This Is Personal

My daughter works at the building directly next to the one destroyed by Joseph Andrew Stack, the deranged pilot who flew his airplane into the Austin, Texas building pictured here. He was a suicidal individual full of hatred, frustration and discontent who no longer possessed the ability or the will to solve problems within the bounds of decent, moral, ethical and legal standards. His murderous action took the life of Vernon Hunter, an IRS employee and Vietnam Vet; and injured so many more. My daughter and her coworkers—themselves federal workers who were on duty that day—are, thankfully, ok. But people on the political fringe like the deranged pilot are not ok. Like Stack, like Osama Bin Laden, like Al Qaeda they are sick, hateful and evil people who call for the failure of our President, the destruction of our government and the dismantling of our institutions. These same ‘friends and sympathizers’ of the terrorist pilot Stack who operate in the right-wing conservative circles of print media, hate radio, disinformation television and the vile-filled conservative blogosphere, applaud this criminal as a hero. He was no hero. His Tea Party Patriot anarchist buddies— teabagging fringe loonies all—cheered Stack but Stack was no one to be cheered. He was a criminal, a murderer who should be roundly condemned for his unforgivable act of terrorism.


Photo: Associated Press/Austin American-Statesman, Ralph Barrera