Whenever anything like this happens, the same kinds of articles tend to appear in the media and on blogs. There are the articles that, often with a self-righteous tone, wax eloquent about the horrific nature of the act, the despicable character of the attacker, and (often) the pristine innocence of the victims. Given that the victims in this event were IRS employees, little has been said about them in the media.
Then there are those other articles that sympathize with the attacker’s motives, ideology, or political stance, but condemn the attacker’s use of violence. Here again, I haven’t seen much of that this time around. Joseph Stack’s manifesto encompassed such a mixed bag of grievances, accusations, and quotations that it is impossible to tell where in the political spectrum he was coming from. I suspect that he himself had no clear idea.
Finally, there are articles calling out for more and more government legislation, regulation, or law enforcement to prevent any similar incidents from occuring in the future. In this instance, there were acknowledgements that it is all but impossible to prevent this type of suicide attack, but no amount of reasoning or common sense ever seems to stop the flood of demands for draconian repressive measures.
The “Powers That Be” Knew Something Like This Was Bound To Happen
No matter where you live in the world, you know that the worldwide economy has been bad for over two years, and there is no improvement in sight. The rot started in the US, largely due to actions on the part of the US government and various corrupt oligarchs, such as George Soros. The collapse and supposed “bailout” were engineered by various corrupt politicians and financiers to take money out of our pockets and put it into their own. Everything done by the US Congress and the Obama administration has served only to deepen the depression. From here, the economic rot has spread worldwide; two notable examples are Iceland and Greece.
Then there’s the issue of the U.S. economy having been hollowed out by outsourcing, offshoring, and the H-1b visa program. This has had a particularly devastating effect on the American middle class in general, and the American IT worker in particular.
Even with the real unemployment rate in many areas of the US matching or exceeding that of the 1930s Great Depression, it is truly scandalous that the H-1b program remains in effect. This insures that any effort on the part of American IT workers to get jobs, or to retrain themselves for future jobs in the industry, are doomed to come to naught.
The H-1b program never had anything to do with aiding the competitiveness of US firms in global markets; that ship sailed away years ago. Instead, the H-1b program is simply a testimony to the power of multinational technology megabusinesses to deceive, corrupt, and intimidate US elected officials. (Please see IT Business Edge: AFL-CIO Report Takes Critical Look at H-1B Visa Program for more on this issue.)
How is this relevant to the story? The attacker, Joseph Stack, was an unemployed IT worker who was also bedeviled by a long battle with the IRS and, apparently, ensuing difficulties with his home life. I would like to point out that the overwhelming majority of people faced with such situations never “go postal” or resort to any form of violence. But the US government has enough statistics and historical data at its disposal to know that, whenever a large group of people is pushed too far into desperation, a tiny percentage of them will go over the edge.
Let me make it clear that I am NOT claiming that anybody connected with the US government knew ahead of time that this particular individual, Joseph Stack, would do what he did. I said no such thing, nor did I mean to imply it. But I do intend to say that the US government knew that it was only a matter of time before someone whose life had been destroyed by government policies would commit a high-profile violent act.
The “Powers That Be” Could Have Prevented It Without Repressive Measures
The US Congress and the Obama administration could cut unemployment significantly just by eliminating the H-1b program, but they do not. Part of the reason why H-1b remains in effect is simply because the Obama administration not only is thoroughly corrupt, but also is engaged in a covert war to disempower, plunder, and eventually eliminate most of the US middle class. In other words, the Obama administration is not going to do anything to help out a segment of the population that does not provide the Democrat party with significant political or financial support.
But that’s not the only reason. Whenever anyone who is not part of the administration’s political support base reacts to oppression by becoming violent, this violent act provides those in power with a convenient excuse both to discredit their political opponents and to increase government control by cracking down on everybody by any means available.
If Violence Is Not The Answer, What Is?
Supposed “democratic election” or no, recent polls in the US have made it clear that neither the Obama administration nor the US Congress enjoy the consent of the governed, in any sense of the word. The US economy remains in free fall with no recovery in sight, and with the levels of debt and irresponsible spending being what they are, little possibility of recovery in the lifetime of anybody old enough to read this blog. Glenn Beck proclaimed that we don’t need a revolution; we’ve already had one. He is correct that we don’t need a “revolution” in that sense, but incorrect that we have already had one. The American Revolution in 1776 was not really a revolution in the usual sense, but a war of secession. What we need now is not revolution, but secession, and not just one secession, but perhaps fifty of them. And if enough people understand what they want, secession need not involve bloodshed.
Keep watching this blog for more about secession.
Here we go again, this time with the “Pentagon Shooter”
Click thumbnail to view original, then click again to view full size. The text is worth a closer look.
What a tragic irony!
In case you haven’t heard, Satyam was the fourth-largest IT outsourcing company in India, with 55,000 employees (or so they claimed). The CEO, Ramalinga Raju, recently resigned after admitting massive financial fraud. As of this writing, the company is almost out of cash.
Here we go again…
Satyam has done business with companies and governments in over 60 countries, including the U.S. This scandal appears to be even larger in scope than the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal of late 2001. Price Waterhouse, the Indian subsidiary of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is facing close scrutiny over having signed off on Satyam’s audits.
Obviously, the much-touted Sarbanes-Oxley law enacted after the Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle did nothing to prevent the recent collapse of the U.S. real estate, stock market, and financial sector. The take-home lesson is that once any corporation becomes multinational in scope, and politically well-connected, no laws, no regulations, no bureaucratic restructuring can possibly keep it honest if its management chooses to do otherwise.
Another reason why outsourcing is wrong
Outsourcing and offshoring are always and everywhere the enemies of accountability. The further away one’s trading partners are located, the harder it is to comprehend what they are up to, and that will never change.
Why corporate cheating is contagious
Whenever one major company in an industry has been “cooking the books” to promote or exaggerate its own success, what effect do you suppose that has? Think about it! Every other executive, every other company in that industry will be pressured to match or exceed the cheater’s inflated results, by fair means or foul, or face the wrath of board members and stockholders.
Another organization that should be defending our interests becomes corrupt…
The IEEE, an organization that should be defending the interests of professional engineering workers, has betrayed its constituency and has sold out to the “body shops” that are importing de facto indentured servants to the US.
It is time to end the irredeemably corrupt H-1b visa program once and for all. There is NO shortage of American IT and engineering workers who are qualified and are ready, willing, and able to do good work!
The H-1b program supposedly has restrictions to prevent the displacement of American workers, but those restrictions are flouted across the board. Vast numbers of foreign workers, often with limited English-language communication skills, are being imported to the U.S. to work at lower wages and to displace older and more qualified American professionals. These foreign workers are de facto indentured servants.
The upshot is that it has become all but impossible for qualified, hard-working, reputable, and experienced U.S. citizens to find any permanent employment in the IT and engineering fields. Established professionals who once held what seemed to be secure jobs are now traveling around the country to do contract work for a few months at a time. They seldom, if ever, are offered regular, full-time employment with benefits.
Consequences for homeland security - and our future
We are outsourcing the expertise that we need to defend our country. Do we really want key portions of the US technical and communications infrastructure to be in the hands of foreigners whose loyalties are elsewhere?(See Engineer indicted on spying for China.
No wonder American college students are no longer interested in studying these subjects - the jobs simply don’t exist!
On this new site, you can, “Buy, Sell, and Trade everything Web 2.0…[including] Websites for Sale, Websites Wanted, Jobs Available, Jobs Wanted, Facebook Development Services, Software providers, Consulting, Events…and much more to come.”
Updated 8/17/07: Added News Feed Widgets page to this blog. This page contains scrollable news feeds, with a link to a site where you can get customizable news feed widgets for your own blog or website. Widgets are available in several formats, depending upon where you want to place them on the page.
1389 has added several scrolling news tickers to 1389 Blog - Anitjihadist Tech. The tickers are free; you can go to these websites and add the code to your own blog or website. To see how they actually work, look for them below:
News Widgets from Widgetbox:
Please be patient; they take a little while to finish loading!
Want Widgetbox widgets for yourself?
To get any Widgetbox widget on this page:
Click on the Add Widget button under the widget.
Select Customize Widget from the pop-up menu.
Choose the frame dimensions and color that fit your blog or website.
Copy the code into a text or HTML widget box in your blog layout, or into any other place on your blog or website that accepts scripted code.
Save your layout.
To select other free widgets, including music and playable web games:
To install the news ticker, copy the code from the website and paste it into an element in your webpage or blog sidebar that accepts scripted code.
For instance, if your blog uses WordPress and you have selected a widget-ready template, add the code to a text widget. If no text widget is present in your sidebar, add a new one; otherwise, you can add the code to an existing text widget. Click on the text widget to open it, and paste the ticker code at the desired location.
1389 is my nom de guerre, and I am the editor of this blog. I am an IT professional, living in the in the U.S., with thirty years’ experience, mostly on IBM mainframes.
I am blogging my thoughts, impressions, and concerns, as well as tech tips and news, mostly from my mobile phone. The phone is a Sanyo SCP-7000, text-only at this time.
This blog will address some technical matters, along with anything else that seems interesting or useful.
There are frequent posts from other authors who have been invited to participate.
If you are wondering why this blog uses such a spare and simple design, it’s because it allows this blog’s website URL to be used from both a conventional browser and a mobile phone or PDA. That means you can navigate, read, and post comments on blog entries from your mobile device. It avoids the need to build a separate mobile interface. If the main blog page were to have graphics, scroll boxes, or other trimmings, it would require much more memory, and it might also require features that are not implemented on all mobile devices.
