George McGovern, Senator And Liberal Stalwart, Dead At 90

George McGovern, Senator And Liberal Stalwart, Dead At 90| News | Towleroad

Sad. Probably the last decent human being to run for president in either major party, standing in stark contrast to the lousy choice we have to make this year.

He served his country in World War II, then became a U.S. Senator to champion peace in the face of the hundreds of thousands of lives lost on all sides in the Vietnam War. He also worked hard on addressing issues of world hunger both in office and out.

He was the first truly grassroots Democratic nominee who brought support for issues of women's equality, sexual liberation, and gay rights into the Democratic Party for the first time; he probably deserves far more credit than he is given for why LGBTQ rights are part of the DNC platform today.

​

 

Well, if McGovern had never run for president, he'd probably be remembered as a highly distinguished statesman. In World War II, he was considered a war hero for saving his crew with his skill as a pilot, while most others perished, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, although he never allowed that to be brought up during his election campaigns. Then he went to school on the GI Bill, earned a PhD from Northwestern, and became a history professor.

He ran for Congress and then would become the first director of the Food for Peace program, addressing world hunger. He then ran for the Senate, where he spearheaded opposition to the Vietnam War in the late 60s and early 70s, including his famous "This chamber reeks of blood" speech when proposing the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment to end the war.

After leaving the Senate, he later was appointed the UN Ambassador for Food and Agriculture, and later UN Global Ambassador on World Hunger, and together with Bob Dole won the World Food Prize in 2008 for promoting school lunch programs.

It's terrible that the right would prefer he just be remembered as the guy who lost 49 states to Richard Nixon, after being painted as the candidate of "Amnesty, Abortion, and Acid". I would recommend reading (or re-reading) Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. There was probably never a greater moral gap between two U.S. presidential candidates than in 1972.

While no explicit mentions of gay rights were allowed then (although it was the first time they were even brought up and debated, but filibustered by conservatives in the DNC), the 1972 Democratic platform included "The Right To Be Different":

Plus they had some cool colorful rainbow buttons back then too...not like the boring (everything constantly red, white, and blue!) ones we have today with both Obama and Romney trying to prove who's more patriotic.

 

Ah, well I'm pretty much the same way when it comes to partisan politics between the Democrats and Republicans these days.

I just have a fascination with the radical politics of the 1960s (and 70s), which is really what transformed things and is where the modern LGBT movement grew out of. I wish our generation were not so apathetic, that we would have our own Students for a Democratic Society. George McGovern, war hero and Methodist prairie populist from South Dakota, somehow became the voice of radical youth in that generation.

In 2008, the GOP tried to portray Barack Obama as a McGovernite anti-war radical youth candidate who would go down in flames, which was of course nonsensical.

Look at how long Obama resisted the call to support marriage equality. Politicians only respond to address civil rights issues when they are forced to by more radical grassroots elements holding their feet to the fire.