You know what’s really pathetic about the post-event coverage of Joseph Stack’s kamikaze attack on a Texas IRS office?
It’s the mainstream media’s bending over backwards to make Joe Stack into a “Right-wing, tea party going, radical tax protester.”
Funny stuff, especially in light of Stack’s rambling LEFTIST tirade, that also served as his suicide note, in effect, his “dying declaration.”
His rant starts off, “We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.”
He then rambled on about the abuses of American businesses, “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.”
He then turned his attentions to the Left’s favorite past time, “(GW) Bush bashing”; “As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. 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).”
And another favorite past time of the Left, “religion-bashing”; “Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy.”
One of his rambling anecdotes also centered around corporate abuse; “...at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.”
He ended his rant with this raging anti-Capitalist sentiment;
“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.”
Just as surely as Herbert Hoover was an outright and self-proclaimed Progressive,” a man who claimed that “Every problem has a scientific solution, best implemented by a benevolent government,” Joseph Stack was an ardent anti-Capitalist and a passionate leftist. Stack’s dying declaration bashed G W Bush but never even mentioned the current President, Barack Obama.
Does that sound at all like a “Right-wing, Tea-Partier”?
No, not at all, but it DOES sound very much like any generic Leftist.
UPDATE:
A GREAT post on the media's linking IRS Kamiakze, Joseph Stack to the Tea Party Movement can be found over at Sweetness and Light:
Media Link Joseph Stack To ‘Tea Party’
UPDATE:
A GREAT post on the media's linking IRS Kamiakze, Joseph Stack to the Tea Party Movement can be found over at Sweetness and Light:
Media Link Joseph Stack To ‘Tea Party’
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/time-wapo-link-joe-stack-to-tea-party
13 comments:
excellent post, jmk. i'm so glad you wrote this. the msm are such liars, trying to paint this guy as a right winger. i'm linking this post to my blog!
THANKS Maria!
According to the MSM "ALL mass murderers are Right-wingers, NRA members and belong to various militia groups"....EXCEPT (I guess) this GUY, the crazy murdering "professor" (Amy Bishop) in Alabama (via Boston)...and....John Wayne Gacey.
Seriously, there's a famous photo of the infamous serial killer, John Wayne Gacey grinning with Jimmy and Rosalind Carter at a Dem fund-raiser.
Of course, he wasn't a Leftist/liberal either, he just liked their "soft on crime" approach to mayhem.
He wasn't really a leftist or a rightist...complaining about "taxation without representation" is a teabagger type complaint. But this jerk thought that it meant he should have a personal say in it and not the elected officials representing him (because for him they don't represent him).
I think the mainstream isn't trying to make him into a right winger because they are trying to tar and feather the right, I think they are doing it because they're idiots who can't understand it all. They are just picking out what has been in the news and trying to make sense of it all. They need a story and "Umm, we don't know what the F is going on" doesn't make for a compelling story.
This guy was all over the place, picking and choosing whatever helped his own selfishness and greed.
He didn't pay taxes, complained about being broke but could still afford his own home and his own plane (or had the money to rent one?). Blamed his business failing on the government grounding planes after 9-11. Complained that he had to pay taxes AND had to pay for healthcare. He was a selfish jerk who wanted to eat his cake and thought he deserved more free cake in his refrigerator waiting for him.
Plus the mainstream media sees a bunch of speakers on the right talking about anti-taxes and talking about hanging people and beating in the government's windows with 9 irons, beating pinatas of palosi and reed, and calling the government "marxists" and using violent terms and violent warnings againt the government, and the teabaggers bringing guns to rallies, making obama into hitler, and carrying signs about how they are not going to be violent THIS time... I mean, come on, it's a quick and easy (and lazy)connection for the mainstream media to make.
I doubt he liked either side because both sides are contributing to taking away his right to keep his money, just in slightly different ways.
And plenty of right wingers have been angry with bush and his over spending and such.
"...complaining about "taxation without representation" is a teabagger type complaint..." (eugorhet)
Actually THAT'S a "Founding Father's" type of complaint. It was, in fact, the primary reason for the American Revolution.
"this jerk thought that it meant he should have a personal say in it and not the elected officials representing him" (eugorhet)
While this guy's actions are reprehensible, that doesn't make the current American tax system any less irreparably broken. A system that punishes productivity by over-burdening it is unsustainable. Ultimately we're going to have to move to something very much like the FAIR TAX (http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer).
"I think the mainstream isn't trying to make him into a right winger because they are trying to tar and feather the right, I think they are doing it because they're idiots who can't understand it all." (eugorhet)
No, that would presuppose that the MSM doesn't have a long-standing and obvious Left-wing bias, which of course, it does.
In the wake of the incident, two major news organs immediately sought to link Joe Stack to the Tea Party Movement for obviously partisan reasons;
Alienated in Austin
Washington Post Op-Ed
By Jonathan Capehart
February 18, 2010
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/02/_joseph_stack_was_angry.html
There’s no information yet on whether he was involved in any anti-government groups or whether he was a lone wolf. But after reading his 34-paragraph screed, I am struck by how his alienation is similar to that we’re hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement...
What Do We Know So Far About This Pilot Who Crashed a Plane Into a Building in Austin?
New York Magazine
By: Chris Rovzar
2/18/10
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/02/what_do_we_know_so_far_about_t.html
"...He was mad at the IRS, and left what CNN reports was a suicide note on a local website, detailing his trials with the agency. In fact, a lot of his rhetoric could have been taken directly from a handwritten sign at a tea party rally..."
Those are partisan, ideological attacks by members of what many now call "the state-run media" defending an utterly failed and discredited ideology - contemporary American liberalism.
For better or worse, we have a country with at least twice as many Conservatives (40%) as Liberals (21%) on the polls with the lowest disparities and the Tea party Movement is really nothing more than an organic reaction by America's Conservative majority to leftist policies enacted by an administration that ran Right (on tax cuts and reducing the debt) and governed far-Left.
Bottom line that the government-controlled media* chooses to miss on this guy: he's more one of theirs, than a right wing nutjob teabagger. But that FACT doesn't fit the Left's reporting template, so they pretzel themselves to make him a right winger.
The demise and death of integrity and ethics in journalism is rife through the so-called 'msm'.
"The demise and death of integrity and ethics in journalism is rife through the so-called 'msm'."(SF)
True enough, journalism has taken a real hit when an admitted amateur like James O'Keefe outdoes the "investigative journalists" at 60 Minutes and puts the NY Times (which can't seem to overcome its penchant for hiring fiction writers as reporters), to shame.
But so has science taken a huge hit as well, with the implosion of the Anthropomorphic Climate Change (ACC) theory amidst the ongoing scandals at East Anglia University's CRU. The pseudo-scientists at the CRU sold out their sworn pursuit of TRUTH for bribes (in the form of BILLIONS in UN, U.S. and EU grants).
Isn't it incredibly ironic that in the immediate wake of Liberalism's greatest triumph, ACC is discredited by perhaps the most astounding scientific scandal in human history, ACORN is publicly humiliated and a seismic political shift is occurring as more people are starting to pay attention (they do that as times get harder) and they're blaming Democrats for the reckless spending that's crippling our economy?
"...complaining about "taxation without representation" is a teabagger type complaint..." (eugorhet)
Actually THAT'S a "Founding Father's" type of complaint. It was, in fact, the primary reason for the American Revolution.
REPLY- actually, it wasn't over taxes, the founding fathers had no problem with taxes, it was over the fact that the king's cronies (east india tea company, i believe, which is why the founding fathers tossed the copany's tea into the harbor) didn't have to pay taxes or import taxes but the common folk in America did. If they were against taxes they would have said "no taxes" not "taxation (implying taxes were ok) without representation" - without OUR government officals voting on it first and theoretically getting voted out.
"this jerk thought that it meant he should have a personal say in it and not the elected officials representing him" (eugorhet)
While this guy's actions are reprehensible, that doesn't make the current American tax system any less irreparably broken. A system that punishes productivity by over-burdening it is unsustainable. Ultimately we're going to have to move to something very much like the FAIR TAX (http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer).
REPLY - I agree. Although I believe the rich can afford to pay more in taxes. the late 40's, 50's, and 60's, the times people like Hannity, O'reilly, and Beck claim were great times... the richest where paying 70-90 percent in taxes. And they were still able to afford all their luxuries. I mean look at how much money the upper crust is making today, 100's of millions even billions... they can afford it. But I'll have to check out the FAIR tax before I could comment on it. But the tax system is jumbled up in helping the cronies and the FED's people over hte years. The problem is we need taxes, we need to protect the common good, and we need to have safty nets. The constitution says it's up to the government ot provide these things. There is no other way to raise the money without taxes. And government isn't evil. It wasn't the people working for the IRS who are the problem (mostly) it's the people at the top who help out those who don't need the help. Don't you thing that millionaires can stnad on their own? Or that billion dollar companies can afford American workers and have smaller yachts? Being fair to your fellow Americans is not being a marxist communist. Even glen beck uses the public library... funded by American tax payers.
"I think the mainstream isn't trying to make him into a right winger because they are trying to tar and feather the right, I think they are doing it because they're idiots who can't understand it all." (eugorhet)
No, that would presuppose that the MSM doesn't have a long-standing and obvious Left-wing bias, which of course, it does.
In the wake of the incident, two major news organs immediately sought to link Joe Stack to the Tea Party Movement for obviously partisan reasons;
REPLY - maybe, afterall everything is partisan these days. FOX is hardly neutral and FOX has been proven to report things that aren't true to the point of labeling their republicans with scandals aas demecrats. MSNBC is partisan but they try to be accuate with the facts (not that they don't skew the reaction to the facts but they don't just make them up like FOX does. although I don't like most of msnbc's people either.)
But again, the tea party has advocated violence against the government at their rallies. And so has republican officials giving speeches. so making a hasty connection is easy to do. I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm just sayin' it doesn't have to be purely partisan to make the leap. But it probably helps.
Thanks for a good discussion and giving me some things to think about. I'll have to check out FAIR tax as the codes are rotten as they sit now. take care.
"Thanks for a good discussion and giving me some things to think about. I'll have to check out FAIR tax as the codes are rotten as they sit now. take care." (eugoreht)
Reasonable people can disagree on the issues.
I do appreciate your being able to disagree without rancor. Communication is the key, but only for those open to consideration and reconsideration.
As you might expect, I have some points of contention here;
"it wasn't over taxes, the founding fathers had no problem with taxes, it was over the fact that the king's cronies (east india tea company, i believe, which is why the founding fathers tossed the copany's tea into the harbor) didn't have to pay taxes or import taxes but the common folk in America did. If they were against taxes they would have said "no taxes" not "taxation (implying taxes were ok) without representation" (eugoreht)
WHOA!
You just retreated from your initial assertion; "complaining about "taxation without representation" is a teabagger type complaint.
As I noted "taxation without representation," the assertion of yours I addressed WAS the primary reason for the American Revolution.
"England's need for revenues to pay for its wars against France led it to impose a series of taxes on the American colonies. In 1765, the English Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which was the first tax imposed directly on the American colonies, and then Parliament imposed a tax on tea. Even though colonists were forced to pay these taxes, they lacked representation in the English Parliament. This led to the rallying cry of the American Revolution that "taxation without representation is tyranny" and established a persistent wariness regarding taxation as part of the American culture."
http://www.ustreas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/ustax.shtml
"I believe the rich can afford to pay more in taxes. the late 40's, 50's, and 60's, the times people like Hannity, O'reilly, and Beck claim were great times... the richest where paying 70-90 percent in taxes. And they were still able to afford all their luxuries. I mean look at how much money the upper crust is making today, 100's of millions even billions... they can afford it." (eugoreht)
Actually that's not so, for a whole host of reasons.
But first, let me address the fallacy of the "HUGE TAX rates of the 1950s:
"In 1948 a median income family of four paid virtually no income tax and only 60 in Social Security-taxes (then set at 2 percent of its income Today the equivalent family pays nearly 24 percent of its income to the federal government in taxes. The income loss in 1989 for the average family due to increases in federal taxes in the post-World War I1 period is approximately $8,200 -or roughly the annual average mortgage paid on a family home."
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg845.cfm
Through the 1950s, the relatively high dependancy deductions shielded all but the top 5% of Americans from virtually all of the income tax bite.
The wealthy had a huge array of deductions and "deprecations" which often whittled their tax bite to ridiculously low numbers.
By the late 1960s the scandal of many millionaires (people earning over $1 million/year back then) paid zero taxes due to the generous deductions built into the tax system at the time.
That's why the Alternative Minimum Tax came into being, unfortunately it has never been adjusted for inflation, or it wouldn't kick until one's income topped $2.8 million/year!
Moreover, INCOME is not synonymous with WEALTH.
In fact, income is the least effective means of building wealth.
That's why today as always, there is very little overlap between the top 1% of income earners and the "richest 5% of Americans."
The truly wealthy or "Rich" DO NOT rely on income for any sizable portion of their wealth. As a result they pay a low and fixed rate Capital gains Tax on their investments.
Moreover, the income tax burdens PRODUCTIVITY, something we ALWAYS want more of, but when burdened we get LESS of. At least "the Fair Tax" focuses on consumption and doesn't burden productivity at all.
Worse still, from the perspective of "redistribution," is the FACT that "people respond to INCENTIVES."
Higher income and Capital Gains taxes are INCENTIVES to SAVE (defer more of one's income or shelter it in "safer investments, instead of ones that create more jobs), just as LOWER tax rates are an incentive to spend and invest and thus peiople take more of their income upfront and non-deferred when tax rates are lowered.
With the top 10% of income earners in America already paying over 71% of ALL income taxes, when those people defer more of their income (and they have the most "disposable income) tax revenues are reduced when tax rates rise!
”The problem is we need taxes, we need to protect the common good, and we need to have safty nets. The constitution says it's up to the government ot provide these things. There is no other way to raise the money without taxes. And government isn't evil.” (eugoreht)
We do need revenues that come in the form of taxes, bonds, etc.
BUT the U.S. Constitution severely limited the actions and role of government because EVERY one of America’s Founders believed that ALL governments ultimately trend toward tyranny, after seeing so many initially “good governments” in Europe become more oppressive and tyrannical.
That’s also why the Founders reviled “democracy.” Ben Franklin called democracy, “Five wolves and a sheep deciding on what’s for dinner.” As a result they did all they could to LIMIT the democratic will of the majority, with things like the Electoral College and the State Appointment of U.S. Senators.
The Constitution restricted government’s rightful role to coining and minting money (something they no longer do, having ceded that power to a consortium of private, international banks that comprise the Federal Reserve system), insuring domestic tranquility (police powers), providing for the common defense (military powers), regulating interstate commerce (which has been much abused by government) and resolving/settling disputes (via the court system).
Our “safety nets” are dependency programs that actually DEINCENTIVIZE work/productivity by rewarding/supporting those unable/unwilling to work at the continually increasing expense to the productive/working and entrepreneurial.
For instance, without welfare the chronically poor and unskilled would now be taking those jobs illegals are doing – picking fruit, working in slaughter houses, etc. That kind of low-paying, hard work serves as an incentive to the next generation...we see that happening today with many illegals and many (particularly Asian) immigrants.
The “general welfare” clause NEVER implied any right of “the poorest” to be given some of what others earn.
Even the most federalist of our Founders (Alexander Hamilton) wrote a scathing letter to a small New England town devastated by a freak hurricane which asked for help from the newly formed U.S. government. Even Hamilton asserted that “The government never has the right or power to help a few at the expense of the many.”
I still feel that way today...and yes, I even felt that way about Katrina.
“everything is partisan these days. FOX is hardly neutral and FOX has been proven to report things that aren't true to the point of labeling their republicans with scandals aas demecrats. MSNBC is partisan but they try to be accuate with the facts (not that they don't skew the reaction to the facts but they don't just make them up like FOX does. although I don't like most of msnbc's people either.)” (eugoreht)
BOTH FoxNews and MSNBC are, like all cable news outlets, a mix of News and Commentary.
FoxNews, reportage with Shepherd Smith, Harris Faulkner, among others is straight down the line news reportage and probably is MORE straight than ANY other news organ.
Its commentary is mixed with Alan Colmes being far-Left and Bill O’Reilly being a somewhat Left-of-Center, New York City lapsed Catholic, who opposes the death penalty, supports a guest worker program and blames “Big Oil” for price gouging.
Sean Hannity is decidedly Right-of-Center, while Glenn Beck bashes progressives of BOTH major Parties – the first “Progressive President of the USA” was indeed Herbert Hoover, the Jimmy Carter of his day.
MSNBC’s news is also pretty straightforward, but its commentary is decidedly Left-of-Center (far more left-of-Center than Fox is "Right"), which is pretty much what you’d expect from an organ of a major Corporate entity (GE)...hopefully ComCast, which recently bought NBC from GE will change that line-up if only to make money in a country in which by the most generous polls Conservatives outnumber Liberals by 40% to 21%.
“But again, the tea party has advocated violence against the government at their rallies. And so has republican officials giving speeches. so making a hasty connection is easy to do. I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm just sayin' it doesn't have to be purely partisan to make the leap. But it probably helps.” (eugoreht)
Aside from the NY Times (latest discredited writer) David Barstow, I’ve seen no claims of the Tea Parties “advocating violence” and even Barstow conceded that he deliberately focused on Idaho’s movement because of the large number of existing anti-government activists in the Idaho panhandle.
The Austin Tea party recently elaborated on the Tea Party’s actual agenda;
“The Waco Tea Party promotes fiscal responsibility, free markets and Constitutionally limited government. We are not an anti-government or anti-tax group, we are an advocate of our taxes being spent wisely and levied reasonably. Suggesting that the tea party movement is somehow connected to the incident is ludicrous, the perpetrator’s own statements in his manifesto suggest he had far different beliefs than those in the Tea Party Movement.”
Moreover, the same kinds of silly charges can and have been made against Left-wing goofballs like Keith Olbermann who had to apologize to Hillary Clinton, after suggesting that the way to get her out of the Race (with Obama) was for someone “to take her into a room where only he walks out.”
Keith Olbermann’s and Dave Schultz’ hyperbolic, verbal excesses are hardly indicative of most liberal Americans, just as surely as the vast majority of America’s Tea Party supporters are part and parcel of that huge portion of Americans who are Conservative (around double that of the number of liberal Americans), including the vast majority of its cops, firefighters, and military members.
brilliant JMK!..so nice to see u at WHT..this was a true horror and depiction of the left in all its pathological glory!
Hi Angel!
In the wake of a REAL ardent liberal and Obama supporter, (Amy Bishop) killing three people at the University of Alabama, it's probably not surprising that the far-Left leaning MSM would grasp at straws to tar an anti-Capitalist, anti-religious, Bush-basher into a "Tea Party-going, Conservative,"....sad, but predictable.
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