PostAmerika *

Summary

"I too would like to have a family," he said to his brother, who gave him to the FBI. Me too, Ted. Too bad that I am not a good writer to tell your story.

Questions

"War on Terror"? Is this a war on ourselves?

Notes

2003: I still think about this poor soul... Him? You? Myself?

... the father was "one of those old-school ethnic liberals, very left-leaning, very compassionate, and he raised a very supportive family, where ideas were more important than anything else." (Theodore R. Kaczynski committed suicide in 1990, after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.)

a one-man crusade against industrial society

Сколько лет прошло? Что думать об этом?

О чем он думает в своей одиночной камере?

Про него забыли. Забыли о его манифесте. Никто не связывает его экологическое безумие с терроризмом и террористами.

Кто такой дурак идейный? Одинокий Гитлер?

Дурак не умеет чувствовать и продолжает работать только мозг, как машина...

Как часы, как знаком этот звук, хотя электронный будильник беззвучен. Время проходит, вот еще секунда, еще...

Страшно человеку. Страшно, как ребенку одному в темноте. Кто говорит об этом терроре? Замолчали философы. Ох, как страшно. А ответа нет, выхода нет. Выхода куда?

Хоть бы какую идею, какой-нибудь смысл...

...


Unabomber

It could be man or woman, old or young, Asian or Black, you or me.

9-11: Before and After

The Kingdom of Individualism? Freedom? The World of Lost Souls...

No, we didn't take him seriously. The lunatic. Next -- the Tim, the solder, another American. The monster. The numbers were growing. Now over six thousand dead. "Terrorism, terrorists" -- the words. We still do not know what it means. Every time there is another reason, another face, another explaination of the abnormal. "War on terrorism"? "War on war"? "To end terror"?

Each new year, if not every day, gives more power into my hands, hands of a single man. No need for army, or even an organization. A kid with the keyboard could set up the end of the world. What does it take to screw up some system -- which will lead to thousands or even millions dead? Maybe this is the final lesson about that value of a single soul. A lost soul.

We are no less ready to die for nothing in America than the Muslims. The thousands that kill themselves are ready to kill. And more who would kill because of their anger at life. Security, safety? Possible? Why didn't we win "the war on drugs"? This is our war against ourselves. A new kind of war as they like to call it now. In the past it was called one against all. The weak, the single, knows only one way to fight -- the terror. The more senseless it is the better, wrote Russian terrorists over a century ago. I can't win this war against all -- and this is not a purpose of the terror. I can make a statement!

THE STORIES AND IMAGES:

Grounds for Terrorism, an individual without country. (See PURE WAR)

"Alaska" - betraying America, its in American blood to betray, it's very American thing to do - to break with the past, to rebel against itself - against America. Moving not to Paris like Hemingway, but to wilderness, the Wild West (west by the definition is cultured, not wild). They run away from plastic America (second mature, human, ours, history) to first nature. Close to African magic universe (DEM), but they are not original like Africans. "Alaskans" - new race of Americans who are anti-race, no-race people. Harry (I call him, something between Ted and Anatoly) is a Vietnam veteran brought all the American diseases to Alaska.

[ You can't leave any man alone. I think it was Dostoevsky, who said it. Man can't be alone (read the Bible, at least the first chapter). Never leave man alone. Without God, Family, Country, Love, Woman... ]

STOP THE PROGRESS: Technology against Freedom.

Nostalgia about the past? Not really, not in me. Intellectually, sometimes. The First Nature v. The Second -- not my line of conflict. More of "Our freedom v. My freedom." (That's why Zamyatin wrote "We" not "I".) Us, the technology is OUR will. All the above are familiar motifs.

"Natural Man" (Thoreau), the primite, was strap by his uperstitions (beliefs); we are no different. We thought (!) that we are free. Of course, we do.

First, she stopped reading what I write. Then -- listening what I have to say. The rest, as they say, is history...
...

STORY AND HISTORY: Ted Kaczynski and his quiet brother David. Montana. American frontier, the great tradition of Thoreau: hermit, rebel, revolutionary, monk, priest, prophet, leader... They all are together. [What if he isn't a bomber but claims that he is?] No electricity or running water.

When and how he decided to write and then to publish it (that was it, that got him)? He thought that the ideas will be discussed after NYT publication. They were ignored by the public. Only the underground, Internet whispered. There was another chance -- the trail. He'll make them listen... He lost interest.

How did he start to make bombs? First, 1978. Six years after he left the Berkeley. I left my country in 1975. It took another five years to arrive to the day of my defection.

Raskolnikov killed the old woman and another one, who walked in... That's killing. You can't stop it.

A mail man or two children opened his package...

I write it when the Oklahoma trial comes to the closure.

... He was a good boy. This child of the Polacks... Maybe too bright for his own good. He was born to be an American. He loved numbers. The math was clean. It was honest. "1 + 1 = "... It stayed the same. It was simple and beautiful. Like sunrise and sunset. It was there no matter what. You can trust it in the world where nobody trusts anybody...


What I didn't do? Where are the differences?
He as I and I as he. Including his targets. I'm my own target.

Do not leave boys alone. Don't do it, when they are five, ten, or 54... Never leave a boy without love...

BIOMECHANICS OF THE MIRACLE

This brave new world is really new, we only now (pm) began to recognize its features. We didn't stare enough at its face to know it. And it's still growing.... and will ever be changing. The computing revolution is another dimension with unknown consequences. Is there an end to the evolution of modernity? You must be kidding! This thing, the progress, got into a non-stop state of motion. The most powerful part of R is not a restored life but the R itself, the mechanism of producing life, i.e. God.

God's immediate presence, as promised, at your hand, a REMOTE CONTROL. The contact with the divine -- TV. God is extension of man (Mcluhan). Universe is my body. The other is present only because of own center (soul).

Oh, man is too archaic, to ancient for this world. Do we model the future "humanistically"? Why should we? Evolutionary psychology -- change him, the man!

(Slavery-Super-Self -- what is that? where should read it?)

... Do you know why animals are so wild and angry? They don't trust anybody. They know no love. And -- therefore they have no soul....

Everything is already said about the reality of the postmodern. Just make the known into reality. Kingdom of God -- of course, it's a place for one only. Resurrection makes alienation into a constructive principle. Breaking ties with reality includes breaking away from all; don't forget yourself. Me is a bigger than I. God can't be a place.

I'm a memory of myself. I'm the biggest trap of the mortal world. "I" is the last war to win. Resurrected soul can't call it itself "I" -- I was before. I am "we" -- I and I.

Ted, did you see Westerns? What do you think about terrorism in America, Teddy? I came to America when you quit your American life. We have the same chronology. Into the Wild -- for both of us? New Age and Neutopia. We are not alone.

Hey, why to look for understanding? He killed. Mr. Raskolnikov.

... He was left alone. He left the world. Dostoevsky wrote about it a century ago.

Marx is absolutely correct. I'm fully social. That's why I'm against myself, the communist. The more Karl is right, more I attack myself. I recreate the creature of time; it's an issue of property right. Every new phase of anatoly is rejected, because I can't stop the process of negation. I'll never accept the status quo, even if I wish to. nothing is good enough to stay. Look at the children: their powers are in this constant changes. What do I ask for? Directions?

Ah! In the sixties the postmodern was so young, we were full of expectation, as usual. The modernism of the pomo was a short lived youth. The world lost interest in us. From that time the minorities began their push for "rights" -- not a revolt. The social man died by the fall of 1968.

PM is the modern which recognized itself as such. It's a maturity of modernity. Self-discovery of an old age -- and noticing its own uniqueness.... Ted was a young Ph. D. that summer and he accepted the position of a Assistance Professor of Math at Berkeley. I was a freshman of thermodynamics in Moscow.

Last Man (History; Last Will of a Post-last man)

I can't blame Americans. It's only natural to move from Christianity to Marxism. Very logical.

....Poor Ted, he has to insist that he is not a clinical case, not a mental patient. He is no Brodsky or Havel. But he knows that the society and technology out there to get him. Did he make a point? The first bomber (McVey) is sentenced to death.

"Conservatives"? What a name for those who want to govern! American "liberals" and "conservatives": are they "liberal" and "conservative"? Why are those words chosen?

America is a mirror site of Europe. The size and population. Fifty states -- as many as in the Old World. President of Europe? Impossible! That's their problem. US had only one civil war, Europe still fights itself (Bosnia). How could they compete with the new, improved model?

How the end of America will look like? Is it as invisible as the end of the Soviet Union, which no one saw in advance? The bull market and the economic success since 1980 (my arrival) will end. Soon? It can't be catastrophic, no, no way! The Soviet collapse was bloodless. But the culture was gone. Is it a calamity? So what if America (define) will vanish? What will end? The last place for a single soul. We used to call it freedom. Oh, there will be plenty of freedom for idiots. Nazi Germany was the freest place for the nazis.

Clinton is a free man. His freedom is threat to mine.
Oh, we both have a lot in common. I had a lot in common with the Russians.

He, the president, doesn't see the future. And he doesn't care. That's our difference and the war.

I would like to await for the future with exitement. I wish to make a peace with my times. I am tired of war. I would paint and write without fear that I won't beat the clock. I don't want to seek the comfort in the thought I'll die and this running will be over. I wish I can love the living. I need to get through the near future to enjoy the being.

How should I write about it? Let me see it, the world behind the visible. Let me read my life. That's all I ask. (My prayer I repeat so often.)

Did I learn how to see?

Why do I ask, don't I see it on campus? The end.

After the end will be another future where will be no masses, where they will not matter anymore. Then you literally will be able to creat your own world. Virtual but real. For yourself and the like you. The common will continue its orgies in the outside. We already call it home-pages. I like to live in the page, it's the best home I could imagine.

He came from the pages of Dostoevsky's books. Most of us did. There is a simple thought in "The Notes From The Underground": you can't leave any man alone for long. By following Christ we developed our civilization of technology for the singles. It could be Ted or the Islamic Fundemntalists, we want the products of progress, but without the price. Can this contradiction of the Christianity without Borders be solved? Even two thousand years ago it was a radical answer -- the rejection of this world of now and here -- death and the cross. Poor terrorists, our minds and souls are technology too! Where would you go and hide from yourselves?

Nothing could be done, my man. Nothing. We all made our choice, we made it long ago... We are making the same choice every day. We have to accept it, ourselves.

@2001-2002+ film-north *