Tuesday, August 30, 2016

And We Still Miss Molly Ivins

I don’t have an agenda, I don’t have a program. I’m not a communist or a socialist. I guess I’m a left-libertarian and a populist, and I believe in the Bill of Rights the way some folks believe in the Bible.

Friends, soulwise, these are trying times. Now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of our country, and it won’t help if you all cower in places like Madison and the Upper West Side, having hot fantods over the approach of fascism. To the barricades, team. And for Lord’s sake, don’t leave your sense of humor behind.

-- Molly Ivins
(contains some good quotes)
For a while there, I thought the main reason she wrote for The Progressive was because we let her swear. But there were others: She knew we needed humor to lighten up our pages, and that our readers needed humor to lighten up their lives.

She believed in the power of laughter. She knew it could keep you from getting depressed or burning out. And she knew it could deflate the abusers of power.

Of the Reagan Administration, she said, “Half of it was under average—the other half was under indictment.”

Of Pat Buchanan’s culture war speech at the 1992 Republican convention, she said, “It read better in the original German.”

  Progressive

"Wake me when impending egalitarianism is a problem. In the meantime, oligarchy is eating our ass, our dreams, our country, our heritage, our democracy, our justice, and our tax code.” -- Molly Ivins



August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007


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