Topic: Take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

[Cobra951]

Joseph Stack decided to leave the world today and take as many of his enemies as possible.  Sounds like your typical wacko, until you read his suicide note.  This guy was clearly very bright, and had long experience in his field, as well as with the IRS.  While I can't condone what he did, his frustration rings true with me.  His diatribe against the ills of the country rings loudly true.  He was about my age.  See what you think.

[idolminds]

Yeah, his solution is rough but hes right about a lot of things.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Holy shit, I work only a couple of miles from that building he crashed into.

[shock]

Interesting read.

[Schlotzky5]

Amazing. I feel conflicted because what he did was so against how I believe change should be made, but at the same time he is very right about many of his points. Laws only change when they benefit the rich.

[Xessive]

I feel for the guy though I think his method was drastic. He must have felt he had no other choice in life.

I found this statement kinda funny:

“Today in the City of Austin we saw a deliberate and intentional act against a federal building,” said U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a member of the Committee on Homeland Security. “It’s something that has exposed a weakness we have seen since 9/11 — that airplanes can fly into buildings.”

No shit.

[Ghandi]

I feel for the guy though I think his method was drastic.

Drastic is a bit of an understatement. He almost killed a bunch of people.

[Pugnate]

I found this statement kinda funny:

haha wtf

I guess America has yet to develop plane proof technology.

[scottws]

Yeah, every building needs those Phalanx guns that Navy ships have to shoot anti-ship missiles.

Anyway, I read his diatribe and while he was quite a bit extreme, the overall complaints with the government are perfectly valid.  The government is corrupt.  Politicians don't care about the middle class.  Our country is a virtual corporatocracy.

That said, there will not be a revolt or even massive protests until a huge portion of the populace is suffering.  And when I say suffering, I don't mean that people are paying a lot in health care costs or anything like that.  I mean true suffering like complete lack of sufficient housing and access to food.  As bad as the middle class is starting to get the shaft here, we still live pretty decent lives all things considered.

[shock]

There's a ton of fucked up things about the government/corporations/etc.  I'm always surprised at, seemingly despite all odds, things are generally okay for the majority of people.  Sure, they could be a shit ton better, but they could also be so much worse.

[Cobra951]

We'll get there.  Have no fear.  They will get much worse if business continues as usual.  It will be Versailles and "let them eat cake" all over again.

[idolminds]

People love history. Thats why we repeat it so much.

[Xessive]

This is making me wanna watch  V For Vendetta again and get all rebellious.

Come to think of it, this was basically a Fawkian demonstration.

[scottws]

Yeah that's true, the thought didn't even cross my mind.  But Guy Fawkes wasn't going to kill himself was he?

[Quemaqua]

People love history. Thats why we repeat it so much.

[Xessive]

Yeah that's true, the thought didn't even cross my mind.  But Guy Fawkes wasn't going to kill himself was he?

No, not exlusively, however some scholars speculate, with reference to his background as a soldier, that he was prepared to die to ensure the success of the plot.

Fun fact: the term "guy," when used to refer to a man, is derived from Guy Fawkes' name.

There are similarities with this story, yet the question of whether Joe Stack is a hero or a villain is contraversial.

The way I see it, he opposed corruption and exploitation and that tilts him toward "good" in my book.

[Quemaqua]

I agree with much of what he said, as I think a lot of us do.  And while I certainly can't condone his actions, I can understand the frustration.  And if we're all honest with ourselves, I'm sure we'd have to admit that at some point in our lives we've fantasized about such things.  Hell, I am a gov't worker and I've fantasized about it.  Probably more so because I am one.  I have a fucking facefull of the corruption nearly every day of my life.

EDIT - Mistake.

[Cobra951]

No, not exlusively, however some scholars speculate, with reference to his background as a soldier, that he was prepared to die to ensure the success of the plot.

Fun fact: the term "guy," when used to refer to a man, is derived from Guy Fawkes' name.

There are similarities with this story, yet the question of whether Joe Stack is a hero or a villain is contraversial.

The way I see it, he opposed corruption and exploitation and that tilts him toward "good" in my book.

I read about the origins of the common word "guy" not long ago.  I guess it started out as a compliment, along the lines of "you're a gentleman and a scholar".  "You're a regular Guy."  Ha!

For one thing, this guy (there's the word again) went after his tormentors, not innocent bystanders.  He died for his cause, so he is no coward.  My biggest problem with him is that he left his wife and stepdaughter in the house he deliberately set on fire.  That knocks him down a big notch in my book.

Hot on the heels of all this, I watched Capitalism: a Love Story the other night.  Talk about feeling all rebellious again.

[Quemaqua]

I don't think you can just up and blame Capitalism like many people like to do now.  Capitalism isn't the devil.  But uncontrolled hyper-Capitalism without any sort of government control (or in our case, with actual complicity, on both sides of the aisle, and with no end in sight) is rather a different story, of course.  It's a shame to think that we ended up here so quickly.  The American ideal sure isn't what it once was.

[scottws]

I always come back to this thought:  where are our leaders?  Where is today's Abraham Lincoln or John Kennedy?  It seems all politicians just want the other side to lose and to line their pockets.

[Schlotzky5]

I always come back to this thought:  where are our leaders?  Where is today's Abraham Lincoln or John Kennedy?  It seems all politicians just want the other side to lose and to line their pockets.

Did you see any of the Healthcare Summit? Awful. Not one person I would call a 'Leader', just a bunch of career politicians.

[gpw11]

For one thing, this guy (there's the word again) went after his tormentors, not innocent bystanders.

So did them other fellas who flew some planes into some buildings.  It's subjective.

[Cobra951]

If what *those* guys did was legitimate, then so is nuking Mecca and Medina.

(Be careful with Pandora's box.)

[gpw11]

(Be careful with Pandora's box.)

Exactly.

My only point being that what this guy did was no less crazy or morally reprehensible - neither action is legitimate (unless you're predisposed to feel sympathy for the aggressor). The 67 year old IRS agent he selfishly killed was an innocent bystander just as much as all those people in the WTC or the Pentagon;  He just worked at the wrong place. 

That's why no one but radical right-wing tea-party members are even giving a shit about this clown.  He may have been bright (although he failed out of college and obviously sucked at finance and paperwork) and he may have felt justified but Timmothy McVeigh also falls into both those categories. 


As for Guy Fawkes, apart from Moore's modern usage of the mask, the associations with him throughout history have been purely negative. He wasn't viewed as a freedom fighter, but rather a bit of a religious fanatic.  Guy Fawkes night isn't a celebration of the plot, but rather the failure of the plot (hence the effigies of Fawkes being burnt).  Likewise, the term "Guy" wasn't a good thing, but rather associated with Fawkes fucked up face in the effigies.

Back on topic, I agree with you that this guy probably had a point, but Que said it best; "And while I certainly can't condone his actions, I can understand the frustration".  That can be said about a lot of people who do very bad things. Half of being a nut-job is escalation, and this guy falls into this category.

[Quemaqua]

It's never right to blindly attempt retaliation that way.  If some guy who was wronged by the child support system came to my building and tried to take vengeance and killed me in the process of venting his rage on everyone, he'd be killing the one guy in the department who probably agreed that all the shit that was done to him was totally morally wrong, but he'd never know that.  No matter the circumstance, it's never correct to take those sorts of actions.  A lot of psychopaths are actually very intelligent people with very well thought out, logical reasons for their actions.  Something just falls apart somewhere along their line of thinking.

Anyway, all that said, I still want a t-shirt that says, "Take my pound of flesh and sleep well."  Is that wrong?

[gpw11]

Ha. I don't know.  Isn't there some literary root to it?  I'd imagine it's probably ruined for t-shirts now.

[Quemaqua]

The "pound of flesh" is Shakespeare, if I remember right.  The Merchant of Venice.

[Cobra951]

Correct.  Merchant of Venice.

I don't want to go too far afield here.  In the thread-opening post, I said myself that I don't condone his actions.  But if you think about it, factory workers building planes or tanks in Nazi Germany just happened to be regular people working in the wrong place at the wrong time when the allied bombs fell.  And in that regime, workers had a lot less say about what they were going to do for a living than Americans who choose to become IRS bloodsuckers.

OK, just more coal for the fire, I guess. 

[gpw11]

Haha.  Touche.

[ren]

If we're doing literary quotes then here's another:

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die humbly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

[Cobra951]

I like Patton's better.  "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."  There, fixed.  (Edited in correct quote.  Edited out my close, but incorrect quote.)

[gpw11]

I think that pretty much it, word for word.