Molly Ivins died today. As John Nichols of The Nation says, she was "the warmest-hearted populist ever to pick up a pen with the purpose of calling the rabble to the battlements."
She was a joy to read, not only because I agreed with just about everything she said, but because she said it with such a delicious mixture of passion and humor. She was renowned for her shoot-from-the-hip Texas-style zingers, and I've long marveled how the same notoriously right-wing state that gave us George W. Bush and Tom Delay (for starters) also produced a stellar lineup of progressives like Molly, Bill Moyers, John Henry Faulk, Jim Hightower, and Barbara Jordan.
From her column of January 7:
"This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to increase U.S. troop levels in this hellhole by up to 20,000, as he reportedly will soon announce.
She was a joy to read, not only because I agreed with just about everything she said, but because she said it with such a delicious mixture of passion and humor. She was renowned for her shoot-from-the-hip Texas-style zingers, and I've long marveled how the same notoriously right-wing state that gave us George W. Bush and Tom Delay (for starters) also produced a stellar lineup of progressives like Molly, Bill Moyers, John Henry Faulk, Jim Hightower, and Barbara Jordan.
From her column of January 7:
"This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to increase U.S. troop levels in this hellhole by up to 20,000, as he reportedly will soon announce.
"What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn't supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny?
"Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?"
From her last column, of January 11:
"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war"...
"We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'"
During her losing battle with cancer, she was quoted as saying,
"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."
During her losing battle with cancer, she was quoted as saying,
"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."
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