Editor's note: In the U.S., the word "liberal" is taken generally to mean center-left and at one time included defense of worker rights against capital and a more equitable distribution of wealth.
"It has become the typical response of liberal Democrats and most U.S. Labor leaders, when they come up against corporate America's definition of 'reality,' not to challenge it but to adjust to it."
"If this is the best American capitalism has to offer, maybe it's the system and not workers' hopes that have to be changed?"
McGovern Hoists the White Flag
By Jerry Tucker
A few weeks ago George McGovern, former US senator for South Dakota & 1972 Democratic Presidential candidate, made use of the opinion pages of the Los Angeles Times to display his liberal orthodoxy. His message, in a piece (May 22) called "The End of More"?
U.S. workers and working class communities should quit struggling against the tide of "a new competitive reality." But whose reality is it? Telling workers that they are asking for too much without a corresponding analysis of the increasing inequity of wealth division in this country further debunks the myth that the U.S. doesn't operate on a class system.
As someone who in 1972 co-chaired a state labor committee for McGovern's presidential candidacy (while the AFL-CIO's George Meany withheld support) and, in the late 1970's called on him in his Senate office to affirm support for key labor and social issues, I can think of many public figures more worthy of criticism than George McGovern, but the distorted conclusions of that Los Angeles Times piece leave little choice.
It's too bad a man of McGovern's acknowledged compassion and history of dissent against reckless imperialism and championship of worker rights, feels obligated to help hoist American liberalism's flag of surrender to global capital. It has become the typical response of liberal Democrats and most U.S. Labor leaders, when they come up against corporate America's definition of 'reality,' not to challenge it but to adjust to it.
