Wow

[kiranlightpaw]

So most of you have probably seen, by now, the news of a small plane crash into a building in Austin, Texas. That building that, as it turns out not coincidentally, contained the Austin IRS offices. The minute I heard that, I had a bad feeling I knew exactly what happened.

Minutes later, via Twitter, Joe Stack's manifesto / suicide letter surfaced. First on the homepage of his self-owned company, then reprinted in the Statesman. And it contained pretty much exactly what I was expecting.

"Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well."

I may or may not have more to say about this later, but for now, I'll leave my thoughts at this: dude made a lot of poor economic decisions in his life, blamed everyone else for it, and thought that by getting a high enough "body count" he could get the "American zombies" to "wake up and revolt."

Probably what Timothy McVeigh thought too.

Comments

[graemelion.livejournal.com]

The rightwingers scoffed at this when it was brought up by the DHS years ago.

Home grown american terrorism is on the rise as people become discontented with things. People have been taught that violence gets attention where peaceful protest does not.

I suspect this will happen more and more.

We've gone from shooting up a workplace that wronged you to flying planes into it.

[crssafox.livejournal.com]

He did make a lot of bad decisions ("I had to rely on savings and had no income for a year" - what happened to 'move where there's work' or 'go try Wal-Mart'?) but at the same time he does have some points about the fat cats on top. I do think the handling of the "bailouts" was very stupid especially seeing as many of the companies that were given tons of money ended up piddling it away anyway. It seems no one - not individuals, not corporations - can be bothered to be held accountable for their own actions any more, and no one wants to be responsible either.

What really creeped me out though, is that this happened right around the time we were on the phone with the IRS. D:

[jarrellwoods.livejournal.com]

I know several people on lj, me included who are out of work right now, in the worst job market I personally have ever seen. I've had steady job since 1985, and prior to that was only out of work for 2 days, when I was laid off by a church. I don't condone what this guy did, but people are going to get desperate and snap in their own individual ways unless something happens soon. If you have a steady job, thank God for it every day you're able to get out of bed and drive to it. I was thankful for mine, but it wasn't enough for me to keep it as bad as everything is. I don't place full blame on my previous employer - she did what she felt she had to do, but I've been pushed out of a plane without a chute.

Not as simple as it sounds.

[jugularjaguar.livejournal.com]

I lost my business and lively-hood due to government interference. Sometimes you get folks in certain levels of power they they can just do what ever they want. But taking your plane and crashing it into a building is just going to far.

I don't condone such actions but I do understand them.