I've been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prizefighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage and a Jewish mo… - Bella Abzug

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I've been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prizefighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy. There are those who say I'm impatient, impetuous, uppity, rude, profane, brash and overbearing. Whether I'm any of these things, or all of them, you can decide for yourself. But whatever I am-and this ought to be made very clear at the outset-I am a very serious woman. I am not being facetious when I say that the real enemies in this country are the Pentagon and its pals in big business. It's no joke to me that women in this country are terribly oppressed and are made to suffer economic, legal and social discrimination. I am not evoking a wild fantasy when I claim that I'm going to help organize a new political coalition of the women, the minorities and the young people, along with the poor, the elderly, the workers and the unemployed, which is going to turn this country upside down and inside out. We're going to reclaim our cities, create more jobs, better housing, better health care, more child care centers, more help for drug addicts; we're going to start doing something for the millions of people in this country whose needs, because of the callousness of the men who've been running our government, have taken a low priority to the cost of killing people in Indochina. To some people all this may sound a bit grandiose, but let me tell you something: This is the only thing we can do and still survive.