The immediate attempts to pin blame for Joseph Stack to any political orientation are gross.

That goes for those here calling him the "Teabag Terrorist" as much as the FOX mouthpieces calling him a "leftist terrorist." The latter are only worse because they get to broadcast their nonsense unchallenged.

Clearly, based on the manifesto, most of his views would have fit right in at DU. But I never saw anyone at DU advocate flying a plane into an office building!

Clearly, his specific beef about the IRS touches on Teabagger obsessions. Maybe his case was true IRS harrassment, maybe not. (You can be sure now that you'll never know for sure. No information will be released without careful attention to its public effect.)

And so what?

He could have been right in every word he wrote. That obviously doesn't justify what he did. It also doesn't discredit any one of his views per se. (Recall the old "Hitler was a vegetarian" fallacy.)

Unless an organizational affiliation or history of association with a political group turns up, there's also no justification for trying to assign blame to any given ideology or movement. (Or his playing Dungeons and Dragons or sexual fetishes or whatever else is going to turn up.)

That the US for many years has been a rogue state run by a criminal oligarchy, or that there is a need for revolutionary change, of that there's no doubt. But this, too, lends no justification to his destructive and counterproductive approach, which will achieve nothing other than setting off yet another moral panic, leading to more anal probes at the airports.

We need general strikes, giant street presence, moves to local autonomy and acts of peaceful resistance. Not heroic suicide commandos who seek to hijack the zeitgeist.

But what he has done is a typically American reaction, that of the loner and violent rebel celebrated in our popular culture.

Forgive me if you disagree, but the guy throwing rocks at a local parliament in France during a demonstration by ten thousand angry farmers is the fool crashing small planes into the IRS in Austin.

For now I'm going to file this under the familiar category of rampage killings. He fits in better with Prof. Bishop (to take the most recent example) and a thousand other "postal" killers, than with Alexander Berkman (who at least knew who to aim at).

He didn't do it in a mall with a rifle, and his target was not random and may have been an institution that had actually harmed him. But his senseless and spectacular suicide attack is in the familiar "American Apocalyptic" mode of individualist "snap" killings. Too many people have learned the lesson that if your life has failed, or even if you've suffered a genuine injustice, you get a license to blow yourself up in the public square.

Despite the fact that he is pretty clearly an anti government wingnut.

The anti-tax activists are a distinct wing of the far right.

There was NOTHING in the letter that ties him to any leftist ideology.

Call it for what it is.

People are trying to make this about all kinds of things... but it seems it was mostly just about his not wanting to pay taxes.

I can sympathize with thinking the tax laws aren't fair... but to go from there to "so I'm not paying mine!" is where (I thought) leftists diverged from teabaggers/RWers.

It is clear that the issue was avoiding taxes. He got caught, others didn't, and that just chapped his ass.

That's got teabagger written all over.

"There was NOTHING in the letter that ties him to any leftist ideology."

There was a great deal.

You are not thinking, you are reacting defensively.

Although you have no reason to feel defensive at all.

The important point is the reverse of what you say: There was nothing in the letter that ties leftist ideology to HIM.

He can proclaim leftist sayings and then still be a murderous dick.

You think that problems with the healthcare industry are confined to the left?

This was a RW libertarian anti-tax rant, and a couple minor complaints thrown in.

You need to read between the lines. The entire thing was written to make HIM the victim of a great government conspiracy, when he was nothing more than a tax cheat.

Either YOU didn't read the letter, or you have no clue what leftist ideology IS (which would not be surprising, considering how there virtually is no left in this country).

That was the obvious reference to HIS take on how how corporate America operates - it says nothing about his opinion on that well-worn phrase. It was the set up for the punch line that followed. Nothing more.

Jeeze.

Fine, I can't read what's obviously in there and built pretty much throughout his text.

As Stack killed himself, he tried to murder as many IRS employees as he could.

Therefore the Teabaggers are responsible.

Nothing he wrote may be remotely construed as agreeing with a viewpoint that could be described as leftist.

Everything he wrote is teabag, teabag, teabag. Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are as good as direct authors of his actions, which he performed as a complete automaton enslaved to their right-wing ideology.

Under no circumstances was he a sane individual with free will giving consideration to his actions and believing he was doing the right thing (even though we both abhor his actions).

All this is true, although his actions would reflect about as much on leftist views as Hitler's actions reflect on vegetarians. Even though rampage killings by people whose lives have failed are a frequent phenomenon not necessarily associated with any political ideology.

Happy?!

I only said, in counter to YOUR claim that he had no ideological leanings, that he was clearly a libertarian anti-tax true believer. It was his anti-tax schemes that got him in trouble with the IRS, and that was, essentially, the reason he targeted the IRS.

Also, anti-tax activists are part of the teabagger community, not the left. Google it, if you must. This is common knowledge.

I can only speculate as to why you want to smear the left with this.

This was not a teabagger suicide bombing (as another poster posited) but an irrational explosion by a seriously disturbed person. Who happened to have RW sympathies.

BTW, do you not know the difference between 'left' and 'populist'?

Two will do:

"in counter to YOUR claim that he had no ideological leanings,"
I claimed nothing of the sort.

"you want to smear the left with this."
Nothing of the sort, and directly conflicts with your first idea about what I claimed.

Otherwise, and this is for the entertainment of the gallery:

"anti-tax activists are part of the teabagger community, not the left."
The history of war tax resistance in North America is older than that of this country. Here's one active group that's many years older than the teabag astroturf movement. They pay the share of income tax that would go to the war machine to non-profits.

http://www.nwtrcc.org/mtap09/mtap1009.html



Sounds pretty leftist to me.

"Google it, if you must."
Condescend, if you must. I'm a safe target for this form of arrogant venting, as I'm pretty much invulnerable to it from anyone not named Einstein.

"do you not know the difference between 'left' and 'populist'"
Yeah. From the perspective of state-corporatist liberals, "left" is what they call themselves when addressing "the base" during primaries (they do not talk to "the base" at other times if they can avoid it) and "populist" is what they call anyone who addresses "the base" with ideas they don't like. There are other ways both terms could be defined, but this is how you seem to be using them.

I got my idea of the world's many political philosophies, which won't always fit your neat little team-game categories, by reading a lot of books from high school on. And I have a B.A. in it, but the books mean more to me.

"This is common knowledge."
Repetition makes fact! Repetition makes fact!

"an irrational explosion by a seriously disturbed person"
True enough. Well, maybe not irrational. He was clearly in possession of free will and able to express his motives clearly. He chose to do the wrong thing. It was disturbed.

"Who happened to have RW sympathies."
A few you might characterize that way, others that don't fit the profile. Mostly semantics.

I suspect his mish-mash of views is something very close to the present-day average of what people think outside the ruling class pretend-consensus.

Right about now, I think a majority hate the corporations and the banks, and are angry about the bankers' crash and the bankers' plunder.

Majorities probably hate taxes and think the government is wasting these. They tend to conflate the plunder (TARP ETC) with the stimulus plan, however.

Majorities seem to want a universal health-care system and support single-payer, insofar as they've even heard of it.

And a majority is feeling helpless about the whole thing. The overlap of these various majorities is probably a plurality, if you see what I mean.

:applause:

"in counter to YOUR claim that he had no ideological leanings,"
I claimed nothing of the sort.

True, you did not - but you cetainly implied it in the "he is all of us" crap of NOT addressing his ideological bent. If we do not recognize the RW anti-tax freeman crap that is the basis of his fight with the IRS then it IS a case of 'he is all of us' - and he was NOT. RW nutcases advocate tax refusal, tax cheating, and are ideologically opposed to the legal basis of our income tax system. WE, over here on THIS side, gripe about our taxes, try to make the tax system more equitable, and PAY them. We don't murder people over them.

Which leads into point 2:

"you want to smear the left with this."
Nothing of the sort, and directly conflicts with your first idea about what I claimed.

By not acknowledging the RW libertarian anti-tax movement behind this it again makes is INCLUSIVE of the left - and that is a smear of the left, because that is a purely RW movement. There were no commies hanging out with the morons at the Montana Freeman compound.

Next, I think everyone here recognises that your conflating the Anti War-Tax people with the libertarian right's anti income tax movement is just about as valid as the claims that Kucinich and Sanders are closet republicans because they voted against the health reform bill, as did the republicans. Look at the letter - he said that back in the 80s he met some 'experts' who advised him on tax matters, and he filed according to their advice and was hit by a $10,000 fine by the IRS. He doesn't go into any detail because he had no leg to stand on - probably some crap about incorporating himself so he could file 100% of his income as being 're-invested' in his self-corporatioin, and thus non-taxable, the way the big corporations do - that was one of the approaches advised by the libertarian anti-tax crowd in the 80s.

That CLEARLY exposes his leanings. Today, that crowd has joined into the teabagger movement, along with the racists and the Birchers. Don't see any leftists there. And yet, by disregarding his clear leanings you paint the left with the same brush - thus, you smear the left when you say he could be one of us.

And despite your protestations, it IS common knowledge that the Freemen and their ilk are RW, and not just on tax matters - it came out just the other day that Scott Roeder, Dr Tiller's murderer, spent time at the Montana Freemen compound.

And you go on and on about the 'majorities' attitudes - but do the majority try to blow up IRS offices?

The fact that he repeatedly tried to scam the IRS and got busted for it? The result being, that when he actually did have no income, because of the economy, he got red-flagged by the IRS because of his previous attempts at tax cheating?

What 'facts' do you think I'm missing here?

That was per his "manifesto".Lets face it, he was all over the place politically. Many people are actually. He snapped. And almost killed his family. His anger was with his life being a failure.

His name is the third most searched there today.

Nothing comes up, incidentally.

The guy's business website hadn't changed since 2004. (You can look it up on archive.org.) In this case, I think it's safe to say that if he'd had the money for political donations, he would have likely restrained his murderous will.

No voice? Sad and not what we were promised.

It should herald their end. Nice to see them embrace this guy on the day of the conservative's forum.

But, I think you (not you) cross a line in defending a breath of what he wrote. His views don't deserve to be debated here now. I'd go further and suggest that his violent act may well have framed his tax argument in a way which just invites derision and rejection (and probably deserves it, imo).

Meanwhile others on the right are blaming it on the left. Nice little confusion.

"But, I think you cross a line in defending a breath of what he wrote. His views don't deserve to be debated here now. I'd go further and suggest that his violent act may well have framed his tax argument in a way which invites just derision and rejection (and probably deserves it, imo)."

How tactically wise of you.

Also, a complete misrepresentation of what I wrote, as I'm not defending - or attacking - "a breath of what he wrote." My point is everyone's jostling to Pin The Blame On The Other Team, and it's gross.

I don't see him as framing a tax argument. I do see him as feeling he was fucked by the IRS (perhaps justifiably, perhaps not) and that his life was over, at which point he chose to do something incredibly wrong in the process of killing himself.

If the proximate cause of his financial downfall was an insurance company, he would have pointed his plane there. None of which makes it worthy as a political act (which is exactly what those who are trying to pin it on an ideology they dislike are trying to make of it).

I was sloppy with the 'you'. You made some good points. I know you weren't doing/saying that (tried to clean it up :dunce:) Along the lines of your complaint, tho, I don't think we should be shy about making sure whatever faction of the right chooses to embrace this man aren't able to, deliberately and unopposed, work this into a frenzy of opposition to our Democratic-led government.

Sorry for the misunderstanding (my fault)

It's really nice when someone is willing to conciliate or correct themselves. It's become a bit rarer on DU, sadly.

What you say is true enough. Any group that CHOOSES to adopt this guy as an Official Martyr of their cause needs to be hammered but good.

Long as it's understood, as someone says just below, that he was a murderous reactionary of the individual variety. Saw his life as failed, went postal, apparently tried to kill his family, then tried to mass murder a bunch of office workers at what may or may not have been an institution that had fucked his life unfairly.

A rampage killer. Unfortunately not an unknown category.

and i think JR did a bangup job of nailing that down.

we're feeling raw and powerless, and we don't have any sort of way to take it to the streets. seems like all we *can* do is wait for the next lone wolf tragedy, and attach a tagline to it...hopefully scoring the right points for the right side. that's got to change. we've got to create real, meaningful ways to act in the public square.

I think it's very telling about where we are as a nation when it comes to political discourse when, in the face of murderous tragedy, the first impulse of far, far too many people is "How can I pin this on my political opponents?"

Every time people do it, they tear away little pieces of their soul.

It's that impulse that denies us the government we need. As long as the people are just as cold, indifferent, and calculating as their politicians, is it any wonder that we cannot accomplish major initiatives aimed at helping the most unfortunate among us?

:applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause:

More like...

"Crap, some nutcase flew a plane into a building? What a murderous crazy fuckwad... wait, what? He was angry at WHO? Because of WHAT? Oh my, this spells 'right-winger' all over."

Nowhere near "first impulse".

Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

They were saved by the quick response of the firefighters. The man had murder in his heart. No one who is a decent person would ever contemplate murdering their family. Much less in some agonizing death by fire.

That move destroys any shred of credibility he might have had, from any viewpoint on the political spectrum. Nothing but a murderous coward.

The wife and child had checked into a hotel that night after a loud argument. They were not in the house. Those were early reports.

We don't actually have to listen to what these people say (think, feel).

We don't have to try to understand.

Once tagged, it can be dismissed without any of us addressing this:

"We need general strikes, giant street presence, moves to local autonomy and acts of peaceful resistance. Not heroic suicide commandos who seek to hijack the zeitgeist.

But what he has done is a typically American reaction, that of the loner and violent rebel celebrated in our popular culture."

The "loner rebel" is such a convenient myth for men like Joe.

sick man. sad

i think we need to face the fact that this is something that's going to need to be discussed. and i don't think we can discuss it rationally if DU divides into factions over it. the takeaway...yes, there IS a takeaway...is that we need a "real" labor movement. we need to address these issues of inequity in ways that are civilized and meaningful. the Lone Wolf is the emblem of impotency. we need to get over that. he's not a hero.

great writing, JR.

:sarcasm:

He's all OVER the map in that suicide note. Hates taxes, apparently didn't see fit to pay them. Hates Bush. HUH??? Bush was the best thing that EVER happened to folks who own their own private planes.

What we DO know is that he's a tax evading murderer who would NOT fit right in here on DU. We are FOR people paying their taxes and we are AGAINST murder. Those are the ONLY givens.

Even if he wasn't, which groups are touting catchphrases like "Revolution" "Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures" (in his manifesto) “no taxation without representation” (also in his manifesto)? Even if this guy isn't directly tied to one of these right wing extremist groups, they are the ones fueling this type of action by their pundit recycled rhetoric day after day. One teabagger just days ago at a Teabag "townhall" called for a congresswoman to be hanged. It's time that the DHS starts taking aim at these organizations and pundits that are promoting (if even just rhetorically) treasonous acts to be carried out.

Just my opinion of course. :smoke:

I know plenty of people who know we need one, and they are very remote from teabaggers. This country was born in one. If the power of capital, the military and the corporations were ever to be dethroned, I hope by peaceful means, that would be nothing short of one.

As for "no taxation without representation," that's older than this country.

You can see it on Washington DC license plates. (Without the "no," ironically.)

It's a slogan that often applies.

Please don't rigidly use the words of one group as a means to associate them with other groups. We all use words for different meanings.

Sometimes words even substitute for the complete lack of a meaning. (For example, "Chevy: An American Revolution.")

Thanks for the thread, Jack Riddler.:thumbsup:

Yeah, because any of that shit has ever worked in this country before...

"Not heroic suicide commandos who seek to hijack the zeitgeist."

Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but have you ever noticed that people tend to take your cause much more seriously if they know that you are willing to kill and/or die for it?

"Yeah, because any of that shit has ever worked in this country before..."

Hasn't it?

Can't you think of any examples?

Lives, fortune, sacred honor.

That's what those words meant. This guy phrased it differently: "Nothing happens until there's a body count."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=389&topic_id=7741594&mesg_id=7741594

Suspect in slays fan of ‘Dungeons’
By Laurel J. Sweet
Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Accused campus killer Amy Bishop was a devotee of Dungeons & Dragons - just like Michael “Mucko” McDermott, the lone gunman behind the devastating workplace killings at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield in 2000.

Bishop, now a University of Alabama professor, and her husband James Anderson met and fell in love in a Dungeons & Dragons club while biology students at Northeastern University in the early 1980s, and were heavily into the fantasy role-playing board game, a source told the Herald.

“They even acted this crap out,” the source said.

When questioned about it yesterday, Anderson, 45, a research scientist in Huntsville, Ala., dismissed the egghead escape as “a passing interest. It was a social thing more than anything else. It’s not the crazy group people think they are.”

McDermott studied engineering at Northeastern in the late 1980s, but Anderson said he never met him. Police seized two Dungeons & Dragons books from McDermott’s Haverhill apartment after he shot seven co-workers to death on Dec. 26, 2000.

The popular fantasy role-playing game has a long history of controversy, with objections raised to its demonic and violent elements. Some experts have cited the D&D backgrounds of people who were later involved in violent crimes, while others say it just a game. A federal appeals court recently upheld a prison ban on the game in Wisconsin, where prison officials reportedly testified they were afraid the game could promote “hostility, violence and escape behavior.”

:wow: :scared: :eyes:


Good and necessary OP. Thanks.

but I thought the D&D connection was just about the most twisted of the media's spins on that case.

"Some experts have cited the D&D backgrounds of people who were later involved in violent crimes, while others say it just a game."

Some experts have cited the military backgrounds of people who were later involved in violent crimes. Do you think they have a point?

I think this sort of reaching by the media is laughable at best and despicable at worst.

thanks!

have with the tea baggers, I can't think of his name.

Essentially he said the mega-corporations, their corporate media propaganda machine and the oligarchs had separated and magnified the average American's differences along cultural lines for the purposes of divide and conquer.

Some of these threads and confusion regarding tea-baggers claiming he was a leftist and liberals citing his tea-baggery ideas seem to bear our that intellectual's point.

to "certain groups" and I'm sure the first big push for that will be from FBI's Neo-COINTELPRO Internet Clown Army.

But that won't matter when his "martyrdom" is mainstream right-wing dogma.

You don't think the U.S. is polarized enough for Joesph Stack to become a "mainstream" right-wing martyr?

What's more troublesome is the pretext:

Next time it will be a "disgruntled USAF airman" who crashes a plane into Congress during a convenient "Republican walkout", eliminating "the Democrat problem", and the military coup will have its own Lone Gunman Cover Story. 4/4.

I think it more likely he will become another excuse to treat every act of resistance as one of terrorism. Peaceful tax resisters, anyone anti-government or anti-corporatist, "conspiracy theorists," "eco-terrorists" ...no particular distinction need be made. In some ways you can understand why the strong-hand statists and capitalists will feel increasingly besieged. The whole system is losing legitimacy, quite beyond whoever is occupying the personnel slots at any given time.