CNN is quoting a federal official who says that an airplane that hit a seven-story building in Austin was deliberately crashed. Not only that — the plane was stolen, and the pilot had set his own house on fire before taking flight, the channel reports.
Some blogs (including Business Insider) are claiming to have found a manifesto/suicide note by the pilot, Joseph Andrew Stack, that rants against the IRS and sounds a little teabaggy—and a lot communist. (A confusing combination, I know.) Mr. Stack (if he did write this) is angry about taxes, about the broken health care system, about the “vile, corrupt Catholic church,” the rich (“when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes”), and the political system that supports them:
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:
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.
It concludes:
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.
Two were reportedly aboard the plane, both killed. (Though sources differ: some sites are reporting one person aboard the plane, some reporting up to three.)
UPDATE
A statement from the IRS:
We can confirm a small plane hit a building in Austin, Texas that includes IRS offices in Echelon Building I that houses about 190 IRS employs. We are still in process accounting for all employees and will update as information is available.
And first reports of casualties come from the Austin Business Journal:
Two victims of the plane crash were admitted and treated at University Medical Center Brackenridge, according to Matilda Sanchez, a spokeswoman for Seton Family of Hospitals.
One person was treated and is in good condition, suffering minor injuries and smoke inhalation. The second patient was treated, stabilized and was sent to San Antonio’s Brooke Army Medical Center to be treated in their special burn unit, Sanchez said.
the revolution has begun
the plane was not stolen, it was his, he also wrote an online manifesto….geesh Brendan do you not follow blogs or news sites?
effing teabaggers. we knew they are insane.
now edited, thank you.
First off, let me say that I don’t agree that flying a plane into a building is the solution to anything. But hoo boy, he couldn’t have picked a better target.
It is time to arrest all teabaggers and send them to camps, like we do with any other group of terrorists.
Mind you, we should respect their religious beliefs and issue all food wrapped in tin foil.
Fuck you, 5280. You don’t like paying taxes, move to another planet. The IRS does not present an onerous burden to law-abiding taxpayers. And “better target” is a deeply uncharming way to describe a building full of people.
GM executives have committed “atrocities”?
I’m more terrified at all of that slow-moving traffic. How awful!
Anti-corporate and anti-big government. You can truss that up in communism, but this is the same kind of person that wears a tricorner hat decrying bloated governments and wasteful spending.
Hoooooo-boyee.
Wait, how was this guy a tea party person? I haven’t read much on this story yet, but the article doesn’t seem to lend much weight to that argument. I get the sense that the right-wingers will find more than enough to call this guy a leftist (as you can construe from the ‘communist’/healthcare quotes.)
Not that I necessarily agree, but does anyone else get the impression he was a weird mix of libertarian/progressive?
Welp, terrorist attack #1 for Obama, let’s see how he does.
Another Fuck you, 5280. There were hard working Americans in that building, many probably killed because some moron decided to fly a fucking plane into it. In case you are thinking of doing something similar, kill yourself first, then try to take others with you.
Gee, I didn’t know teabaggers were commmies. That said, what exactly in his manifesto do you think is innacurate?
I agree with the diagnosis, not the prescription.
Austin has the worst traffic…
“vile, corrupt Catholic church”
He must’ve been a Slogger also.
I think this guy can best be described as “radical libertarian”, engineer subdivision. Whether he’s a teabagger or not remains to be seen. He’s against all organized religion, for one thing.
has anyone seen Dan lately?…
Should have checked all the tweetbaggers on twitter, it was basically a cascade of “good news, everyone, we have begun the uprising!” and swung quickly into “he’s a obammunist!!!!”
Good comedy comes and goes so quickly.
So who was the passenger?
Guys, nobody was killed. Back off.
Clearly a homosexual. There’s probably a highly-regarded scientific study that shows that choosing a homosexual lifestyle leads to flying planes into buildings.
@21, oh, well, that makes it all right then, I guess.
Seriously, 5280: go fuck yourself. You’re defending this guy, defending his motives at the very least, and getting pissed when people call you on it. Not cool. Not in the same time zone as cool.
Calling for Churches to be stripped of tax exemptions, where have this been seen before.
I wonder if the passenger in the plane with him knew what he was planning? Double suicide? Does that person have a manifesto too?
Shut up and take your strawman somewhere else, Loveschild.
“Two F-16 fighter jets were sent from Houston as a precaution, but federal authorities said preliminary information did not indicate any terrorist connection to the crash.”
I’m sorry – explain to me why this is not terrorism? Guy has beef with US govt, deliberately attacks with a plane? Is it cause he’s white and American? Oh, I get it now.
All churches should be taxed. It is not as though they are sacred or something.
Absolutely terrorism.
I’m sure the patient in the burn unit is thinking “yeah, couldn’t have picked a better target”.
Flying a plane into a building is about as fucking retarded a mode of action as I can imagine, but I kinda like parts of his manifesto.
It really doesn’t sound teabaggy to me. It sounds like some kind of… anarcho-socialist. Teabaggers are just racists with plausible deniability. This guy actually seems to have been angry about the system. He just picked a stupid, selfish, pointless fucking way to express it.
Oh, yeah, and I’m from Austin, incidentally. My family’s business is there. I had a few moments of cold dread when I heard this. Everything okay on that score, though.
@27, have you not caught on yet that “terrorism” requires brown people?
So – he and his buddies organized a sham “church” to use as a tax shelter, and the IRS didn’t buy it.
He’s dead on re the Sec. 1706 stuff, though (a legislative provision designed by the big players to “kick the shit out of the independents” without ever actually going into effect) … and bailout blowback of this nature was inevitable. [Disclaimer: STFU, 5280]
Protoypical teabagger in many ways, including the ideological confusion, or as he put it “my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head”.
(Note: baggers include Randite militant atheists, welcomed with open arms by their CC patriot cousins.)
Wonder who his wingman was?
@27- Or at least white people who dress like brown people and worship God by the Arabic name.
5280. If I toss a bomb into your house but no one gets killed, will that be ok. Back off? Fuck you. Assclown.
Can we drop this notion that this guy had some sort of legitimate grievance?
Are the IRS rules for independent contractors less than ideal? Yes. Have hundreds of thousands of other engineers, computer programmers, etc. been able to work their way around them without going insane? Also yes.
We’ve hired numerous independent contractors over the years without any significant problems for them or for us. This guy’s inability to manage his own affairs is his own fault. The fact that more than one CPA tried to explain this to him is rather suggestive.
Hey Fnarf,
We’ll promise to drop the notion that this guy had some sort of legitimate grievance if you promise to get your head out of your ass. Then again, I suppose you’ve never had to rebuild your life from scratch numerous times because you were repeatedly screwed over by big business and government.
I’ve rebuilt my life from scratch several times, loser. Each time it was my fault, not big business, and not the government. If this guy had played by the rules, he’d have a life, an income, savings, everything he wanted.
@35
The IRS is a system. Those were people. This didn’t hurt the IRS. It only hurt people. He had no legitimate grievance with those individuals.
@24 I remember:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
@38, the notion that Stephen Fry approves of flying planes into American tax offices is beyond absurd.
The only grievance this asswipe had against the Catholic Church, or any other church, is that he wasn’t allowed to get in on their tax-free gravy train. His target was the IRS, not a church. He didn’t fly his plane into a church, did he?
You are a mountain of fail, dear heart.
Loveschild, just say what you fucking mean already.
Come on.
Spare us further insinuation. Say it. Show everyone what you really are.
balderdash @37, thank you for making that so perfectly clear. Well said. I also wholeheartedly agree with everything Fnarf has said on this comment thread, especially @34. This man had no legitimate grievance whatsoever, and there is no logic to what he did.
What a waste of a life.
The pilot in Austin used somme vague political rhetoric to justify what he did. Loveschild uses scripture to justify her intolerance and hate toward other people.
Fnarf – Your misreading of the manifesto and your misreading of your own anecdotal experience with independent contractors notwithstanding, the guy had greivances (legit and otherwise) that he fit into a pattern.
His grievance regarding tax-exempt churches is widely shared in Slogland. So is his grievance regarding auto and financial industry bailouts. His Sec. 1706 grievance is more parochial, and apparently unrelated to his personal misunderstandings with his CPA’s.
All are examples (from his perspective) of big systems manipulated by big players to their advantage and his disadvantage. Many millions (including many in Slogland) share this general explanatory precept, and none that I know of are comforted by dismissive denial.
The guy probably read too much Ayn Rand, probably had a loose screw, probably got bad advice, probably got bad breaks, probably got ineffective therapy, and probably got spun up by Tea Party populists on cable and talk radio … but he’s not all that different. Just the tip of a very dangerous iceberg.
Fnarf is right @39 – but he probably isn’t pleased by our ban on smoking in parks, though I doubt he’d say so in public.
I actually think the guy probably did have a legitimate grievance. He probably had a number of them. It sounds like some of them were similar to some legitimate grievances I have, for that matter.
There is, however, absolutely no rational path from those grievances to a decision to fly a plane into an office building. Somewhere in between “I disagree with tax policy” and “I am going to kill myself and destroy an IRS office” the train went right off the fucking rails.
Let’s not confuse “legitimate grievance” with “grievance that legitimizes these actions.” Those are two very different things.
I honestly do not give a shit either way on a smoking ban in parks.
@43, you are confusing a political opinion with a grievance. I think churches should be taxed too — but I don’t write manifestos about it, and I don’t plot revenge against my enemies on this topic, and I don’t fly planes into buildings. I don’t have a grievance; I have an opinion. EVERYONE has an opinion; everyone can name things about government that they think should be some other way. That doesn’t mean we demand! action! now!; it means we learn to live with how the country really is. Or we work to change the law. All the rest is just undifferentiated bitching.
Which isn’t a grievance. If you think it is, then I worry about you just the same as I worry about kooks like this plane guy, and the Unabomber, and Randy Weaver, and Eric Rudolph, and Timmy McVeigh, and all the other creeps who think their opinion came straight out of God’s asshole.
Hopefully everyone is out and the area is cleared.
Is it in danger of collapse?
Fnarf, you seem to have concocted an eccentric definition of “grievance”, ad hoc this discussion.
Please tell us what it is, so we can all play.
Based on his attempt to use the system he so criticizes for his own benefit — RonK @31: “he and his buddies organized a sham “church” to use as a tax shelter, and the IRS didn’t buy it” — his grievance against the system is not legitimate. He’s not pissed that the system is unfair, he’s pissed because he couldn’t find a way to take advantage of it.
I’ll reiterate what I said: This man had no legitimate grievance whatsoever, and there is no logic to what he did.
@48, you have access to numerous good online dictionaries. Use them. Or try this: “a cause of distress that demands action”. This guy’s cause of distress is the fact that he was an asshole. He had his grievances addressed numerous times by all sorts of authorities, including the IRS and more than one private accountant. They all said the same thing: “you’re wrong, pay the man”. Being annoyed at the GM bailout is not a grievance; it doesn’t demand action. People who say “this GM bailout has me so angry I’m going to ____” are dangerous lunatics, and criminals if they act on it.