Friday, February 19, 2010

Stack/Ayers

Update:
Vernon Hunter, Vietnam Veteran is the real hero and tragic victim of Stack the murderer. Although Champion Chicken Hawk and Republican Coward Steve King apparently empathizes with Stack and wants to "implode" IRS offices.

If the name of the Austin Terrorist had been Bill Ayers and not A. Joseph Stack III and his screed was penned under the auspices of the Weather Underground, Fox News would declare a state of emergency and demand President Obama be Impeached.

But, because Stack had anti-government feelings, which are all the rage amongst Conservatives now, since they don't control government, then what he did was understandable and possibly justified to Senator Scott Brown and CPAC speaker Jeb Babbin. Although they and the Right Blogs want to ascribe his actions to Liberals.

The flip floping of the Republicans and Conservatives is enough to make one dizzy. Protests when Bush in office = Treason; Protests when Obama in office = Highest form of Patriotism.

The Anti-War Protestors = Worst Traitors in American History; Tea Party Racist Bigots and their calls for Revolution = The New American Patriots!

Stack flies plane into US building; Terrorism? It's what Conservatives do! It's what Liberals do!

Well, Stack murdered a worker in the office building he flew his plane into, that's not justifiable, murder is not justifiable.

That Stack committed a terrible crime which claimed the life of another human being is the worst aspect of this incident that there are people out there who would justify this or try and use this to win political debates is a terrible testimony to the state of the Nation and the political divide today.

However, that we try to assign Stack's actions to the left or right is also a sad commentary on ourselves.

Currently the Left is ascendant and the Right is out of power. Therefore, in order to regain power, the US Political Right is engaged in anti-government rhetoric and is the Party of Dissent. This was not always the case and historically has rarely been the case since the Right has always aligned itself with money, power, entrenched morality and the oppressors. During the Bush years the Left was out of power and the Left led the anti-government protests and the denouncement of politicians, however that tone began to change in 2006 and especially in 2008 when Obama won. In 2008, the Right's partisans began denouncing entrenched politicians, became anti-government and embraced Dissent as the Highest form of Patriotism when just a few years earlier those same bloggers spent every day of the Bush administration declaring those protesting the Government to be traitors and aiding America's Enemies.

The situation today, is such, that whenever one party is out of power they declare the other party to be somehow illegitimate and the rulers do not possess the Mandate from the Founding Fathers, (hence the current Tea Party and Revolutionary Era rigmarole embraced by the Right) and that only Our Side are the true inheritors of the Founders Vision and the Keepers of the Holy Spirit of Independence and America.

Of course, this does not absolve or endorse the standard Republican tactics of Racism, Red-Baiting and Fear mongering used to to sow distrust and undermine the government run by Obama and the Democrats. The Reich Wing has quickly and shamelessly fallen back upon them with little fear it will cost them votes or interfere with their attempts to regain power.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you read stack's letter? It looks like it was written by Obama's cabinet. I think the guy was pushed over the edge by too much MSNBC.

Last week it was the nutty professor. Lots of liberal anger out there...

Grung_e_Gene said...

Thank you for illustrating the point of my post Silverfiddle.

Your side is sooooo Righteous that a man who attacks the IRS, the Bastion of Obama's Marxist Destroy America's Goons, is actually not a Reganite Grover Norquist discipline but a member of Obama's cabinet...

Currently, the Right is fanning the flames of anti-government hysteria not the Left; Stack references the Thugs and Plunderers (direct Tea Party rhetoric), the GM Bailout (again Conservative anger) , anger at Our leaders who close military bases but don't allow the actual contents of the letter dissuade you from your beliefs...

Anonymous said...

He also rails against insurance companies and capitalism... Hmmm...

So this week it was an anti-capitalist who hates insurance companies, last week it was a liberal professor, last summer it was government union brownshirts beating up a black man for daring attend a tea party event.

Keith Olbermann needs to slow his roll on the hate speech...

We can play this game all day Gene, bottom line is people are responsible for their own actions.

Maybe you like being part owner of a dying car company, I don't. Government had no business doing anything not enumerated in the constitution. You cheer when your side does it, but howl when "rethuglicans" violate the same document.

I don't want anyone violating it, and the only way to get there is to put the feral government back in its box, but you don't do it by crashing planes into buildings.

Grung_e_Gene said...

Malkin, Coutler, Limbaugh, Hannity and the bevy of right wing bloggers always (and this is not hyperbole) declare actions to have been directly caused by Liberalism, due to Liberalism's inherit nature, while at the same time always excusing, dismissing, ignoring or justifying the same actions from Conservatives.

So we can not go round and round and play this game all day because the basic difference is that The Right always falls back to It's Okay When We Do It Hypocrisy.

That is Conservatism today; Rank Hypocrisy.

Anonymous said...

hy·poc·ri·sy (h-pkr-s)
n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies
1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
2. An act or instance of such falseness.


Other than some inconsistent blather from both sides (The charges you level can be flipped and aimed at libs) there's not much here.

You say Rush Hate Speech, I say Olberboob Hate Speech...

verbal ping pong that goes nowhere. Wow, this is fun.

Grung_e_Gene said...

There you go again

It is incontrovertible both "sides" will try and put Stack into the other's ideological camp. Stack defies such ease of placement, although that did not stop you from decrying, "Liberal Anger! Liberal Anger! Liberal Anger!"

Currently, the Right is the side fanning the flames of discontent and has been since Obama took office, oft times using incredibly bigoted methods. But, the Left has stoked those fires previously.

However, what's key, in my mind, is that the Right has been disingenuous with their criticism. And as soon as the President and Congress are in Republican hands the Tea Parties will mysteriously be relegated to minor quibbles over which Republican is Republican enough.

But, I know such a discussion won't stop you from having made up your mind that Stack is a radical Obama loving Libtard, even if he attacked the Bastion of Evil Liberalism, the agency tasked with enforcing the will of the Democrats who never met a tax they didn't love, the IRS.

TomCat said...

My take on Stack is this. I think he was too far gone to have had a 'political' agenda. His bitterness stemmed from his repeated attempts to evade paying his taxes, getting caught, and thinking he was too entitled to have to accept the consequences. I see him as a nut case suffering from psychotic narcissism, not a political activist.

That said, those people who have tried to lionize him as heroic are from the extreme right, not the left.

Anonymous said...

You're the one, Gene, who tried to pin this on the right wing. I was merely firing back. Two can play at at that game.

I agree with TomCat. The guy was pissed because they took his money, but he still had a plane. I don't know too many poor people who own their own airplanes.

Your quote:
"And as soon as the President and Congress are in Republican hands the Tea Parties will mysteriously be relegated to minor quibbles over which Republican is Republican enough."

This is a very real possibility, unfortunately. I hope you are wrong, but I can see a situation where nobody learned anything other than "we are the champions! My bastards are back in power!"

Politics is a bitch, which is why I don't write about it from the trenches like you do.

Anonymous said...

"Politics is a bitch, which is why I don't write about it from the trenches like you do."

I'm not putting you down, btw. I just can't generate the level of passion and outrage that you can.

They all suck as far as I'm concerned, but being of a conservative/libertarian bent, I go with the least liberal.

Grung_e_Gene said...

No, silverfiddle. Your every comment has been fundamentally flawed, and here is why: However, that we try to assign Stack's actions to the left or right is also a sad commentary on ourselves.

Your projection onto me is both sad and tawdry. I did not tie Stack in with the strings of Tea Bags because I'm not going to try and use his actions to win political points.

However, other people are which, unfortunately, seems to include you.

TomCat said...

I don't think Gene tried to pin this on the right at all. He correctly pointed out that it is the right that keeps encouraging violence. No left wingers have tried to make him a hero.

Grung_e_Gene said...

Thank You TomCat.

TomCat said...

YVW, Gene, but I was just calling it honestly.