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...
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