"America’s First Suicide Bomber
By Paul Craig Roberts
Joseph Stack, frustrated American, flew his airplane into an Austin, Texas, office building. He was one of the 79 percent of Americans who have given up on "their" government.
Indications are that Joseph Stack was sane. Like Palestinians faced with Israeli jet fighters, helicopter gunships, tanks, missiles and poison gas, Stack realized that he was powerless. A suicide attack was the only weapon left to him.
Stack targeted the IRS, the federal agency that had gratuitously ruined him. He flew his airplane into an office building occupied by 200 members of the IRS. This deliberate plan and the written explanation he left behind segregate him from deranged people who randomly shoot up a Post Office or university campus.
The government and its propaganda ministry do not want to call Stack a terrorist. "Terrorist" is a term the government reserves for Muslims who do not like what Israel does to Palestinians and the U.S. government does to Muslim countries.
But Stack experienced the same frustrations and emotions as Muslims who can’t take it any longer and strap on a suicide vest.
"Violence," Stack wrote, "not only is the answer, it is the only answer." Stack concluded that nothing short of violence will get the attention of a government that has turned its back on the American people.
Anger is building up. People are beginning to do unusual things. Terry Hoskins bulldozed his house rather than allow a bank to foreclose on it. The local TV station conducted an online survey and found that 79 percent of respondents agreed with Hoskins’ action.
Perhaps the turning point was the federal government’s bailout of the investment banks whose reckless misbehavior diminished Americans’ retirement savings for the second time in eight years. Now a former head of the most culpable bank is campaigning to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits in order to pay for the bailout. President Obama has obliged him by creating a "deficit commission."
The "deficit commission" will be used to gut Social Security, just as the private insurance health plan is paid for by cutting $500 billion out of Medicare.
It could not be more clear that government represents the interest groups that finance the election campaigns.
Conservatives used to say that Washington’s power should be curtailed in behalf of state and local governments that are "closer to the people." But of course state and local governments are also controlled by interest groups.
Consider Florida, for example. In 2004 the storm surge from Hurricane Ivan did considerable damage to the Gulf Coast of the Florida panhandle. At Inlet Beach in Walton County, the surge claimed two beachfront homes and washed away enough of the high ground as to leave other homes vulnerable to the next storm.
People wanted to armor their homes with some form of sea wall. When the county gave the go ahead, two houses on the West end hired engineers who constructed a barrier made of rows of tubes 60 feet long filled with sand, each weighing about 70 tons. The sand-colored tubes were buried under many tons of white sand trucked in, and sea oats were planted. It was a perfect solution, and an expensive one—$250,000.
Just East of the two homes, Ivan washed away a section of beachfront road and left three houses built on pilings sitting on the beach. Last year government with FEMA money rebuilt the section of washed away beachfront road and armored it and two adjacent houses. The government used interlocking iron or steel panels that it drove down into the sand, leaving six to seven feet of the rusty metal above ground. Hundreds of truckloads of sand were brought in to cover the unsightly sea wall.
It didn’t require a storm to wash away the loose sand and leave the ugly rusty metal exposed on the beach. The first high tide did the trick. Residents and vacationers are left with an eyesore on a beach ranked as the third most beautiful in the world.
The ugly rusty barrier built by government is still there. But the intelligent approach taken by the private homeowners has been condemned to death. As I write heavy equipment is on the beach slashing open the tubes and piling up the sand to be carried away. The homes will be left standing on the edge and will be undermined by the next hurricane.
Why did this happen? The official reason given by Florida’s Department of Environmental Policy is that the county could only issue a temporary permit. Only DEP can issue a permanent permit, and as the homeowners don’t have DEP’s permanent permit, out goes the expensive, carefully engineered and unobtrusive sea wall.
This is the way government "works" for ordinary citizens. For the vast majority of people, government exists as a persecution mechanism that takes great pleasure in ruining their lives and pocketbooks. The DEP has inflicted heavy stress on the homeowners, now elderly, and could bring on a heart attack or stroke.
The real explanation for DEP’s merciless treatment of citizens is that the agency is powerless against developers. It cannot stop them from destroying the Everglades, from destroying wetlands, from polluting rivers, or from building in front of the coastal setback line. As the state politicians protect developers from the DEP, the only people against whom the DEP can use its authority are unrepresented citizens. Frustrated itself, the DEP lashes out at powerless citizens.
In the small settlement of Inlet Beach, there are numerous examples of developers getting what they want. Over the years hurricanes have eaten away the beach and the dunes. As this occurs the setback line for construction moves inland. Back when the real estate bubble was being created by Alan Greenspan’s irresponsibly low interest rate policy, small beach front lots were going for one million dollars. In the midst of this frenzy, a well-connected developer bought a beachfront lot for $30,000.
The lot was not recognizable as such. It sits on flat land on the beach. Decades ago it was a lot, but as the Gulf ate away the coast, the lot is now positioned in front of the setback line. The developer got the lot for the low price, because no one had been able to get a building permit for years.
But the developer got a permit. According to the head of the neighborhood association at the time, the developer went to a DEP official, whose jurisdiction was another part of the state and who was a former employee of the developer, and was issued a permit. Because of its exposure, during the real estate boom the house sat unsold for years. The community, which had opposed the project, concluded that the developer just wanted to show that he was more powerful than the law.
Currently, on six acres next to a state park on the East end of Inlet Beach another well connected developer has obtained DEP permission to compromise Walton County’s highest and last remaining sand dunes held in place with native vegetation in order to build 20 houses. To protect the houses, DEP has issued a permit for the construction of a 15-foot high man-made sand wall, a marketing device that will offer little protection.
According to information sent to me, nine of the houses will be seaward of the Coastal Construction Control line. Apparently this was a result of the developer being represented by a former county attorney, who convinced the commissioners to allow the developer to plan on the basis of the 1996 FEMA flood plain maps instead of using the current 2007 maps. Since 1996 there have been a number of hurricanes, such as Dennis and Ivan, and the set back line has moved inward.
When state and local governments allow developers to set aside the rules governing flood-plain development, they create insurance losses that drive up the insurance premiums for everyone in the community. The disturbance of the natural dunes could result in a breach through which storm surge can damage nearby properties. Instead of protecting people, government is allowing a developer to impose costs of his project on others.
Joseph Stack, Terry Hoskins, and 79 percent of the American population came to the realization that government does not represent them. Government represents moneyed interests for whom it bends the rules designed to protect the public, thus creating a legally privileged class.
In contrast, as at the West end of Inlet Beach, ordinary citizens are being driven into the ground.
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More on Stack:
Was Joe Stack the first white suicide bomber?
Yes, those connections are very strange indeed.
"Summer of Rage
Seems Joe Stack got tired of the overreach of the government. The Austin, Texas IRS/CIA/FBI building just got slammed by Joe after he burned the house down and went all kamikaze on Big Brother. Would it be wrong to call this person a freedom loving patriot? Now we get to watch the the media spin about how horrible of a person to do such a terrible thing to our benevolent handlers. Of course they are going to say this is another nut job that had a long history of pills, porn and puppy murders, guns in his house! yes GUNS and everyone with a gun should be ashamed and if you don't want to be labeled a crazed anti AmrieKan enemy of the state, you must bring all weapons to the smelting plant as those evil weapons psychologically Jedi mind meld everyone into flaming terrorists hell bent on destruction of the greatest country in the world shining beacon of freedom and democracy liberating poor defenseless countries around the globe of the evil and carnage of dictatorial regimes that are all bad, ugly and speak funny and you don't want to be like that do you?
Joe Stack busted his ass all his life to get a fair shake from our loving justice system. If you cant agree Joe has Brass Balls the size of New York, then have another swig of tap water and forgetaboutit.
Seems the Summer of Rage is getting off to an early start. Think this is an isolated incident, well you best think again. A friend of mine just received his last unemployment check from his worn out federal extension and the U I clerk told him 15 million people are going to lose their unemployment this year.
15,000,000. I am in that unfortunate group and let me just say, ugly is the attitude on the street. I am pissed off, the neighbors are pissed off, and no matter what the bought and paid for talking heads say, the crash that is coming is not something that is "unavoidable" as they crashed the system in the last depression ON PURPOSE! 7 million Americans and God only knows how many others world wide starved to death in the orchestrated depression because these asshat money changers cant stand the idea of not having everyone living in mud huts and serving them.
Guess what. We know who they are, and if you want someone to receive your justifiable rage here is the URL. Life on earth could be a hellova lot better if we humans could get over the idea that a great prize is a "NEW CAR." Yes brothers and sisters, we have a brand spanking new Chinese plastic recycled World Trade Center GM (Government Motors) pollution spewing, gas guzzling, hurling death unit free, if you can guess how many dead babies per mile it gets. Wont the neighbors be jealous when they see your shiny new slavery chain wrapped around your neck?
Take a good look people. We are totally raping, maiming, and flat out nest shitting the only host that gives us life. Capitalism gone mad is destroying everything world wide because we still believe the square flashing stupid unit that spews forth lies and deception 24/7 in the living room. And what I really love about the complete sorry state of affairs is people actually pay to be lied to. Blinded individuals world wide trading their life's working hours in exchange for a few hours of complete and total spin doctored bullshit regurgitating mind poison falsely labeled as entertainment. Myself, I would rather watch a black and red ant fight. Now there is entertainment.
How fucking stupid do they think I am to try to convince me that the owner of a company can dress up in employee clothes and along with camera crew, lighting crew, make up crew, directors, assistants, executive producers, stunt doubles, groupies, hookers and the gawddamn wind machine in tow that none of the employees are going to notice, as this is the new "reality" show Boss some genius dreamed up. I am expected to watch this stinking bucket of stewing feces and believe it. Fvkmeblind- talk about insulting. It is enough to make me burn down the house and..
In signing off, how many people are truly happy the IRS building got hit? Already, people are saying how awful and horrible but I am calling bullshit on that right here and now. 99% of us slaves are elated and hope we see an escalating trend and if you disagree you are lying to yourself. Deep down inside is the little screaming voice that says "Yeah baby, one for the people."
RIP Joe Stack
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"Is Joe Stack a Wake-Up Call to America?
by John W. Whitehead
"In my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say." ~ Joe Stack
On Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010, 53-year-old, financially strapped software engineer Joseph Stack crashed a small plane into an IRS office building in Austin, Texas. He left behind a wife, a stepdaughter and a suicide note he had posted on his software company’s website. By the following day, the various media pundits on the right and left had already dismissed Stack as a fringe lunatic, and anyone who agreed with Stack’s diatribe against an unjust government was labeled a crackpot. However, while you can – and should – disagree with the method of Stack’s madness, Americans shouldn’t be too quick to discount the source of his frustrations....
Stack is representative of a burgeoning class of disaffected Americans who are waking up to the reality that the American governmental system no longer works as it was intended – that is, it no longer works for them. In its place, a government of elites comprised of politicians and unelected bureaucrats has emerged that views the average American as little more than a source of tax funds and labor to keep the massive machinery of government operating. We have shifted from having a government that is "of the people, by the people, for the people" to one that is largely seen as predatory, a "government of wolves."
Unfortunately, most Americans are so caught up in their own hectic day-to-day lives that Joe Stack stands to become just one more passing media sensation without anyone giving any real thought as to why he chose to end his life as he did. Yet if we allow this incident to quickly fade into media oblivion, we will be doing a great disservice to all those like Stack who are suffering under the crushing weight of economic hardship, hopelessness and despair.
So what should we glean from this seeming exercise in futility?
Read the rest HERE" .... The picture that emerges from all this is not of a violent terrorist hell-bent on destruction to further his paranoid political agenda, as many in the media have attempted to portray, but a man driven to the edge of sanity as a result of his personal disputes with the IRS.
That didn’t stop controlled shill Glenn Beck comparing Stack to Osama Bin Laden and fitting him in to his fairytale delusion about terrorists being within Obama’s inner circle ready to kill the President. Beck even threw the people he claims to represent – Tea Party members – under the bus by saying Stack could be a “radical constitutionalist,” which is how a lot of Tea Party members would describe themselves.
To characterize yesterday’s tragedy as a deadly portend of the “domestic terror” waiting to be unleashed on U.S. cities by disgruntled Americans is not only completely irresponsible, it’s a revelatory insight into how desperate the establishment is – both fake left and right – to neutralize growing peaceful political opposition to the big government agenda across the country.
Read the rest HEREUpdate: Joe Stack, The Austin Pilot, Had a Valid Tax Beef About § 1706
