So let me ask, what if Joe Stack was named Joe Muhammed Stack?

[No Limit]

For some reason our government came out very quickly yesterday and said that what happened in Austin was not terrorism. The media followed quickly.

Does anyone here doubt that if Joe Stack wasn't a white american but a muslim that this wouldn't instantly be classified as terrorism?

 

[CptStern]

ya timothy mcveigh just really really hated buildings ..not the government officials who were inside at the time. just another case of building-icide

 

[Vegeta897]

What if it was Joe Momma Stack?

Why does this need a new thread?

 

[No Limit]

I just don't get it. This guy put in his suicide note that violance to accomplish his political goal was the only way to go and he seemed to encourage others to do the same. How in the world do you come out an hour after all this comes to light and say this is not terrorism?

 

[CptStern]

white people "find"
black people "loot"

 

[Escaep]

For some reason our government came out very quickly yesterday and said that what happened in Austin was not terrorism. The media followed quickly.

Does anyone here doubt that if Joe Stack wasn't a white american but a muslim that this wouldn't instantly be classified as terrorism?

I'll take a gander and say they didn't want to say it was terrorism and automatically have the public think bin laden/iran/iraq was involved. Because of 9/11, when most people would have heard "terrorist attack", some people might have gone berserk.

 

[MFL]

The term "terrorism" has always been a slippery word. At least for the past nine years. It serves a rather nefarious purpose, too, but stupidity abounds and nobody notices the spin. Sigh.

What is terrorism? What gets called terrorism and what doesn't? Nobody really wants people to think about it, and so it goes.

Terrorism is being mean. That middle school bully? Terrorist.

 

[Tyguy]

i definitely get your point and i'd assume that if he WAS of middle eastern descent that FOX would have a relentless pundit parade labeling him as a scary terrorist.

it's not in their best interest to do the same with a white middle aged guy from texas.

 

[Noodle]

Even if it was a Muslim, the fact that he left a suicide note basically saying he just hater the IRS proves that he was just angry, not ideological (as terrorists tend to be). Any decent psychologist will tell you that suicide is an anger-related thing most of the time. It's the ultimate "f**k you".

That said, I don't think he was a terrorist because he wasn't really trying to terrorize...

Whether Fox and the like would have labeled a Muslim as a terrorist is a matter of opinion. If the same suicide note had been left, I don't think they terrorist label would be thrown around. Then again, ya never know what they're up to over there...

Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization because they want to terrorize us. Terrorists have thing... they like going on campaigns and such. Jihad-type things. This guy was not campaigning. He was just severely irked.

 

[No Limit]

What do you mean he wasn't ideological? He wanted the US government pretty much gone. He had a very clear ideology and was willing to use violance to advance that ideology. How is that not terrorism? That's the very definition of terrorism.

 

[Noodle]

What do you mean he wasn't ideological? He wanted the US government pretty much gone. He had a very clear ideology and was willing to use violance to advance that ideology. How is that not terrorism? That's the very definition of terrorism.

He was pissed over the IRS and a marital dispute, and angry at the government in general. He wasn't on a campaign of terror, he was just angry.

Meh, whatever. I guess you could call him a terrorist, it is subjective.

 

[No Limit]

NO ITS NOT SUBJECTIVE!@!!!!!!!!!1111

Jesus, the fact that you and a couple others here always have to play devils advocate on the most basic issues really pisses me off. What he did is the very definition of terrorism, there is nothing subjective about it.

 

[VictimOfScience]

I think he might be able to be called a "terrorist" if you consider him trying to instill terror in the IRS, but that's about it. It was not about scaring civilians who are not involved with the IRS. It was not about killing as many innocents as possible. It was not about anything but trying to bring down the IRS. If he is a terrorist then I am a terrorist sympathizer, but so then are most Americans who think their tax system is ****ED UP.

 

[MFL]

Tax law is complicated so that tax lawyers can get payed as much as they do.

 

[Eejit]

You're right. If he looked middle-eastern the news would be spewing "terrorist attack" 24/7

 

[CptStern]

Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight... Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might

Joe Stack? no; Timothy McVeigh

The Oklahoma City bombing occurred on April 19, 1995 when American militia movement sympathizer Timothy McVeigh, with the assistance of Terry Nichols, destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.[1] It was the most significant act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11 attacks in 2001

joe stack's motivation:

Stack had also posted an anti-government, anti-bailout, anti-corporation, anti-union, anti-"monsters of organized religion", and anti-Catholic Church manifesto on his website, embeddedart.com.[15][18][19][20][21] In the manifesto, he begins by expressing displeasure with the government, the bailout, politicians, the conglomerate companies of General Motors, Enron and Arthur Andersen, the unions, the drug and insurance companies, and the Catholic Church.

the only real difference is body count and the method of explosive delivery

 

[Robbo]

NO ITS NOT SUBJECTIVE!@!!!!!!!!!1111

Jesus, the fact that you and a couple others here always have to play devils advocate on the most basic issues really pisses me off. What he did is the very definition of terrorism, there is nothing subjective about it.

It's very subjective. Yes the he may fit the dictionary definition of terrorist but these days people think of terrorism as an organised group trying to achieve a goal. He may have had a goal but from what I can figure out he just got pissed off and flew a plane into a building. Think of it as a more extreme version of stealing stuff from a hotel that pissed you off.

 

[Noodle]

He strikes me more as a "wannabe revolutionary/martyr" more than a straight-up terrorist. That's just my subjective opinion.

 

[No Limit]

ter·ror·ism?
–noun
1.the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.

Did he use violance? Check
Was his act meant to intimidate? Check
Was it for political purposes? Check

So what more would he need to do for you guys to think this was terrorism? Would he need to darken up his skin?

 

[Noodle]

His suicide seemed to be as much of an emotional issue, more so than an ideological one.

 

[No Limit]

How is that not ideological? He flew a plane in to a building because he hated the IRS. I guess you could say he was emotional, emotional about hating the ****ing IRS. So much so he was willing to kill people that worked for the IRS. And you call this a suicide, its a lot more than that. It's a homicide also.

If ideology wasn't involved why target the IRS? Why not just off himself?

 

[Noodle]

If ideology wasn't involved why target the IRS? Why not just off himself?

Because he was insane? Like I said, suicide is basically a big "f**k you" to the world. It's obvious he had serious emotional issues, and (this is speculation, though) wouldn't have crashed the plane had they not been present. He may have had radical views, but his emotional problems drove him to suicidal violence more than his ideological need to incite terror did.

Think of Columbine. The two kids had grown to really hate the society they were in, and decided to takes some other lives along with their own. It's an emotional anger thing. The motivation isn't to terrorize the rest of us, just to cause pain.

 

[No Limit]

His note specifically said that he felt that the time has come for violance because of what the IRS did to him. That's why he was angry. It was ideological.

The arguments you are making can be easily said about Mohammed Atta. I mean sure he hated the United States. But really he participated in 9/11 because he was insane, it had nothing to do with ideology. That sounds absurd, so whats the difference?

 

[Avoidist]

I would label it a 'technical' terrorist attack, and I do agree with No Limit to some extent that his ethnicity is doubtlessly involved in at least having people question the label we choose to give him. It's human nature that when something like this somewhat outside the norm occurs that we question it.

However there is one clear distinction between all other incidents that we label acts of terrorism, and that is that he did not align himself with an actual terrorist group, and hence what we typically identify as an ideology. That's where the key element to this lies: if he was a member of the IRA or the KKK aiming to advance their goals then of course he would be labeled a terrorist, as it stands he was just an angry man.

 

[Krynn72]

I'm happy they're not calling it terrorism. We're at war with terror remember? We can't have traitors! That would entice others to join the terror army!

 

[Mogi67]

Terrorism is just an arbitrary term. Call it sedition or terrorism or freedom fighting, duder flew a plane into an IRS building. But of course the mainstream media is going to spin this event to their own liking, why are you surprised in any respect? The opinions and reactions of the people are mediated by the mass media, which is obviously in some sort of cooperation with the state. Joe Stack can't be a terrorist because he's white. For the media to paint Joe Stack as a terrorist would be pointless and counterintuitive, since hating Joe Stack won't contribute to American Imperialism in the middle east. I really get the feeling that the mass media is trying to gloss over this whole incident. Instead the front pages of CNN and Fox are filled with shit about Tiger Woods' apology and other psuedo-news stories.

Joe Stack is useless to the media because he represents the type of person that the government tries to pretend doesn't exist: dissenters. They can't use his story to influence our reactions or mediate our sensibilities like they could if he was Muslim, so he'll just be forgotten. It's ok though, at least Tiger's sponsors accepted his apology

 

[No Limit]

I would label it a 'technical' terrorist attack, and I do agree with No Limit to some extent that his ethnicity is doubtlessly involved in at least having people question the label we choose to give him. It's human nature that when something like this somewhat outside the norm occurs that we question it.

However there is one clear distinction between all other incidents that we label acts of terrorism, and that is that he did not align himself with an actual terrorist group, and hence what we typically identify as an ideology. That's where the key element to this lies: if he was a member of the IRA or the KKK aiming to advance their goals then of course he would be labeled a terrorist, as it stands he was just an angry man.

I guess it's true that he wasn't officially part of a group. But in reality there are thousands more that think exactly like he did. The day it happened you had facebook pages going up honoring him as a hero, with thousands of people joining up. And I think his actions were meant to influance some of these people to do the same thing he did.

 

[Kinslayer]

I guess it's true that he wasn't officially part of a group. But in reality there are thousands more that think exactly like he did. The day it happened you had facebook pages going up honoring him as a hero, with thousands of people joining up. And I think his actions were meant to influance some of these people to do the same thing he did.

Or: what this group actually meant was "I don't like paying taxes, so yeah I'm gonna join this group and not do anything else." That's not to say people aren't ****ing retarded for calling him a hero, and not to say that the media isn't ****ing retarded for entertaining such notions.

You all are analyzing this way too much. Some egomaniac decided to fly a plane into the IRS building, and rather than keeping his twisted motives to himself he wrote them down. That's about all that happened. The label "terrorism" is such a convoluted term nowadays that it's pretty much irrelevant what you use it for.

And stop trolling.

 

[No Limit]

Trolling? Huh?

But the point remains, if he was muslim yet everything else about him was the same this would be labeled as a terrorist attack. Case in point, remember fort hood last year? The guy that did that was very similar. He was a lone wolf acting because he was pissed that the military was making him go to Afghanistan. But since he was muslim and his name was Hassan that was quickly labelled terrorism. Joe Lieberman said it was the worst terrorist attack on american soil since 9/11.

So you are absolutely right, "terrorism" is a convoluted term. The reason for that is because the media, and our government for that matter, pick and choose when the word applies. Muslim = terrorist. White guy = criminal. And they should be called out on it.