Suicide Plane Terrorist Attack on Austin IRS Building

A plane has crashed this morning into government offices in Austin Texas including those housing the IRS. Officials are not saying they think this is an act of domestic terrorism, but they aren't saying that it was an accident either.



Via NPR

A single-engine plane crashed Thursday into an office building housing the Internal Revenue Service in Austin, Texas, in what law enforcement said could be a deliberate act by the pilot.

Local law enforcement officials and the White House, however, said they did not believe the incident was an act of terrorism. U.S. law enforcement officials said authorities were trying to determine if the pilot intentionally targeted the IRS.

What bothers me about this story is the fact that this persons own story seems to mirror my own over the past decade. He was a Contract Software Engineer, as I used to be. He ran afoul of the IRS due to unreported income, I've been practically working under the table and under the radar for that last 5 years now taking in less than $10,000 a year when I used to make an average of $45/Hr a decade ago.

I've been through bankruptcy and multi-evictions. My credit rating is destroyed. I've struggled with rage-aholism and depression. I know there are no millions of Americans who've been through something very similar.

But this guy is a long way down the road from where I am.

He railed about the Bail-outs and Health Care: Via Huffpo

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) 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” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) 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.

And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!

He was more than a little cynical about "America".

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also 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.

His biggest issue seemed to be a rather obscure section of the U.S. tax Code.

Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer... and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

It's at the end of the note that things turn most chilling and, in my mind, 'McVeigh-ish"...

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

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. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

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. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.


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

In my opinion there is no question that this was a terrorist attack against the U.S. Government. This was a Suicide Bombing via plane.

But the open question is will he be pegged as a crank from the left (with his criticism of Health Care, and "GW Bush the Puppet President"), or a crank from the right (and his rabid criticism of a currupt government and unfair taxation ala the Tea Party?) - or does his case completely fail to fit into that framing?

I doubt the right will use this to attack Obama as "Soft" on Terrorism, since there was probably no visible warning and this guys didn't have a "Muslim" name - on the other hand their likely to reject that notion that he has clear "common cause" with the Tea Party movement.

Terrorism isn't just for Muslim's anymore.

More importantly how many more people who've lost their livelihoods and all hope over the last year or last 5 years are likely to self-destruct in equally explosive ways? Or will the size of this destruction instead case them to take pause, take stock, and attempt more productive ways to help recover their sanity and in world that seems to have gone insane?

Vyan