Molly Ivins - Don't mourn, organize (Mourning in America)

Nov 2004
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whimsicaldeb
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Molly Ivins - Don't mourn, organize (Mourning in America)

Post by whimsicaldeb » November 4th, 2004, 5:35 pm

Hi!

I'm Deb, and I'm new to this board. I've been around lurking for a bit .... and enjoying eavesdropping on the conversations. I wanted to share this article by Molly Ivins that made me smile ~ and God knows we could use a few of them right now.

Molly, I'm with ya! And to the 4 Million Christian right that got together and voted to keep Bush in office – and to it’s flip side, the 4 Million NewAgers who didn’t vote because all this is just an illusion ~ Hope you like chicken!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.workingforchange.com/article ... emid=18028


Mourning in America

Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate

11.04.04 - AUSTIN, Texas -- Do you know how to cure a chicken-killin' dog? Now, you know you cannot keep a dog that kills chickens, no matter how fine a dog it is otherwise.

Some people think you cannot break a dog that has got in the habit of killin' chickens, but my friend John Henry always claimed you could. He said the way to do it is to take one of the chickens the dog has killed and wire the thing around the dog's neck, good and strong. And leave it there until that dead chicken stinks so bad that no other dog or person will even go near that poor beast. Thing'll smell so bad the dog won't be able to stand himself. You leave it on there until the last little bit of flesh rots and falls off, and that dog won't kill chickens again.

The Bush administration is going to be wired around the neck of the American people for four more years, long enough for the stench to sicken everybody. It should cure the country of electing Republicans.

And at least Democrats won't have to clean up after him until it is real clear to everyone who made the mess.

In some circles, that will be seen as sour grapes. But in Texas, we've been losing elections to the demagogic triad of God, gays and guns long enough to be pretty cynical about how it works out. I'm sure millions of Americans voted for George W. under the honest impression that he stands for moral values -- family, patriotism, faith in God. I'm sure it's the Democrats' fault that such a silly ruse is allowed to stand. What Bush actually does stand for is nicely summed up by a rather common news story that got stuck on the business pages lately.

In September, Merck & Co., the huge drug manufacturer, pulled Vioxx off the market. Vioxx was a popular pain-killing, anti-arthritis drug, but Merck said it was putting patients' safety first. A new study from the Federal Drug Administration showed high doses of Vioxx triple the risk of heart attack and sudden cardiac death.

From there, the story bifurcates -- it takes two directions. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa revealed that the FDA had tried to silence the author of the study, Dr. David Graham, associate director of science in the Office of Drug Safety. Grassley said the FDA first sat on Graham's study and that then he was "ostracized" and "subjected to veiled threats and intimidation."

The Wall Street Journal followed the other fork, finding internal memos from Merck showing that company officials may have been aware of the dangers of Vioxx as long ago as 1996, including a memo apparently instructing its sales reps to "dodge" the question when doctors asked about the cardiac record of Vioxx.

In short, we have a toothless regulatory agency in the pocket of the industry it is supposed to patrol. We have an administration-wide contempt for science and plain facts. And the allegation against the folks at Merck is that they were making such enormous profits on a drug that killed people that when they knew or suspected it was killing people, they kept right on selling it. When the information that Merck had known for a long time about Vioxx and heart attacks became public, the company's stock fell by 9.6 percent.

That's the system George W. Bush stands for: where a corporation can knowingly kill people for profit and, when it finally comes out, everyone knows the penalties will be so light the company doesn't even lose a tenth of its worth. Hey, just a little bump in the road.

We sure don't want any of that terrible, burdensome government regulation to control that kind of behavior, do we? We sure don't want an FDA that listens to its own scientists and acts promptly, do we? We sure don't want anyone to sue these monster corporations, do we? I bet if it were possible to compare the odds of an American getting killed by a negligent regulatory agency and rapacious corporate behavior versus an American getting killed by a terrorist, it would turn out we need to be a lot more scared of rank greed and its enablers than we do of terrorists. And that's not counting what the corps. (pronounced corpse) steal and mess up.

So, fellow progressives, stop thinking about suicide or moving abroad. Want to feel better? Eat a sour grape, then do something immediately, now, today. Figure out what you can do to help rescue the country -- join something, send a little money to some group, call somewhere and offer to volunteer, find a politician you like at the local level and start helping him or her to move up.

Think about how you can lend a hand to the amazing myriad efforts that will promptly break out to help the country recover from what it has done to itself. Now is the time. Don't mourn, organize.

(c) 2004 Creators Syndicate

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article ... emid=18028

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judih
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Post by judih » November 5th, 2004, 12:37 am

i like the dead chicken around the neck approach
(variation on the albatross theme (Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner)

In fact, i like the image of the dead chicken around the neck of Bush and Cheney and Merck and a whole slew of possible candidates.

Can we vote who gets the chicken?

(as for me, i hate chicken - i could easily choose a cucumber - it too starts to fester)

thanks, deb
welcome

judih

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Post by stilltrucking » June 10th, 2006, 2:55 am

Hi Deb my name is Jack Tilles. You might remember me from litkicks. I was the dirty old man hitting on all the beautiful women there. Judih knows all about that cause I hit on her too. Anyway I was thinking about making a fresh start here on Studio Eight.

I have been reading Molly’s columns for over twenty years. She is my hero. There is a tendency to mock Bush as some kind of idiot. Letterman and Leno would be lost without him. Molly knew Bush in high school. She says he is not stupid. He enjoys being underestimated.
So what manner of monster is behind these outrages? I have known George W. Bush slightly since we were both in high school, and I studied him closely as governor. He is neither mean nor stupid. What we have here is a man shaped by three intertwining strands of Texas culture, combined with huge blinkers of class. The three Texas themes are religiosity, anti-intellectualism, and machismo. They all play well politically with certain constituencies.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... 59_01.html

I have not volunteered for a political candidate since the 1972 senate campaign of Paul Sarbanes. I will take Molly’s advice and do what I can this year. But I am thinking about that serenity prayer. One of the things I cannot change is the composition of the Supreme Court. I suppose you know about the recent decision that stripped away the First Amendment rights of whistle blowers.
I know you used to be an accountant so you also know about Corporate Personhood under the 14 Amendment. That seems to be the root of the problem.

Sorry to kick this moldy oldie backs up to the top again, but that chicken is really getting rotten. So is our Electoral College system. A small minority of right thinking Christian voters that belong to those 20,000 member mega churches can swing elections state by state. We really need to get a popular vote amendment passed. Yep there is probably something I could do about that too.


But first we must deal more important matters like gay marriage and flag burning. 2006 is even more important then 2008 for me. The real issue behind the gay marriage amendment is the campaign to appoint more judges to the bench who will.follow the dogma not their conscience. Loyal Christian soldiers, True Believers.
I was born under a bad sire Deb. Sarcasm is in my genes. :(


I hope you don’t think I am some kind of wacko conspiracy theorist but there was an obscure professor at the University Of Chicago called Leo Strauss. He is the guru of Bushies puppet masters. It is my job to keep an eye on the Christian Zionists in this country. They are very dangerous.

a belated welcome to ya.
in friendship

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