Music and Cats

“The best way to get the sons of bitches is to make people laugh at them.”

Texas has lost another of its fine liberal women. Sharp-witted, silver-tongued Molly Ivins died yesterday, after a seven-year battle with breast cancer.

In January, Ivins had two new columns published. She was starting, as she put it, “an old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war” in Iraq. On January 8, she wrote:

The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck — so it’s up to us. You and me, Bubba.

I don’t know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it’s time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.

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 send 20,0000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week.

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?

It’s a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there. Since 1215, civil authorities have been obligated to tell people with what they are charged if they’re arrested. This administration has done away with rights first enshrined in the Magna Carta nearly 800 years ago, and we’ve let them do it.

Three days later, her column concluded with this call to protest:

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. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there… We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!”

This was Molly Ivins’ final column.

Thank you, Molly, for your truth, your passion and your wit. Thank you for having your own fiesty, colorful, eloquent way with this language of ours. Thank you for making me think, for making me cry, and most of all, in these difficult political times, thank you for making me laugh.

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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