How Some Progressives Die - Part Four

         How Some Progressives Die Continued


       David Fraser McTaggart was another David who died in a car crash.

       McTaggart died in a car crash in Italy in 2001. "He was a man of great energy," long time social activist Dorothy Stowe said. McTaggart chaired the environmentalist group 'Greenpeace' for many years. He showed his courage in 1973 when he sailed into the Muroroa Atoll in the South Pacific where the French armed forces detonated nuclear bombs.
     French officials boarded his boat, knowing that McTaggart was trying to stop them from
letting off their nuclear devices. They beat McTaggart up and injured one of his eyes. Back in North America, McTaggart recovered. He then continued his endless campaign to save the environment.
     He resigned from chairing 'Greenpeace' in 1991. He then joined up with pop singer Bryan Adams and the two of them then toured the world together. They held many concerts, urging the concert goers to write to governments. "Tell them to support the founding of a whale sanctuary," both men told the crowds.
    As a result of the efforts of McTaggart and Adams, a Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was set up in 1994. 23 countries came out in favour of the sanctuary. Only Japan, whose whalers 'Greepeace' had clashed with many times, opposed the sanctuary.
    McTaggart's death deprived the world of a great activist. No charges were laid in his death. still, yet another car crash took another progressive life.
     Then there's the life and death of Michael Hastings who died in a car crash in Hollywood, California in 2013 at the age of 33.
    Hastings was a writer for 'Rolling Stone' magazine. He wrote stories about the campaign of U.S. general McChrystal in Afghanistan. "We'll hunt you down and kill you if we don't like what you write," one of Mchrystal's aides told Hastings. Hastings uncovered quite a few things in the U.S. war in Afghanistan that may have angered McChrystal.
    The Federal Bureau of Investigation followed Hastings and definitely had him under surveillance. No charges were laid when Hastings died. Yet I do wonder why yet another progressive died in a car crash.