No more blogging today. No more news, no more TV, no more Republicans telling me that the only way for my country to prosper is to give ever more to the rich and ever less to the poor, to starve any government program that dares to help education, healthcare, the needy, or the elderly, and to base our role in the world solely on a mirage of military dominance so breathtakingly misguided that it would make Julius Caesar himself choke on his porridge. What is it that drives otherwise sane people to believe that these are the things that will make America great in the 21st century? Maybe I'll be back tomorrow. Maybe not. In either case, have a nice Memorial Day.

Newt Gingrich and his "Contract on America" were only one step behind George Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft. The right wing now dominates this country. Liberal/progressive thought takes the back seat.

As criminal defense lawyers, we toil every day in the trenches known as courtrooms. We can't give up. We remember to stand erect (male lawyers would say "we puff up our chests,") and we repeat to ourselves, "I am proud to be a criminal defense lawyer," and we go in there and fight the good fight. We lose more than we win, but we know the scales of justice function like a pendulum, and someday, the scales again will tilt in our favor. Until then, staying silent is not an option.

Every person we fight for, no matter how heinous their alleged crime, is a human being. A human being with the right to dignity and with a past and a present, a person who can claim at least one person who loves him or her unconditionally, even if it's only their mother. We stay in the trenches and we fight for that client's ounce of dignity and spark of humanity.

The message here: Get out of bed. We don't have the luxury of being depressed. There is too much work to do. We have battles to fight and wars to win. We need you, Kevin, and those feeling the same way, to recognize there is power in numbers, and if you all go to sleep instead of hanging in here to fight the good fight with us, then all of us have lost.

Kevin, take Memorial Day off from blogging as you planned. But come back Tuesday will a renewed sense of purpose and spirt: We will win. We are fighting for good and what's right. We may not win today, or even tomorrow. But when that pendulum swings the other way, we will be victorious. Never give up. Each of us has a role to play and all of our voices are needed.

John Ashcroft is a non-elected official with pious, radical-right views who is now in the position to impose his wackiness on the rest of us. We can take him out--through the electoral process. We just have to get out the vote and defeat Bush. Please, do anything except stand mute.