Remembering George McGovern

I met George McGovern when he gave a talk at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. I cannot recall now whether it was during his 1972 run for the Presidency or, more likely, after it. I went up to him after his talk and we spoke briefly. He was one of the heroes of my idealistic youth, a thoroughly decent man with a populist, compassionate approach to his politics. With his passing this Sunday October 21 at the age of 90, the country lost one of its strongest advocates for peace and social justice. The world lost one of its finest citizens.

The former Senator from South Dakota is most remembered for his opposition to the Vietnam War - the defining issue for those coming of age in the mid to late 1960's, such as myself. He had an understanding of the evils of war rooted in his experiences as a bomber pilot in World War II. McGovern was one of the earliest opponents of our misguided Vietnam policy – his opposition dates to the Kennedy years. If only the rest of the country had the same vision, we would have been spared this great American tragedy. When the war escalated again and again and ground on interminably during the Johnson and Nixon years, he continued to oppose the war, culminating in his capture of the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1972.

The son of a Methodist minister, George McGovern was a man of great moral clarity with the courage to speak out even when what he had to say was unpopular with his listeners. In a speech at Wheaton College in October 1972 as the Democratic candidate for President, he was greeted with catcalls and jeers from the conservative audience as students with Nixon banners paraded on the periphery of the chapel where he was speaking. He nonetheless delivered a remarkable speech. Bruce Miroff in a NYTimes OpeEd piece relates it this way: “Mr. McGovern called upon his audience to grieve not only for American casualties in Vietnam but also for the Vietnamese lives lost from American military actions. Indifference to Vietnamese deaths troubled him, so he insisted that Americans confront their own responsibility for the consequences of war and 'change those things in our character which turned us astray, away from the truth that the people of Vietnam are, like us, children of God.'...”

Even after his landslide defeat to Richard Nixon in 1972 and the loss of his Sneate seat in 1980, McGovern remained active in public life – continually advocating for a less aggressive American foreign policy and devoting his time and energy to the fight against world hunger.

He was a midwestern liberal in the mold of the prairie populists and New Deal Democrats that came from that region. That he was two-term Democratic Representative and a three-term Democratic Senator in the very red state of South Dakota speaks volumes to his ability to appeal to the best in voters of all inclinations – he was as Robert Kennedy said “the most decent man in the U.S. Senate.”

 

 

Times have changed. The odds of a return to a progressive tradition in the country's midsection are non-existent. Our political conversation drifts ever to the right and even centrists such as President Obama are painted as socialists.

In some ways, though, times have not changed at all. America has not lost its touch for engaging in senseless and unjustifiable wars. The defenders and benefactors of the miltary-industrial complex remain in control of the national defense discussion and we are treated to the spectacle of a Republican Presidential candidate offering a budget that will add two trillion dollars in unneeded and unrequested military expenditures over the next decade. Forty years ago, we at least had morally courageous leaders such as George McGovern to give us hope that someday things might be different. He will be missed.

 

Links

 

Bruce Miroff''s New York Times Op Ed "The Moral Clarity of Geroge McGovern"

 

Randall Balmer's Des Moines Register Article on George McGovern.  Randall Balmer was at Wheaton College to hear Senator McGovern's speech.  

 

Sample NYTimes OpEds by George McGovern

Katrina vanden Heuvel's article in The Nation (includes links to Nation articles by George McGovern)

Tom Daschle's article in The American Prospect

The Unerring Market, Socialism and Other Myths

“Markets do not automatically generate trust, cooperation, or collective action for the common good.” - Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land
 This post will discuss the last two of the necessary actions if progressives are to recapture the high ground in this debate about the role of government:
- Striking at the myths about the success of unregulated markets
- Demonstrating the role government can successfully play in the world that will be our future

Unregulated or under-regulated markets were the cause of both the Great Depression of the 1930’s and our ongoing Great Recession.  Most recently in the US the immediate causes of our economic trouble were the deregulation of the financial industry and of the housing market.

Judt points to various Thatcher-era privatizations in the UK that resulted in a total transfer of about $30 billion from the taxpaying public to stockholders and other investors and notes that there are “essential services not well served by the workings of the profit motive…transport, hospitals, schools, mails, armies, prisons, police forces, and affordable access to culture.”

Closer to home he points out the role played by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, private agencies with access to privileged access to government money, in the 2008 housing debacle. Contracting presents the “perhaps most telling case against privatization.” Many of the goods and services that “states seek to divest…postal services, railway networks, retirement homes, prisons… are…inherently the sort of activity that someone has to regulate - that is why they ended up in public hands in the first place.” [Judt]

After responding to the false efficiency of the “free market“ and pointing out the benefits that modern European democracies have been delivering to their people since emerging from the destruction of WWII, the next charge used to prevent political progress in the US is “but it’s socialism!” The charge is fraught with the fear that our personal freedom is at stake. The most important counterpoint to this that there is not any such fear or concern in Europe where these more enlightened social policies are actually in effect. Secondly, the European democracies have capitalist economic systems - there is no worker ownership of the means of production, which is the historical definition of socialism. In essence, the policies enacted in European democracies (so called “social democracies”) have saved capitalism (similar to what the New Deal did in the US in the 1930’s) and have made its benefits more generally available to their people.

In spite of the trend toward globalization, there will continue to be a role for nation states for the foreseeable future. Looking ahead, we need to examine what type of government policies are most likely to resolve the new challenges of the future.

Do nothing governments will only exacerbate the financial crises caused by deregulation. Do nothing governments will not be able to protect its citizens against the adverse effects of globalization. Do nothing governments and their global warming deniers will not address the coming global climate change impacts and will not develop alternative forms of energy. Do nothing governments are unable to stop the growing inequality in our country with all its attendant social ills. Do nothing governments will be unable to increase jobs creation in traditional or new areas.

I think the answer is clear. Progressive policies are the hope for the future. Obviously we will need to decide among conflicting priorities (tax breaks for the rich or unemployment benefits for the jobless, foreign wars or universal health care, early deficit reduction or increased employment). And as Judd concludes in Ill Fares the Land, “if we think we know what is wrong, we must act upon that knowledge. Philosophers, it was famously observed, have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

[This concludes the posts exploring themes in Tony Judt’s Ill Fares the Land (The Penguin Press, New York, 2010). It is a great book and you should go out and get yourselves a copy.]