On February 18, 2010 – Andrew Joseph Stack III flew a small plane into a building that housed IRS offices. Many are already well aware of this particular news item. I’m a little late to it. It’s already been reported, blogged about and hyper-analyzed all over the usual places, so I won’t go into the super intimate details. I’ll leave some links to places that did a much better job of it than I can.
Stack also wrote a 30 paragraph long letter before he did the deed (he also set his house on fire) and I’m going to include of a few of the points that I like from it below. If you want to read the whole thing, it’s easily found online. A lot of these words ring very true, which is why I wanted to blog them.
…I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician (that has) 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.
Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities…and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.
…I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us…
It…made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.
Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.
Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity.
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.
Joe Stack (1956-2010)
02/18/2010
Do I agree with him? Well, yea. Do I approve of his methods? Well…ummmmm…*non-committal shrug* :))
For the full story, which is still being updated by some sites check out these spots:
Yahoo News – Still being updated with new info as it happens
Huffington Post – Also includes the full suicide note
Also on Huffington Post, more personal responses from two bloggers, one who was right down the street here and here
Here is a write up on the subject from my favorite independent news site AlterNet.org
Google News – A Google News search for Joseph Stack
YouTube Videos? Uhhhh…yea…lots of em
There are some Joe Stack dedicated FaceBook fan pages as well. I’m sure you know how to find em.
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