Pilot in Austin IRS attack, Joe Stack, linked to anti-government rant
The pilot who flew a private plane into an IRS office in Austin, Texas has been identified by federal officials as Joseph Stack.
A man using that name has also posted a lengthy diatribe against the IRS and the U.S. government. Our fellow Cox newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, has posted the full rant on its website. Here are its concluding paragraphs:
“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)
Why does this all seem so familiar?
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475 comments Add your comment
Me
February 18th, 2010
2:35 pm
First!!
Kamchak
February 18th, 2010
2:36 pm
This was intentional?
Is it terrorism?
Paul
February 18th, 2010
2:43 pm
Why does this sound familiar?
Because in a nation of over 300 million you’re going to get a few nutjobs? And they’ll get publicity?
Or is it because we read the same kind of things here?
And, possibly to preempt the usual charges about the politics of the guy, Pres Bush was mentioned once: “The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government.” Pres Obama wasn’t mentioned at all.
Jenifer
February 18th, 2010
2:44 pm
I would not be surprised if a stack of books by Glenda Beckster and O’Roilly are found in his home.
Kamchak
February 18th, 2010
2:46 pm
I would not be surprised if a stack of books by Glenda Beckster and O’Roilly are found in his home.
Or Grover Norquist
Paul
February 18th, 2010
2:48 pm
Jenifer
I take it from your pronouncement you’ve read their books, not just linked to extracts?
What in those books would lead to this?
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
2:48 pm
Was the plane destroyed? Perhaps it could be salvaged and sold as scrap metal.
Jimmy Carter
February 18th, 2010
2:49 pm
His rant sounded a lot like AmVet’s.
Jimmy Carter
February 18th, 2010
2:50 pm
I wonder what the pilot’s opinion of the lib “Fairness Doctrine” were?
TW
February 18th, 2010
2:50 pm
Wow…them T Baggers (ew) really are just like al qaeda.
Hanklee1982
February 18th, 2010
2:51 pm
Thank you for fighting for our justice. IRS has been ruining too many people’s lives. Your courage and life will be remembered in my heart. Your family will always in my prayers. Rest in peace!
Jenifer
February 18th, 2010
2:52 pm
Or books by Sheannity, or Mann Coulter.
Bob
February 18th, 2010
2:54 pm
Not surprising! It was inevitable something like this would happen! When will the IRS and their cronies realize that us, the little people, should not be treated like S__T? Their treatment happens daily. They need to wake up. We are human also! I don’t see this as a last episode. Wouldn’t surprise me if it happens tomorrow again somewhere.
Jay
February 18th, 2010
2:54 pm
Some of you folks are getting way out in front of the actual facts on this.
Scooter
February 18th, 2010
2:54 pm
Was the plane destroyed? Perhaps it could be salvaged and sold as scrap metal.
Obama’s Green Csar has got this one.
ty webb
February 18th, 2010
2:54 pm
ooops
jt
February 18th, 2010
2:56 pm
They’ll get no more taxes from Mr. Stack.
Now the media will turn him into a monster.
Jimmy Carter
February 18th, 2010
2:56 pm
Hanklee1982
February 18th, 2010
2:51 pm
Courage? He intentionally slams a plane into a building and that’s courage? Gotta be a lib.
ty webb
February 18th, 2010
2:57 pm
Jay,
what do you mean by familiar? the manifesto? the plane? the IRS? government offices?
jt
February 18th, 2010
2:57 pm
The entire rant is here.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0218102stack1.html
What is this « ☭ Commie ☭
February 18th, 2010
2:57 pm
[...] Posted on February 18, 2010. Filed under: Uncategorized | … I don’t even. Well it’s got something to do with Amerikkka and commies, so why not: http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2010/02/18/pilot-in-austin-irs-attack-joe-stack-linked-to-anti... [...]
Jay
February 18th, 2010
2:58 pm
What makes him different from the 9/11 terrorists, jt?
Just a matter of scale? He doesn’t seem to have been too concerned about killing innocent people.
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
2:58 pm
“Obama’s Green Csar has got this one. ”
LOL!
Scooter
February 18th, 2010
2:59 pm
Wow…them T Baggers (ew) really are just like al qaeda.
Are they snorting the tea?
Ragnar Danneskjöld
February 18th, 2010
2:59 pm
Jay is on target here – the paragraph of the screed immediately before the section quoted by our host above blames George W. Bush for all the evil in the world. We could call this the “Bush’s Fault Suicide Note.” The fellow should have run for office as a democrat; then he could have crashed the economy instead of just an airplane.
danjonglee
February 18th, 2010
2:59 pm
Kinda like that Lefty University Prof. that executed those people at point blank.
Mick
February 18th, 2010
2:59 pm
Geez, I may be wrong but that certainly didn’t sound like a librul rant to me..
Hillbilly Deluxe
February 18th, 2010
3:00 pm
I’m just now coming across this story, so I’m admittedly not up to speed. The one lesson I think can always be learned from stuff like this, is to take people at their word. If they say they’re going to do something crazy, odds are they will if they get the chance. Too often the warning signs get ignored.
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
3:00 pm
He probably owed a ton of back taxes, failed to file, never paid his student loans or after an audit came out smelling like an abused toilet.
Will be interesting to hear the rest of the story.
Kamchak
February 18th, 2010
3:01 pm
What makes him different from the 9/11 terrorists, jt?
Islam.
Another episode of one word answers to simple questions.
Doggone/GA
February 18th, 2010
3:03 pm
Kamchak – why does that make him different? And how do you know he wasn’t a Muslim?
getalife
February 18th, 2010
3:03 pm
Dude went out with a bang.
Crazy times.
Larry Beam
February 18th, 2010
3:03 pm
It reads way better than the rants of most of these fools. I fear that many conservatives will seek to follow Stack into martyrdom. Such terrorism seems a small step from the rhetoric Fox, Limbaugh, et al. I just hope there’s enough left of moderate Republicanism before we’re reading stories like this regularly.
Paul
February 18th, 2010
3:04 pm
Illustrates another point that’s been talked about since 9-11: the the damage that can be caused by a private plane, particularly one containing certain types of explosives (not on the scale of commercial airliners, given their mass and fuel loads, but some private planes are of substantial size). While my 86-year old parents were wanded again, prior to boarding a commercial flight, anyone in this country is free to go to an airfield, board a private plane or jet with no screening, no inspections, and fly off to locations unknown. Or into locations unknown.
LK
February 18th, 2010
3:06 pm
Funny how liberals are jumping to call him a teabagger and conservatives are jumping to call him a lefty liberal…
No wonder nothing gets done around here.
Kali
February 18th, 2010
3:06 pm
Stack is transparently involved in a U.S. Government “false flag” operation. Government documents have revealed that intelligence agencies see “right wing” anti-government groups as a new target of anti-terrorism operations. They further admit that the government will seek to undermine such groups through fake web postings allegedly from a devotee of the “right-wing” movement. Such tactics of infiltration and public discreditation were used in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and in the U.S. during coinprotel. The “attack” by the unwitting patsy or mental patient will likely be used to enact further tyrannical restrictions and as a propaganda coup against a legitimate anti-government libertarian group that began the tea-party movement. The movement has already been hijacked by pro-government fascists like limbaugh and Beck. The location of the operation, Austin, is not coincedental: this is the home of Alex Jones whose popularity and influence on the growing movement is undeniable.
Jenifer
February 18th, 2010
3:06 pm
I’ve heard a lot of liberals through the years, none of them sounded like this guy.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
February 18th, 2010
3:07 pm
Two hard-core highly-visible leftist terrorist-killers in two weeks. I expected Obama derangement syndrome to infect the right, not the left.
TW
February 18th, 2010
3:08 pm
Larry Beam – it’s the fruition of having layed with dogs.
The right should have held this stench at arms length when it began to stink, but instead they embraced it.
And now they are part of it.
Anti-American – at a time of war, no less.
Puh-thetic…
Ragnar Danneskjöld
February 18th, 2010
3:08 pm
Here’s the salient part of the screed: “The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.”
Scooter
February 18th, 2010
3:08 pm
Dude went out with a bang
I’m going out with a bong getalife!
Hef
February 18th, 2010
3:08 pm
How about he was someone who lost tough with reality and took out his troubles/problems with in his mind was the root of his woes. But like Jay said it may be to early to put the blame on Bush,Cheney,Palin,Tea Bagger’s,……..etc for now,wait till tommorrow then go crazy!!!!
Bosch
February 18th, 2010
3:09 pm
“I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand”
I guess the guy figured he’d just commit suicide and possible murder instead of moving to another country that suited his taste. But considering we are the least “socialistic” country there is, death was just the only option to this nut.
I really don’t understand why these wingnuts think the government is so bad – so bad in fact that they’d just rather die.
Hef
February 18th, 2010
3:09 pm
lost touch that is
Ragnar Danneskjöld
February 18th, 2010
3:09 pm
I suppose, from another perspective, the screed sounds like something we could read anytime in the Daily Kos or Huffington Post?
Jimmy Carter
February 18th, 2010
3:10 pm
Doggone/GA
February 18th, 2010
3:03 pm
We’ll learn whether or not he’s a muslim from Obama. If he’s NOT identified as a domestic terrorist, then he’s muslim. If Obama DOES refer to him as a domestic terrorist, then he’s not a muslim. Pretty simple, really.
Hef
February 18th, 2010
3:11 pm
Jay did’nt actually say that, I might mis spoke a little.
Doggone/GA
February 18th, 2010
3:11 pm
“Pretty simple, really.”
More like simpleminded
Bosch
February 18th, 2010
3:11 pm
Hef,
“How about he was someone who lost tough with reality and took out his troubles/problems with in his mind was the root of his woes.”
I agree with that. I know you guys think the government is [insert negative adjective here] – but is it so bad that you’d kill yourself or someone else. There are actually a couple of folks here who I think would answer “yes” to that question, but for most of us sane folks, I think it’s just a matter of the guy’s life sucked and he was blaming the wrong folks.
Jimmy Carter
February 18th, 2010
3:11 pm
Bosch
February 18th, 2010
3:09 pm
Suicide over “government” is just a smoke screen.
Say, what’s your take on the Hollywood A-list who promised to move from the U.S. if W was reelected? How many actually did us the favor?
Jimmy Carter
February 18th, 2010
3:13 pm
Doggone/GA
February 18th, 2010
3:11 pm
Please, you need to let Barry speak before you start calling people “simpleminded”? Time will tell.
Jimmy Carter
February 18th, 2010
3:14 pm
Bosch
February 18th, 2010
3:11 pm
Agreed. Let’s don’t start a trend on agreeing, okay?
Don
February 18th, 2010
3:14 pm
This guy was far lefty. read the end. This guy at was admiring the commies. the far left is responsible for this. laugh your but off van jones. anita dunn.
Bosch
February 18th, 2010
3:14 pm
JC,
I’m not aware that anyone did, but if they did indeed say that, then fine – they can certainly do that if they so choose.
Bosch
February 18th, 2010
3:15 pm
JC,
Paul
February 18th, 2010
3:15 pm
Left, Right, Democrat, Republican…. some nutjobs hate them all and see the government as some evil, nonparty entity. To try to put these people into the party opposite yours misses the point.
Doggone/GA
Stages of Political Thought Development?
Doggone/GA
February 18th, 2010
3:16 pm
“Please, you need to let Barry speak before you start calling people “simpleminded”?”
The simpleminded statements of one person are not validated by whether or not someone else speaks. They are still simpleminded, regarless.
Jenifer
February 18th, 2010
3:16 pm
What the hell!
http://podblanc.com/joseph-andrew-stack-white-american-patriot
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
3:17 pm
“I fear that many conservatives will seek to follow Stack into martyrdom. Such terrorism seems a small step from the rhetoric Fox, Limbaugh, et al. I just hope there’s enough left of moderate Republicanism before we’re reading stories like this regularly.”
Now that is funny!!
Im just hoping this poor fellow, prior to take off, had brought Tom Daschle a long for the ride into the wild blue yonder.
Doggone/GA
February 18th, 2010
3:17 pm
“Stages of Political Thought Development?”
Maybe, but what if there’s no progression in those stages? Getting stuck at one stage is not productive.
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
3:18 pm
“Let’s don’t start a trend on agreeing, okay?”
Agreed!
Bosch
February 18th, 2010
3:19 pm
Outhouse GoKart,
“Im just hoping this poor fellow, prior to take off, had brought Tom Daschle a long for the ride into the wild blue yonder.”
If we were playing hockey, you’d be in the “time out” box. Not nice.
Hef
February 18th, 2010
3:20 pm
Bosch-There are alot of people who have great disdain for the IRS no doubt. But just like any person with inner deamons it may not take much to trigger something like this. I disagree with those who want to politcize this,using their reasoning anyone who snaps is a right or left wing wacko.
Doggone/GA
February 18th, 2010
3:20 pm
“Not nice”
So far there hasn’t been much here that IS nice. The man was disturbed, and it’s a shame the he sought to relieve his pain this way rather than being able to seek help.
Jimmy Carter
February 18th, 2010
3:20 pm
Doggone/GA
February 18th, 2010
3:16 pm
Or “lies”, right?
Steve
February 18th, 2010
3:21 pm
Don’t let Timothy Geitner and Charlie Rangel find out about this.
jimmy62
February 18th, 2010
3:21 pm
He also rants about organized religion in the midst of his letter. But I guess it would defeat your point of making him seem like a “right wing” wacko. He’s just a wacko.
mm
February 18th, 2010
3:21 pm
Must have been a wingnut. They are the ones wanting to eliminate the IRS. That building just happened to have IRS offices.
Bob
February 18th, 2010
3:23 pm
The last words he wrote in his life were a quote from the Communist Manifesto, after a rant that attacked George W. Bush and Christianity. Sounds like a lefty to me.
jt
February 18th, 2010
3:23 pm
Jay
February 18th, 2010
2:58 pm
What makes him different from the 9/11 terrorists, jt?
I am not defending him Jay. But sick or not, all blame will be laid upon him. The IRS can be ruthless and they are above the law. He is not the only one to committ suicide because of this agency.
And as far as comparing him to the 911 guys, that doesn’t bode well for all of us. Will an IRS protestor get sent to Gitmo now? No trial because you are a terroist?
md
February 18th, 2010
3:24 pm
“Funny how liberals are jumping to call him a teabagger and conservatives are jumping to call him a lefty liberal… ”
Is enlightening, isn’t it.
Goes to show how so many folks can read the exact same thing and come to so many different conclusions.
Gotta love it – the side choosers trying hard to push him to the other side.
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
3:24 pm
Bosch…didnt you know? Nancy Pelosi is Tom Daschle in dressed in drag.
TaxPayer
February 18th, 2010
3:24 pm
It is really a sad day when a person feels a need to end his life because he thinks it is the only option he has left. I wonder if he had been listening to Beck and Hannity and Limbaugh for years before finally cracking. Anyway, why couldn’t some of the billionaire tax cheats had signed over their estates to the fed for taxes due and then crashed their little planes into a mountainside or something. Why does it have to be the little guy that cracks and decides to hurt others on his way out in a blaze of glory.
N-GA
February 18th, 2010
3:25 pm
If you read his entire “manifesto” you might conclude that he was “at war” with government and business most of his adult life. He chose to stay away from corporate America, choosing instead to go the route of consultant. It’s one thing to elect not to become part of the “System”, yet he still wanted to try to profit from it. Not a good combination.
I came across many like him, especially during the .Com era. They didn’t fit in. They didn’t want to be held to budgets, deadlines, or status reports. They didn’t want any responsibility. They just wanted to come to work, do what they were told, then pocket their premium consultant fees. And they typically didn’t have a clue about politics or social behavior.
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
3:26 pm
Next thing we know these “home-grown wacko’s/terrorists” will be hijacking trains, running blindly thru RR crossing and killing innocent people who have stalled on the tracks.
OMG…THEY’RE HERE ALREADY!!!
Bosch
February 18th, 2010
3:26 pm
Hef,
You’re right — I shouldn’t have automatically called this guy a “wingnut” – although he is anti-government, but I know crazy liberals who are just as anti-government. My bad.
joe matarotz
February 18th, 2010
3:27 pm
The big question here is which side will hold this up as a terrorist attack and bleat “I told you so”. (My money is on Bobolink Barr.)
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
3:27 pm
“choosing instead to go the route of consultant.”
Uh oh…sounds like a 1099 red flag to me!
Kamchak
February 18th, 2010
3:27 pm
Kamchak – why does that make him different? And how do you know he wasn’t a Muslim?
Don’t know for certain that he isn’t a Muslim, but during his screed he takes aim at the Catholic Church, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a connection there.
joe matarotz
February 18th, 2010
3:28 pm
On second thought, Barr will claim that it was a government conspiracy meant to look like a terrorist attack.
The Nerve
February 18th, 2010
3:28 pm
The obsession with television and radio entertainers from some of you is hysterical. I needed a good laugh today so please keep them coming.
Doggone/GA
February 18th, 2010
3:29 pm
“Why does it have to be the little guy that cracks and decides to hurt others on his way out in a blaze of glory”
Because the little guy doesn’t have dozens of people, and piles of money, around him to be sure he doesn’t go too far.
Jenifer
February 18th, 2010
3:30 pm
Teabaqqers of the air!
WhoCares
February 18th, 2010
3:31 pm
I wonder how many jobs were saved or will be created by this?
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
3:31 pm
I dont know…the way he was flying that plane, the way he crashed it, the beard on front of the plane, the sky writing of Allah Akbar…hmmm…seems like a muslim to me.
David C
February 18th, 2010
3:32 pm
Why should this incident be viewed any different then the woman in Alabama? She used a gun. He used a plane. She was using violence against authority just the same as he was. Its how you view this world, that’s how everyone will see these two incidents.
Number1ninja
February 18th, 2010
3:32 pm
“Two hard-core highly-visible leftist terrorist-killers in two weeks. I expected Obama derangement syndrome to infect the right, not the left.”
Well of course Ragnar, because despite the moronic assertion that Obama is some sort of radical, it’s obvious to some of us that he’s a corporate whore just like the last idiot.
Hef
February 18th, 2010
3:32 pm
Bosch-No worries, I had a little fun with it myself above. Thats the difference,there are those who serious,now thats whack. Lets wait and see
Mike
February 18th, 2010
3:33 pm
The beginning of the text indicates that he got hooked up with a group who for one reason or another thought that they had the right to opt out of the tax system. He blames the IRS for demonstrating that he was wrong.
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
3:33 pm
“television and radio entertainers”
Oh no…perhaps this pilot heard Richard Simmons would soon be brought into syndication?
Randall Flagg
February 18th, 2010
3:33 pm
So when will the building collapse? Buildings collapse when airplanes hit them, right?
Jimmy Carter
February 18th, 2010
3:33 pm
Mike
February 18th, 2010
3:33 pm
Maybe he should have talked to Wesley Snipes.
ty webb
February 18th, 2010
3:33 pm
md,
“Gotta love it – the side choosers trying hard to push him to the other side.” Well said. Reminds me of the slow overweight kid in grade school who no one wants on their dodgeball team.
Travis
February 18th, 2010
3:34 pm
Sounds like a Tea Party Terrorist to me. Hope they throw him in Gitmo and waterboard him until he gives up whatever information he has…
David C
February 18th, 2010
3:35 pm
Yes they collapse Randall..if you have any intelligence you’d know a 747 holds 2000 more pounds of fuel then a small plane.
Outhouse GoKart
February 18th, 2010
3:35 pm
Joe Stack aka Joe the Plumber. This is the result of over-exposure to Obama and McCain.
Poor poor joe.
TTPB
February 18th, 2010
3:35 pm
Terrorism is interpreted by lots of people in many ways. Personally, I do not see this as terrorism; I see this as a desperate, provocative means of dealing with anger, frustration, and loss on a domestic level. I am like most folks … and tend to agree with Joseph about his philosophy on the government and its dipstick politicians who are not in office to serve or represent the people, but are only there to make their own lives better. It is a frustration that is shared by more people than you think, and could result in more copy-cat antics before it’s all over. But, I would certainly not lower myself to commit suicide by harming innocent people, just to make a point. OR, maybe that is the only way he thought he could be heard …
Weird Man
February 18th, 2010
3:35 pm
More anti-tax, anti-government wackos cause more destruction. They’ll blame it on republicans somehow.
Jenifer
February 18th, 2010
3:36 pm
Joe Stack: The Teabaqqers Meet Al Qaeda.
Jess
February 18th, 2010
3:36 pm
It’s interesting to watch everyone trying to classify this guy as liberal or conservative. Is this the only way many people can relate to what he has done? Believe it or not, there is a whole world of independant thinking people out there who do not put everything in a political context. I suspect this man is one of them. He apparently felt he had been treated unfairly by the IRS and or the government in general and with the old adage, “you can’t fight city hall” as true now as ever, he made a tragic decision.
No doubt over the next few days, barring something even more bizzare happening, there will be countless people eager to tell us exactly why he did this. None of them will know any better than you and I do right now.