Ce stanno pe tutti - Theodor John Kaczynski

[Secondo Premio]

C’E’ UN PO’ DI UNABOMBER IN CIASCUNO DI NOI

Il 3 Aprile 1996 in una sperduta capanna del Montana, vicino all’inospitale Baldy Mountain veniva arrestato Theodor John Kaczynski. Dopo diciotto anni di inutili tentativi e di umilianti insuccessi gli agenti dell’ Fbi si dicevano convinti di aver messo fine alla lunga scia dei delitti dell’ecoterrorista Unabomber. Si chiudeva così quella che era stata la più lunga e sofferta caccia all’uomo in America. Centinaia di poliziotti, decine di ispettori, intere città mobilitate per catturare il pericolo numero uno del Paese. Dal 1978 al giorno della cattura Unabomber aveva compiuto sedici attentati dinamitardi, uccidendo tre persone e ferendone altri ventitrè, molte con gravi mutilazioni, seminando terrore in tutti gli Stati Uniti. Nell’organizzazione dei suoi delitti mai un errore, una leggerezza, un dettaglio che potesse tradirlo. La tecnica sempre identica: un pacco bomba, diventato negli anni sempre più elaborato e potente. Mai un’azione diretta, un rischio, uno scontro con le sue vittime. Un uomo solo, in guerra col mondo, animato da un odio profondo, incontenibile per la tecnologia. Un uomo ossessionato dal progresso, dal predominio delle macchine, dallo svuotamento del, ruolo dell’individuo. Un odio così inquietante e così devastante da trasformarlo in assassino. Ma allo stesso tempo un odio tale da metterlo fuori dagli stereotipi e dagli schemi tradizionali della delinquenza e del terrorismo. Gli obiettivi e le attenzioni di Unabomber si rivolsero principalmente verso alcune categorie : il mondo accademico, i docenti di discipline scientifiche in particolare, e il mondo delle compagnie aeree. Colpiti da questo orientamento gli investigatori dell’Fbi coniarono, per identificarlo, un nome in codice: Unabomb ( Un per università; a per airlaine, compagnia aerea; e quindi bomb ). E per i mass media divenne immediatamente l’imprendibile Unabomber, l’uomo che si prendeva gioco della più famosa polizia del mondo. In realtà, gli obiettivi e le vittime di Unabomber sono state negli anni diversi: Scienziati, ricercatori, informatici, alti funzionari. Legati tuttavia da un filo comune: l’impegno nello sviluppo delle nuove tecnologie e l’indifferenza per i problemi ecologici. Non a caso nel 1985 l’uccisione di un pacco bomba uccide Hugh Scratton, il proprietario di un negozio di computer; nel 1994 Thomas Mosser, dirigente di una agenzia pubblicitaria associata alla compagnia petrolifera Exxon Valdez responsabile della marea nera in Alaska (1989 ), muore aprendo un pacco speditogli a casa Infine , nel 1995, sempre un pacco inviato all’Associazione forestale della California toglie la vita al suo presidente Gilbert Murray. Negli anni criminologi e cacciatori di serial killer fecero le più diverse ipotesi sulle caratteristiche, il profilo e la provenienza di questo solitario terrorista. Vennero proposti improbabili identikit. Ma l’arresto di Theodore J. Kaczynski, l’uomo che l’Fbi indica come Unabomber, la diffusione della sua identità e della sua storia personale, andarono onestamente al di là della più fervida immaginazione. Teddy John era nato a Chicago il 22 maggio 1942 da una famiglia di immigrati polacchi. Né il padre né la madre ebbero la fortuna di frequentare il college. I loro sforzi, per reazione , si concentrarono sull’educazione dei figli : Theodore e il più giovane David . A sei anni un test di intelligenza disse che Teddy era un piccolo genio . A 16, dopo il diploma, era già ad Harvard. A 20 otteneva la laurea. A 25 il dottorato in Matematica alla University of Michigan a Ann Arbor. La sua tesi fu premiata con un riconoscimento nazionale. Nello stesso anno, 1967, otteneva una prestigiosissima posizione alla University of California a Berkley nel dipartimento di scienze matematiche, considerato in quel periodo il miglior istituto del Paese. Ma inspiegabilmente dopo due anni Theodore J. Kaczynski, astro nascente degli studi di matematica pura, con una lettera di appena tre righe rassegnava le sue dimissioni. Non una spiegazione, né un motivo plausibile. Si chiudeva così con un gesto tanto anonimo quanto imprevedibile, la carriera del giovane professor Kaczynski : E cominciava una nuova esistenza. Con un prestito ottenuto dalla madre Wanda e dal fratello David, Theodore , acquista un terreno, circa sei ettari. Da allora quel pezzo di verde, nei boschi del Montana, sarà la sua riserva. Per gli abitanti di Lincoln , Ted diventerà presto l’eremita dei boschi. Un eccentrico ma innocuo signore. Una capanna di pochi metri quadrati, costruita artigianalmente diventerà il suo unico rifugio. Senza luce, senz’acqua corrente, Kaczynski rifiuterà per il resto della sua vita ogni compromesso con il progresso. Anche durante i severi inverni del Montana, quando la temperatura scende per molti mesi sotto lo zero, resterà fedele al suo nuovo credo , il rifiuto delle nuove tecnologie. E’ qui in queste condizioni che , secondo l’Fbi, nasce L’Unabomber. Chiuso nel suo isolamento perfetto, organizzerà in uno stato di incontrollata follia i suoi attentati. E l’imprendibile Unabomber resterà un incubo per gli Stati Uniti fino al 1995 quando, oltre sedici anni di silenzio, cercherà di stabilire i primi contatti con l’esterno, commettendo i primi fatali errori. Lettere , messaggi, fino al giorno in cui, forse stanco della sua solitudine, lancerà un appello preciso: la pubblicazione di un saggio in cambio della promessa di interrompere la sua lunga serie di attentati. La richiesta fu avanzata , con una lettera, ai due maggiori quotidiani americani : il New York Times e la Washington Post. Alla fine del giugno ’95 alle redazioni di New York e di Washington arriva il testo dattiloscritto di Unabomber: sessantadue pagine, spazio uno, seguite da undici cartelle di note, il tutto firmato " FC" . Dopo molti ripensamenti ( e con l’avvallo dell’Fbi ) i direttori delle due testate decideranno, di comune accordo e dividendosi le spese, di pubblicare il manifesto di Unabomber. Così il 19 settembre 1995, in un inserto speciale di sette pagine sulla Washington Post appaiono i 232 paragrafi della Società industriale e il suo futuro. La speranza segreta dei vertici dell’Fbi era che qualcuno leggendo il Manifesto potesse riconoscere lo stile, cogliere qualche segnale, notare una somiglianza con altri saggi, insomma dare qualche suggerimento che potesse portare alla cattura di Unabomber. E così fu. L’aspetto drammatico è che capitò proprio al fratello minore di Kaczynski, David, di avere la spiacevole sensazione di riconoscere nel Manifesto lo stile e le idee di alcuni appunti lasciati da Theodore nella cantina della casa di famiglia. Così , dopo qualche ripensamento, decise di informare dei suoi dubbi un avvocato. In pochi giorni venne contattata l’Fbi che dopo alcune indagini decise di procedere all’arresto di Theodore John Kaczynski. La vicenda , in realtà ha dei contorni poco chiari. E a complicare le cose c’è anche una taglia da un milione di dollari promessa dalle autorità per la cattura del terrorista. Il Manifesto di Unabomber è un testo complesso, articolato, corredato persino di un diagramma. Un saggio che tradisce la formazione accademica dell’autore. Ma anche un saggio sul quale la critica e gli esperti si divideranno presto. Per molti il manifesto è spazzatura, niente più che idee vecchie e rielaborate, di nessuna utilità. Un testo noioso frutto della follia di un assassino. Per altri giornalisti e studiosi, soprattutto europei, il testo non può essere considerato soltanto questo. C’è dell’altro. In un caso e nell’altro poche parole, analisi rapide, frasi che non nascondono l’imbarazzo di commettere il pensiero di un terrorista. Eppure il Manifesto di Unabomber supera questo sbarramento. E su Internet si inaugurano immediatamente numerosi Forum per discuterne idee e limiti. In America, la casa editrice Jolly Roger Press di Berkeley giunge persino a stampare una sorta di edizione critica del saggio. Facendolo precedere da uno scrupoloso lavoro di verifiche e confronti con le versioni riprodotte integralmente sui siti Internet, ma in particolare con la prima versione pubblicata dalla Washington Post il 19 settembre 95, quindi il testo uscito sull’Oakland Tribune il 21 settembre e quello del 22 settembre sul San Francisco Chronicle. Nonostante il silenzio ufficiale di critici e criminologi lo studioso americano Kirkpatrik sale osservò che "i dibattiti televisivi, le lettere di lettori, i siti Internet " stavano "a dimostrare che sono in molti a comprendere e a condividere gli obiettivi di Unabomber , contro le tecnologie portatrici di destabilizzazione sociale, di disgregazione economica e di distruzione dell’ambiente". Mentre la rivista New York arriva a spiegare : " E Pluribus Unabomber: c’è un po’ di Unabomber in ciascuno di noi ". Unabomber non si limita a contestare il mondo in cui viviamo, ma lo rifiuta totalmente, senza appello. Ammette che è ormai impossibile riformare il sistema industrial-tecnologico e soprattutto che " la restrizione della libertà è un fenomeno inevitabile nella società industriale. Il messaggio di Unabomber è perentorio: le nuove tecnologie stanno distruggendo l’uomo. "La rivoluzione industriale e le sue conseguenze sono state un disastro per la razza umana -scrive nel primo paragrafo- Esse hanno incrementato a dismisura l’aspettativa di vita di coloro che vivono in paesi sviluppati ma ma hanno destabilizzato la società, reso la vita insignificante, assoggettato gli esseri umani a trattamenti indegni, diffuso sofferenze psicologiche ( nel terzo mondo anche fisiche), inflitto danni notevoli al mondo naturale. " E aggiunge più avanti : " Il sistema per funzionare ha bisogno di scienziati, matematici, ingegneri. Quindi vengono esercitate pressioni sui bambini perché eccellano in questi campi. Ma non è naturale per un adolescente passare la maggior parte del tempo seduto a una scrivania a studiare". Una frase che stride con la giustificazione della violenza, dell’attentato che egli proclama. Probabilmente dietro la vicenda di Unabomber c’è anche il diagramma di un bambino vittima di un violenza intellettuale. Le critiche maggiori si rivolgono verso la casta dei baroni universitari, dei docenti e dei ricercatori al servizio delle grandi multinazionali. Stimati professionisti a libro paga dei dipartimenti della difesa. La critica non risparmia i coccolati scienziati impegnati negli studi di biotecnologia, autori di inquietanti manipolazioni genetiche. L’accusa al mondo accademico sancisce la definitiva rottura di Unabomber con un sistema che aveva già rifiutato molti anni prima. Durissime sono anche le osservazioni rivolte alla "sinistra moderna" americana di cui fa parte la grande maggioranza degli intellettuali universitari. Non c’è in questo atteggiamento di Unabomber uno schieramento con le ideologie di destra. Anzi, il suo è per quanto possibile un messaggio folle ma a-politico.La sinistra moderna, falsa e cinica, è una massa di uomini apparentemente motivati da nobili principi morali ma in realtà sedotti al potere. E proprio nel " processo del potere" risiede secondo Unabomber il cancro della società. Persi di vista gli obiettivi e i bisogni reali degli individui si concentrano sulla soddisfazione del proprio io, incuranti di tutto il resto, dei veri problemi del pianeta. Unabomber ritorna in maniera quasi ossessiva sulla perdita di potere dell’individuo. E’ un problema che lo tormenta. Spiega, argomenta, sottolinea Unabomber, nel magma che produce emergono ogni tanto bagliori di grande lucidità. Così quando parlano dei problemi che affliggono l’uomo contemporaneo si affida a un lungo elenco che non richiede commenti: " Noia, demoralizzazione, bassa auto-stima, sentimenti di inferiorità, disfattismo, depressione. Ansia, sensi di colpa, frustrazione, ostilità, abuso di bambini e di coniugi, edonismo insaziabile, comportamenti sessuali abnormi, disordini del sonno, disordini nell’alimentazione eccetera. "E’ un uomo triste quello che Unabomber descrive. Un uomo sconfitto e rassegnato a vivere in un mondo che lentamente lo uccide. Per assurdo Unabomber intravede la sua unica speranza di sopravvivenza nel rifiuto totale dell’attuale società. Risponde al vento di morte con altre morti, con le sue bombe spietate. Anch’egli sa che è una strada impraticabile. Sa nella sua lucida follia, che la forza del progresso è travolgente, inarrestabile. Che non ci sarà bomba capace di arrestarlo. Sa Unabomber di essere un terrorista uno sconfitto. Come dice l’irritante Vladimir al signor Verloca nel capolavoro di Joseph Conrad, L’Agente segreto – libro a cui Unabomber si è ispirato per i suoi attentati - : " L’atto dimostrativo deve dirigersi contro la cultura, contro la scienza. Ma non ogni scienza si presta allo scopo. L’attentato deve avere tutta l’assurdità rivoltante di una gratuita bestemmia. Poiché il vostro mezzo di espressione sono le bombe, veramente espressiva sarebbe una bomba lanciata nella matematica pura. Ma questo è impossibile.

[Secondo Premio]

Gli obiettivi e le attenzioni di Unabomber si rivolsero principalmente verso alcune categorie : il mondo accademico, i docenti di discipline scientifiche in particolare, e il mondo delle compagnie aeree. Colpiti da questo orientamento gli investigatori dell’Fbi coniarono, per identificarlo, un nome in codice: Unabomb ( Un per università; a per airlaine, compagnia aerea; e quindi bomb ). E per i mass media divenne immediatamente l’imprendibile Unabomber, l’uomo che si prendeva gioco della più famosa polizia del mondo.

Quindi nulla a che fare col bombarolo nostrano, battezzato anche lui così dai soliti pennivendoli incmpetenti, quindi astenersi da commenti del cazzo.

[Secondo Premio]

Interview with Ted Kaczynski

Kaczynski's story represents a parable:
"Once upon a time there was a continent covered with beautiful pristine wilderness, where giant trees towered over lush mountainsides and rivers ran wild and free through deserts, where raptors soared and beavers labored at their pursuits and people lived in harmony with wild nature, accomplishing every task they needed to accomplish on a dailv basis using only stones, bones and wood, walking gently on the Earth. Then came the explorers, conquerors, missionaries, soldiers, merchants and immigrants with their advanced technology, guns, and government. The wild life that had existed for millennia started dying, killed by a disease brought by alien versions of progress, arrogant visions of manifest destiny and a runaway utilitarian science.
"In just 500 years, almost all the giant trees have been clear-cut and chemicals now poison the rivers; the eagle has faced extinction and the beaver's work has been supplanted by the Army Corps of Fngineers. And how have the people fared? What one concludes is most likely dependent on how well one is faring economically, emotionally and physically in this competitive technological world and the level of privilege one is afforded by the system. But for those who feel a deep connection to, a love and longing for, the wilderness and the wildness that once was, for the millions now crowded in cities, poor and oppressed, unable to find a clear target for their rage because the system is virtually omnipotent, these people are not faring well. All around us, as a result of human greed and a lack of respect for all life, wild nature and Mother Earth’s creatures are suffering. These beings are the victims of industrial society.
"Cutting the bloody cord, that’s what we feel, the delirious exhilaration of independence, a rebirth backward in time and into primeval liberty, into freedom in the most simple, literal, primitive meaning of the word, the only meaning that really counts. The freedom, for example, to commit murder and get away with it scot-free, with no other burden than the jaunty halo of conscience.
"My God! I’m thinking, what incredible shit we put up with most of our lives--the domestic routine, the stupid and useless and degrading jobs, the insufferable arrogance of elected officials, the crafty cheating and the slimy advertising of the businessmen, the tedious wars in which we kill our buddies instead of our real enemies back home in the capital, the foul, diseased and hideous cities and towns we live in, the constant petty tyranny of the automatic washers, the automobiles and TV machines and telephones-! ah Christ!,... what intolerable garbage and what utterly useless crap we bury ourselves in day by day, while patiently enduring at the same time the creeping strangulation of the clean white collar and the rich but modest four-in-hand garrote!
"Such are my thoughts—you wouldn’t call them thoughts would you?—such are my feelings, a mixture of revulsion and delight, as we float away on the river, leaving behind for a while all that we most heartily and joyfully detest. That’s what the first taste of the wild does to a man, after having been penned up for too long in the city. No wonder the Authorities are so anxious to smother the wilderness under asphalt and reservoirs. They know what they are doing. Play safe. Ski only in a clockwise direction. Let’s all have fun together."
--Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 1968
"I read Edward Abbey in mid-eighties and that was one of the things that gave me the idea that, ‘yeah, there are other people out there that have the same attitudes that I do.’ I read The Monkeywrench Gang, I think it was. But what first motivated me wasn’t anything I read. I just got mad seeing the machines ripping up the woods and so forth..."
-Dr. Theodore Kaczynski, in an interview with the Earth First! Journal, Administrative Maximum Facility Prison, Florence, Colorado, USA, June 1999.
Theodore Kaczynski developed a negative attitude toward the techno-industrial system very early in his life. It was in 1962, during his last year at Harvard, he explained, when he began feeling a sense of disillusionment with the svstem. And he says he felt quite alone. "Back in the sixties there had been some critiques of technology, but as far as 1 knew there weren't people who were against the technological system as-such... It wasn't until 1971 or 72, shortly after I moved to Montana, that I read Jaques Ellul's book, The Technological Societv." The book is a masterpiece. I was very enthusiastic when I read it. I thought, 'look, this guy is saying things I have been wanting to say all along.'"
Why, I asked, did he personally come to be against technology? His immediate response was, "Why do you think? It reduces people to gears in a machine, it takes away our autonomy and our freedom." But there was obviously more to it than that. Along with the rage he felt against the machine, his words revealed an obvious love for a very special place in the wilds of Montana. He became most animated, spoke most passionately, while relating stories about the mountain life he created there and then sought to defend against the encroachment of the system. "The honest truth is that I am not really politically oriented. I would have really rather just be living out in the woods. If nobody had started cutting roads through there and cutting the trees down and come buzzing around in helicopters and snowmobiles I would still just be living there and the rest of the world could just take care of itself. I got involved in political issues because I was driven to it, so to speak. I'm not really inclined in that direction."
Kaczynski moved in a cabin that he built himself near Lincoln, Montana in 1971. His first decade there he concentrated on acquiring the primitive skills that would allow him to live autonomously in the wild. He explained that the urge to do this had been a part of his psyche since childhood. "Unquestionably there is no doubt that the reason I dropped out of the technological system is because I had read about other ways of life, in particular that of primitive peoples. When I was about eleven I remember going to the little local library in Evergreen Park, Illinois. They had a series of books published by the Smithsonian Institute that addressed various areas of science. Among other things, I read about anthropology in a book on human prehistory. I found it fascinating. After reading a few more books on the subject of Neanderthal man and so forth, I had this itch to read more. I started asking myself why and I came to the realization that what I really wanted was not to read another book, but that I just wanted to live that way."
Kaczynski says he began an intensive study of how to identify wild edible plants, track animals and replicate primitive technologies, approaching the task like the scholar he was. "Many years ago I used to read books like, for example, Ernest Thompson Seton's "Lives of Game Animals" to learn about animal behavior. But after a certain point, after living in the woods for a while, I developed an aversion to reading any scientific accounts. In some sense reading what the professional biologists said about wildlife ruined or contaminated it for me. What began to matter to me was the knowledge I acquired about wildlife through personal experience.
Kaczynski spoke at length about the life he led in his small cabin with no electricity and no running water. It was this lifestyle and the actual cabin that his attorneys would use to try to call his sanity into question during his trial. It was a defense strategy that Kaczynski said naturally greatly offended him. We spoke about the particulars of his daily routine. "I have quite a bit of experience identifying wild edible plants," he said proudly, "it's certainly one of the most fulfilling activities that I know of, going out in the woods and looking for things that are good to eat. But the trouble with a place like Montana, how it differs from the Eastern forests, is that starchy plant foods are much less available. There are edible roots but they are generally very small ones and the distribution is limited. The best ones usually grow down in the lower areas which are agricultural areas, actually ranches, and the ranchers presumably don't want you digging up their meadows, so starchy foods were civilized foods. I bought flour, rice, corn meal, rolled oats, powdered milk and cooking oil."
Kaczynski lamented never being able to accomplish three things to his satisfaction: building a crossbow that he could use for hunting, making a good pair of deerhide moccasins that would withstand the daily hikes he took on the rocky hillsides, and learning how to make fire consistently without using matches. He says he kept very busy and was happy with his solitary life. "One thing I found when living in the woods was that you get so that you don't worry about the future, you don't worry about dying, if things are good right now you think, 'well, if I die next week, so what, things are good right now.' I think it was Jane Austen who wrote in one of her novels that happiness is alwavs something that you are anticipating in the future, not something that you have right now. This isn't always true. Perhaps it is true in civilization, but when you get out of the system and become re-adapted to a different way of life, happiness is often something that you have right now."
He readily admits he committed quite a few acts of monkeywrenching during the seventies, but there came a time when he decided to devote more energy into fighting against the system. He describes the catalyst:
"The best place, to me, was the largest remnant of this plateau that dates from the tertiary age. It's kind of rolling country, not flat, and when you get to the edge of it you find these ravines that cut very steeply in to cliff-like drop-offs and there was even a waterfall there. It was about a two days hike from my cabin. That was the best spot until the summer of 1983. That summer there were too many people around my cabin so I decided I needed some peace. I went back to the plateau and when I got there I found they had put a road right through the middle of it" His voice trails off; he pauses, then continues, "You just can't imagine how upset I was. It was from that point on I decided that, rather than trying to acquire further wilderness skills, I would work on getting back at the system. Revenge. That wasn't the first time I ever did any monkeywrenching, but at that point, that sort of thing became a priority for me... I made a conscious effort to read things that were relevant to social issues, specifically the technological problem. For one thing, my concern was to understand how societies change, and for that purpose I read anthropology, history, a little bit of sociology and psychology, but mostly anthropology and history."
Kaczvnski soon came to the conclusion that reformist strategies that merely called for "fixing" the system were not enough, and he professed little confidence in the idea that a mass change in consciousness might someday be able to undermine the technological system. "I don't think it can be done. In part because of the human tendency, for most people, there are exceptions, to take the path of least resistance. They'll take the easy way out, and giving up your car, your television set, your electricity, is not the path of least resistance for most people. As I see it, I don't think there is any controlled or planned way in which we can dismantle the industrial system. I think that the only way we will get rid of it is if it breaks down and collapses. That's why I think the consequences will be something like the Russian Revolution, or circumstances like we see in other places in the world today like the Balkans, Afghanistan, Rwanda. This does, I think, pose a dilemma for radicals who take a non-violent point of view. When things break down, there is going to be violence and this does raise a question, I don't know if I exactly want to call it a moral question, but the point is that for those who realize the need to do away with the techno-industrial system, if you work for its collapse, in effect you are killing a lot of people. If it collapses, there is going to be social disorder, there is going to be starvation, there aren't going to be any more spare parts or fuel for farm equipment, there won't be any more pesticide or fertilizer on which modern agriculture is dependent. So there isn't going to be enough food to go around, so then what happens? This is something that, as far as I've read, I haven't seen any radicals facing up to.
At this point he was asking me, as a radical, to face up to this issue. I responded I didn't know the answer. He said neither did he, clasped his hands together and looked at me intently. His distinctly Midwestern accent, speech pattern, and the colloquialisms he used were so familiar and I thought about how much he reminded me of the professors I had as a student of anthropology, history and political philosophy in Ohio. I decided to relate to him the story of how one of my graduate advisors, Dr. Resnick, also a Harvard alumni, once posed the following question in a seminar on political legitimacy: Say a group of scientists asks for a meeting with the leading politicians in the country to discuss the introduction of a new invention. The scientists explain that the benefits of the technology are indisputable, that the invention will increase efficiency and make everyone's life easier. The only down side, they caution, is that for it to work, forty-thousand innocent people will have to be killed each year. Would the politicians decide to adopt the new invention or not? The class was about to argue that such a proposal would be immediately rejected out of hand, then he casually remarked, "We already have it--the automobile." He had forced us to ponder how much death and innocent suffering our society endures as a result of our commitment to maintaining the technological system--a system we all are born into now and have no choice but to try and adapt to. Everyone can see the existing technological society is violent, oppressive and destructive, but what can we do?
"The big problem is that people don't believe a revolution is possible, and it is not possible precisely because they do not believe it is possible. To a large extent I think the eco-anarchist movement is accomplishing a great deal, but I think they could do it better... The real revolutionaries should separate themselves from the reformers… And I think that it would be good if a conscious effort was being made to get as manv people as possible introduced to the wilderness. In a general way, I think what has to be done is not to try and convince or persuade the majority of people that we are right, as much as try to increase tensions in society to the point where things start to break down. To create a situation where people get uncomfortable enough that they’re going to rebel. So the question is how do you increase those tensions? I don't know."
Kaczynski wanted to talk about every aspect of the techno-industrial system in detail, and further, about why and how we should be working towards bringing about its demise. It was a subject we had both given a lot of thought to. We discussed direct action and the limits of political ideologies. But by far, the most interesting discussions revolved around our views about the superiority of wild life and wild nature. Towards the end of the interview, Kaczynski related a poignant story about the close relationship he had developed with snowshoe rabbit.
"This is kind of personal," he begins by saying, and I ask if he wants me to turn off the tape. He says "no, I can tell you about it. While I was living in the woods I sort of invented some gods for myself" and he laughs. "Not that I believed in these things intellectually, but they were ideas that sort of corresponded with some of the feelings I had. I think the first one I invented was Grandfather Rabbit. You know the snowshoe rabbits were my main source of meat during the winters. I had spent a lot of time learning what they do and following their tracks all around before I could get close enough to shoot them. Sometimes you would track a rabbit around and around and then the tracks disappear. You can't figure out where that rabbit went and lose the trail. I invented a myth for myself, that this was the Grandfather Rabbit, the grandfather who was responsible for the existence of all other rabbits. He was able to disappear, that is why you couldn't catch him and why you would never see him... Every time I shot a snowshoe rabbit, I would always say 'thank you Grandfather Rabbit.' After a while I acquired an urge to draw snowshoe rabbits. I sort of got involved with them to the extent that they would occupy a great deal of my thought. I actually did have a wooden object that, among other things, I carved a snowshoe rabbit in. I planned to do a better one, just for the snowshoe rabbits, but I never did get it done. There was another one that I sometimes called the Will ‘o the Wisp, or the wings of the morning. That's when you go out in to the hills in the morning and you just feel drawn to go on and on and on and on, then you are following the wisp. That was another god that I invented for myself."
So Ted Kaczynski, living out in the wilderness, like generations of prehistoric peoples before him, had innocently rediscovered the forest's gods. I wondered if he felt that those gods had forsaken him now as he sat facing life in prison with no more freedom, no more connection to the wild, nothing left of that life that was so important to him except for his sincere love of nature, his love of knowledge and his commitment to the revolutionary project of hastening the collapse of the techno-industrial system. I asked if he was afraid of losing his mind, if the circumstances he found himself in now would break his spirit? He answered, "No, what worries me is that I might in a sense adapt to this environment and come to be comfortable here and not resent it anymore. And I am afraid that as the years go by that I may forget, I may begin to lose my memories of the mountains and the woods and that's what really worries me, that I might lose those memories, and lose that sense of contact with wild nature in general. But I am not afraid they are going to break my spirit. "And he offered the following advice to green anarchists who share his critique of the technological system and want to hasten the collapse of, as Edward Abbey put it, "the Earth-destroying juggernaut of industrial civilization": "Never lose hope, be persistent and stubborn and never give up. There are many instances in history where apparent losers suddenly turn out to be winners unexpectedly, so you should never conclude all hope is lost. "

[Secondo Premio]

WHOSE UNABOMBER?
by Autonomous Anarchists Anonymous Fall 1995 (prior to arrest of Kaczynski)

Technogogues and technopaths we have had with us for some time. The Artificial Intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, for instance, was well-known in the early 1980's for his description of the human brain as "a 3 pound computer made of meat." He was featured in the December 1983 issue of Psychology Today, occasioning the following letter:
Marvin Minsky: With the wholly uncritical treatment -- nay, giddy embrace -- of high technology, even to such excrescences as machine "emotions" which you develop and promote, Psychology Today has at least made it publicly plain what's intended for social life. Your dehumanizing work is a prime contribution to high tech's accelerating motion toward an ever more artificial, de-individuated, empty landscape. I believe I am not alone in the opinion that vermin such as you will one day be considered among the worst criminals this century has produced.
(Signed) In Revulsion, John Zerzan
A dozen years later the number of those actively engaged in the desolation of the soul and the murder of nature has probably risen; but support the entire framework of such activity has undoubtedly eroded.
Enter the Unabomber (he/she/they) with a critique, in acts as well as words, of our sad, perverse, and increasingly bereft technological existence. Unabomber calls for a return to "wild nature" via "the complete and permanent destruction of modern industrial society in every part of the world," and the replacement of that impersonal, unfree, and alienated society by that of small, face-to-face social groupings. He has killed three and wounded 23 in the service of this profoundly radical vision.
There are two somewhat obvious objections to this theory and practice. For one thing, a return to undomesticated autonomous ways of living would not be achieved by the removal of industrialism alone. Such removal would still leave the domination of nature, subjugation of women, war, religion, the state, and division of labor, to cite some basic social pathologies. It is civilization itself that must be undone to go where Unabomber wants to go. In other words, the wrong turn for humanity was the Agricultural Revolution, much more fundamentally than the Industrial Revolution.
In terms of practice, the mailing of explosive devices intended for the agents who are engineering the present catastrophe is too random. Children, mail carriers and others could easily be killed. Even if one granted the legitimacy of striking at the high-tech horror show by terrorizing its indispensable architects, collateral harm is not justifiable.
Meanwhile, Unabomber operates in a context of massive psychic immiseration and loss of faith in all of the system's institutions. How many moviegoers, to be more specific, took issue with Terminator 2 and its equating of science and technology with death and destruction? Keay Davidson's "A Rage Against Science" (San Francisco Examiner, 4/30/95) observed that Unabomber's "avowed hatred of science and technological trends reflects growing popular disillusionment with science."
A noteworthy example of the resonance that his sweeping critique of the modern world enjoys is "The Evolution of Despair" by Robert Wright, cover story of TIME for August 28. The long article discusses the Unabomber's indictment soberly and sympathetically in an effort to plumb "the source of our pervasive sense of discontent."
At the same time, not surprisingly, other commentators have sought to minimize the possible impact of such ideas. "Unabomber Manifesto Not Particularly Unique" is the dismissive summary John Schwartz provided for the August 20 Washington Post. Schwartz found professors who would loftily attest to the unoriginality of fundamental questioning of society, as if anything like that goes on in classrooms. Ellul, Juenger and others with a negative view of technology are far from old hat; they are unknown, not part of accepted, respectable discourse. The cowardice and dishonesty typical of professors and journalists could hardly be more clearly represented.
Also easily predictable has been the antipathy to Unabomber-type ideas from the liberal-left. "Unabummer" was Alexander Cockburn's near-hysterical denunciation in The Nation, August 28/September 4. This pseudo-critic of U.S. capitalism rants about the Unabomber's "homicidal political nuttiness," the fruit of an "irrational" American Anarchist tradition. Cockburn says that Unabomber represents a "rotted-out romanticism of the individual and of nature," that nature is gone forever and we'd better accept its extinction. In reply to this effort to vilify and marginalize both Unabomber and anarchism, Bob Black points out (unpublished letter to the editor) the worldwide resurgence of anarchism and finds Unabomber expressing "the best and the predominant thinking in contemporary North American anarchism, which has mostly gotten over the workerism and productivism which it too often used to share with Marxism."
In Spring '95 Earth First! spokesperson Judy Bari labeled Unabomber "a sociopath," going on to declare, definitively but mistakenly, that "there is no one in the radical environmental movement who is calling for violence." This is not the place to adequately discuss the politics of radical environmentalism, but Bari's pontificating sounds like the voice of the many anarcho-liberals and anarcho-pacifists who wish to go no further in defense of the wild than tired, ineffective civil disobedience, and who brandish such timid and compromised slogans as "no deforestation without representation."
The Summer '95 issue of Slingshot, tabloid of politically correct Berkeley militants, contained a brief editorial trashing the Unabomber for creating "the real danger of government repression" of the radical milieu. The fear that misplaces blame on Unabomber overlooks the simple fact that any real blows against the Megamachine will invite responses from our enemies. The specter of repression is most effectively banished by doing nothing.
For their part, the "anarchists" of Love and Rage (August/September) have also joined the anti-Unabomber leftist chorus. Wayne Price's "Is the Unabomber an Anarchist?" concedes, with Bob Black, that "most anarchists today do not regard the current development of industrial technology as 'progressive' or even 'neutral,' as do Marxists and liberals." But after giving this guarded lip-service to the ascendancy of Unabomber-like ideas, Price virulently decries Unabomber as "a murderer dragging noble ideas through the mud" and withholds even such political and legal support that he would accord authoritarian leftists targeted by the state. Love and Rage is defined by a heavy-handed manipulative organize-the-masses ideology; approaches that are more honest and more radical are either ignored or condemned by these politicians.
But this selective mini-survey of opposition to Unabomber does not by any means exhaust the range of responses. There are other perspectives, which have mainly, for obvious reasons, been expressed only privately. Some of us, for one thing, have found a glint of hope in the public appearance, at last, of a challenge to the fundamentals of a depraved landscape. In distinction to the widespread feeling that everything outside of the self is beyond our control, the monopoly of lies has been broken. It might be said that Unabomber's (media) impact is here today, only to be forgotten tomorrow. But at least a few will have been able to understand and remember. The irony, of course, is that lethal bombings were necessary for an alternative to planetary and individual destruction to be allowed to be heard.
The concept of justice should not be overlooked in considering the Unabomber phenomenon. In fact, except for his targets, when have the many little Eichmanns who are preparing the Brave New World ever been called to account? Where is any elementary personal responsibility when the planners of our daily and global death march act with complete impunity?
The ruling order rewards such destroyers and tries to polish their image. The May 21 New York Times Magazine's "Unabomber and David Gelernter" humanizes the latter, injured by a Unabomber bomb at Yale, as a likable computer visionary preparing a "Renaissance of the human spirit." From no other source than the article itself, however, it is clear that Gelernter is helping to usher in an authoritarian dystopia based on all the latest high-tech vistas, like genetic engineering.
Is it unethical to try to stop those whose contributions are bringing an unprecedented assault on life? Or is it unethical to just accept our passive roles in the current zeitgeist of postmodern cynicism and know-nothingism? As a friend in California put it recently, when justice is against the law, only outlaws can effect justice.
The lengthy Unabomber manuscript will go undiscussed here; its strengths and weaknesses deserve separate scrutiny. These remarks mainly shed light on some of the various, mostly negative commentary rather than directly on their object. It is often the case that one can most readily learn about society by watching its reactions, across the spectrum, to those who would challenge it.
"Well, I believe in FC/Unabomber -- it's all over the country...his ideas are, as the situationists said, 'in everyone's heads'; it's just a matter of listening to yer own rage," from a Midwesterner in the know. Or as Anne Eisenberg, from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, admitted, "Scratch most people and you'll get a Luddite."
And from the Boulder Weekly, Robert Perkinson's July 6, '95 column sagely concluded: "Amidst the overwhelming madness of unbridled economic growth and postmodern disintegration, is such nostalgia, or even such rage, really crazy? For many, especially those who scrape by in unfulfilling jobs and peer longing toward stars obscured by beaming street lights, the answer is probably no. And for them, the Unabomber may not be a psychopathic demon. They may wish FC the best of luck."
John Zerzan Autonomous Anarchists Anonymous PO Box 11331 Eugene, Oregon 97440

[lorenzo v.]

Quindi nulla a che fare col bombarolo nostrano, battezzato anche lui così dai soliti pennivendoli incmpetenti, quindi astenersi da commenti del cazzo.

difatti è stato battezzato Monabomber, e di sicuro è un "collettivo"

[Secondo Premio]

difatti è stato battezzato Monabomber, e di sicuro è un "collettivo"

uh vero
che poi è risbucato oggi
coincidenza

[Secondo Premio]

"Il manifesto di Unabomber, il professore universitario americano che sconvolse l'opinione pubblica mondiale con una serie di attentati "antitecnologici". Una demistificazione del mondo attuale e dei suoi bluff tecnologici i quali, lontani dal servire l'uomo, costituiscono al contrario le nuove catene di una nuova schiavitù".

Unabomber, "Manifesto contro la società tecnologica" (con una prefazione di Claudio Risé), Società editrice Barbarossa (da non confondere con l'edizione "millelire": questa delle Ed. Barb. è la traduzione integrale con note!!!). Il libro è esaurito ma ho saputo che presto alcuni brani (o tutto) verrà messo in rete nel sito www.orionlibri.com

L'originale qui:
http://www.thecourier.com/manifest.htm
Traduzione qui:
http://www.tmcrew.org/eco/primitivismo/unabomber.html
mancano 30 paragrafi ed è dislessico

Il saggio di Kaczynski è molto interessante anche in una prospettiva di "destra radicale". La sua analisi sulla società tecnologica, i meccanismi che vi sono alla base e le dirette conseguenze, comprende, seppur accennandoli, temi a noi cari, come la disgregazione etnica e la perdita delle tradizioni, l'appiattimento culturale e l'omologazione. Superando in un certo senso la critica al capitalismo e al mondialismo, Kaczynski individua nel progresso tecnologico il principale responsabile della situazione attuale, dai problemi economici a quelli sociali, per concentrarsi poi sulle forme di controllo e repressione attuate dai governi e dalle oligarchie economiche, e spingendosi oltre nel tracciare possibili scenari futuri. La soluzione che propone è rivoluzionaria, radicale, antiriformista, il totale annientamento dell'apparato tecnologico che regola le nostre vite, la distruzione completa della società come noi la conosciamo.

[die Vernichtung]

Su!


E' ora di imparare l'inglese mi sa...