Yea, sorry this guy sounds more spoiled than down trodden.
Possible Manifesto of the Texas Kamikaze
by SixofNine 146 Replies latest jw friends
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purplesofa
I think his being an orphan probably had a great deal to do with how he looked at things.
He obviously had some childhood issues.
I have heard great things of the Milton Hershey orphanage. Hershey was an orphan himself.
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purplesofa
Hershey classmates recall a troubled Andrew Stack
By Mark Fazlollah and Anthony R. Wood
Inquirer Staff Writers
There was always something a little odd about a onetime classmate who gained national notoriety this week by flying an airplane into a Texas building, a former student at Central Pennsylvania's Milton Hershey School recalled yesterday.
"I knew he was off," said William Mottin of Sewell. "When I really look back, I can see him snapping like that."
Still, neither Mottin nor other former classmates ever expected things to come to what happened Thursday, when Andrew J. Stack 3d slammed a single-engine plane into the Austin IRS office, setting off a blaze that ravaged the building and injured two workers. Stack and one person inside the building were killed.
"He was quiet, and really kept to himself," said Mottin. "He would talk your ear off, or he would ignore you completely. You didn't know which Andy would show up on any day."
Mottin said he, Stack, and other students who studied at the strictly regimented boarding school for orphans in the early 1970s had what he called limited preparation for the outside world.
"In 1974, you basically were handed $100 cash and a suitcase full of clothes and sent on your way," Mottin said, noting that the policy had been changed. "It takes four or five years to really to get your feet under you and get on with your life."
Lawrence Staab, who bunked with Stack, said the lack of preparation could be especially difficult for long-term students like Stack, who spent a decade in the orphanage started by the chocolatier and philanthropist Milton S. Hershey.
"You really didn't have much of a transition to what we called the 'free world,' " said Staab, who was at the school, in Hershey, near Harrisburg, for eight years.
After Stack left, he spent two years at Harrisburg Area Community College, majoring in engineering. A spokeswoman said Stack earned 59 credits, just shy of what was needed for an associate's degree.
Staab, who works as a corporate training executive for an aircraft company in South Carolina, said Stack might have snapped because of the lack of a strong support network.
"If you didn't have that," Staab said, "you were pretty much on your own."
Connie McNamara, a school spokeswoman, said, "We're saddened. We're shocked." She said that Stack was at the school for 10 years, but had not maintained a relationship with it. "He hasn't been in touch. He hasn't been involved in the school."
Other former students said young people there got plenty of training for the outside world.
"They taught you everything you needed in life. It was good," said Richard Castore, a 1975 graduate and now a carpenter in North Jersey.
Henry McGovern, a psychologist in Asheboro, N.C., said opinions about the Hershey School are mixed because the experiences there varied widely.
"I had a house mother who was cruel," said McGovern, who ran away from the school twice and left before graduation. "I carried memories about her for many years."
But he said he had good adult supervision in another Hershey unit. McGovern eventually received a master's degree and wrote about his life. His book: A Suicide Note of Hope.
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sammielee24
I think Mr Stark is just one of millions who feel spit on and shit on at this point. Millions can empathize and shouldn't we look at how we got to this point - what reform have we actually seen on Wall Street? Who has really done a thing to change things in this country? One of the points he made about the justice system is true for the 3 million people we have in prisons..there are two laws - one for the rich and one for the poor. Why is it that the law of tax code only worked for the richest religious organization but not for the poorest of men? In a nation of laws, should not that law be consistent? Apparently not. I have seen people in my lifetime, beat down time and again until they see living as an exercise in futility - they are the people called weak, spoiled, egotistical and selfish - but who are we to judge them again when they already felt judged as unworthy?
Here is an answer by a guy (real name unknown) to the Kamikaze pilot manifesto that I found interesting and while I might disagree with some of what he says, I think he speaks for more people than we care to acknowledge. sammieswife.
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I have to be honest. I'm not normally given to displays of emotion. But I was weeping by the time I finished with this. Because Joe Stack is me. Not just me. But people like me. People who every day wake up and feel that the world has played a very, very, very bad, very ill-tasting joke on them. These are the very same people who have built every single country in this history of Planet Earth. The very same people who are beaten down, day after day, engaged in unfair trade with their employers. The very people who drown in debt they have no way of repaying, working day after day after day, 8 hours, 12 hours, 16 hours, 24 hours, sometimes even 36 hours at a time.
This is not a new concept, either, this merciless destruction of the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, but only managing to breathe the carcinogens of factory smoke. In ancient Sparta, the nobility declared a merciless annual war against the Helots, their own peasantry, to bludgeon them into submission so abject that they would never even dare to dream that things might ever be different. In the middle ages, the serf was little more than a slave. Now, the serf...worker, that is, is a wage-slave, still bound to their jobs, bound to their tiny paychecks, wishing that somehow things could be different, yet knowing that they will not be. Ever.
"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."
Yes. Why is it that our lives are worth so little to the people we elect that they'll gleefully watch us burn while they light their cigars on our pyres? Why is it that our CEO's and our dear, dear politicians wish so desperately to see us perish? What answer can anyone give that will satisfy the demands of basic human DECENCY?! Have they forgotten how to be human? Have they somehow evolved into Morlocks? It would seem so, yet if they were Morlocks, wouldn't that make us the Eloi, living our charmed lives above the surface, just like the characters from H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine"? No. Because we DON'T live charmed lives. We're fed garbage that is designed to kill us. Everyone knows it. But who has a will strong enough to resist? Often, we participate in this nightmare because we feel we have no choice. This is the only reality we know now. And if this is the logical conclusion of history, then I pray for a comet to come and end it all. (nothing personal to anyone there. I don't wish death on anyone, but if this continual war against one's own people is the way it will be forever, then our lives mean nothing anyway.)
"And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is."
Just in case anyone holds on to the delusion that this is a land of freedom and justice and conscience and liberty, just like the propaganda says, I ask where is paradise for people like "The West Memphis Three"? Where is justice for them? They're sitting on Death Row right now. Because they were metal-heads. Where is paradise for them? Where is paradise for Leonard Peltier, who was illegally extradited from Canada, thrown into prison as a political prisoner, and denied the chance of ever again being a free man? Where was paradise for Sacco and Vanzetti, who were executed just because they were Anarchists? Where is the justice for these people? Where is the justice for the people who spent years in the pen for selling drugs to feed their children, because our wonderful system couldn't provide them the basic necessities they needed to feed, shelter, clothe, educate, and nurture their families? What answer can the powers-that-be give for this? Perhaps they've grown so arrogant, they feel they don't NEED to answer. Maybe they rest upon the law as if the law is its own justification. WRONG!!!!!
"My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.
The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country."
And Churches do not have to contribute anything material to society. This is a rule which has endured for centuries. Why? When the Roman Catholic Church alone has enough money to feed the entire world for months, why are they not following the freaking MESSAGE that Jesus Christ, the founder of their entire religion, put forth. Feeding the many? Yeah, that was a Jesus thing (whether or not one believes the stories is immaterial. The whole point is in the message, a message which many if not all religions seems to have lost track of over the centuries). Funny how it was a Jesus thing. But not a Pope thing. But I'm not singling out the Popes here. Because every single leader of every single religion in the world has failed in the same way, failed to see to the needs of their flocks. But people continue to flock to them. Because, much like convicts, we're institutionalized to believe that this is the only way.
And this double standard, these different sets of rules for the rich and the poor, to that I say, how dare they? But louder than that, I scream, "How dare WE?!!!" For you see, we get exactly what we deserve. Because WE let this happen. I did. You did. We all did. Our parents did. Our grandparents did. Their parents did, and so on into the dim mists of antiquity. All because we didn't have the courage to stand up for ourselves. There are 300 million Americans, give or take. How many of those Americans are there in all three branches of government? I'm willing to bet that the answer to that does not fall in the "millions" category. How is it that thousands are able to control MILLIONS?! Because we let them. Every 4 years.
Now I know what you're saying. "What do you want ME to do? I'm just one person. I can't make a difference. What's the point in sacrificing my T-Bone steaks, and my playstations, and my fancy car, and my "good" job, for the uncertainty of a Revolution which probably will be squelched at its very inception?" The answer to this is that YOU can't do anything. By yourself, anyways. Each and every one of us, as an individual, is powerless. But consider if only 10% of the total population of the U.S. decided to take up arms and march on Washington? That's upwards of 30 million people. What can 30 million people do? Well, they can do a lot more than 1 can.
It has saddened me greatly throughout my life whenever I thought of examples like the Kent State incident, where 4 American citizens, college students, were gunned down by their own countrymen, National Guardsmen. Where was the revolution then? There was none. Instead it was "Well, they killed four of us. They're not playing around. I guess we'd better join the system and try to make as much money as we can." Welcome to the '80's, the "Me" Decade. And if you're looking for the genesis of all the woes you're suffering right now, the '80's is a good place to start looking. Rather than let the deaths of those four American citizens COUNT for something, rather than let that incident be the catalyst for a popular revolution to overthrow Capitalism and establish Direct Democracy, they just gave up. Just like we give up. We sit there and watch Iraq and Afghanistan coverage on cable news, and we shake our heads, and say "That's a terrible shame. We shouldn't be over there." But do we do anything to stop it?
Well, here's something I'm doing to stop it. It may not accomplish much, but at least I'm trying. To all citizens of the United States and to all servicemen and servicewomen serving here and abroad, I have this to say:
IF YOU HAVE NOT JOINED THE ARMED FORCES, DON'T. IF YOU HAVE JOINED THE ARMED FORCES, MUTINY. REFUSE TO FIGHT. I AM AWARE THIS STATEMENT WALKS THE LINE OF TREASON, AND I MAKE THIS STATEMENT ON MY OWN. NEITHER MAHALO.COM NOR ANYONE ELSE ON THIS PLANET IS PARTY TO THIS STATEMENT. BUT YES, I ADVISE YOU TO MUTINY, BECAUSE YOUR LIVES ARE WORTH MORE TO ME THAN THEY ARE TO YOUR OWN GOVERNMENT!
"The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on."
The paragraph I just cited is exactly the point at which I started to cry. Because that old lady described in that paragraph might as well be my own Mother. My Mother was a musical genius. She was composing music at age 3. She passed up a chance to go to Juliard so that she could raise a family. Since she was a single mother with 3 kids, she went to work, naturally, at a place that seemed to pay a decent wage. Bethelhem Steel, Burns Harbor. She worked there for 30 years, performing all manner of unsafe jobs, such as cleaning asbestos, shoveling Coke ovens (for those not familiar with steelworker terminology, "Coke" is the substance that's left over after coal has been burned up), operating massive sheers designed to cut giant slabs of red-hot steel (sheers which can and have cut people entirely in half). At my mother's steel mill, people died from being crushed to death by falling Steel coils weighing tons, and there was not enough left of such people to scrape up with a spatula. She, too, worked there for 30 years. And when she retired, instead of a pension, she got a lump sum of about 25,000 dollars. 25,000 for 30 years of a**-busting service. That's less than a 1000 dollars a YEAR. Can you live on a grand a year? Do you know of anyone who can? I know I can't. And I don't know anyone else who can. And why this madness? Because politicians sold those pensions down the river, in order to help out their corporate cronies. Is THAT justice? I ask you, is that JUSTICE?!
"In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself."
I too live on peanut butter and bread. Because I can afford little else. I make 400 bucks a month. My rent and bills are more than that. Add on top of that thousands of dollars of college debt that I can't pay off, from several years of college that amounted to nothing because, as I was working 16 hour days AND going to school full time, I had to drop out after 3 years due to sheer exhaustion. I can forget about my dream of making a living as a novelist, because economics is a beast which devours all dreams, just like mine. Like the tragic author of the above manifesto, I have learned better than to trust the business world to give a f*** about me. Because money truly does talk in our backwards society, and I cannot even hope to DREAM of ever having enough of it to matter to anyone who calls the shots. Am I the only one? I doubt it. I'm willing to bet some of my Mahalo creds (because that's about the only currency I've got right now) that there are a huge number of you who are reading this who are exactly the same boat I am. Because that's how the system works. It's OUR guts, and THEIR gold. OUR labor and THEIR Leer Jets. And all because the American electorate has been brainwashed to vote against their own interests. We are the proverbial crowd of peasants charging down the street screaming "MORE power to the rich! MORE power to the Aristocracy!!!!" How utterly stupid is that?
"I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy f--k up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution."
The preceding paragraph hit me hard. Do you want to know why? I'll tell you why. Because I am the poor that get to die for the mistakes of the rich. My body is falling apart, piece by piece. I walk with a permanent limp, I desperately need dentures, and my knees are already starting to give out. I'm pushing thirty, but years of hard labor have given me the body of a 60-year-old. Know what my healthcare plan is? I'm on the "Advil and water" plan. Because that's the only healthcare that is available to me. I live in a "Right-to-Work" state, or as we call them, a "Right-to-Starve" state. Employers are not required to provide s*** for us. And just when I thought maybe, just MAYBE I might finally be able to get some healthcare, our good friends the United States Senate decided that my life, and for that matter, your life, wasn't worth saving. And now, here is the reality. I WILL die. Not from old age. But from lack of healthcare. I WILL die. Thank you, United States Government and the Healthcare Industry! It's so touching that you have our best interests at heart, as always!
"I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough."
He's right about that. He was not the only one to have all he can stand. And I cannot truly blame him for choosing to die rather than to let these wicked, EVIL people at the head of our Government continue to rape him. I do not in any way condone suicide, and certainly not homicide, but I understand fully what drove him to it. Because I'm ALSO at the "I've had enough" stage. Only, I won't pick up a gun and kill myself and/or others. Nor will I fly a plane into a building. That's not my style. Since it has been established that eventually, lack of healthcare, if not unsafe working conditions, will KILL ME, I've decided to fight back the only way I feel I can. I will continue to ROT this miserable, utterly broken system from the inside out until it falls apart at the seams and a new system is FORCED, or until I finally succumb and die. Whichever comes first. That's how I fight a revolution, folks.
"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 s--t at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
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 sorrow at the death of Mr. Stack, and the circumstances which caused it. I also sorrow for everyone who was in any way hurt or grieved by his actions. But I agree with his manifesto fully on every single point, and it does a good job of exposing the inherent, glaring flaws in our system. And Mr. Stack, though you're dead now, nonetheless I wish to say that you did not truly die in vain. Because even if I'm the only one in the world dedicated to the concept of drastic, irrevocable social/political/economic revolution, then at least the Revolution lives on in me. And will do so until the moment I draw my very last breath. Despite the fact that you went out in a very sad way, driven to the point where all hope was lost, nonetheless, I pray that your words will convert a few sheep into human beings. The world needs less sheep, and more people in it.
Slowly, the business world is changing a little (thank you, @Jason and thank you, Wikipedia and Google for giving us at least that!) but a little change is not even close to enough.
I apologize for my overly lengthy answer to this question. I didn't intend for it to be so long, but this is a subject that I've very passionate feelings about, and I've just literally released years of pent-up rage and frustration in the course of writing it. To end this answer, I'm going to put a bunch of pictures on the bottom of the answer. It's amazing how you can type one single word, "Despair", into Google Image search, and you come up with a bunch of pictures which describe this exact subject perfectly. Viva la Revolucion.
-Derek, "Baka13" -
SixofNine
w/o trudging through all of that, what these egomaniacs should realize is that the government did not bail out GM, the government bailed out the people who work for GM, the people who work for the suppliers of GM, the families of those workers, the people who work in the hardware store in the towns of those people, and on and on. Not to mention the US economy as a whole.
And by the way, it was inarguably the right thing to do. From both a moral and a monetary perspective, it is a huge success.
Did the executives at GM benefit much more, in terms of dollars? Hell yeah. Is that palatable? hell no. But then again, it's the Kamikaze types who bitch and moan about paying taxes and the tax code who have voted to make the tax code as burdensome as it is for "the little guy".
When rich people payed 90% of their money in taxes - you didn't see them committing suicide over it. . They were still rich! What they did do, is convince yahoos in the middle class to fight and vote for policies that make the tax code harder on the poor and middle class, and thereby redistribute "wealth" to the already rich.
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sammielee24
Corporations are now people. They will not be held accountable to the same degree as a person. I felt that much of the Kamikaze manifesto was a diatribe against the justice system - in his case it related directly to the tax codes and the injustice there. It is sad that the man chose to act in the way he did but for many with a fight inside the halls of justice, the rules are different depending on wealth. That's a fact and the realization of that fact, creates such a feeling of disillusion that it sets off a chain of thought and action a person might not otherwise fall victim to. sammieswife
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purplesofa
Tax Law Was Cited in Software Engineer’s Suicide Note
Published: February 18, 2010In his suicide note, the computer software engineer who flew a small plane into a building with Internal Revenue Service offices in Texas on Thursday cited a 1986 tax law as a major motivation for his action.
The law, known as Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act, made it extremely difficult for information technology professionals to work as self-employed individuals, forcing most to become company employees.
Many software engineers and other such professionals say that the law denies them the opportunity to become wealthy entrepreneurs and that it makes it harder to increase and refine their skills, eventually diminishing their income.
Harvey J. Shulman, a Washington lawyer who represented companies that supported the desires of software engineers to be independent contractors, estimated that the law currently affects at least 100,000 such people.
“This law has ruined many people’s lives, hurt the technology industry, and discouraged the creation of small, independent businesses critical to a thriving domestic economy,” Mr. Shulman said in an interview Thursday. “That the law still exists — even after its original sponsors called for its repeal and unbiased studies proved it unfairly targeted a tax-compliant industry — shows just how dysfunctional and unresponsive Democratic and Republican Congresses and our political system have been, even on relatively simple issues.”
The law was sponsored by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, as a favor to I.B.M., which wanted a $60 million tax break on its overseas business.
Under budget rules in effect at the time, any tax breaks had to be paid for with new revenues. By requiring software engineers to be employees, a Congressional report estimated, income and payroll taxes would rise by $60 million a year because employees had few opportunities to cheat on their taxes.
One year later, convinced that the law was not bringing in the expected revenue, Senator Moynihan proposed that it be repealed, but his bill died. Over the next eight years or so, Congress held at least six hearings on the law. In 1996, the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, which prepares official tax revenue estimates for Congress, calculated that repeal of the law would cause an insignificant revenue loss. Mr. Shulman testified at the time that it would actually increase revenues as engineers, job brokers and others built successful businesses.
Seventy senators, ranging from Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, then signed a letter calling for repeal.
In 1998 Senator William V. Roth Jr., the Delaware Republican who was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said through an aide that he believed the law should be repealed, but that he would not take any action because it would “open a Pandora’s box of other independent contractor issues.”
On Wednesday, the day before Andrew Joseph Stack III left his suicide note and crashed the plane into the building in Austin, the Obama administration proposed a widespread crackdown on all types of independent contractors in an effort to raise $7 billion in tax revenue over 10 years.
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BizzyBee
I read all of the young man's posting and my heart goes out to him. Rather than comment on where I take exception,
(" My body is falling apart, piece by piece. I walk with a permanent limp, I desperately need dentures, and my knees are already starting to give out. I'm pushing thirty, but years of hard labor have given me the body of a 60-year-old." And, "Where is the justice for the people who spent years in the pen for selling drugs to feed their children, because our wonderful system couldn't provide them the basic necessities they needed to feed, shelter, clothe, educate, and nurture their families?" )
I would just say that I agree with much of what he said because he is stating the obvious; in his twenties, he may think he's just discovered the BIG secret - LIFE IS NOT FAIR!
I might suggest a few items for his reading list, to give him some historical and political perspective:
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
What's the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank
The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman
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SixofNine
See, they lose me the second they bring this ridiculosity:
This law has ruined many people’s lives,
Nah, it didn't ruin anyone's life. It may not be the tax advantage you'd like. It may not even be totally fair. But it didn't ruin your life. And it didn't stop you from starting a legitimate business.
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beksbks
I don't know about his beefs with the IRS, and I don't know about his upbringing in Hershey, although I've been there, and it's a beautiful place that locals seem to have a lot of respect for. I do know that there is a man dead who had nothing to do with any of this. His wife and family are truly suffering today.
