Geodog

I miss real Democrats, like George McGovern

Do you remember when the Democrats used to stand for something? The earliest political activity I remember is going to civil rights marches and Anti-Vietnam war marches in Washington DC. The next was being the organizer for George McGovern in my Junior High School in the suburbs of DC, passing out McGovern bumper stickers and pins, and working against Junior High School Nixon organizer Stuart Birch, whose father was a Republican Party figure of some note who later got entangled with a third-rate burglary in an apartment complex in downtown Washington DC. I thought George McGovern was great then, and I think he is great now. Nobody ever wondered what George McGovern stood for. I was delighted when Oberlin chose him as the graduation speaker while I was there, and I got to shake his hand.

He has just written a beautiful and blistering article in the Nation, The Reason Why, exposing the insanity and immorality of Bush's policies, especially his war on Iraq. A few samples, but I encourage you to read the whole article:

Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's true greatness. Appearing to enjoy his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces above all other functions of his office, and unchecked by a seemingly timid Congress, a compliant Supreme Court, a largely subservient press and a corrupt corporate plutocracy, George W. Bush has set the nation on a course for one-man rule.

The President frequently confides to individuals and friendly audiences that he is guided by God's hand. But if God guided him into an invasion of Iraq, He sent a different message to the Pope, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mainline Protestant National Council of Churches and many distinguished rabbis--all of whom believe the invasion and bombardment of Iraq is against God's will.

I think often of another Jefferson observation during an earlier bad time in the nation's history: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

George McGovern may have lost the election of 1972, but his candidacy effectively ended the Vietnam war, and rescued the soul of the Democratic party from the dark hole that LBJ had trapped it in. Today's Democrats could do (and are doing ) do a lot worse than emulating George McGovern, soldier, politician, hero, and decent human being. Highly Recommended. Even if you don't agree with the politics, you have to love the writing.