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Molly Ivins
by
Jim Hightower
We
progressives, we Americans and anyone, anywhere who loves liberty and justice
have lost a true, trusted friend.
Molly Ivins died recently.
Yet,
Molly was more than a person. She
is a spirit a big, boisterous, joyful, irreverent, hell-raising, fun-loving,
muckracking, uninhibited, maverick spirit.
As
such, she
lives.
I
first encountered her in 1970, when she exploded from the pages of the Observer
like a supernova. She was full of wit, smarts, and sass, grabbing readers by
their hearts, minds, gonads, and funnybones. Damn, I thought, no human can write
like that! She could knock you over and lift you up in the same sentence. It was
her spirit coming at
you.
For
forty years or so, Molly, wrote, spoke, taught, and agitated all across America,
rallying progressive souls with the expressive force of that spirit to stand a
little taller, get a little noisier, help whack some pompous plutocrat or
asinine autocrat right in the snout then go have some beers and an uproarious
laugh.
In my
years of knowing her, I found her to have five passions: (1) good, solid, and
brave investigative Journalism (with a capital J); (2) the Bill of Rights I
think she spoke to more ACLU meetings than any president of that organization;
(3) progressive politics, aggressively populist, putting the corporate structure
and the money powers right in our sights; (4) underdogs; and (5) the merry
combination of good friends, good drink, and good fun (she orchestrated many a
wild game of charades in her home, playing it as a
full-body,
contact
sport).
In my
last dinner with her, Molly turned to me and said out of the side of her mouth:
This has been a hell of a ride. She meant the months of trying to stay atop
the cancer bucking within her, but it also sums up her 62 years in this life.
Molly came to us as a spirit, lived with us as such
and has now left us with
that her spirit. She did her part and our happy task is to carry on the fiery,
loving, laughing essence of
Molly.
Copyright 2008 by Jim Hightower &
Associates
This essay is herein reprinted with the author's
permission.
Posted March 17,
2008
URL:
www.thecitizenfsr.org
SM 2000-2011
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