How many of you here would love to have the opportunity to look George W. Bush and company in the eye and just say “Stick It”? I know I sure would. I guess the producers of “Boston Legal” decided they would too. Funny, I keep meaning to watch this show. I have a couple of times and really liked it. I missed this particular episode though. My son sent me an email bringing it to my attention. I was blown away. You can view the clip of Stick It here. I just wanted to stand up and cheer but sat at my computer watching it in tears.
For those of you that cannot support video here is the closing arguement so eloquently done.
“Boston Legal to the Rescue
Two weeks ago, in the “Stick It” episode of ABC’s Boston Legal,
actor James Spader, as attorney Alan Shore, delivered a speech one
might pray someone would have the balls to deliver to Congress, a
speech the likes of which I’ve never heard on television, and it’s
pathetic that it has to come out of the mouth of a fictional
character to get aired on a network. How the hell did this get past
network censors?
A woman has been accused of not paying her income tax. Her
attorney doesn’t know how to defend her since she admits she’s guilty,
but he finally rises to the occasion, delivering the following
summation to the jury…
Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out not
to be true, I expected the American people to rise up. They didn’t.
Then when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed
that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we
kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture,
I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood
mute. Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called
terrorist suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or
even the right to confront their accusers, certainly we would never
stand for that. We did. and now it’s been discovered the executive
branch has been conducting massive illegal domestic surveillance on
its own citizens, you and me, and I at least consoled myself that
finally, finally, the American people will have had enough. Evidently
we haven’t. In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the
message is we’re okay with it all, torture, warrentless search and
seizures, illegal wire tappings, prison without a fair trial or any
trial, war on false pretenses, we as a citizenry are apparently not
offended. There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact,
there is no clear indication that young people even seem to notice.
Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think that instead of
withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way,
made a placard and demonstrated at a presidential or vice-presidential
appearance, but we’ve lost the right to that as well. The secret
service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control, and in
effect criminalize protests. Stop for a second and try to fathom that.
At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a
supportive t-shirt, you can be there, if you’re wearing or carrying
something in protest, you can be removed. This, in the United States
of America. This in the United States of America! Is Melissa Hughes
the only one embarrassed.(Shaw walks over to the witness chair and
sits down)
Judge: Mr. Shore, that’s a chair for witnesses only.
Shore: Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.
Judge: Please get out of the chair.
Shore: Actually, I’m sick and tired.
Judge: Get out of the chair.
Shore: (getting out of chair) and what I’m most sick and tired of
is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is
running things, he or she is labeled un-American.
Prosecutor: Evidently it’s speech time.
Shore: And speech in this country is free, you hack. Free for me,
free for you, free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government
and say stick it.
Prosecutor: Objection!
Shore: I object to government abusing its power to squash the
constitutional freedoms of its citizenry, and God forbid anybody
challenge it, they’re smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an
American, Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an
American!!
Judge: Mr. Shore, unless you have anything new and fresh to say
please sit down. You’ve breached the decorum of my court room with all
this hooting.
Shore: Last night I went to bed with a book, not as much fun as a
29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The
year was 1952. He said, “The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear
in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister
threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed
under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism.” Today, it’s the cloak of
anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, “It’s far easier to fight for
principles then to live up to them.” I know we are all afraid. but the
Bill of Rights? We have to live up to that. We simply must. That’s all
Melissa Hughes is trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask
you now to go back to that room and speak for her.”
Isn’t it time we all said “Stick It” to the fascists that have held our country captive with fear for these past five years? What are willing to do to stop the insanity? What lengths will we go to to put an end to the warmongers drum beat? Is it time to say enough you Mother Fuckers? Or, god forbid, is it too late?
