When is a "Terrorist" Not a "Terrorist"? When He's a White Texan and Not an Arab. Joe Stack.

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That is good points of view regarding this topic. For me a person becomes a terrorist when he acts violent actions to anyone.

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  Using the Patriot Act to define terrorism is not the way to go here. If we ever manage to get a SCOTUS back in this century, it's a safe bet that the Patriot Act will be one of MANY Bush laws and policies that will be very quietly and embarassingly declared unconstitutional.

  In any case, terrorism is a military strategy not limited to Muslims, or any religion. The tactic is to disrupt, kill, and scare the cr*p out of as many people as you can for as long as you can. Our Founding Fathers practically wrote the book on it. Now, if somebody else happens to slam a plane/car into some other gov't building and b*tches about taxes in the suicide note, I'd say we definately need to look into the possibility, however remote...

Two things that are inevitable: taxes and death ... the guy made his choice.

It is what happens when a nut case has a computer and a private plane.

Let's not forget he torched his house.

Conspiracy theory 'fans' will certainly have their field day with this one.

My main concern was ... omg i hope he wasn't in any way connected to "that" religion ... then we'd never hear the end of it.

I have seen some examples of sophistry in my day, but nothing beats the efforts to paint Joe Stack as anything but a terrorist. He is the white-bread Christian jihadist's operational arm, just taking it the next illogical step. Angry at his inability to shape society in the way he would have it, he torches his house and flies his plane into the IRS building. He does not appear to be exactly a poster boy for IRS-induced poverty, having a private plane and house in the suburbs. I am constantly aware that my annual tribute to the IRS is going to fund wars and militarism around the world, but contrary to Mr. Stack, I am also aware that body count alone isn't going to deter those who make fortunes from those wars.  If it would, it would already have brought Iraq and Afghanistan to a close. We have to stop electing people who support that kind of stuff, which means that a WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE TO WAKE UP! 

Sadly, the bulk of the American people still don't have the gumption or intellectual curiosity to look further into the entire paradigm they have bought into.  9/11 was an inside job perpetrated to set us on this imperial crusade (yes, crusade) to dominate the resources of the middle east. There is plenty of evidence around but they are too lazy to look at it. The number of signatories to Richard Gage's petition to reopen the 9/11 investigation stands at 1044 building professionals (Architects and Engineers) and many thousands of other average citizens. They also have to realize that we cannot make our foreign policy hostage to the perceptions of a corrupt regime in Israel who have our congress in their pockets and have veto power over who gets to make a serious run for President. 

Did any of you bother to look up the legal definition of terrorist? NO!

Well, here it is:

 The (unconstitutional) USA PATRIOT ACT defines domestic terrorism as "activities that -

1) involve acts dangerous to human life

2) that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States:...

3) and "appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;" or "to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion;".

Crashing a plane into a building is dangerous to human life, especially since in this case people did die. So requirement #1 has been met.

Intentionally crashing a plane into a building is a violation of criminal law in every state of the union. So requirement #2 has been met.

Before Stack crashed his plane, did he warn the IRS to stop collecting taxes or else? No. Did he warn IRS employees to stop working for the IRS or else? No. Was Stack working for a radical group that is trying to influence people or change public policy? No. So there was no act of intimidation or coercion under requirement #3.

Some may argue that Stack's manifesto is proof of requirement #3. But for that to be  true, there would have to be some radical domestic or foreign organization ready, willing and able to carry out future acts of intimidation or coercion. But there is no ongoing threat because Stack operated alone and now he is dead. One could argue that his manifesto, which no one knew about until after the plane crash, was actually a suicide note.

Thus, like it or not, Stack was not a domestic terrorist. He was just another suicidal mass murderer.

Come on now. Did bush & cheney inc succeed in turning the US into the land of the trembling and the home of the unbrave? A guy flies a plane into a building - mentally ill, maybe, a criminal for sure, but a terrorist? Where does it stop? Is a thug that uses a gun in a crime now become terrorist? Or a kid that brings a plastic knife and fork to school? What about the jaywalker that scared you by stepping into the flow of traffic?

The right wants all the terrorist they can gin up - don't make it easier for them.

The plain truth of the matter is, Joe Stack wanted to be part of America's rich elite, and when it dawned on him that he was never gonna get there, he got pissed off at everyone else. You know, it's not our problem, it's just our fault kind of thing. Apparently, the world did a lousy job of placating little Joey's precious, fragile ego.

The house he burned to the ground, with his family still inside, was worth a quarter of a million dollars. I dunno about you all, but I ain't living in no quarter of a million dollar abode. I also don't feel the need to go kill home builders or mortgage lenders because I'm not living in a quarter of a million dollar house. My ego isn't that precious or fragile.

His tax bill with the IRS was around $120,000. Do you know how much money you would have had to have made, before you owed $120,000 in taxes??? We ain't talking poverty level here, folks.

But what really gets me is this guy flew around in his private plane, whined about having to pay federal taxes, but never said a single word about federal taxes going to make sure he had an airport to safely land his precious private plane. Airports don't just spring up out of nowhere. There are a LOT of federal funds that go into their construction and maintenance.

Joe Stack was a freeloader. He wanted to be part of the ivory tower throne-sitting crowd. He wanted everyone to pay for his free pass, as if we somehow owed him a standard of living above anyone and everyone else. He saw himself, his private plane, and his quarter of a million dollar house as being part of "America's working poor", that federal taxes were a threat to. The real threat came when he realized he'd have to pay the same price of admission to a civilized society as the rest of us.

Of course, this guy is a hero to the anti-tax and anti-government crowd, (though they only became anti-government in January of '09).  Mr. Stack flew his own private plane into the building,  but he's just another 'average Joe'.  I guess his outrageously burdensome taxes prevented him from owning a Gulfstream jet.  It's just so unfair, because he really could have made a point, flying one of those in his kami kazi krash. (No, I'm not promoting the klan).

The point is simple.  He is just another murderous whack job, whose aims and ideas beautifully dove-tail into the official Rove repuglican narrative.  If you take any of their official stories with just a grain of salt, their official narrative is kartoonish, an ultra right wing version of 'cartoonish'.  A few examples spring to mind:  1) They trotted out another anti-tax 'Joe' during the '08 election, a guy named Sam Wuerzlbacher, or 'Joe the Plumber'.  His name wasn't Joe, he wasn't a registered plumber.  He claimed to be 'Independant', but was a registered repug.  He made less money than his union counterparts, but he had more than a quarter million dollars at hand to buy a business, so he was the symbol of the strong blue collar support for McCain/Palin and Bush policies, though he came from the state that lost the most jobs under Rove's bosses.  There are some rather large holes in the repug's official narrative, but the story was that he was 'just another average Joe' who was fed up with taxes.  2) The US militia movement offered us the Oklahoma City bombers, who bombed the government building (with C-4 plastique, not fertilizer) on the anniversary of the Waco attack, but they chose not to go after the government building in Dallas, right by Waco.  Why hit the government building in the state next door, rather than Dallas?  It's not an important question in the official narrative.  3) The Columbine killers had a nazi and cultish web site, where they talked about blowing up the World Trade Centers, 2 years before 9/11/01.  The official narrative said that Eric Harris got his access to weapons and training from his ex-military dad.  Furthermore, Eric's dad lost his military job due to Clinton's closure of military bases (Bush 41 closed the bases, but nevermind).  His dad lost his job, and that caused financial problems, turmoil, and alienation for Eric.  Of course, after losing his job, Mr. Harris moved his family to the richest county in the United States, where the residents had the highest average per-capita income in the country, due to the proximity of government defense contractors working on missile systems.

This list could be expanded ad-nauseum, but the reader might get bored, and their attention could waver.  In all cases, the official story shows some glaring inconsistancies.  One school of thought in this country tells us some kartoon version of events that 'prove' their point, but anyone paying attention can't swallow their version, even with all of Morton Thiokol's massive salt holdings.  There is a current National security concept called 'lone wolf' terrorism.  The Texas repugs gave us this idea after 9/11, and it is currently in place.  The idea is that someone with no demonstrable connection to any terror group can still be on board with the broader aims of a terrorist group, and can be tried as a terroristic threat to national security.  Which is to say 'thought crime', pure and simple.  But this 'lone-wolf' label only applies to individuals from the non-kartoon school of political thought.  It doesn't apply to right-wing, ultra-violent, gun-toting, anti-tax, anti-government, anti-abortion, anti-women, anti-semitic, anti-moslem, anti-gay, anti-minority, anti-union, anti-environment, pro-'khristian' military-connected rich WASP white guys from the cowboy side of Carl Oglesby's Yankee-Cowboy war.  In other words, it doesn't apply to people who espouse the repug party's thoughts and platform, it just applies to the rest of human kind.  No matter what the body count is, repug political thought = national security, non-kartoon thought = 'lone wolf' terrorism.  Hopefully, this clears things up.

Arthur, I think your assessment of Mr. Spark misses the point.  Misses HIS point.  When I wrote my view of the event 

http://euonymous.wordpress.com/       Would you crash an airplane or vote a stock proxy?

I specifically wanted to avoid the word "terrorist."  A terrorist wants to create fear and change behavior by virtue of that fear.  But touche.  You and that word make my point exactly.  I was avoiding the word terrorist as too tightly associated with 9/11 and the Middle East to be helpful in a discussion of the American political, corporate and tax systems. We are rarely given so clear an explanation of a violent political action as we have in this situation.  I understand Stack's frustration.  I wouldn't have taken the steps he took, but please don't dismiss the issues he raises.  As I mentioned in my writing... the French Revolution was caused by a thwarted middle class.  The Tea Bag folks I initially assumed were paid shills for the Republican Party apparently are not affiliating themselves with the GOP.  They are very angry but disorganized.  An angry organized movement can cause a lot of damage. It may just be a matter of time before we see further violence related to the former middle class. Many have nothing to lose.  Events like this are designed to make those in power reconsider their actions.

In aggregate dismissing Stack as an extremest either on the right or the left puts him with the concerns of Middle America and rightly so.

VR Don Gardon

Kind of rolls off the tongue. That needs to be his title from now on.

If the Gang Of Pirates think that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat, it is not any part of Bipartisan to accommodate them and roll over and play dead.

another factor is that our media and ruling class want to be able to paint arabs and muslims as uniquely evil and uniquely deserving of our punishment and wrath.  once others, especially people like us, are called "terrorists", the word loses its punch as a rallying cry for war.

Allene E. Swienckowski

Strangely enough, I woke up this morining thinking about the 19 Saudi's who engineered 9/11 and the fact that many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were responsible. We Americans are so hyped-up on fear about terrorist attacks that we have lost the ability to use logic and facts to determine who and what are our real enemies. 

We live in a complex world and yet we are comfortable accepting simple answers to explain why we have become such a hated nation to the rest of the world. If only people and cultures that we have no interest in understanding were simply jealous of our, oops, our past lifestyle accentuated by wealth and security. Fear has been used by politicians and the defense industry to frighten us into allowing them to whittle away our constitutional, guaranteed freedoms. And the sad reality is that neither the politicians nor the defense industry can protect us from terrorist attacks because of the very defintion of terrorism.

If we spent more money educating our own created underclass rather than constructing more jails and in turn did more to elevate the dire living conditions of many of those angry and lost young men who would rather sacrifice ther lives in a vain, desparate attempt to make some sort of impact on the world that they inhabit. As long as greed and power are revered by the few and exercised against the many, I believe this is called tyranny, the world will always be a very dangerous place filled with frustrated people who live their daily lives without hope.

It sickens me that there are a number of so-called "liberals" offering apologia for this obvious domestic terrorist.  His hate-filled screed was loaded with clues about his nature.  Ultimately, this is also a really vicious lesson in the realities of White Privilege. 

If you'd like, you can hear analysis of a LOT of those clues in my show from Thursday night.  www.whiterosesociety.org/Kincaid.html  Just click the archive for 18 February.

Get On The H.O.R.N. www.headonradionetwork.com America's Liberal Voice

You make a good point about Joe Stack getting a free ride as far as the "terrorist" label is concerned, but he's not the only one.

Anti-tax sentiment is a powerful force in this country, but so is anti-abortion fervor (assassinating doctors, fake anthrax) homophobia (arson, bombings, assault), racism, and religious bias--to name a few other examples. Neither the prominent right-wing proponents of violence from the past decade or two (Unabomber, Eric Rudolph, Tim McVeigh) nor the second-tier ones (Joe Stack, Bruce Ivins, Jim Von Brunn, and many others whose names are fading back into obscurity) were categorized often enough as what they were: DOMESTIC TERRORISTS.

We might have better luck fixing the problem when we can at least name it correctly.

http://www.cognitivedissident.org (think differently.)