Winning Progressive

The contrast between President Obama and Mitt “Severe Conservative” Romney could not have been any clearer than it was this week.  On Wednesday, President Obama continued his strong record on LGBT issues by taking the morally and politically right position and endorsing marriage equality.   Romney, meanwhile, ended his week with today’s commencement address to Liberty University, a school that forbids openly gay or lesbian students from attending.   Liberty University was founded by Jerry Falwell, a Southern Baptist televangelist who previously ran the misleadingly named “Moral Majority” and who had a long history of making bigoted statements and taking controversial stands on issues relating to LGBT rights, religion, women’s rights, racial discrimination, etc. While Falwell died in 2007, Liberty University is now run by his son, Jerry Falwell Jr., and continues to operate in his father’s tradition.

Romney’s commencement address consisted mostly of platitudes about faith and religion, along with a shout-out to the fast food chain Chick-fil-A, whose billionaire evangelical founder was also speaking.  But there were three notable things about Romney’s speech.  First is that Romney confirmed his opposition to marriage equality.  The second is that Romney said nothing about Liberty University’s discriminatory policy against LGBT students.  And the third is that Romney was effusive in his praise of Jerry Falwell and Liberty University, stating:

In his 73 years of life, Dr. Falwell left a big mark.  For nearly five decades he shared that walk with his good wife Macel.  It’s wonderful to see her today.  The calling Jerry answered was not an easy one.  Today we remember him as a courageous and big-hearted minister of the Gospel who never feared an argument, and never hated an adversary.  Jerry deserves the tribute he would have treasured most, as a cheerful, confident champion for Christ.
. . . .

Maybe the most confident step Jerry ever took was to open the doors of this school 41 years ago.
 
He believed that Liberty might become one of the most respected Christian universities anywhere on earth.  And so it is today.
 
He believed, even when the first graduating class consisted of 13 students, that year after year young Christians would be drawn to such a university in ever-greater numbers.  And here you are.
 
Today, thanks to what you have gained here, you leave Liberty with conviction and confidence as your armor. You know what you believe.  You know who you are.  And you know Whom you will serve.  Not all colleges instill that kind of confidence, but it will be among the most prized qualities from your education here.  Moral certainty, clear standards, and a commitment to spiritual ideals will set you apart in a world that searches for meaning.

The press, of course, is playing the story of Romney speaking at Liberty University as another effort by Romney to court conservative evangelical voters. But if Romney is willing to publicly tie himself to the Falwell legacy by speaking at Liberty University in an effort to attract evangelical voters, the important question is how much of the agenda of Liberty University and Jerry Falwell does Romney agree with. For example:

- Does Romney support Liberty University’s ban on openly-gay or lesbian students? If so, what other institutions or organizations does Romney believe should be allowed to discriminate against LGBT Americans simply because of their orientation?

- Does Romney agree with Liberty University’s doctrinal statement that “human beings were directly created, not evolved”?

- Which of the following Jerry Falwell statements does Romney agree with?

* “I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we don’t have public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them.” – source

* With regards to the September 11 attacks – “And, I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”  – source  -  While Falwell offered a weak apology soon after this statement, he later said essentially the same thing

* “I listen to feminists and all these radical gals … These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it, and they’re mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They’re sexist. They hate men; that’s their problem.” – source

* With regards to climate change – “This so-called fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification.” – source

* “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers … AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.’” – source

Today’s Republican Party has been taken over by reactionary extremists, such as the followers of Jerry Falwell. As we’ve explained previously, Mitt Romney has plainly decided that rather than try to bring the Republican Party back to some semblance of rationality, he is more than willing to cheer on the crazy in a desperate attempt to become President. With Romney’s commencement address at Liberty University, we have seen yet another example of the type of severely conservative viewpoints Romney would promote, rather than stand up to, if he were to become President.

(By NCrissie B)

This is the second of three posts looking at Brian Miller and Mike Lapham’s new book The Self-Made Myth. In the first post, I considered how the “self-made man” myth of the Horatio Alger stories morphed into the “makers vs. takers” meme of Ayn Rand and her followers. Today we see stories that illustrate what Miller and Lapham call “The Built-Together Reality.” In the third post, I conclude with how “The Build-Together Reality” calls for different policies to support innovation and entrepreneurship.

Brian Miller is the executive director of United for a Fair Economy. Over the past 20 years, Miller has worked to build cross-class alliances of citizens from all walks of life – business leaders, workers, family farmers, seniors, students, and others – to work together for change, promoting healthy communities and an economy that works for all Americans.
 Mike Lapham is the founding director of Responsible Wealth, a project of United for a Fair Economy. Responsible Wealth amplifies the voices of more than 700 progressive business leaders and other affluent individuals in public policy debates to promote progressive tax policy and greater corporate accountability in Congress, in the media, and in corporate boardrooms.

Peter Barnes – The Value of the Commons

Peter Barnes’ father was the son of immigrants. Like his father, Barnes attended New York City public schools before attending Harvard University. He worked in journalism for 15 years before opening “a socially responsible investment firm” called Working Assets. The firm began by offering credit cards and then telephone services, and is now Credo Mobile.

At one point, Barnes and his partners almost decided to make Working Assets a publicly-traded company. Although they decided to keep the firm private, simply exploring a public stock offering led Barnes to to a surprising discovery:

What we, the private shareholders, learned was that our business was worth a whole lot more as a public company than as a private company. What added this extra value? It wasn’t that we’d make more sales or profit – these numbers would be the same either way. The extra value came purely from the fact that our stock would be liquid – we could sell it to any Tom, Dick, or Harriet, any day of the week. According to our investment banker, liquidity alone would add 30 percent to the value of our stock.

It seems counter-intuitive that a publicly-traded company would be worth more – almost one-third more – than a privately-owned company with the same balance sheet. Yet it makes sense. Buying into a privately-owned company usually requires a large investment and a long-term commitment. If the company goes under, its owners will rarely be able to get even a portion of their money out. But anyone can buy into a publicly-owned company, often for only a few hundred or a few thousand dollars, and they can sell that stock the next day if they change their minds. More important, if they sense the company is failing, they can sell their stock and recoup at least some of their initial investment. That makes a publicly-traded company less risky, and more valuable, than if it were privately-owned.

Barnes’ own talent and hard work – nor even the combined talent and efforts of he and his partners – would not have added that value to his business. That 30% – another of the entrepreneurs Miller and Lapham interviewed estimated it as high as 50% of a publicly-traded company’s value – exists in what economists call the commons, resources and institutions that are shared by all. But the value of our financial markets is not merely liquidity.

Amy Domini – The Value of Regulation

Amy Domini’s mother was a public school teacher. Her father owned an eggplant processing plant in Connecticut. She wanted to work in the financial industry and, with the help of her grandfather, got a job as a clerk in a brokerage firm. There were almost no female brokers in the industry at the time, but Domini arrived early at work and for meetings, did more than was asked, and rose through the secretarial ranks. Finally she asked her boss if she could take the training to work as a broker, and to her surprise he agreed. She later learned that four women had just sued Merrill Lynch for gender discrimination, and realized that case may have colored her boss’ decision.

In the mid-70s, Domini explained, stock ideas came “over a squawk box from some smart person in New York,” and brokers would then pass them on to clients. But she noticed something as she made those calls: some clients were offended when she called to offer them stock in weapons manufacturers, or tobacco companies, or other activities that conflicted with their values. So Domini added a new question to her call script: “Is there something you don’t want me to talk about, something you have deep commitments to, or something you don’t want to be an investor in?”

To her amazement, almost everyone said “Yes.” Although their preferences differed, almost every client wanted to avoid some industry or another. She began developing and teaching classes in Ethical Investing, wrote a groundbreaking book on the topic, and eventually founded Domini Social Investments. She quickly recognized that her clients needed reliable information about the companies she began listing in her mutual fund, and found almost all of that available in the reams of disclosure forms required by federal regulations:

I could not have started my business without federally mandated disclosures. For instance, if I am trying to evaluate a company, I look to the company’s own reporting. [...]

How many people died in the workplace last year? That is federally mandated disclosure, so that is available to me in most cases. Are there any environmental liabilities? I look to the 10K, which must by law reveal this (although it is admittedly under-reported). Further, the Toxic Release Inventory [is a] federally mandated data source.[...]

Not only do my investors know that the product I offer has robust federal oversight, but the data I rely upon to create that product does as well.

The Value of Government

This transparency – a direct product of federally-regulated audits and filings – adds to the value of our financial markets. When people lose trust in that transparency, that value evaporates … as happened after the Enron scandal in 2001 and even more painfully in 2008 when the housing bubble exposed the risks of arcane derivatives.

Miller and Lapham offer several other stories of entrepreneurs who acknowledge the importance of other hard and soft infrastructure in the commons: roads, public schools and college financial aid, water and other utilities, food safety rules, intellectual property and contract laws, scientific research, and of course the internet. But I found the interviews of Barnes, Domini, and others who talked about regulation to be both the most surprising and the most compelling. Far from “strangling the economy,” as conservatives so often complain, effective regulations create much of the wealth in our economy. We can measure that by what happens when a privately-held company goes public, and by what happens when key regulations are repealed or not enforced and people lose confidence in our markets.

No individual can claim credit for that 30-50% of our nation’s wealth that exists in the Built-Together Reality of our regulated markets. As Warren Buffett said, “If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru, you’ll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil.”

Acknowledging that Built-Together Reality has dramatic policy implications, which I’ll discuss in my next post.

(Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute (BPICampus.com))

(By NCrissie B)

Over my next three posts, I’ll be looking at Brian Miller and Mike Lapham’s new book The Self-Made Myth.  In this post we consider how the “self-made man” myth of the Horatio Alger stories morphed into the “makers vs. takers” meme of Ayn Rand and her followers. In the next post we’ll see stories that illustrate what Miller and Lapham call “The Built-Together Reality.” We’ll conclude with how “The Build-Together Reality” calls for different policies to support innovation and entrepreneurship.

Brian Miller is the executive director of United for a Fair Economy. Over the past 20 years, Miller has worked to build cross-class alliances of citizens from all walks of life – business leaders, workers, family farmers, seniors, students, and others – to work together for change, promoting healthy communities and an economy that works for all Americans.
 Mike Lapham is the founding director of Responsible Wealth, a project of United for a Fair Economy. Responsible Wealth amplifies the voices of more than 700 progressive business leaders and other affluent individuals in public policy debates to promote progressive tax policy and greater corporate accountability in Congress, in the media, and in corporate boardrooms.

Success, Morality, and Stories

Most Americans have heard of author Horatio Alger and his “rags to riches” stories of young men who made good through self-discipline and hard work. Alger was a Unitarian pastor and his books are morality stories. They were written to warn boys away from the vices Alger decried and toward the virtues Alger celebrated. Boys who strayed from the virtuous path came to ruin, while those who tied the line made good. In fact the “rags to riches” meme is a myth that grew around rather than within Alger’s stories. Few of his protagonists became wealthy. Instead they were hired into mostly low-level jobs that – coupled with their moral uprightness – were presented as the baseline for middle-class respectability.

Still, the persistent themes of his stories were that any young white man could escape poverty through hard work, and that success was based on individual merit and moral worth. Alger did not write about the lives of young men of color, and the women in his stories were temptresses to be avoided or victims to be rescued rather than persons who might achieve their own successes. Despite (or perhaps because of) their narrow scope, Alger’s stories came to define one version of the American Dream and remained popular until the Great Depression left such dreams in tatters.

Alger was a minister, not an economist. He neither gathered nor presented empirical data to support his thesis of success through individual virtue and merit. Yet his books embodied an American economic ethos because – as Miller and Lapham emphasize in their introduction – cultures are shaped by stories. The stories that supplanted Alger’s took the myth of success through individual virtue and merit to new extremes.

The World According to Rand

Born and educated in Russia, Ayn Rand visited the United States in 1925 and stayed. She moved to Hollywood and worked various studio jobs until 1940, when she and her husband volunteered to work for Republican presidential candidate Wendell Wilkie’s campaign. That work led to contacts with other laissez faire proponents, and in 1943 she wrote The Fountainhead. The book’s success brought her to New York City where she acquired a group of followers including future Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan. She led them in discussions of the philosophy she called objectivism, while writing her most famous work: Atlas Shrugged.

Atlas Shrugged is a story of wealthy industrialists, scientists, and artists besieged by a government intent on spreading their riches to the masses. They leave for a mountaintop hideaway, where they create an independent free economy that flourishes while the rest collapse into poverty and chaos. Where Alger portrayed any hardworking young man able to make good, Rand presents the masses as lacking the essential intelligence and vigor to create anything or maintain civilization without the guidance of the wealthy. As Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises wrote in a letter to her:

You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: You are inferior and all the improvements in your condition which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.

Like Atlas holding up the world, Rand portrays the wealthy as demigods upon whom the burden of civilization rests. They are, in Rep. Ryan’s parlance, the “makers” from whom the rest of us are merely “takers.”

Meet Your Makers

Miller and Lapham offer critical biographies of Donald Trump, H. Ross Perot, and the Koch brothers, each of whom is often portrayed as a “self-made man.” As Miller and Lapham show, Trump’s father used Federal Housing Authority programs to build his real estate business, and Trump himself relied on eminent domain rulings and bank bailouts to grow and sustain that enterprise. Perot’s business was built on state government contracts to administer Medicare and Medicaid.

The Koch brothers inherited a $300 million business from their father and their far flung holdings now include cattle grazing on and timber harvested from public lands, eminent domain rulings to build pipelines, and government subsidies to produce ethanol. They are also partners in a state-run fertilizer firm in Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela, a firm that receives millions in subsidies each year. Indeed working with socialist leaders is a Koch family tradition that began with their father, who got rich by launching the Russian oil industry for Josef Stalin.

And just this week Edward Conrad, former Bain Capital partner and fervent supporter of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, was profiled in the New York Times Magazine. Conrad’s forthcoming book Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong is virtually a tribute to the Randian worldview. The problem with our economy, Congrad says, is not that income inequality is too wide but that it is not wide enough. He argues – reasonably – that all of the easy business and technology problems have been solved and it is becoming harder to find successful new ideas. Conrad concludes – less reasonably – that the only solution is to offer ever greater rewards to the wealthy investors, who must sift through more new ideas to find fewer that succeed.

Conrad and other believers of the self-made myth ignore the “sidewalk ballet” of innovators who spark each others’ ideas, the workers who turn ideas into tangible goods and services, and the hard and soft infrastructure that enable those to meld and create wealth. In the Randian worldview, all of that wealth is created by those at the top, and any wealth that lands elsewhere was “stolen” from them.

This is what Rep. Ryan – an Ayn Rand acolyte himself – means when he speaks of “makers and takers.” Unless you are among the chosen few at the very top, “You are inferior and all the improvements in your condition which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.”

And anyone who argues otherwise is an “elitist snob.”

(Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute (BPICampus.com))

(Editor’s Note – With Vice President Biden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan both announcing their support for marriage equality, pressure is building on President Obama to do the same.  As such, we are reprinting below our open letter from last year to President Obama urging him to publicly support marriage equality.  Please send this or a similar letter to President Obama by clicking here, and urge your family and friends to do the same.)

Dear President Obama:

I write as a proud supporter to urge you to take a stand on the civil right issue of our time and to strongly and publicly support marriage equality.

Seven states have now recognized marriage equality, and Vice President Biden on Sunday noted his support for this common sense policy.  Even before these developments, many were asking where you are on this issue, and now the questions are piling up.

I strongly disagree with the critics who suggest that you not a friend of the LGBT community.  In fact, your Administration has done more to advance policies supporting LGBT equality than any other.  I and tens of millions of other Americans thank you for keeping your promise to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ending the legal defense of the indefensible “Defense of Marriage Act,” requiring all hospitals that accept Medicare or Medicaid to ensure equal visitation rights to LGBT Americans, extending employee benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, and lifting the HIV Entry Ban.  We still have a far ways to go to achieve full equality in the U.S., and I strongly believe that you are a friend and ally in that continuing struggle.

That being said, the statements from folks in your Administration that your position on marriage equality is “evolving” or that you are “grappling” with the issue simply do not cut it.  Having watched you answer questions about civil unions and marriage equality during the primary campaign for your 2004 U.S. Senate run, I believe that you have privately supported marriage equality for a long time now, as the delivery of your answers suggest that you didn’t find the distinctions you were offering for supporting civil unions but opposing marriage equality convincing.   But, regardless, now is the time for you to stand up on this issue for at least four reasons.

1. It is morally the right thing to do – Marriage equality is an issue of fundamental fairness.  As straight people, I was free to marry my spouse and you, President Obama, were free to marry Michelle with no impediment from the state or federal government.  But in most states, our fellow LGBT Americans are not allowed to make that ultimate commitment to the person they love.  As a result, LGBT Americans are not able to honor and proclaim their relationships in the same way that other Americans are, and LGBT Americans are denied access to the more than 1,000 legal rights that accompany marriage in the U.S.  Such unequal treatment is morally wrong, and should not continue in a country that prides itself on equal rights for all.

2. It is what our Democratic Party is about – For decades, our Democratic Party has proudly taken a strong leadership role in fighting for the laws and policies necessary to spread the benefits of freedom and equality to all Americans.  In 1948, Democratic President Harry Truman ordered the military desegregated.  In the early- to mid-1960s, Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson passed a series of civil rights acts that started to chip away at racial discrimination in housing, accommodations, voting rights, and other areas of society.  And Democratic leaders and activists have played leading roles in the fight for gender equality, the rights of workers, and disabled Americans.  Democrats have taken these steps because they are consistent with our fundamental belief that the benefits of society should accrue to all Americans, not just to a privileged or select few.  It is now time to recognize that such belief requires us to lead the fight for marriage equality, rather than to sit on the sidelines of this major civil rights issue.

3. You can be a great spokesperson for marriage equality – Your ability to communicate progressive ideals in compelling and convincing ways has always been clear.  From your 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, to the multitude of great speeches you made during the 2008 Presidential campaign, to your ringing endorsement of the progressive ideal of government in your speech on fiscal responsibility back in April 2011, your ability to communicate and persuade has never been in doubt.  That talent alone could add a lot to the fight for marriage equality.  In addition, you have a life story that supports the ideal of marriage equality.  Namely, your parents’ marriage in the early 1960s would have been illegal in many states in the U.S. because many states outlawed interracial marriage at the time.  Who better to fight for marriage equality now than a person who has gone from his parents’ marriage being illegal in many states, to running for and winning the race to be President of those same states?

4. It is a politically smart thing to do – While I am sure your aides have urged you to not take a stand on this issue in order to avoid alienating voters on this issue their political calculus is, frankly, wrong.   Polls show that opponents of gay marriage are now in the minority, with the four national polls showing support for marriage equality at over 50%.  A CNN poll from last year shows support for gay marriage at 55% among independents, and in the electoral battlegrounds of the Midwest and West, support is at 54% and 61%, respectively.  And, more importantly, your public support will help rally a progressive base that, rightly or wrongly, has raised concerns about how willing you are to stand up on our issues.  People who would vote based on the issue of gay marriage are almost certainly not going to vote for you regardless of what you do, while standing up in support of marriage equality now would help ensure that a well-organized group of progressives will be enthusiastic about fighting for your re-election.   We all know that the GOP is going to throw every dirty trick and slimy attack they can at you.   In such circumstances, having enthusiastic supports ready to get in the trenches to counteract those attacks is critical to victory.

In short, supporting marriage equality is the right thing to do morally and politically, would be invaluable to the movement for equality, and will help our party continue its long and proud tradition in favor of fairness and equality.  So, Mr. President, I urge you to continue the great track record you have on LGBT equality and fight for the civil rights issue of our time – marriage equality.

Sincerely,

Winning Progressive

President Obama speaks at VCU's Siegel Center in Richmond, Virginia. Photo credit: Josh Marks

By Josh Marks

President Barack Obama officially kicked off his 2012 re-election campaign on Saturday, May 5th with stops at Ohio State University in Columbus and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. It was significant that college students in swing states were targeted as young voters in closely contested states such as Ohio and Virginia could mean the difference between winning and losing.

President Obama has repeatedly made the case for upgrading America’s crumbling infrastructure, including the need for improved passenger train service such as high-speed rail, so it was fitting that I took the Amtrak train down to Richmond from Alexandria in Northern Virginia to see the president speak at VCU’s Stuart C. Siegel Center in central Richmond. Despite an hour-and-a-half delay heading home in the evening from Richmond’s Staples Mill Road station, the train still beats traffic on Interstate 95!

Broad Street in front of Siegel Center and surrounding streets were closed off to traffic and there were the usual right-wing suspects protesting with their Ron Paul and Tea Party signs. Arriving at 12:30 p.m., a full four-and-a-half hours before Obama’s speech, the line was already long. Thousands of supporters waited in the heat and humidity and a couple of elderly people passed out from heat exhaustion and had to be treated. If it weren’t for the cloud cover, it could have been worse for the elderly waiting for the chance to hear President Obama speak.

The crowd was racially and ethnically diverse, reflective of the Democratic Party’s efforts to reach out to minorities. There were many African-Americans who turned out for the event, which was a good sign for victory in Virginia. When First Lady Michelle Obama took the stage to introduce the president, she made an impassioned plea to the crowd to make sure their friends and family members are registered to vote. The Obama campaign knows that in addition to getting college students to the polls, it is important that the large African-American population in Virginia votes for Obama on November 6th.

Once the 8,000 plus supporters got through the airport-like security, it was a festive atmosphere inside of Siegel Center, with chants of “four more years!” and “fired up, ready to go!” and the wave even got going for a while. Many in the crowd held up blue signs with the campaign’s new slogan, “Forward.”

There were speeches from popular VCU Rams basketball head coach Shaka Smart, Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones, former Virginia Democratic Governor Tim Kaine, other dignitaries and Obama supporters.

Finally, after all the waiting, at around 5 p.m. President Obama took the stage to enthusiastic and loud cheers from the boisterous crowd. Obama reminded the crowd of the stark choice that will be made this November. Will we go back to the failed policies of the past or move forward rebuilding the nation so a confident America with a strong middle class can lead the world once again? The message was positive and inspiring and the difference with the pessimism on the Republican side was striking. Do Americans want to re-elect a leader who is working hard to restore American greatness and an economy that works for the majority of people instead of against them? Or will Americans buy into the Obama bashing and fear mongering from the GOP?

The election is going to be incredibly close. It will be tighter than 2008 and that is why in addition to the positive atmosphere celebrating Obama’s many accomplishments, there was also a steady resolve and determination. The Obama campaign knows the hard work ahead. There will be setbacks. There will be progress. There will be good times. There will be bad times. With more money than ever, the other side will wage a war full of lies and distortions that has never been seen before in a modern election. But the only result that matters is on November 6th.

I’m fired up and ready to go. Are you?

Click here for photos and click here for video from Obama’s Richmond rally.

(By Joanne Boyer, cross-posted at Wisdom Voices)

There are some who could argue the issues we face today are not all that new.  But one thing that has changed dramatically, even in just a few short years, is how those issues are discussed, especially in print.  The conversations have turned ugly and downright nasty.  Humor and satire in print are rare ingredients in the political conversation mix today.

How desperately we miss the wisdom and wit of the late Molly Ivins, who died in 2007 after an eight-year battle with breast cancer.  For any woman who has struggled with the horror of breast cancer treatments, no better summation could be found than what Molly said: “First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.”

Born in California, but raised in Texas, Ivins had a sharp political wit second to none and her pursuit of populist ideals was relentless.  She received her undergraduate degree from Smith College, and her Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University in 1967.  She worked at dailies from New York to Minnesota to Colorado covering politics in her inimitable fashion.  Link here for great eulogies from the Dallas Observer and The New York Times for deeper insights into this remarkable woman who embodied honesty, a passion for life and a love of country.

Molly came from the same genre as John Henry Faulk and Jim Hightower – Texas liberals and progressives (yes, they once did dominate the political landscape of the Lone Star State).  Although she had a national following, with a syndicated column and having worked for The New York Times, Newsweek and Time, her heart and soul was Texas politics.

In addition to book compilations of her brilliant, hilarious columns, she co-authored, Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush and Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America.  She was working on a book documenting the Bush administration’s assault on the Bill of Rights when she died.  She once said of George W. Bush:  “Calling Bush shallow is like calling a dwarf short.”  Or adding this:  “Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.”

She famously nicknamed Texas Governor Rick Perry, Governor Good Hair. And her unrelenting commentaries on Tom DeLay (Texas Congressman and former Speaker of the House), foreshadowed his fall from grace and eventual conviction for money laundering in 2011.  In 1999, Ivins wrote of DeLay:

“His real constituency is the lobbying corps, and the sleazy smell that rises from their vigorous cooperation is another reason for DeLay’s vulnerability.  His motto is blunt: ‘If you want to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules.’ DeLay’s rules are upfront, apparent to anyone who cares to look.  On his desk he keeps a list of the 400 largest political action committees and the amounts and percentages they’ve contributed to Republicans and Democrats.  Those committees that have given heavily to the GOP are labeled ‘friendly,’ the others ‘unfriendly.’  He also pressures corporations and trade groups to fire Democrats and hire Republicans as their lobbyists.”

Her belief in the constitution and in people to reclaim their role as active citizens was unrelenting and dominated much of her later writings.  Her introduction to Who Let The Dogs In?, written in 2004 (after the country re-elected George W. Bush and was in the midst of the Iraq War which she vehemently opposed) expresses her frustration and her hope.

“I guess the most amazing refrain is that I still love politics, and I think politics matters to every American in more ways than most of them ever guess.  Also, I still think it’s funny.  I consider that especially moving testimony, given that American politics is in a state of open corruption and intellectual rot.

“Because I have been writing about politics for 40 years, I know where the cynicism comes from, and I would not presume to tell you it is misplaced.  The system is so screwed up, if you think it’s not worth participating in, then give yourself credit for being alert.  But not for being smart.  How smart is it to throw away the most magnificent political legacy any people ever received? 

“You can not only vote, you can register other people to vote, round up your friends, get out and do political education, talk to people, laugh with people, call the radio, write the paper, write your elected representatives, use your email list, put up signs, march, volunteer and raise hell…We won the cold war after 50 years, and suddenly our politics is sour, angry, ugly, full of people who can’t discuss public affairs without getting all red in the face….

“Plenty of blame to go around for this revolting development, but those who deliberately corrupt our language for political advantage deserve some special ring in hell.  One is Rush Limbaugh, a silly man.  Another is Newt Gingrich, who has done much to poison the well of public debate…

“But I think the far more damaging is the planned, corporately funded, interlocking web of propaganda – the think tanks underwritten by corporate funders, the ‘academic journals’ underwritten by corporate funders, and right wing newspapers, radio, and television not to mention low-life, bottom feeding scandal mongers, all funded by huge right-wing money… 

“Benito Mussolini, who knew whereof he spoke, said, ‘Fascism should more properly be called corporation, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.’  So Stanley, a fine mess you’ve gotten us into this time…(but) Rejoice beloveds, we’ll weather this brush with fascism and come out as noisy and as badly behaved as ever, our politics back to the usual national Roller Derby.  As Marianne Moore said, ‘It is an honor to witness so much confusion.”

Fighting with her pen until the end, one of her final columns continued her unabashed opposition to George Bush’s Iraq war:

“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.  We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, ‘Stop it, now!’

With the Occupy Movement gearing up for another run at corporate greed and opposition to war, one knows that the spirit of Molly Ivins will be with them, every step of the way.