Re: For the people; George McGovern 

Re: For the people

Hal Crowther's "Soylent Mitt" [Oct. 24] was excellent and right-to-the-point. We thought our country was "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Government is to represent and serve us. But we are close to losing that government.

It is obvious the multinational corporations, with their greed and avarice, caused this recession. And when sinking, they went to government for help. We gave them billions in tax dollars, and they gave millions to the CEOs of the large banks. Wow, didn't have that in mind when bailing them out.

The Supreme Court called the multinational corporations "people," and their PACs put millions into our election. We are becoming more and more a government "of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations."

This coming election is crucial for our country! The next president will appoint one or two Supreme Court justices, and we don't need any more very conservative and corporate-supporting justices. That would be the next step in letting the government slip from our hands into the multicorporate hands.

By definition, multinational corporations are required to make money, not to have morals or loyalty to any country. Their only goal is to make more Almighty Dollars—and that goal takes precedence over all other considerations. We don't want a country governed by such a bottom line, but one "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

John & Nona Thompson
Chapel Hill

Re: George McGovern

In "Weary of the wars" [Oct. 24], Bob Geary summed up the essence of a truly good and decent and honest man, George McGovern of South Dakota.

I knew Sen. McGovern for several decades, beginning with my service as a legislative assistant to the Senate Democratic Whip in the 1970s. He was a member of "the last great Senate," to borrow the title of a recent book by Ira Shapiro. He was a great man among giants such as Bill Fulbright, Howard Baker, Robert Byrd, Ed Muskie, Alan Cranston, Jacob Javits, Richard Lugar, Mac Mathias, Ted Kennedy, Alan Simpson—for openers. Those who came after, by and large, appeared to be pygmies by contrast.

Having been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross as the pilot of dozens upon dozens of B-24 missions over Europe in World War II, McGovern hated war—especially wars with no clear purpose, either in terms of American ideals or national interests. He spoke out, early and often, from Vietnam through Iraq. He constantly called for America to "come home," to first heal ourselves, while rejecting the role of the all-knowing superpower or hegemon that gloried in being called "the most powerful nation on earth."

To what end, George McGovern would ask? What is the (infantile) point of asking the last man to die for a mistaken geopolitical disaster? His Midwestern, Protestant conscience will be missed.

William E. Jackson Jr.
Davidson