Remembering Molly Ivins…

On discovering yesterday morning that Molly Ivins had passed away the previous day, I felt a pang of great loss and defeat. Always one of my favorite reads, her columns were not only entertaining but made sense. Ivins put into words what I think most of us know in the back of our consciousness somewhere. And she was unabashed in her social critique, a quality that I much admire. In a column she wrote shortly after last November’s election, she describes herself best to be a populist, interested in the people:

"Now, from my hours spent battered and half brain-dead listening to the fatuous, self-important commentators of our nation, I learn that the people did not elect liberals to Congress last week. Nope, they elected populists! Well, gosh all hemlock. Populist! I am one.

Who knew? I thought all said I was chopped liver. Populist. Like Tom Frank of What's the Matter With Kansas? fame. Jim Hightower. We can even draw our lines of political genealogy -- via Ralph Yarborough and Bob Elkhart.

A populist is pretty much for the people and generally in this case exactly the same as a liberal -- we just put the em-pha-sis on a different syl-la-ble. We also tend to be more fun. We do not vote to hurt average Americans, even if the corporate payoff is really big. Even if it's just a little bit -- like the bankruptcy bill.

We tend to focus less on social issues and more on who's gettin' taken and who's doin' the taking. In my opinion, Americans are not getting taken by the Republican Party. They are getting taken by Large Corporations that bought and own the Republican Party."

Yes, I think Molly Ivins was the true definition of a populist. I am saddened that there is one less out there to care about what happens to the rest of us and speak out. Please read her work, it is an important part of the American lexicon.