If writers, who lasso injustice and give light to justice, lift up our standards of fair play, then on January 31st, the nation suffered a genuine decline. For Molly Ivins lost her seven year battle with cancer and joined what her friend Bill Moyers called “that great Purgatory of Journalists in the Sky.”
Author and columnist syndicated in 400 newspapers, Austin, Texas-based Molly Ivins skewered pompous politicians, raked over corporate criminals and spotlighted the struggles of regular folks against the repressions and maraudings of the Big Boys and their Big Power.
It is a tribute to Molly that the various columns written in her praise each presented a different side of this remarkable Texas maverick and satirist.
New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, who teaches economics at Princeton, wrote of “her extraordinary prescience on the central political issue of our time” – the invasion and occupation of Iraq. She warned about the risks some five months before Bush took the U.S.A and its soldiers into this deepening quagmire and its boomerang impact. She warned about the dangers of “‘the peace’ which sure looks like a quagmire,” in January, July and October of 2003.
Krugman continues: “So Molly Ivins – who didn’t mingle with the great and famous, didn’t have sources high in the administration, and never claimed special expertise on national security or the Middle East – got almost everything right.” Meanwhile, he wrote, the specialists got almost everything wrong. The difference? “Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver. The administration’s exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious.”
In an article on CommonDreams.org, people’s historian Harvey Wasserman covers Molly as a “doer.” It was as if she lived the Chinese proverb – “To know and not act is not to know.”
Here is Wasserman:
“She puts her heart and soul where her convictions are. She’s fought tooth and nail for The Texas Observer and whatever other worthwhile publications there are that can muster an audience in the Lone Star State. She’s worked with the great Jim Hightower in his climb to elected office. She supports candidates. She goes out of her way. She works hard. She makes her presence felt wherever she thinks it’ll do some good, no matter what the personal cost.”
John Nichols, who writes for The Nation and the Madison, Wisconsin Capitol Times had this to say:
“The warmest-hearted populist ever to pick up a pen with the purpose of calling the rabble to the battlements, Ivins understood that change came only when some citizen in some off-the-map town passed a petition, called a Congressman or cast an angry vote to throw the bums out.” Nichols reminded his readers that it was Molly Ivins who first alerted the country to Presidential candidate, George W. Bush with her bestselling book – Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush (Random House, 2000) and went on a nationwide tour to punctuate her accurate, unauthorized history of the man.
A few months ago, she and Nichols launched a boomlet behind Bill Moyers for President. They received a flood of excited, supportive messages. Wouldn’t that be a fine living memorial were Moyers to carry his knowledge, experience and humanity at least through the Democratic primary season?
A longer reach into the future would be to establish summer journalism internships, associated with her Texas Observer, for aspiring young journalists and journalism students.
The following words by Molly can inspire and guide the interns:
“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 you how much fun it was.”
I sure hope that your progressive well-to-do friends will do you this honor, Molly, on behalf of the much larger numbers of people who would benefit from those great young journalists carrying your irrepressible spirit forward.
Nader is opposed to big insurance companies, "corporate welfare," and the "dangerous convergence of corporate and government power." While consumer advocate/environmentalist Ralph Nader has virtually no chance of winning the White House, he has been taken quite seriously on the campaign trail.Indeed, he poses the greatest threat to Sen. John Kerry. Democrats fear that Nader will be a spoiler, as he was in the 2000 election, when he took more than 97,000 votes in Florida. Bush won Florida by just 537 votes. The win gave Bush the election. Nader, an independent candidate, who also ran in 1992 and 1996, is on the ballot in 33 states, including Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, and New Mexico—tough battleground states. Kerry stands a chance of losing those vital states if Nader siphons away the votes of Democrats. President Bush and Kerry have been in a statistical dead heat in nationwide polls, and votes for Nader could well tip the balance in favor of Bush.Many Kerry supporters contend that a vote for Nader is in reality a vote for Bush and have made concerted efforts to persuade Nader to throw his support behind the Democratic candidate. Nader, however, has held fast to his convictions that the two candidates are nearly indistinguishable and are pawns of big business.Designing Cars for Everything but SafetyNader was born in Winsted, Connecticut, on Feb. 27, 1934 to Lebanese immigrants Nathra and Rose Nader. Nathra ran a bakery and restaurant. As a child, Ralph played with David Halberstam, who\'s now a highly regarded journalist.Nader with Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter outside of Jimmy Carter\'s home on August 7, 1976, discussing Consumer Protection. (Source/AP) Nader graduated magna cum laude from Princeton in 1955 and from Harvard Law School in 1958. As a student at Harvard, Nader first researched the design of automobiles. In an article titled "The Safe Car You Can\'t Buy," which appeared in the Nation in 1959, he concluded, "It is clear Detroit today is designing automobiles for style, cost, performance, and calculated obsolescence, but not—despite the 5,000,000 reported accidents, nearly 40,000 fatalities, 110,000 permanent disabilities, and 1,500,000 injuries yearly—for safety."Early Years as a Consumer AdvocateAfter a stint working as a lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut, Nader headed for Washington, where he began his career as a consumer advocate. He worked for Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Department of Labor and volunteered as an adviser to a Senate subcommittee that was studying automobile safety.In 1965, he published Unsafe at Any Speed, a best-selling indictment of the auto industry and its poor safety standards. He specifically targeted General Motors\' Corvair. Largely because of his influence, Congress passed the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Nader was also influential in the passage of 1967\'s Wholesome Meat Act, which called for federal inspections of beef and poultry and imposed standards on slaughterhouses, as well as the Clean Air Act and the Freedom of Information Act."Nader\'s Raiders" and Modern Consumer MovementNader\'s crusade caught on, and swarms of activists, called "Nader\'s Raiders," joined his modern consumer movement. They pressed for protections for workers, taxpayers, and the environment and fought to stem the power of large corporations.In 1969 Nader established the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, which exposed corporate irresponsibility and the federal government\'s failure to enforce regulation of business. He founded Public Citizen and U.S. Public Interest Research Group in 1971, an umbrella for many other such groups.A prolific writer, Nader\'s books include Corporate Power in America (1973), Who\'s Poisoning America (1981), and Winning the Insurance Game (1990).
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