George McGovern Dies at 90

[Gaybutton]

George McGovern, An Unabashed Liberal Voice, Is Dead

By the CNN Wire Staff
Sun October 21, 2012

(CNN) -- George Stanley McGovern, a staunch liberal who served South Dakota in the U.S. Senate and House for more than two decades and who ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic Party nominee for president in 1972, died Sunday at the age of 90, his family said.

"Our wonderful father, George McGovern, passed away peacefully at the Dougherty Hospice House in Sioux Falls, SD, surrounded by our family and life-long friends," his family said in a statement.

"We are blessed to know that our father lived a long, successful and productive life advocating for the hungry, being a progressive voice for millions and fighting for peace. He continued giving speeches, writing and advising all the way up to and past his 90th birthday, which he celebrated this summer."

Services will be scheduled in Sioux Falls, the family said.

In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting donations to Feeding South Dakota.

The son of a Wesley Methodist minister, McGovern was born in Avon, South Dakota, on July 19, 1922. Six years later, his family moved an hour north to Mitchell, where McGovern graduated from Mitchell High School in 1940.

His debating skills won him a scholarship to Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, where he met fellow student Eleanor Stegeberg. Three years later, they married. All five of their children were born in Mitchell.

McGovern's political skills came to the fore in college, where he was twice elected class president and won the state oratorical contest on the topic "My Brother's Keeper," which laid out his liberal beliefs.

In 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and went on to fly 35 combat missions as a B-24 bomber pilot in Europe. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

After the war, he returned to college, graduating in 1946. McGovern attended Garrett Seminary for a year before entering Northwestern University in Chicago, where he got his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in American history and government.

He returned to Dakota Wesleyan University in 1950 as a professor of history and political science, leaving in 1955 to help the South Dakota Democratic Party and launch his political career.

In 1956, he won a seat in Congress and was re-elected two years later.

After losing a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1960, McGovern was named special assistant to the president and director of the Food for Peace Program by President John F. Kennedy.

Two years later, he was elected to the Senate and reelected in 1968 and 1974. He served on Senate committees on agriculture, nutrition, forestry and foreign relations, and the Joint Economic Committee.

In 1972, Senator McGovern was selected as the Democratic Party nominee for president on a platform that included ending the war in Vietnam at a time when the country was torn over U.S. involvement there.

"Let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of this country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad," he said to applause at the Democratic convention in Miami Beach, Florida.

He called the unemployment of more than 5 million Americans "the most false and wasteful economics of all" and said his highest domestic priority would be "to ensure that every American able to work has a job to do." He called for an end to a system of economic controls "in which labor is depressed but prices and corporate profits run sky high," and he called for national health insurance and "a fair and just tax system."

But the campaign started out poorly. He selected as running mate Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri after a background check that did not turn up the fact that Eagleton had been treated for mental illness, a fact that was revealed soon thereafter. Eagleton withdrew and McGovern then tapped Sargent Shriver, a brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy and U.S. ambassador to France.

The pair ended up losing in a lopsided vote for incumbent Richard Nixon, with the McGovern ticket earning only 17 electoral votes -- from Massachusetts and the District of Columbia -- to Nixon's 520.

McGovern reflected on that defeat in a September piece in The Washington Post, calling it "a significant personal setback" that left him "genuinely stunned."

"The loss is there, an old wound never fully healed. My disappointment was certainly personal, made deeper by the awareness that many thousands of young Americans, and far more Vietnamese and other Asian citizens, were going to and did lose their lives with the Nixon administration's continuation of the war," he wrote. "And I was upset that my supporters would carry the burden of the loss, too -- something that has weighed on me all these years."

But he added, "I am optimistic about the country, and I am convinced that McGovern for President 1972 helped put those ideals within sight and completion today."

He returned to the Senate, where he was re-elected in 1974. But he was beaten when he sought a fourth term in 1980, a victim of what became known as the Reagan Revolution that swept conservatives into power and their views into vogue.

Four years later, he tried again to win the Democratic presidential nomination, but dropped out and former Vice President Walter Mondale became the nominee -- only to lose to Reagan in another lopsided race.

After leaving the Senate, McGovern taught at a number of schools, including Columbia University, Northwestern University, Cornell University, American University and the University of Berlin. He served as the president of the Middle East Policy Council from 1991 to 1998. President Bill Clinton appointed him ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome and, in 2000, awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 2001, McGovern was named the first United Nations global ambassador on hunger.

In 2008, McGovern switched his allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama. But in a 2009 commentary in the Post, he lashed out at the Obama administration its policies in Afghanistan and reflected on one of the hallmarks of his political life.

"As a U.S. senator during the 1960s, I agonized over the badly mistaken war in Vietnam," McGovern wrote. "After doing all I could to save our troops and the Vietnamese people from a senseless conflict, I finally took my case to the public in my presidential campaign in 1972. Speaking across the nation, I told audiences that the only upside of the tragedy in Vietnam was that its enormous cost in lives and dollars would keep any future administration from going down that road again.

"I was wrong."

Story and Photos: http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/21/us/george ... /index.htm

[Rogie]

In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting donations to Feeding South Dakota.

That's a name from the past, that's for sure.

Reading that report on his life, it is easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight, and think to ourselves, if only . . .

The world is full of if only's.

That reference to Feeding S. Dakota caught my eye. What's all that about? Feeding people in Dakota, can't they feed themselves?

Here's what I found:

Here in this state, Feeding South Dakota provides emergency food assistance to thousands of people in any given week and hundreds of men, women and children EVERY DAY.

Every day, people in YOUR state, YOUR city and YOUR community need emergency food assistance. These are not just statistics. These are real people, with real lives, and real needs for help. Right now, your co-worker who lost his wife to cancer is struggling to feed his three kids. Your bagger at the grocery store is skipping dinner for the second night in a row. The child your son or daughter plays with at recess hurts from hunger. These people come to Feeding South Dakota for relief and for hope.

http://www.feedingsouthdakota.org/hunger-in-sd

Many of you will be familiar with the Ballad of Hollis Brown, from Bob Dylan's third album The Times They Are A-Changin'

Hollis Brown
He lived on the outside of town
Hollis Brown
He lived on the outside of town
With his wife and five children
And his cabin brokin' down.

You looked for work and money
And you walked a rugged mile
You looked for work and money
And you walked a rugged mile
Your children are so hungry
That they don't know how to smile.

Your baby's eyes look crazy
They're a-tuggin' at your sleeve
Your baby's eyes look crazy
They're a-tuggin' at your sleeve
You walk the floor and wonder why
With every breath you breathe.

The rats have got your flour
Bad blood it got your mare
The rats have got your flour
Bad blood it got your mare
If there's anyone that knows
Is there anyone that cares ?

You prayed to the Lord above
Oh please send you a friend
You prayed to the Lord above
Oh please send you a friend
Your empty pocket tell you
That you ain't a-got no friend.

Your babies are crying louder now
It's pounding on your brain
Your babies are crying louder now
It's pounding on your brain
Your wife's screams are stabbin' you
Like the dirty drivin' rain.

Your grass is turning black
There's no water in your well
Your grass is turning black
There's no water in your well
Your spent your last lone dollar
On seven shotgun shels.

Way out in the wilderness
A cold coyote calls
Way out in the wilderness
A cold coyote calls
Your eyes fix on the shotgun
That's hangin' on the wall.

Your brain is a-bleedin'
And your legs can't seem to stand
Your brain is a-bleedin'
And your legs can't seem to stand
Your eyes fix on the shotgun
That you're holdin' in your hand.

There's seven breezes a-blowin'
All around the cabin door
There's seven breezes a-blowin'
All around the cabin door
Seven shots ring out
Like the ocean's pounding roar.

There's seven people dead
On a south Dakota farm
There's seven people dead
On a south Dakota farm
Somewhere in the distance
There's seven new people born.

[Gaybutton]

That's a name from the past, that's for sure.

Yes, and in hindsight I realize McGovern was a man ahead of his time. At the time, his stance on issues caused him to lose the presidential election by one of the biggest landslides in US history. Today, I wish he had won by one of the biggest landslides in US history.

[Jomtienbob]

We lost a good lefty in George.

A good McGovern quote: "Every program that helped working people from Rural Electrification to Medicare was enacted by liberals over the opposition of conservatives. When people tell me they don't like liberals I ask, do you like Social Security? If so, then shut up."

Another: "The highest form of patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of ones country deep enough to call her to a higher plain."

His legacy lives on in Barack Obama and today's Democratic Party vision for America.