:: Jesus Manifesto ::
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>The Dark Wisdom of Andrew Stack
>Posted: 18 Feb 2010 03:17 PM PST
>This morning Andrew Stack, an Austin, Texas man with a grudge against the IRS, crashed his small Piper Cherokee airplane into an IRS buildling containing 200 workers. Apparently, Stack left behind a manifesto of sorts–a frustrated screed condemning the IRS, the US Government, and Capitalist society. After a series of expensive setbacks in his life, he finally reached a breaking point. You can read his full manifesto/suicide note here. Through it all, it is clear that Stack is not only angry with governmental greed, but also his own enmeshed desire to achieve the American Dream. A quick scan of his manifesto reveals that Stack tried to succeed by playing by what he perceived to be the rules–getting around heavy taxes, struggling to succeed in entrepreneurial endeavors. After repeated failure to live the dream, he crashed–both figuratively and literally. In frustration, he decided to end his life and take out as many of his enemies as possible. He
wrote:
>Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead
people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
>This sentiment is not all-together uncommon. You can read in his words the sort of sentiments we’ve all held–anger at Washington for backing big business…anger at the Medical establishment for caving to greed…anger at GM for (you guessed it) being greedy. Stack’s screed is against greed. And you can find thousands of similar diatribes from the right and the left on the internet. But in this case, Stack’s despair was such that it pushed him to both a suicidal and murderous act. However, Stack’s manifesto doesn’t stop at a mere screed. He delves into revolutionary speech–which is why I’m taking the time to write about his manifesto on JesusManifesto. Towards the end, Stack writes:
>I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along… 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.
>I assume that the average American will dismiss Stack’s sentiments as the ravings of a kook. They will tell themselves that only crazies talk like this and that such revolt could never happen here. And I also assume that those Americans who have been ranting against the US Government and using revolution-speech (like me) will feel increased discomfort at issuing screeds of their own. There is a real danger in this moment (and I realize this statement is going to sound subtly paranoid) that this sort of incident will be used to silent the fringes. We are, perhaps, entering a season where anti-government speech will be more easily lumped into the sorts of terrorist act committed by Andrew Stack. It would be a shame if, because of events like this, folks decide to stifle their criticisms of our government and our society. After all, I don’t believe Andrew Stack’s analysis was wrong. I only disagree with his response. Andrew Stack seems to have
pushed to madness–if he indeed was insane–not by delusions, but by truth. The powerful in our society are greedy. They don’t care about the average “joe” or “jane.” And trying to play by the rules to achieve the American Dream is a futile exercise. Andrew Stack was right to call for revolt. And, it isn’t altogether wrong-headed to believe that violence is the answer. After all, unjust systems don’t really change from internal “tweaking;” revolutionary action is required. And conventional wisdom holds that violence is a necessary part of revolt. Thankfully, I don’t hold to conventional wisdom. While I whole-heartedly agree that American zombies need to wake up and revolt, I don’t believe it should involve violence. In his Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, anthropologist David Graeber writes:
>…revolutionary action is any collective action which rejects, and therefore confronts, some form of power or domination and in doing so, reconstitutes social relations [even within the collective]…Revolutionary action doesn’t necessarily have to aim to topple governments…attempts to create autonomous communities in the face of power would, almost by definition, be revolutionary acts.
>In other words, we can revolt against the United States, or American society, or this globalistic mess we call “Empire” by refusing to play by the rules. We can resist greed by practicing jubilee. We can challenge power by turning our back on power as we stand in solidarity with the powerless. We can dance in the face of empire as we create an alternative. Though an open-eyed look at the world is damned depressing, we don’t need to give ourselves over to despair; instead, we can engage in creative and subversive acts that point to the in-breaking Kingdom of God. The danger in what I’m writing, of course, is that a call to nonviolent revolution is often self-justifying. In other words, folks tend to think that nonviolence is a passive stance. I’m talking about something far more aggressive than that. We need to look at this society of ours with the sort of honesty that can easily push someone to despair. If we aren’t on the brink of
madness, then (I suspect) we are deluding ourselves. The challenge to all followers of Christ isn’t in avoiding the madness–to avoid the dark wisdom of Andrew Stack. Rather, we must stubbornly choose life in the face of death. We must overcome and confront the Death Machine, not with death, but with communities of life.
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