George McGovern never stopped learning and giving to the world. After fighting in World War II he learned to wage peace. From seeing poverty he championed nutrition and and food programs for the impoverished hungry.
He was regularly ahead of the times in correctly challenging momentous injustices. For this a majority of voters land-slided Watergate-afflicted Richard Nixon to a second term in 1972. From this defeat, McGovern emerged with grace and pressed for more initiatives for the public good, unperturbed by a lack of public gratitude.
He had his own unflagging moral compass. What a loss to the country and the oppressed people of the world!
IPR note: Ralph Nader was the Green Party presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000 and an independent presidential candidate in 2004 and 2008. George McGovern was the Democratic Party presidential candidate in 1972.
Nick Gillespie at Bloomberg.com writes
His understanding of military action wasn’t theoretical. A decorated World War II veteran whose harrowing experiences piloting a B-24 bomber colored his views toward war. He famously snapped at fellow Democratic Senator John Stennis, “I’m tired of old men dreaming up wars for young men to fight.”
That emphasis on lived reality — and the failure of government interventions to make the world stand at attention to the desires of politicians — later turned McGovern to libertarian positions on more than foreign policy. He scandalized liberals in a 1992 letter to the Wall Street Journal, detailing his travails as the proprietor of a Connecticut hotel.
Although he was by then well into his 80s, McGovern was reported to have been considering a run for the Libertarian presidential nomination in 2008 (this is from memory – I’ve been unable to find printed sources on this; it may have been at Third Party Watch, which does not have an internet archive, or reported to me verbally). However, he did not end up running.
McGovern passed away on October 21, 2012, at the age of 90, one day before fellow South Dakotan and presidential candidate Russell Means, who came close to beating Ron Paul for the Libertarian presidential nomination in 1988.
He stood for peace and civil liberties, and subsequent to his time in office became a fan of free markets as well.
A card carrying CFR globalist who turned to the dark side. It’s smokey where he is, if you believe it or not………
“I would support a Presidential candidate who pledged to take the following steps: … At the end of the war in the Persian Gulf, press for a comprehensive Middle East settlement and for a ‘new world order’ based not on Pax Americana but on peace through law with a stronger U.N. and World Court.” – George McGovern, former US Senator and 1972 DP nominee for POTUS…