What It Means To Be a Democrat by George McGovern

George McGovern is the poster child for landslide elections. On the wrong side that is. George McGovern lost the 1972 election in a landslide to Richard Nixon. The Nixon machine painted McGovern with the three A's slogan of Amnesty, Abortion and Acid.

McGovern set the predicate for later candidates like Kerry who were certified military heroes being portrayed in National elections as being soft on and not supportive of the military. McGovern the same man who flew 35 bombing runs in WWII while most of those Republicans criticizing him had a much more limited and certainly less dangerous role than he did in the war.

In his most recent book McGovern sets a course for the Democratic party. It is not a course that is likely to be followed as Democrats do not have the stomach for their parties history.

Told in simple language this is a tome that is easily read. I read this last night over a couple of hours and honestly felt like this is a book that I wanted my son to read. A book that perhaps all young Democrats volunteering for their candidates and party should be given to read. This is a book that should make one proud to feel a part of the party of FDR, Truman, Wilson and Clinton.

McGovern in his chapter on Compassion calls the difference between the right and left on this issue as action versus words speaking about Bush the younger speaking of comapssionate Conservatism while cutting health and education programs.

On the Chapter on Defense Spending he correctly points out that it was Republican Dwight Eisnehowser who presciently predicted a military industrial complex that would be hard to seperate from the power brokers in Congress. He points out that our military is bigger than the rest of the worlds combined. He points out that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq of the first decade of the twenty first century are responsible for 6 trillion or half of the national debt. He also makes the point that our Homeland Security apparatus that has built up in the wake of 9/11 is a boondoggle that has become a sacred cow of earmarks and unneccesary expenditures. He is correct.

McGovern also addresses chapters on Immigration, Education, Employment, and the Environment.

A pet issue of McGovern's has been Food and Hunger and he decries that in America we have people who go to bed hungry. A special curse to him is America's issues with alcohol and drug abuse. McGovern states that America's prison population has quadrupled in the last thirty years, many as a result of drug offenses.

McGovern talks about the lunacy of being the only country in the Western World without single payer, Medicare for all, insurance.

He also brings some reality to the settlement of the Middle East issues by stating, truthfully, that no answer will come until a two state solution is realized. As I have read before continued lack of progress in this will eventually lead to Israel negotiating from a position of weakness, as demographically it will not be long before the Jewish people are a minority in their own state. The truth is that leaders on both sides of this issue, Palestine and Israel use this issue to improve their political position. They are in effect holding the issue hostage while a large proportion of their people would grasp at a two state solution.

I love George McGovern. He is a man of principles and a man of honor. This is an enlightened book.