amerika is wunderbar
Feb. 25th, 2010 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Some thoughts about the guy who flew a plane into an IRS building, killing himself and an IRS worker. On the one hand he's a "hero" to the Stormfront people (natch) and random people on Facebook who quote Thomas Jefferson and say he's a real American patriot, etc. On the other hand, he finishes his "manifesto" not with the line that the newspapers are quoting, "Well Mr. Big Brother IRS man… take my pound of flesh and sleep well," but this, "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." He also calls Bush a "presidential puppet" with "cronies." So are Stormfront and the "anti-tax movement" now also Communist and Bush-hating? Because that might make them more interesting.
But they probably just didn't read the manifesto.
Meanwhile Littleton, CO just barely avoided another school shooting incident (but this time by a 32-year-old!), and a killer whale dragged a Sea World trainer under and thrashed her around until she died. And I know I missed psycho biology professor who, until it was revealed she'd already killed her younger brother, attracted a shocking number of comments on the New York Times sympathizing with her killing three of her colleagues because the tenure system really sucks, yo. Yep, just another day on Planet USA.
But they probably just didn't read the manifesto.
Meanwhile Littleton, CO just barely avoided another school shooting incident (but this time by a 32-year-old!), and a killer whale dragged a Sea World trainer under and thrashed her around until she died. And I know I missed psycho biology professor who, until it was revealed she'd already killed her younger brother, attracted a shocking number of comments on the New York Times sympathizing with her killing three of her colleagues because the tenure system really sucks, yo. Yep, just another day on Planet USA.
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Date: 2010-02-25 07:27 pm (UTC)I was thinking about the orca one a lot. Those whales are not like dolphins. They're a lot bigger, and they're used to killing and eating bigger things. That's one thing... I've been feeling the urge to anthropomorphize and say that the whale had been brooding and angry all this time and hated captivity and was just waiting for a chance to take down his trainer. But I think that's probably dead wrong. And if it *is* dead wrong, then I wonder what caused him on that day to make that move. One person said the whale had seemed agitated earlier in the day--but that could be people remember to fit the situation. Or maybe he was agitated. Who knows?
That so-called tax protestor... as some commentator said, "Thoreau was a tax protester. Flying a plane into a building in a suicide-murder move is not tax protesting." Also, re: taxes and government in general, I think it's too bad people have such a huge dissociation from government and from taxes and what they do. Government is us ("Soylent Green is people!), and taxes are money that we give to ourselves to do things like help us pay for college, repair our roads and bridges, pay our social security...
And that person who killed her colleagues and then it was revealed she had killed her brother--yeah, that was wild. I didn't realize she had been attracting support, though. Crazy.
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Date: 2010-02-26 12:59 am (UTC)I'm with you on taxes. When people write like, "the government is taking our money without our consent!" I'm like, dude, what you really want is to live without government, so go do that, but don't complain about it when you can't get to work on your mud roads.
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Date: 2010-02-25 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 01:00 am (UTC)