Thought this would be of interest in light of our recent discussions. Jim
************
Associated Press State & Local Wire
June 20, 2000, Tuesday, BC cycle
Alston Chase's latest book on Unabomber explores mind of a killer
By SCOTT McMILLION, Bozeman Daily Chronicle
DATELINE: LIVINGSTON
Imagine trying to get inside the head of a serial killer, a man with a
genius level IQ, a calculating assassin generally considered insane, but a
man who for some people remains a hero despite his 17-year swath of
destruction and death.
Unlike other famous murderers, he selected victims who were all strangers,
attacking from afar in a way that was cold, impersonal, highly
intellectualized.
The killer is Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, one of the most famous
people ever to live in Montana, a man serving life without parole in a
federal prison for his crimes: The mailing or delivery of 16 bombs that
killed three people and injured 23 more.
Right now, there are at least two people who want to get inside Kaczynski's
head. One of them, Paradise Valley author Alston Chase, is writing a book
about Kaczynski, which means he is working hard to figure out Kaczynski.
The other, biologist Robert Taylor, is a more reluctant student. He came to
his interest in the Unabomber the unpleasant way: He held Kaczynski's last
bomb in his hands just seconds before it exploded, driving a fatal chunk of
metal through his boss' chest, throwing him across a room and leaving him
buried in rubble.
"I live with it all the time," Taylor, of Orangevale, Calif., said of April
24, 1995, the day his office in Sacramento blew up. "I've been kind of
living in a hole, trying to come to terms with this."
Neither Chase nor Taylor knew Kaczynski before he was arrested in Lincoln,
Mont., on April 3, 1996, although both had heard about the mysterious
Unabomber, who had been leaving or mailing bombs to selected targets around
the country, later writing about them in letters to newspapers.
Taylor recalls joking about bombs as he handled Kaczynski's weapon, a
heavy, compact package about the size and weight of a motorcycle battery.
"I picked up my mail and said, 'I'm going back to my office before the bomb
goes off,"' Taylor recalled.
Then it detonated, killing Gil Murray, president of a lobbying group, the
California Forestry Association, and sending shrapnel through walls and
metal cabinets.
Chase, an Ivy League-educated philosopher and a former syndicated columnist
best known for his critiques of environmental philosophies, was a scholar
of the Unabomber long before he knew his name. He even served as a
consultant to ABC News on the subject. Then, after Kaczynski's arrest, he
found a series of uncanny parallels between their lives.
For both Chase and Taylor, who have talked often about the Unabomber,
thinking about him raises uncomfortable questions: Are there more of his
kind out there? If so, how many?
Politically inspired violence, and the language of violence, From [log in to unmask] Thu Jun 22 15:46:19 2000
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Subject: Re: Alston Chase on the Unabomber
From: Steve <[log in to unmask]>
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John,
This post and the last are nothing but speculative wonderings on your
part.
For example you write:
"As I indicated he was probably afflicted with pyschological trauma at an
early age that resulted in a disposition to psychotic episodes resulting
in great harm to innocent life."
You have no evidence other than your WAG that Kazcynski suffers from BPD.
In that post you wrote:
"...but the thesis regarding Harvard University experiments on him
triggering the disorder are completely unfounded. The fact of the matter
is that if the Unabomber was a person with BPD, then it cannot be
determined what caused his violent behaviour. Over 3 thousand studies have
been published on this disorder, over 300 original research findings have
been made, and no one has found the cause of this disorder."
If the claim that the Hrarvard experiments cuased him to become the
Unabomber then so is your claim that it was some sort of early age
psychological trauma. You can't have it both ways here.
You also wrote:
"I certainly disagree with the thesis of Chase that Harvard University or
any University is creating violent criminals."
You are certainly free to disagree with this thesis, but it is false to
attribute it to Chase. His thesis is not that Universities are creating
violent criminals, but that a specific set of experiments and the specific
setting Kazcynski was in lead to him becoming the Unabomber.
You also write:
> California Forestry Association? The fact that they use technology to
> clearcut is true. What is false about the killing here that you are
> referring to? Are you saying the package went to the wrong address?
We can see you are not in total possesion of the facts. The package went
to the wrong guy. It was actually addressed to the previous head of the
California Forestry Association. Further, it was dumb luck it actually
killed the guy it did, since it is standard procedure for the secretary to
open all packages. Further the salient point was that he killed those who
were in technology related fields and also people who represented modern
society. He is called the Unabomber for a reason. Not because there was
just one bomber or one bome, or something like that. Un stands for
university and a stands for airline. His first bombs were sent to people
associated with Universities and airlines (or flying).
You also wrote:
"I think Chase is grinding his own axe here to make a point about
something that he dislikes: his own intellectual milieu, competitive
academia."
And what was that you were complaining about? Oh yeah Jim making some
inferences about you based on something you wrote. Uhhhmmmm, correct me
if I am wrong, but aren't you now doing the same thing? I mean if you
want to do it, fine, but I think you lose much of the moral force of your
argument when you turn around and do the same thing, no?
You also wrote this:
"Whereas the Unabomber is carrying out a soceital crime by delivering his
own death sentences, his targets are involved in a crime as well, but one
which society has formed an improper concept about."
Now you are sounding like an apologist for the Unabomber. Are you sure
you want to keep going in this direction? (And this from a Minion of Satan
no less...maybe you need to re-evaluate your thinking on this when even
*I* think this sounds bad.) What was the crime of the pediatrician?
Helping sick children to get well? What about the guy who owned the
computer rental store...what eeeeevil crime is he guilty of? The same
similar ones your guilty of by owning technology stocks, driving a
Pathfinderand flying around in jets. The point is John, just about
everybody on this list would have been a potential victim of the
Unabomber.
Steve
=====
"In a nutshell, he [Steve] is 100% unadulterated evil. I do not believe in a
'Satan', but this man is as close to 'the real McCoy' as they come."
--Jamey Lee West
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