics of change from outside the state of Alaska.

So, there you have it. Painfully cryptic yet fairly obvious evidence that Sarah Palin is positioning herself for a 2012 shot at the presidency. Given that Palin’s name surfaces whenever the media seeks confirmation on who will take the lead of her downtrodden party, the entire situation seems best suited for the likes of one Karl Rove. Could it be that he paid Palin a visit and offered free grammar and public speaking lessons in exchange for a White House bid? After suffering through 20 minutes of rambling political innuendo and offensive posturing, I’m 99.9% certain that we have not heard or seen the last of Sarah Palin, and her run from the governor’s mansion will likely lead to a more significant run for the highest office in the land.

In the late nineties, Karl Rove presented another governor, George W. Bush of Texas, with a proposition. He would lead the former alcoholic, average student, lackluster business and oil man, and lame duck governor to the White House based primarily on two overarching pre-requisites … Bush was the son of a former president and an evangelical Christian. Rove, a master of manipulation, understood that Bush could carry middle America with the proper motivation and the right message. Today, the popularity of Palin among conservative Christians reveals a renewed opportunity that could allot Rove a second shot at the White House.

Would it work this time around? If our history is any indicator, Rove would certainly have a chance at success, and it would be unwise not to act. As any good propagandist knows, people with little power also have short attention spans. Rove demonstrated his understanding of this tenet when he brought back some of America’s most loathed and controversial figureheads from the Regan era including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. So, it would not surprise me to see controversial figureheads from the Bush cabinet pop up in a 2012 Palin administration, especially Condoleezza Rice or Alberto Gonzales.

In 2000, a bumbling George Bush charmed and cheated his way into the presidency by appealing to the proud sense of inner ignorance embodied by his constituency’s base. Sarah Palin symbolizes that same spirit of hypocritical moral ambiguity, and it seems safe to assume that Karl Rove might envision the same feat in her that he did in George Bush. All of us can recite that timeless idiom from Texas … or is it Tennessee, “Fool me once, shame on … shame on you. Fool me … you can’t get fooled again.” Well, when the time comes, I certainly hope that Sarah Palin’s opponents, Barack Obama among them, are fully prepared to take on the forces of Rovian rhetoric that fooled us once, stopping Palin and her morally-favored family unit in its tracks and preventing them from fooling us again.

You try to avoid it as much as possible. You change the channel to another program or record the one you’re watching just to have the ability to fast forward through the commercials later. You watch cable, or maybe wait for the DVD’s release. As a last resort, you mute the live program and engage your friend, family member, or significant other in conversation while setting your internal clock to two minutes.

Deep down, we all know that inside those dimmed, artificially lit corridors of the marketing department that contains the pusher poised to sell their next ad space to the highest bidder, it’s not really a product they’re pushing, it’s you … and that’s not very cool at all. Still, sometimes an ad comes along that grips your psyche and actually solicits feelings of admiration and respect.

Guilt usually follows, along with fantastical images of some vibrant young intern fulfilling a secret goal to use advertising as a medium for unearthing hidden or forgotten cultural gems. In your head, it’s sort of an advertising coup, where a marketing intern conspires a clever ruse unbeknownst to his or her culturally devoid superiors and successfully surfaces or resurfaces iconic works of musical art to the fresh ears of millions. All the while, convincing their client that it’s the perfect supplement to their silly slogan.

Sure, I know it’s a dream and it doesn’t really happen that way, but it’s my way of justifying an industry that primarily drives profit through means of deception and manipulating people’s emotions. Regardless, some ads are simply worth their weight in BS, and here are five that made me sit back and say, “The song I just heard in that commercial was pure bliss to my eardrums, and makes me want to go outside and offer free hugs in the street.”

5. Porcelain – Advertised in a car commercial, I think? Moby absorbed a lot of heat for this, especially among his most loyal fans, after taking a firm political stand against the clutch of corporate interests. As I recall, he justified the use of ‘Porcelain’ in the ad with arguments that its revenue would supplement his cause, aiding in education and creating awareness about corporate greed and corruption.

4. Big Rock Candy Mountain – Okay, this composition didn’t compel me into the streets in song, but the ad was unforgettable and the tune was a familiar ditty. Burger King had me completely stumped after seeing this one, with Hootie and the Blowfish’s Darius Rucker decked out in full psychedelic cowboy garb, guitar in hand, and strumming an alternate version of a song made more famous on the ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou’ soundtrack than in this commercial. Still, I couldn’t help but think it was a clever nod.

3. Daydreamin’ – Another psychedelic manifestation, this song worked its way into a mobile phone ad and gave me an instant sense of deja vous. I never got to experience the late sixties, but if I had, this is how it would sound, and we have Lupe Fiasco and Jill Scott to thank for covering a track originally recorded by Wallace Connection at Abbey Road Studios in 1968.

2. Ain’t Got No, I Got Life – If you’re not familiar with Nina Simone, it’s high time to jump on iTunes and secure a collection of her music. The ardent impresario of jazz vocalists implants within her listeners a sort of history of the human soul. I was already familiar with her art through the musings of rappers like Mos Def, Talib Kweli and Common, and it took no time for me to recognize her distinguished tone after hearing it in a dairy ad in England. Something tells me that the “High Priestess of Soul” would not be too keen on her music being put to commercial use. She took a hard-lined position in the civil rights movement, and left the United States shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. Lovely Day – Sorry Gap, but I haven’t stepped foot inside your store, immediately making a bee line for any corner where an employee would not find me, in over XXL number of years. Still, I have to give you credit for introducing me to this song, or at least the remix. Up to this point, the only Bill Withers tune that I could correctly identify was ‘Lean On Me,’ and that had more to do with Club Nuveau. I derived great pleasure whenever your happy dancers graced the screen to the smooth stylings of Mr. Withers, and I quickly familiarized myself with his music thereafter. Thanks.