thinking about industrial society and its future

1995. i was reading the monkey wrench gang when the washington post published the unabombers manifesto on september 19. one month before the manifesto was published mcveigh was indicted on 11 counts for the okc bombing. it was my research into mcveigh that led me to the turner diaries which then led me to the monkey wrench gang. the unabomber mailed his final bomb on april 20. the day after the okc bombing. the bomb killed a timber industry lobbyist. on the same day the bomb exploded the new york times received a letter from the unabomber. he called himself the terrorist group fc. the letter promised fc would stop sending bombs if a national periodical printed the groups manifesto. the fbi was offering a one million dollar reward for the unabombers capture. freeh and reno suggested the manifesto be published. they hoped a reader would recognize the writing style and content and identify the author. i was coincidentally reading the monkey wrench gang so naturally i was intrigued. all around me i was witnessing the wild and untouched land of my childhood being consumed by commercial strip malls oversized parking lots sprawling industrial parks and housing subdivisions. i was angry. eco terrorism intrigued me. i wanted to burn the subdivisions to the ground. meanwhile new houses nearby were being vandalized and set ablaze. the perpetrators were spraypainting their tag on the unoccupied houses and then setting them ablaze. elf. individuals claiming to belong to the earth liberation front were in my hometown. i wanted to take part in the action. i wanted to be an eco-terrorist. i wanted to stifle the sprawl. i wanted to burn down new homes and destroy heavy machinery. i wanted to break pipes and sabotage equipment. i wanted to monkey wrench industrial society. so the title of the unabombers manifesto intrigued me. it seemed to be connected to the monkey wrench gang. i was drawn to the title. industrial society and its future. i wasnt interested in politics or philosophy. i wasnt interested in political ideologies or labels. i wasnt interested in the right versus left dichotomy. the divide and conquer psyop. but the unabomber intrigued me. so i read his manifesto.

the media served the machine in their coverage of ted kaczynski. they portrayed him as a hermit living deep in the woods of montana. countless miles away from civilization. no neighbors or paved roads nearby. deep in the heart of the untamed wilderness. interestingly the opposite was true. but the media served their masters by using kaczynski to discredit environmentalism and thus sustain the machine kaczynski wanted to destroy. the industrial society kaczynski wanted to destroy. in my opinion the corporate news media is one leg of the intelligence octopus. the media pushes the psyops. the media pushes the official narratives. the federal state and local law enforcement officials leak tidbits of information to the media. and the media uses the tidbits to misrepresent their targets. although i didnt realize it at the time kaczynski was intentionally misrepresented in order to discredit his manifesto and thus his overall philosophy. the media was essentially saying:

beware of environmentalists. they are all terrorists. they want to stifle growth. they are reclusive antisocial hermits who oppose technologies and despise conveniences. they want to send civilization back into the stone age. they are delusional and oftentimes insane.

that is how kaczynski was used by the media to discredit environmentalism. to hijack and coopt it and place it under control of corporations academic institutions nongovernmental organizations social policy think tanks and ultimately billionaire philanthropists.

ted kaczynskis manifesto was critically acclaimed. it was not the ramblings of a madman. its author was not delusional. its ideas were not unconventional. in fact many of his ideas were based on both contemporary and classical philosophies. kaczynskis manifesto was largely made up of themes that he was introduced to while at harvard. he was not even sixteen when he enrolled as a freshman. by 1959 students at harvard as well as many other institutions were required to take general education courses many of which espoused antitechnology and humanistic themes. the majority of general ed courses essentially taught students that truth was relevant. ultimately kaczynski was intrigued by both the antitechnology message from general education and the cognitive dualistic style of mathematics. math offered kaczynski reason in the face of relativism. and although i didnt know much about the unabomber when i first read his manifesto i now recognize some of the roots of his philosophy and worldview. read what kaczynskis high school counselor lois skillen wrote to harvard:

the manifesto. why is it taken seriously? ted kaczynski was a killer. a so-called terrorist. so why do we respect his manifesto? why is it critically acclaimed? why is it required reading in some college courses? why do we give kaczynski credit for anything? these are all relevant questions. nevertheless the manifesto is still relevant. and it will remain relevant. it will stand the test of time. that is why we respect kaczynskis manifesto. it is driven by reason. it is nothing but sane. it espouses ideas that many of us can relate to.

i read the manifesto before the unabomber became known as ted kaczynski. before there was a face behind the words and the actions. and when i sat down to read the manifesto i did not know the unabomber was going to devote as many paragraphs as he did to his critique of leftism. and i felt then as i do now that he could have limited his critique of leftism. he could have devoted more time to describing his hypothetical vision of human social interaction after industrial society was destroyed or collapsed under its own weight. kaczynski did not believe the system could be reformed so his solution naturally required a revolution. most likely violent but not necessarily so. yet certainly designed to destroy industrial society so the surviving humans could live in harmony with nature. i have no doubt that he contemplated what life would be like after the machine stopped. after the economic and industrial aspects of society were destroyed. but his critique of leftism diverted my attention away from the antitechnology message of his manifesto. and in my opinion his message became obfuscated and overshadowed. and his final note was illustrative of that obfuscation. so when i sat down to read his manifesto in the fall of 1995 i was surprised to see his critique of leftism play such a prominent role. due to my own shallow expectations i expected to learn the details of how we could destroy industrial society and more importantly i expected to see the fruits of our destruction. i expected to learn kaczynskis vision of how humans would react and respond to the end of industrial society. ultimately i expected a hypothetical description of post industrial society. of life after the revolution. essentially i expected to envision the aftermath of destruction. i felt that it was impossible to describe the future of industrial society and the revolution which destroyed it without describing that which succeeds its destruction. here is one question i have been unable to answer with conviction:

can modern humans bound by both reason relativism dependence and convenience live in harmony with nature which undoubtedly would require most of us to utilize instincts that have been lost at the hands of our enslavement to technology?

in order for kaczynskis hypothetical revolution to produce a positive outcome humans would have to be reprogrammed with survival instincts. instincts that were long ago replaced by the technology that humans destroyed. i could not help but wonder how many of us would be able to survive after we destroyed industrial society. without creating small localized communities individual survival would be futile since most of us do not possess the skills and know how required to survive without the convenient technologies borne from the industrial society that we destroyed. it must also be noted that small communities would be subjected to control power dominance and hierarchy. not to mention our will to survive would have to overcome our lack of the experience necessary to survive in nature. to survive in the absence of technology.

to be continued...

live on the telescreen

down the rabbit hole.

summer of 2001.

mcveigh was executed.

yates drowned her children.

osama was on my mind.

it was august 2001.

it was the summer of chandra levy.

it was the summer of hurricane erin.

i did not trust bush.

bush stole the election with jeb's help.

it was the summer of enron.

it was the summer of periodic terror threats.

it was in the news.

i was a junkie.

a news junkie.

it didn't happen overnight.

it was years in the making.

down the rabbit hole in 1991.

oliver stones disinfo psyop hit the theaters.

that was my first peek down the rabbit hole.

i had finished reading slaughterhouse five and franny and zooey.

i had finished reading king's scary clown epic.

i had finished reading thirteen days and zodiac.

i went down the rabbit hole and discovered on the trail of the assassins and high treason.

and i never looked back.

i stayed down here.

i will never return to the surface.

down the rabbit hole.

deep down.

all alone down here.

first world trade center bombing.

two days later the waco fireball.

two years later oklahoma city.

bojinka plot.

twa 800.

embassy bombings.

osama on the public radar.

uss cole bombing.

i stayed down the rabbit hole.

deep down.

it was 1991. seinfeld was prime time television. oliver stones disinfo psyop was 28 years in the making. seinfeld reconstructed the scene inside the limousine in dealey plaza. the nightmare on elm street. seinfeld tied it to a mets phillies game. seinfeld could hardly keep a straight face. he was always laughing or smirking at his own lines. keith hernandez was in the episode. he was smoking cigarettes inside a bar. he bragged about his nineteen seventy nine mvp title. he needed help moving. it was an episode called the boyfriend. it pushed me to peek down the rabbit hole. back and to the left. back and to the left. it compelled me to see stones psyop. to search for an abridged copy of the warren commission report. but i didn't know it was a psyop at the time. i didn't know who stone was. i didn't know that it was financed by arnon milchan. i didn't know it protected israel. but that seinfeld episode was my gateway drug. it featured allusions to zapruder and garrison. allusions to the magic bullet and umbrella man. allusions to a second shooter and the grassy knoll. it was the perfect starter course for the kennedy kill. i had questions. many questions. but not many answers. mr x was a limited hangout salesman. mr x was prouty was a disinfo agent. milchan was a zionist financier. he produced the medusa touch. but i didn't know those details at the time. i didn't know about about milchan and michael collins piper. i didn't know about permindex and lansky. i didn't know what milchan and stone didn't want me to know.

so i went down the rabbit hole in 1991.

deep down.

freefall down.

my mother said she believed oswald was innocent.

it was 1991.

he was sincere when he said he was a patsy she said.

we agreed.

she did not cite sources or say she read this book or that book.

it was back in the days before the internet.

it was the book era.

the magazine era.

the encyclopedia era.

the documentary era.

my mother had not read any of the books she hastily grabbed from the pharmacy rack.

but she remembered all of the television specials.

the limited hangouts.

but i didn't know they were limited hangouts.

and she didn't know they were limited hangouts.

we didn't know frames were removed from the zapruder film.

i said i wanted to see stones psyop.

but i didn't call it a psyop at the time.

she worked at a local video store that rented porn behind a plastic beaded curtain.

she said wait until it comes out on vhs.

she would get me a copy.

she always obtained copies.

down the rabbit hole.

deep down.

the warren commission report.

my mother had an abridged paperback copy.

she found it used at a thrift store.

ninety nine cents.

it was worn and smelled musty from the basement.

but she never read it.

i didn't know she had it.

she forget she had it.

my search was over.

i read it before stones film came out on vhs.

down the rabbit hole.

deep down.

and i had no idea what was down the rabbit hole.

i went from slaughterhouse five and the zodiac to the kennedy assassination.

it was only a matter of weeks.

the internet was being born.

i kept a journal of the persian gulf war.

that was my internet.

newspaper clippings.

handwritten transcripts of television news broadcasts.

that was when it all started.

i did not trust the government.

the warren commission report was the government.

even abridged it was voluminous.

i read profiles in courage.

i read four kennedy assassination books in one month.

it was too much information.

i could not process it all.

mother should i trust the government?

it was after the first world trade center bombing and waco when i purchased my first personal computer. it was around the time cobain was found dead. the internet was young. it was immature. dialup was slow. search engines did not read my mind. pictures took an eternity to load. my printer was a color deskjet. my monitor was not a television set. it was a major upgrade from the used atari 800 home computer my family acquired in 1984. the atari used memory cartridges cassette tapes and floppy disks. it featured a dot matrix printer. it was connected to a 13 inch black and white television set in the dining room. i taught myself how to write programs and save them on the cassette tapes. i created role playing games with text and images consisting of keyboard characters. i created programs that would endlessly repeat a phrase on the screen until i hit the escape button. but the personal computer was different. the internet was slow but cd rom was fast. i used the internet to collect images. i saved hundreds of images onto 3.5 inch floppy disks. i used the internet for aol instant messenger and email. i met people from all over the hemisphere. it was something new. it was 1994. it was the year my grandfather died. it was the end of one era and the beginning of the next.

but now i know there are no endings. no beginnings. just constant flux. constant change. constant transitions. constant.

i studied the headlines for psyops.

down the rabbit hole.

jfk.

oklahoma city.

jfk.

twa 800.

jfk.

embassy bombings.

jfk.

columbine.

jfk.

uss cole.

jfk.

andrea yates.

jfk.

execution of mcveigh.

jfk.

the months before nine eleven.

deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.

and then 9/11.

i was lihop that day.

they were going to blame osama.

i knew it after the second plane.

the pentagon didn't matter.

two planes were enough.

they were saying osama.

they were saying al qaeda.

ehud olmert and jerry hauer had it all figured out.

they were saying only bin laden had the means to pull off something like what we saw that day. planes into buildings. buildings on fire. buildings destroying themselves.

attack on america.

america under attack.

jerry hauer attempted to explain how and why the towers destroyed themselves.

i watched it on the telescreen.

live.

live on the telescreen.

my partner and i were sitting in the customers driveway.

in our work van.

smoking cigarettes. drinking coffee.

wrcn or wbab or wxrk was on the radio.

my partner was on his phone.

i was on caffeine cannabis and nicotine.

i remember the breaking news.

i don't remember what song just ended.

but i remember the disk jockey's words.

it wasn't a solemn voice or an excited voice. 

but i remember his words. they were simple.

there's reports that a small commuter plane has crashed into one of the twin towers of the world trade center. we will update this breaking story as soon as we learn more.

it was 8:50am.

we were in the middle of a kitchen renovation.

we rushed inside. we explained to the customer that a plane had hit the world trade center.

she turned on the telescreen.

fox news or cnn. i don't remember.

it had begun.

the north tower was smoking. on fire.

what the fuck.

holy shit.

but i wasn't thinking terrorism. i wasn't thinking bin laden. i wasn't thinking it was a deliberate act.

it wasn't a small plane. that's what i was thinking.

a lot of people are dead. that's what i was thinking.

how are they going to put out the fires. that's what i was thinking.

how did a small plane make such a large hole.

it wasn't a small commuter plane.

that's what i was thinking.

i was watching the live chopper4 broadcast.

i distinctly remember it. the angle of the shot. the second plane approaching.

i watched the second plane approach. i saw it live from chopper4.

live on the telescreen courtesy of chopper4.

i was like what the fuck.

what the fuck.

holy shit.

another plane.

my partner and the homeowner were standing next to me.

we were all staring at the telescreen.

i was the first to say something. look another plane. look.

pointing.

i moved toward the telescreen.

i wanted to show them.

look. another plane.

and then it disappeared behind the towers.

and then a fireball emerged.

holy fuck.

fuck.