By now,most of you have heard about the suicide attack on an office building in Austin, Texas, which housed an IRS and an FBI office. It appears that the pilot of a small Piper airplane was specifically targeting the IRS offices, but with only one person "unaccounted" as of the last time I checked into it, it appears that Andrew Joseph "Joe" Stacks's attempt at a high body count to send a message has failed.

Full artical, as well as his manifesto, can be found here:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years...8102stack1.html

I'm happy that no lives were lost, save for Stacks, who is presumed dead.

I'm not happy that I find myself agreeing with his manifesto.

He rambles on for a few pages, recalling events in his life that forged an intense distrust of the US Government, politcians, and big businesses. He just reached a point where he simply couldn't take it anymore, and snapped. And instead of the typical "shoot everyone in an office building" approach, he opted to scare the masses by intentionally invoking the memory of 9/11.

I certainly don't agree with his choice of protesting techniques, but I do resonate with his overall theme; that things are seriously fucked up in Washington D.C., and they have been for a very long time. Its sad that we've reached a point where many of us realize what's going on, but opt to either ignore it, or just live within it, constantly in fear that an ever-boating federal government will little by little infringe upon our daily lives.

Stacks brings up the health care debate in his manifesto, citing that the politicians were unable to do anything by waste time to reach the same old conclusion. While I don't like the health care package that the Dems put on the table, I do agree that the health care system needs some major reform in order to be functional WITHOUT outright robbing people in the process. I do feel that Washington, both Dems and Republicans, have failed us.

He also claims that the election system is a sham. To a certain extent, I agree with him here as well. Pretty much every single candidate out there running for political office runs under the premise of fighting against status quo, and being an "outsider", or standing up against "business as usual", and its all a bunch of bullshit to me. They're nothing but a bunch of ass-kissers UNTIL they get into that seat up on Capitol Hill, then it becomes business as usual as they sell out or try to capitalize on their position while they can.

I like that we HAVE an election system. I like being part of a democratic nation. I like the idea of it. But, its pretty apparent to me that somewhere along the line the whole thing became corrupt and self-serving, and instead of cheering those people on like I'd like to, I'm instead worried about how they intend to fuck me over, and what I'll have left by the time they're out of that comfy chair, only to watch as a new "outsider" takes up the same mantle.

I'm just tired of Big Government. Its not what the country was all about when it was founded. It was intended to be a haven from Britain's own form of Big Government, where they had massive influence over America's interests without giving them a real say in the matter. Today, a bunch of rich people with very little connection to the people they claim to represent do this odd little dance ritual every few years in an effort to keep a seat. The fact that it takes so much goddamned money to even get elected is all the evidence I need to form the opinion that there's a huge disconnect between the federal government and the people. You need to embrace at least some level of corruption just to get your foot in the door, it seems.

Its very sad to me that I know that Stacks' suicide attack, his attempt to "wake up" the American people (which will fail, which is even more sad), is probably just the beginning of these extreme cases of protest. I think that the current mood of alot of people here in the States is growing more and more sour by the day, and an event such as this was inevitable, and that more are on the way.

I don't advocate such violence. I do, however, advocate the original message that will always get lost after such "protests"- that something has to be done. Americans have to get active in their government on all levels, take an interest in what's going on, and stop nodding their heads at everything the Feds say is right. They have to once again start using their minds, and stop leaving all of the hard stuff up to Big Bro.

Big Brother doesn't always do what's right for its people, and we have to stand up for ourselves to keep him in check, and not be mindless, obediant servants.

I can't say I'm that passionate about it as you are. Compared to many other countries America really is a great place to live. Yes it could be better, but it's still very good. There are far, far worse places to live and the better places to live aren't that much better.

While I agree with you, I think its dangerous to settle for "good enough" just because there are worse places out there. Because we can do better, we should.

Britain thought they were doing pretty good and let the government go amok- now when you look at it, it appears much closer to George Orwell's 1984 than ever before. Its frightening.

When you have spy planes conducting surveillance on ordinary, every day citizens, then you know more than one line has been crossed.

Well, Britain has it's own problems ... I rather think the excess survielance is warrented if it makes people safer. As I understand it, the ethnic divide in Britain is worse than the states and now people blowing themselves up is en vogue. Until they can get over it, well ... surveillance can be an answer.

I agree with you on the complacancy issue, but I can't feel that strongly against it. Not everyone in government is corrupt, not everyone outside of government is squeaky clan and people have different ideas on how to run things. There's no easy answers and no clear cut answers. The only real way to make things go faster is to make things into a dictatorship so the leader can make people agree with him. And that's hardly a solution.

I think the real solution is simply getting people to give a damn. Most people here don't- they take the fact that we have a moderately functional government for granted, and ignore it until something happens, like a bailout or they lose health insurance. Then they start to care.

Just look at what happened with the 2004 presidential election. You had Bush, one of the most hated, if not THE most hated presidents of all time running for re-election. People sure did seem fond of bashing the guy at every opportunity. But, all the Dems could come up with a styrofoam man like John Kerry to run against him, and he wound up winning. Meanwhile, in that very year more people voted in the season finale of American Idol than they did the leader of the free world.

There's something seriously fucked up about that.

And for all of his talk, Obama was just that- all talk. McCain wasn't all that impressive a candidate, though, but I still believe Barack got in simply because he was the popular guy to vote for, and not really based on what he was saying. He simply looked good when he was speaking, especially after the Bush years.

The word "evildoer" still rings in my eardrums to this day.

And I agree with you on the point that not all of our problems are centralized in D.C.; that's actually my point. The reason why Washington is so dysfunctional is because people just don't give a fuck, and that's how these people end up "leading" the nation. The major issue at hand is that the citizens of the country are far too distant from what's going on on the Hill.

Granted, its hard to be interested when the people running for office are mostly very hatable jerkoff rich kid lawyers, but you have to start somewhere.

I don't know if I agree that people don't care. And, even if everybody cared, that wouldn't mean anything would get done or get done faster. Perhapse things would go slower.

C'mon. Not everybody has to be involved, but when you look at that American Idol example, that's just pathetic.

I don't know if things can get any slower. People have been bitching about health care for over 20 years and nothing's really been done.

Oh wait, we have MedicAid. YAY.

Things can go MUCH slower.

If too many people care you have too many voices. You have too many arguments. And you just don't get shit done. Hell, if they cared too much, like Joe Stacks here, you can wind up with violence. Because, let's face it, not everyone is in a real position to do much about the government. But, assuming people remain reasonable and don't resort to violence, then you'll get a whole lot of people who won't agree and the default resolution to that is: more of the same.

Plus, there's no rule that says people who care have to be smart. They can care greatly and be total idiots. And there's no rule that says only good peopel care. At the very least you can have machiavellian amoral people care.

I rather think that America is full of people who care. However, some are stupid and don't vote or vote wrongly based on their thoughts and some don't think their vote or actions matter and so care and do nothing while others care about the environment or censorship in children's TV shows or gay marrage or any number of things and, of course, we can't forget people who care about the exact opposite of what other people care about (like banning gay marrage or too much censorship).

Not everyone cares about the exact same thing. However, it seems like most people care about American idol.

Maybe you're on to something.

I also happen to believe that the majority of this country is made up of brain-dead, shuffling zombies- do I really want those people voting?

Okay, only the SMART ones should be interested. The ones that agree with ME!

Well, up until the "Big Brother" (I don't believe the government can function well enough to be out to get me, honestly.) mentions of what can only be called his suicide note, I actually did find myself agreeing with him. And that really does disturb me. What disturbs me even more is the amount of people that'd need to basically drop dead to appease my social/political utopia.

Any Shinigami in favor of giving Big Boss a Death Note?

If I just said "This", would it be spam?

I wouldn't mind a Death Note, but I don't think causing world leaders to suddenly die is the best option for making the world a better place. Maybe Iran and North Korea, etc., but not the rest of the only vaguely corrupt ones.

If I had a Death Note, I'd be very clever with it.

Don't need to kill 'em all, afterall.

So true.

If only.