Lonely Activists

Click the image above to see a larger version

We activists certainly lost a great mentor with the passing of Molly Ivins. Her syndicated column was a breath of fresh air in our local Rockford IL paper. As I stood on a street corner with my peace signs, I knew that Molly appreciated my efforts. We never draw anyone famous to our rallies, just teachers, farmers, mothers and librarians.

Thank you Molly for knowing our efforts were worthwhile. We will carry on for you in IL, VT, OH, WA, NH, and the rest of the small places around America.

Remembering Molly Ivins
John Nichols Washington Correspondent, The Nation

Molly Ivins always said she wanted to write a book about the lonely experience of East Texas civil rights campaigners to be titled No One Famous Ever Came. While the television screens and newspapers told the stories of the marches, the legal battles and the victories of campaigns against segregation in Alabama and Mississippi, Ivins recalled, the foes of Jim Crow laws in the region where she came of age in the 1950s and '60s often labored in obscurity without any hope that they would be joined on the picket lines by Nobel Peace Prize winners, folk singers, Hollywood stars or senators.

And Ivins loved those righteous strugglers all the more for their willingness to carry on.

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. -------

Her readers cheered that November 9, 2006, column, as they did everything Molly wrote. And the cheers came loudest from those distant corners of Kansas and Mississippi where, often, her words were the only dissents that appeared in the local papers during the long period of diminished discourse following 9/11. For the liberal faithful in Boise and Biloxi and Beaumont, she was a lifeline--

For the people in the places where no one famous ever came, Molly Ivins arrived a couple of times a week in the form of columns that told the local rabble-rousers that they were the true patriots, that they damn well better keep pitching fits about the war and the Patriot Act and economic inequality, and that they should never apologize for defending "those highest and best American ideas" contained in the Bill of Rights---

She also told them, even when she was battling cancer and Karl Rove, that they should relish the lucky break of their consciences and their conflicts. Speaking truth to power is the best job in any democracy, she explained. It took her to towns across this great yet battered land to say: "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."

P.S. from Renee: Thanks to floridagal for pointing us to Howard Dean's remarks about Molly Ivins (I looked myself, but hadn't been able to find them). And be sure to see Charlie's comment here.

Also, this post at Firedoglake has links to all the posts they have done on "Traitorgate" (the Valerie Plame leak).

And puddle has a Tanner update on her blog.

Alternate link for comments