Showing posts with label george mcgovern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label george mcgovern. Show all posts

Friday, March 18, 2016

We Got Old


Last Tuesday demonstrated just how old my generation has become. We gave into the fears of age and voted for a corporate hack over a true revolutionary. Back in the day with another war raging and dividing the country we supported Eugene McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy and George McGovern. Now the 60+ plus "liberal" vote went to pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro-Wall Street Hillary Clinton.

Another Clinton, nearly another Bush. What happened to us?

I am disappointed in my peers and I am surprised. Have memories faded over the years or have aging fears and 401Ks become more significant than the progressive values we once held together?

I get it that enemies foreign and domestic are on your minds. ISIS, ISIL and all the other threats seem too big and scary. And Hillary has experience with those demons. She bombs them and supports right wing leaders to suppress them.

At home, Trump is looming but poll after poll have shown that Bernie beats Trump by a much wider margin than Hillary. You get no excuse on the home front.

So, to my aging Boomer friends, I say and will say again. I am disappointed in what the years have done to our values and to our fervor. Where did it all go? Why did so many of you, of us, never even look at Bernie Sanders.

I leave you with this memory. When we were protesting Vietnam, do you not remember how it was us (the young) against them (our elders). Families were divided. Parents and children did not speak.

Remember?

U.S. Senator Bernard Sanders is getting 80% of the youth vote.

How can we not remember when we were right where those kids are today.

Do you think we were wrong?

Sunday, October 21, 2012

George McGovern

George McGovern 1922-2012

“Some cynics feel that decency in a politician is a handicap. But I think a sense of decency ... not prudishness nor sanctimonious self-righteousness but old-fashioned concern and love for others ... will be essential in the next presidents. That’s the kind of president I want to be.”  McGovern 1971

If you can remember 1972, if the names Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, and Richard Daley crease your political soul than you have a place in your memory and in your heart for George McGovern. He lost the '72 election to Nixon in a massive landslide but the Children's Crusade or the Armies of the Night rose up and fought to stop a war that would continue to poison the country to this day.

Thank you George and rest in peace.