Joe Stack's "manifesto"

I am posting this here because I am presently watching a tv show about Stack and his murder-by-airplane of government (especially IRS) employees on February 18th of this year.  To be honest, I have only read parts of it myself--it is long, it rambles, and there are sections about the tax code that are very specific and detailed, well outside my own experience.

But there are a couple points that are interesting to me:

--While Stack is apparently a "hero" to many on the right wing because of his murders, his manifesto (or "rant") isn't clearly conservative or liberal, at least not in my reading of it.  He attacks a big variety of things, has many complaints, which don't clearly fit any simple narrative.

--While Stack certainly had great concern about personal financial issues, which for all I know were justifiable, they certainly were not all caused by the federal government or the internal revenue service.

--While he may have been broke (?), he apparently owned an airplane.  You can't be too broke if you own an airplane.  They are expensive!  Even hanger or tie-down space is expensive!

In writing a "manifesto" Stack is kind of like the Unabomber.  In acting essentially alone, but egged on by a much larger "movement," he is kind of like Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.  He is kind of like some of the abortion-doctor murders.  But he seems to me unlike the best known school shooters, who didn't have a "political" agenda at all, but resentments of other kinds.

Viewing these murders out of context really isn't accurate, and it really isn't fair even to them.  They believe they are acting as part of broader societal efforts, and hoping in some cases to be the sparks that ignite widespread war against the federal government.  These are not lone wolf/lone nut cases; they are not like people who murder, perhaps their wife or husband.  These are embedded in a confused but still very real "political" fabric, a segment of our culture.  

Something may well be rotten in the state of Denmark.  But for sure something is rotten in the U.S. of A.  We have a lot of crazies out there, and they have guns (or, in this instance, an airplane).

Comments

[Zen Ken]

--While Stack is apparently a "hero" to many on right wing because of his murders, his manifesto (or "rant") isn't clearly conservative or liberal, at least not in my reading of it.  He attacks a big variety of things, has many complaints, which don't clearly fit any simple narrative.






Maybe I don't watch enough television, but I don't know anyone anywhere who thought this guy was a 'hero'.  He never saved anyone and he never made a point, other than that he blamed other people for his own misfortunes.






--While Stack certainly had great concerts about personal financial issues, which for all I know were justifiable, they certainly were not all caused by the federal government or the internal revenue service.




That's about all you can say about what he wrote.  Nothing he wrote seemed to me unique or remarkable.  If anything it spoke to his ignorance in knowing how to run a business to his own best advantage.




--While he may have been broke (?), he apparently owned an airplane.  You can't be too broke if you own an airplane.  They are expensive!  Even hanger or tie-down space is expensive!






Yes, it was a terrible life he led, garnering a pilot's license and owning his business.  I feel so distraught for how his life ended up.  </sarcasm>  I doubt he ever bothered to find fault with himself.

[DoctorD42]

Ken, here is a link to an ABC News story reporting that some were viewing suicide pilot Joe Stack as a "hero."  It is all kind of shocking!

[Country By Design]

Is this sort of thing something new in history?  Does it happen in other countries, or just here as part of our "free speech"? 

[DoctorD42]

Country, I don't really know.  But I think there have been mad bombers and anarchists in many parts of the world.  Of course, there are a lot of terrorists around in the middle east and Europe right now.  And the US has had it in the past, too, from the left wing as well as the right wing.

Using an airplane, though--I guess that is a new trick learned on 9/11.  I suppose another point is that a murdered now can get a whole lot of publicity via tv, in a way that wasn't possible previously.

[Country By Design]

I'm not so sure there is more of it around the world as much as we are hearing more about it, except for the use of airplanes are weapons.  There have always been wars and rebels.  We wouldn't be a country today except for a bunch of revoluntionaries! 

I think having 24/7 access to news, and hearing the same story multiple times, changes how we feel and think about it. 

[DoctorD42]

Country, trying to add to my understanding, I just watched a two-hour biography of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who killed 168 people near a federal government building and injuring 700 or so. The story presented (based in large part on audio recordings of McVeigh himself) had a fairly strong "psychological" angle. For example, McVeigh came from an unhappily broken home; was raised in good part by a grandfather with whom he went shooting; and was bullied in school. He was a good soldier, however--although it also is true that in the Army he met the two others who ultimately helped with his bomb plot.

He had no specific target, he wasn't after the IRS as the pilot Joe Stack was, but simply wanted to find a government building housing things like the FBI or ATF where he could kill a lot of people, especially those that could exert force. His main "resentment" seems to have been learned at gun shows, where he discovered that the liberty-destroying government and UN wanted to take away the weapons of regular Americans. He was afraid houses were going to be invaded to get the weaponry!

He definitely did consider himself a patriot in the tradition of the American revolution, picking the date of April 19th in part because it was the 220th anniversary of a battle that marked the start of our War of Independence with Britain. And he wore shirts with a variety of patriotic revolutionary slogans, etc.

Actually, I have heard the arguments that McVeigh offers in support of his murderous attack before, from friends whom I don't think would actually do the same thing. But, sadly, in my mind there is not much difference between a domestic terrorist like McVeigh and more-or-less run of the mill "conservative" commentators and politicians, who seem to be constantly encouraging the desirability of violence and claiming that our American government lacks "legitimacy."

I am also struck by the difference in the way McVeigh is viewed and foreign Islamic terrorists. We get very upset about the latter! But if it is just a plain and simple American boy, almost certainly a Republican, we don't seem to care much about his actions or his victims. And of course this year, April 19th was actively celebrated by a variety of so-called "patriot" groups.

Our original revolution involved, in good part, opposition to "taxation without representation." But the current mob of self-styled "revolutionaries" has very very adequate representation, and is simply against taxation in and of itself; government involvement in health care; possibly regulation of Wall Street, that isn't clear to me yet; and certainly what they see as an ongoing socialist takeover of the "entire American economy" (to quote one high Republican officeholder). They are against the will of the people as expressed in election results, they are against majority rule, and they are opposed to the orderly discussion of the economic and other problems that face our nation. They don't want "representation," they want their way, without regard for the views of other citizens.

Boy--I think we are in a lot of trouble! At the same time, I also do think that there have been some improvements in the civic mood since the unexpected passage of the health insurance reform legislation.

Can I also add that our original American revolution was led by men of greater substance and learning than Joe Stack, Tim McVeigh, Sarah Palin, or the gaggle of Fox "News" commentators and their Republican lackeys in Congress.

[DoctorD42]

I am struck at the moment to think that in the "old days" some would have said that a mass murderer like Timothy McVeigh was a terrible sinner and "possessed by the Devil."  Now, a fairly generous interpretation might be that he was a sociopath, a person unable to recognize or care about the pain and suffering of others because of a mental disorder.  But of course to others he was a man on a political mission, striking out to protect the liberties of Americans (especially their liberty under the Second Amendment).

I do kind of think it is a shame that "sin talk" has been almost entirely replaced by psycho-speak or legalese or political analysis.  There seems to me that there is a still a lot of sin in the world, and a fair amount of it was on display at the Senate hearing for Goldman Sachs.  Wasn't greed among the seven deadly ones?  Do we no longer have standards of what is right or wrong other than what you can get away with?  Do we no longer have ways to interpret right and wrong distinct from some self-serving political agenda?

[Country By Design]

You are so right, on all accounts.  Our nations founders were very well read and educated, as opposed to most American "revoluntionaries" of today, although a lot of them have read a lot, just too much of the same nonsense.