“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.”
Joe Stack (1956-2010)

Andrew Joseph Stack, at age 54, was on his second marriage and claimed that he had battled with the IRS and other agencies for most of his life. In his sometimes rambling, 3,200 word manifesto dated 2/18/10, Stack indicated that he had lost thousands of dollars and many years of his life in a futile fight over IRS tax laws that he thought to be both unjust and intolerable. He also railed against former President Bush, the American medical system, the US automobile industry, large insurance and investment companies and even the Catholic Church. Claiming to be a college educated engineer, he suggests that “there are two interpretations for every law – one for the very rich and one for the rest of us.”

This morning Stack allegedly set fire to his north Austin, Texas home and drove to a local airport where he kept his small plane, reportedly a Piper Cherokee or similar four place, single engine aircraft. Such a plane can normally carry approximately 40 – 75 gallons of gasoline. Evidently Stack took off alone and headed toward downtown Austin, where he pointed the nose of his plane at the 7-story IRS build where almost 200 people worked. Following the actions of the terrorists of 9/11, Stack flew the plane into the side of the building, killing himself while setting the building ablaze, causing employees to run for their lives.

On one Internet site attributed to Stack, he allegedly wrote that “violence is the only answer,” perhaps somehow attempting to explain his actions today. A reading of his seven-page manifesto suggests the frustration, anger, and rage and sense of loss that apparently fueled Stack’s suicide, writing on his Internet site “take my pound of flesh and sleep well.” Stack, who may have been experiencing marital problems with his current wife who had a young daughter, was a computer software engineer who had apparently fallen on tough times dating back to at least the .com crash. He was the former CEO of two software companies who claimed that he had been unfairly targeted by the IRS and then manipulated in a way to prevent his protest of his treatment by that agency.

Many will remember the troubled 15-year-old boy who stole a similar small plane in Tampa, Florida in January 2002 and flew it into the 28thfloor of the Bank of America Building in that city. Stack is but one of the 235,000 private pilots in America who could gain access to a small plane for any number of purposes, most, of course, are center around travel or just the fun of flying. A few, a very few have used such aircraft as either a means to commit suicide, such as someone on the ground would drive a car into a bridge or building, or even head-on into another vehicle, taking their own life and perhaps the lives of innocent others. Many have realized the threat that the use of a small plane could present since the use of commercial airliners to crash into buildings came into terroristic vogue after the 9/11 attacks. It was shortly after that time that U.S. investigative agencies put out warnings concerning the potential hijacking of crop duster planes as well as fuel tanker trucks, any of which could have been used to follow up the 9/11 attacks.

In the case of Stack, it would appear that many challenges contributed to his suicide/ homicidal acts of today. He may, for example, have burned his $232,000 home to prevent it from being repossessed or from having a tax lien placed against it by the government. As his wife and her daughter were out of the house when it was set aflame, it would not appear that his anger and wrath extended to them, this as they drove up to the home as it burned. Stack had evidently already left the home for the airport and the final flight of his life.

The FBI, the FAA, the NTSB and other agencies will investigate this to determine if it was the act of one man on psychological overload or the work of one or more domestic terrorists. After all, Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 in protest against another federal agency, in that cast the ATF, as well as the Federal Government in general. McVeigh was immediately labeled as a domestic terrorist, because of his act of mass murder. Stack is either an emotionally challenged and sad man, lone-wolf domestic terrorist, or, perhaps, both.

Should Stack have acted alone, which is highly likely at this time, he will probably be written off as just another emotionally disturbed individual, someone who was mad as hell and just wasn’t going to take it anymore. After all, he had experienced multiple marriages, he had suffered past and recent financial losses, he had lost his retirement money, and he was mad as big business and government bailed out the very rich while the little citizens, like him, were left to swing in the wind. He had, therefore, experienced many of the emotional, physical, and financial challenges experienced by millions of his fellow citizens in the last few years.

Why, though, did he try to take so many innocent men and women with him? The answer is probably that he didn’t see others as innocent. He appears to have targeted the IRS building as he blamed that agency, and its employees, for bringing him to this day and to the belief that he had to make an ultimate statement to get the country’s attention. In his case, the taking of his own life to finally draw attention to the challenges he blamed mostly on the IRS that he had undergone for these many years. It’s always sad when we feel reduced to suicide to make our case isn’t it? Who, we must now ask, was to blame for Stack’s plight? The IRS, big business, or by management by Stack himself?

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