SMALL FAVORS
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins Snowmen for Lamar Good grief, what a bunch of goobers in the Republican primary. It's like watching the Baptist General Convention, which was the most conservative...
...Kennedy has a whole lot of carrots as well as sticks in there for corporations that do right by their employees...
...Even Gingrich has gone to ground...
...No one is advocating a Luddite reaction against technology: There are a bunch of small, sane, simple steps we can take to ease on through this pain...
...Although maybe he should've checked with the Pope on that one...
...He actually proposes a two-tier corporate tax system for the do-gooders and the do-badders...
...Germany is maintaining high wages and a social safety net, in part through an advanced public-private worker-training program...
...It's like watching the Baptist General Convention, which was the most conservative organization in the country to begin with, and then a few years ago a bunch of people calling themselves conservatives started taking it over...
...It's smart, it's useful, and pitched right, it could get Republican support...
...Kinky Friedman's group, Gays and Lesbians for Phil Gramm, is now available...
...So the goobers get out in the field and, lo and behold...
...But I was tempted...
...However, the liberal creed does not prevent us from rejoicing when the wisdom of the people is so triumphantly ratified...
...I mean, why not...
...Personally, I think Pat's making a mistake with all this gay-bashing: There won't be anyone left to design the uniforms...
...It was just bound to further screw the very Americans who had already been getting screwed for too long...
...Shoulder-to-shoulder stood Pat Buchanan and I—not to mention Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, and a bunch of know-nothings—against the evil NAFTA, which I didn't think was all that evil...
...Even that drippy little guy Gary Bauer from the American Family Association is starting to talk about corporate greed and economic insecurity...
...For starters, we can close the tax loopholes that reward American comp»-nies for moving overseas...
...As Bob Herbert of The New York Times points out, there's "a cosmic disconnect" between what the people in Washington have been doing and what the people in the country are actually concerned about...
...This really isn't rocket science—and we don't even have to absorb some country that's been stuck behind the Iron Curtain for fifty years...
...Trade," i.e., economic globalization, is a piece of the problem, but not a very large one...
...I also enjoy watching people standing in snowbanks while they try to answer the question: "And why are you for Lamar Alexander...
...As y'all know, the liberal creed calls upon us to weep copious tears for everyone from milk-shy Hottentots to the glandular obese, but it was a close-run thing with me when Phil Gramm quit the race...
...Meanwhile, one does hate to see "trade" blamed for all our economic ills...
...In early February, Kennedy came out with a whole package of bills designed to fight what he calls "the quiet Depression...
...But there are ways a nation-state can deal with the problems posed by globalization: It is not necessary to pit American workers against Bangladeshis, or whoever else...
...wrote the thing...
...Meantime, not a bush is stirrin' on behalf of the people or the corps (that's a little inside joke there for those who have read Primary Colors and know from scorps: I hereby non-denially deny that I Mollv Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram...
...who are tryin' to do anything for the people are Labor Secretary Bob Reich, who has all this good worker-training stuff, and Senator Ted Kennedy...
...Couldn't me get away with just one swift boot in the ribs to his prone form...
...If Pat Buchanan had an ounce of brains, he would steal that package, among other things because it's do-able...
...Would a liberal like I kick a man when he was down...
...Is this a great nation, or what...
...Brown shirts by Perry Ellis, that's what they need...
...Ol' $20-million, 9-percent Phil, in the words of an old song, hit the ground and ate three pounds of good ol' Texas soil...
...Someday before too long, even bruised old liberals are going to start to recognize that Ted Kennedy, that self-indulgent sumbitch, is just one helluva good Senator...
...Of course I'm rooting for Pat Buchanan because he's a populist: We've always had leftwing populists and rightwing populists, so why not a fascist populist...
...Bob Dole starts grumbling about downsizing while corporate profits are at an all-time high...
...Only people left in D.C...
...But Pat's not always divisive: I thought it was mighty righteous of him to allow that Jews and Christians are the same in the eyes of Jesus Christ...
Vol. 60 • April 1996 • No. 4
