RIP George Hansen.... and the Unknown Sailor

Well, this must be the end of an era. One of the earliest, highest-profile tax resisters has gone to his reward. Hope it's a good one -- during his time in the gulag, his persecution gave him real health problems including dental. The Great One used to sell his pioneering book.

http://nationalinvestor.com/wp-content/uploads/Remembering-George-Hansen.pdf
Remembering George Hansen

But it's not today's only major loss. From another forum I write in:

Terry Halbardier, who - as a 23-year-old seaman in 1967 - thwarted Israeli attempts to sink the USS Liberty, died on Aug. 11 in Visalia, California. It took the U.S. government 42 years after the attack to recognize Halbardier’s heroism by awarding him the Silver Star, a delay explained by Washington’s determination to downplay Israeli responsibility for the 34 Americans killed and the 174 wounded. On June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War, the Israeli military attacked the USS Liberty, an American spy ship which had been monitoring Israeli transmissions about the conflict. Intercepted Israeli communications indicated that the goal was to sink the Liberty and leave no survivors. Warplanes and torpedo boats had already killed 34 and wounded 174, when Halbardier slid over the Liberty’s napalm-glazed deck to jury-rig an antenna and get an SOS off to the Sixth Fleet. The Israelis intercepted the SOS and broke off the attack immediately. In effect, Halbardier prevented the massacre of all 294 onboard. Still, the infamy of the attack on the Liberty was twofold. http://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern...heros-passing/

There are those willing to face the full ramifications of the terrorism embodied in both these martyrs' ordeals, and there are the vast majority of people who are not. I pity the latter, because they are unarmed.

/\/.\/\/.