The Rude Pundit: There Is Violence Here

[meegbear]

Oh, let's not be children here. Andrew Joseph Stack committed an act of terrorism yesterday in Austin as surely as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to on that Detroit-bound airplane two months ago, as surely as Timothy McVeigh did, as surely as the 9/11 hijackers did. Indeed, one way to view Stack is as a merging of McVeigh and Mohammed Atta.

For, truly, while they may be different in kind, in the specific grievances, are the things that drove Joe Stack to a suicide attack on the IRS different in tone from those that led Abdulmutallab onto his plane? A feeling of disempowerment that only great violence could overcome? A belief that the American way of life was debased? A hope that others will rise up through their sacrifice? Inspiration from groups and belief systems that advocate violence?

Why can we say Stack was driven insane, as if that abrogates the crime, but Mohammed Atta was not? If the Austin police had captured Stack, would they have discovered that he was inspired by websites that provoke retaliation against phantom enemies? Or by the recorded rantings of Glenn Beck, who said back in July 2009, "People don't trust the government, they go out and buy a gun"? (At this point, we need to be careful about Stack, for his beliefs straddle a line between teabagger jihadi and confused Marxist. Truly, you can expect the end of his suicide note to be quoted as a way of aligning him with liberals.)

There is violence here, in America. It is brewing, in many quarters, and it is fanned on by those who have no idea of its consequences and will not participate in its acts. But combine that urging forward with desperation, and it will end in more acts like Joe Stack's. Or Nidal Hasan's. Or Jim Adkisson's. Or Mohammed Atta's. The inarticulate rage of the deluded and despairing, fostered by those who benefit from the violence, is released in a barbaric yelp, an expression of the helpless hate that hate produces.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

[daleanime]

1. But they will kept stoking the flame...

as long as it makes them money-short sighted idiots:scared:

[Warpy]

2. I think his suicide letter will resonate with a lot of people

all over the political spectrum who have been shafted by conservative economics over the last 40 years. I don't think Stark will be the last nutcase to act out.

I voiced much of the same sentiment above yesterday and was deluged with a lot of "but he was just evil!/crazy!" and worse, no one wanting to consider how he got that way, probably because that would mean confronting their own rage.

There are also all the men who have murdered their families before killing themselves, gone "postal" at their present or former jobs, or have simply gotten a snootful and driven into a bridge abutment. There are a lot of dumb and desperate people out there who aren't making as big a splash as Stark did, but their actions are just as deadly and have many of the same motivations.

Stark, at heart, was an antitax nutcase who thought the gummint was robbing him, never noticing all the things the gummint did that made his business possible. He's got company there, too, as so many people have been lied to for so long that they also have no clue why their desperation keeps growing every year.

Stark isn't the first. He's not going to be the last.

[mike_c]

5. I can't tell you how disappointed I am with DU...

...over the response to Stack. Threads like mine, seeking to understand what he did and to find its proper context were routinely locked as "inflammatory," while every knee-jerk emotional response was encouraged. That's how mobs assemble, when it happens on street corners. I think we've watched the online equivalent of a lynching-- all anger and indignation, little or no reason. I'm very disappointed.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. He made a conscious decision to try to kill people

because he thought they took too much tax from him. If you're looking for an equivalent of lynching, it's what he did. Parts of his message seem to encourage others to kill government employees too.

There's plenty of reason behind my anger and indignation with him. He murdered. Go ahead and try to understand it, so that we can spot the warning signs and stop future murders, by all means, but don't say that anger and indignation are wrong.

[Warpy]

9. I think he wanted to kill the IRS and maybe a building

I doubt he considered the people inside that building, at all.

Rage is like that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. His website called it violence

and it's very rare for people to talk about violence against inanimate objects or an organisation, these days, unless they mean violence against those in them.

[redqueen]

13. He flat out said he wanted a body count.

:wtf:

[MilesColtrane]

14. He deliberately aimed for the building's entrance to try and trap as many people...

in the resulting flames as possible.

[Warpy]

10. Understood

but the process of confronting your own rage is a pretty scary one.

One hopes the DU lynch mob mentality has enough insight that it would never put its words into action.

[freddie mertz]

18. What is truly scary is imagining your own loved one caught in that body count he wanted.

He targeted innocent people.

He is a murderous nut.

Do I empathize with him? Only as a poor, suffering fellow creature.

But nothing can erase the thought of his victims, targeted for murder.

To quote Neil Young;

"What if you knew her, and found her dead on the ground?"...

[krabigirl]

11. I'd agree with you IF he hadn't done a suicide attack. ro

If he'd put his manifesto online and ran for some office, or did something else fruitful and helpful with it, I'd agree. But he didn't...so yeah.

[dionysus]

15. yeah, how sad no one wants to have sympathy for a murderous tax evader.

he killed people because he was busted for fraud.

:eyes:

[freddie mertz]

19. Right. What if he killed your husband, wife, son, daughter, mother, father?

That is the thing to keep in mind.

[tblue37]

16. Stack, not Stark. nt

[DirkGently]

3. And as adults, we can look at his motives

rather than feel like we can only scream "terrorist" and rush around beating down anyone wanting to examine it further. In fact, we have a responsibility to examine it further. There is real, pervasive, pontially violent angst brewing. More than that, we are seeing a concrete and growing trend of politically minded American-on-American violence. Dr. Tiller. The Holocaust Museum shooting. Hasan.

It's all well and good to be clear we condemn it. I'd add that it not only doesn't preclude a discussion of what drove these people that considers something beyond, "He was a madman and an #@$%*," but mandates one. Among other things, we need to have a national discussion about the consequences of entertainers, pundits and activists performing obscene theater with the bloody origins of our country, and trotting out "Don't Tread on Me" and triconerned hats and "We came unarmed. This time" and gleeful, dark hints at violent insurrection to boost ratings or lend imaginary gravitas to complaints about tax policy or healthcare reform.

We have a lot of genuinely angry people in this country, and we have a handful of irresponsible circus barkers agitating for chaos, and we need to recognize that at some point, your fifth or sixth "lone nut" is no longer alone.

[DisgustedInMN]

4. There IS ...

.. a growing sense of desperation in America. The number of people that are being cast aside is in the millions and rising every day. The question ISN'T "Why did Stack go "off the rails?" The real question is, "How long is it until acts like his become commonplace or even daily?"

The savage way long term unemployment eats at the very essence of a persons self-image, after having been a hardworking, productive member of society, can't be easily expressed to those who have never experienced it. Words of encouragement, no matter how well intentioned, become condescending blather, taken as just another of saying, "Quit whining, it bothers me to have to pay attention to anyone's plight but my own." In other words, STFU, you don't really matter.

Though I have been fortunate enough (so far) to not have experienced being homeless, if something big doesn't change soon, it's certainly in my future. What affect it will have on me, I am afraid to even imagine. Would I ever turn to violence as Stack did? I don't think so, but I can't know that for sure, when I consider that only a couple of years ago I wouldn't have guessed I'd be in the position I am today.

Now, before anyone jumps my ass as being "selfish and just thinking of myself" or lays the "this family over here has it much worse" line on me, I only lay out my situation to say this:

There are MILLIONS of us that are falling through the cracks. We've worked our entire lives to build lifes, homes, and retirement nesteggs. We are now being stripped of everything we've spent our lives working toward, by the very same "system" we supported by our labors. We are desperate. We are angry. We are out of options. We are out of patience. We are out time. We are out of money. We are out of hope.

And about all we get from Washington DC, is more lies and excuses.

So, I for one, can begin to understand what drove Joe Stack to do the terrible thing he did. Not condone it mind you, but simply understand it. I care fuckall whether it gets called "a terrorist act" or "the acts of a disturbed (or mentally ill) man." He was a desperate man, in a desperate situation, who felt he had nothing left to lose.

There are millions of Americans out here that are on the journey to also feeling that they too, "have nothing left to lose." Anyone want to take a stab at what that's a recipe for?

[redqueen]

6. "Oh, let's not be children here."

Interesting way to put it.

[Fumesucker]

7. This doesn't fucking sound much like the rude goddamn pundit to me..

Entirely too fucking civil, this motherfucker needs an attitude transplant.

[MadMaddie]

17. Rude Pundit is right on the money

Sestak is just a symptom of what the teabaggers and the Republican party are stirring up, this will probably not be the only instance of this kind of violence. The Republicans have already used this guy as a martyr against taxes and big bad government.

<snip>
and it is fanned on by those who have no idea of its consequences and will not participate in its acts
<snip>

When this violence occurs we are obligated to make sure that those responsible for inciting that very violence are held accountable. That is the problem now, no one is being held accountable for the incitement of violence.