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      Reclaiming American Idealism

      Reclaiming American Idealism

      We could use a leader like George McGovern again.

      William Astore
      Nov 08, 2020

      As I lived through the nightmare of the election campaign just past, I often found myself dreaming of another American world entirely. Anything but this one.

      In that spirit, I also found myself looking at a photo of my fourth-grade class, vintage 1972. Tacked to the wall behind our heads was a collage, a tapestry of sorts that I could make out fairly clearly. It evoked the promise and the chaos of a turbulent year so long ago. The promise lay in a segment that read "peace" and included a green ecology flag, a black baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers second baseman Jackie Robinson, who had died that year), and a clenched fist inside the outline of the symbol for female (standing in for the new feminism of that moment and the push for equal rights for women).

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      Opinion
      What the Class of '70's Old New Left Might Have Talked About at Their Canceled Reunions

      What the Class of '70's Old New Left Might Have Talked About at Their Canceled Reunions

      There'll be no fiftieth reunions for the class of '70, it seems. Abruptly thrust out into the world in the uproar following the National Guard's killing of four students at a Kent State University antiwar demonstration, the class now find their return just as abruptly canceled by Covid-19. A scriptwriter could hardly have done the irony any better, but the more interesting set of bookends to the group's half-century in the sun might be their first and last (so far, that is) presidential elections, specifically the campaigns of George McGovern and Bernie Sanders.

      Tom Gallagher
      May 23, 2020

      There'll be no fiftieth reunions for the class of '70, it seems. Abruptly thrust out into the world in the uproar following the National Guard's killing of four students at a Kent State University antiwar demonstration, the class now find their return just as abruptly canceled by Covid-19. A scriptwriter could hardly have done the irony any better, but the more interesting set of bookends to the group's half-century in the sun might be their first and last (so far, that is) presidential elections, specifically the campaigns of George McGovern and Bernie Sanders. The contrast might have made for interesting talk in some corners of the room at some of those reunions that are not to be.

      The immediate response to the May 4, 1970 shootings was massive: perhaps four out of five colleges and an unknown number of high schools saw some type of anti-war protest; as many as a fifth of colleges canceled the remainder of their semesters; and numerous on-campus Reserve Officers Training Corps offices were destroyed in one fashion or another. No subsequent academic year would come to such an unexpected end - until this one. Widespread as they were, however, the 1970 protests did not carry the day, as Richard Nixon remained in the White House unmoved. They did intensify the fervor for evicting him in 1972, though.

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      Opinion
      The Imperative of Pulling Together to Beat the Trump Who Would Be King

      The Imperative of Pulling Together to Beat the Trump Who Would Be King

      Soon will come a time when fighting among Democrats must cease.

      Michael Winship
      Jan 21, 2020

      Hey, Sanders, hey, Warren, hey, Biden and the rest of you. Listen, I know from party divisiveness. As a very (very!) young man, I worked on the campaign staff of Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. There now will be a slight pause as you imitate explosions and other sound effects from your favorite disaster movies.

      That 1972 campaign to defeat Richard Nixon for reelection began with 15 hopefuls seeking the Democratic nod, including Shirley Chisolm, the first African-American woman to run for the nomination, and Rep. Patsy Mink, the first Asian-American.

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      Opinion
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