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Initial reaction from the White House and much of the pundit-sphere was to deny that the actions of Joseph Stack in Austin were terrorism. A few, including Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) disagree.

Had we been more willing to take an honest look at the causes of the events we do call terrorism, it wouldn’t be so easy to argue this is an isolated incident and a cowardly criminal act. While it’s pretty clear this was an insane act by one man alone, he knows his frustrations are shared by many. He hopes to be a catalyst, writing in his suicide manifesto:

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.

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.

He may have physically been alone, but in his mind burned the belief that he was waking up America. He saw himself as hero and patriot in a narrative we’re hearing more and more from fringes of the tea-party movement.

This is an act of political terrorism, and would have been clearly labeled as such if we were in the days of the LA Times bombing. But in our zeal to foster an us-against-them mentality, we’re pushing this false standard.

When you have groups of people with shared perceptions, a violent attack on the common enemy of those perceptions is going to be an act of terrorism. The 9/11 attack resonated in the Arab world because it was the banks and brokers that make the money from Arab assets that took the hit. The Oklahoma City bombing resonated with those who thought Waco’s Branch Dividians had their rights violated, and the Austin IRS strike is going to resonate with a minority who believe the government is evil incarnate.

We’re fools to try and argue it away with semantics.

UPDATE: Add Glenn Greenwald to the list who dare call it terrorism.

UPDATE II: Glenn Greewald on Newsweek’s terrorism stylebook pretzel logic.

“Broadcasting Needs to Party Like It’s 1999” writes Harry Jessell in TVNewsCheck. He ticks off the once-great broadcast conventions like the NATPE whose last year in Vegas was a shadow of its former self.

He looks forward to the 2010 NAB Convention in Las Vegas this April, and tells legacy broadcasters they need a good party, and laments how few station badges are at the shows these days. The comments are even more revealing. One wag says it should be renamed NANB, for National Association of Non-Broadcasters.

We’re now seeing the fruits of an organization that saw the handwriting on the wall long before its legacy members did, and was open and accepting of new media. I remember not long ago a broadcast industry that said non-linear editing would never work and a motion picture industry that said film would never die.

Legacy television broadcasters have nobody to blame but themselves. Like the RIAA and radio before them, they were in total denial about the changing media landscape. Instead of embracing digital technology, they cried poor and used their diminishing political influence to block its implementation.

So new delivery mediums simply built infrastructure without them, and now they’re on the outside looking in. YouTube is delivering 1080p while even legacy networks are still delivering content in SD.

We’ll be at the NAB this year, and while it might be fun to look at the big powerful transmitters, that’s not where the leading edge is, and the terrestrial folks ought to just accept it and move to the final stage of grief; acceptance.

Which I suppose is a good excuse for a party.