UPDATE
Two wrongs don't make a right. I'm sorry if other things happened that might help excuse the actions, presumably on the basis of provocation, but provocation isn't a very interesting defense for an act that seems so calculated. One very acceptable secret would be if the purported author/s actually had nothing to do with it, in which case they should say so rather than remaining as authors of their own misfortune- which seems to be true either way.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1