I Read The Unabomber's 35,000 Word Manifesto

And I Agreed With Almost Everything.

Welcome back to The Red Ruby Club.

Unknown Edit Of Luigi Mangione

After the release of Luigi Mangione’s Manifesto and subsequent arrest I sat down to read The Unabomber’s entire 35,000 word manifesto. Why? because I’ll always want to know what motivated the people that this country paints out to be villains. By sheer definition, I am a villain too. In this manifesto or “prophecy” I found myself metaphorically clutching my pearls and sitting with my mouth suspended open as I read. One of the most important aspects of this manifesto besides Ted Kaczynski accurate prognostication was the criticism of the leftist psychology.

The Psychology Of Modern Leftism

Ted Kaczynski’s criticism of the Left was accurate. I have always vehemently proclaimed that the right and the left wing are a part of the same bird. His words profoundly affected me and as I read another creator came to mind. I scrolled as I watched other creators dogpile on

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for her thoughts and convictions on leftism. There was no conversation or genuine discourse—just merely name-calling and a summoning of mass ridicule. When I discovered her work I felt triggered at first. Her criticism of the leftist politics triggered me because it made me take a hard look at what I believed. Let me ask you this: if you never question what you believe doesn’t that make you a bigot? Calling her names instead of listening to what’s she’s saying is the definition of being a bigot. I believe trans people deserve to live as they are simply human beings. Life is unfair and to a certain degree it will always be but I digress. The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, described in words and what I have always felt about the left. They have taken real issues of disadvantaged people and used it for political gain—they don’t really care about disabled, gay or trans people. Now before you attempt to miconstrue my words. I know racism, colorism and discrimination are all real—I’m not saying the left doesn’t have true concerns. I’m not saying that gay people aren’t discriminated against; I am saying that when you can no longer constructly criticize an ideology or a group then we have gone too fucking far. You are not in a group or a community you are in a cult! Things left unchecked will take on a mind of its own. You are free to identify as whatever the fuck you want—and I know I will. You should be able to love whoever you want because I know I will. I’m just will never let an ideology become me. That’s just not my character. I grew up a devote Christian raised in a Pentecostal church in a Christian cult household. What would have happened if I was too afraid or triggered to question God? I’d be sitting in a goddamn pew waiting on a dead God to send me a non-existent husband while my brothers and sisters in christ fucked in the Pastor’s office. At one time I believed I was doing everything right? I thought I would be rewarded for being a moral, upstanding citizen. Laughable right? I’m sure before Luigi’s back injury and surgery he thought he had the world at his fingers tips as well—oh but the universe had other plans.

Anybody is a killer, all you gotta do is push 'em to the limits.

—A Tale Of Two Cities, J.Cole

The Intensity Of Impact

Unknown Edit of The Unabomber & Newspaper Article

There are many takes in this manifesto that I don’t agree with but there are many that I do. This manifesto is very long and nuanced so unfortunately I won’t be able to share every detail of it. I will share just a few of the points that I agree and disagree with and why. A lot of the points are more relevant today than they were then in 1996.

The first point is the lefts identification with the problems of specific groups:

13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. are inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology.)

I spoke to this very aspect in by article They Really Not Like Us and I elaborated on how many groups and more specifically black woman are socialized to have an inferiority complex. We have always been desired and desirable, period! I just spoke of this from another angle. The next one is exactly what I have always been saying about the left not really help the people it claims to help. I will add this though a lot of people are not truly leftist they just feel that they have no other group that will prioritize their problems so they cling to the closest hope they have:

21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms?

Number twenty-five is one I have deeply personal feelings about especially growing up christian. Christianity embeds in you a deep sense of shame about your own humanity. It’s something I am still working to rid myself of and he described that artificial and unattainable morality here:

25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “over-socialized” to describe such people.

This is my favorite because the right is just as ignorant as the left. They so desperately want to protect traditional values but they created a system that directly erodes those values. They are nothing but a bunch of hypocritical money-hungry bastards.

50. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.

The last one is the exact quote that Luigi Mangione shared on his twitter before the murder of United Healthcare CEO:

145. Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression has been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption of the power process, as explained in paragraphs 59-76. But even if we are wrong, the increasing rate of depression is certainly the result of some conditions that exist in today’s society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual’s internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.

Those were only four points from Kaczynski’s manifesto and he has already said A LOT. Now, I wanted to just add some points I disagree with and I have good reasoning to disagree with. It may be bias but I believe even constructive criticism can be constructively criticized.

I disagree with:

14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may not be as strong and as capable as men.

Women are strong and capable. Feminism is not by any means trying to prove—we are as capable and as strong as men. That’s a fabrication. Feminism is very nuanced. What first started as a way for white women to free themselves from their abusive and neglectful husbands turned into much more. It sought to and is still seeking to reconcile women’s humanity. We aren’t looking for equality per se but a reconciling of the consciousness that women are divine and deserving. We have all the responsibilities of men due to feminism but we still don’t have all of the advantages. I could go on but I feel there is so much feminist work that does a better job at addressing this.

15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They say they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he grudgingly admits that they exist; whereas he enthusiastically points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.

The second thing is Kaczynski’s bias that leftist hate success. The West is definitely racist, imperialistic and sexist. I have to agree that this same ideologies show up in socialist countries but it doesn’t mean that leftist hate strength or success. This seems like a very basis take especially because the optics are that he is a white male who considers himself to be rational. It’s giving Sigmund Freud and all the other white men who created the system. This was merely a projection.

16. Words like “self-confidence”, “self-reliance”, “initiative”, “enterprise”, “optimism”, etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro- collectivist. He wants society to solve every one’s problems for them, satisfy everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

I disagree that people who are socialist want everyone to take care of them. This is a very “Karen” thought pattern. People often assume that socialist have no drive and that if we give social protections no one will work or do anything. Very, very untrue. There is always this fear in white people that if they help anyone that those people will become “lazy”. It must be the remnants of their dirty hands from chattel slavery. Their real fear is of “white fragility” and the fear that other groups may actually have happy and successful lives—or worse surpass them. I SAID WHAT THE FUCK I SAID! The last part about leftist fear of competition is unfortunately very true. Some people are sore losers and they give up easily but I don’t think it pertains to socialism. It may be a symptom but not the main issue here.

Not The Right Or The Left But A Secret Third Thing

Unknown Source

Am I a centrist or an independent? What do I check on the ballot when I go in the little booth? Am I a moderate? I truly don’t give a fuck anymore. Is that okay to say? Is it against some unwritten law? I surely should care because I am a fat, black woman who should be concerned about how the system is going to keep—I mean continue fucking me over. I spent twenty-eight years on this planet now. I went from a christian cult conservative to a radical whining leftist in the span of four years. Truly, I am approaching being apolitical—even though I feel like that is some sort of leftist delusion as well. People argue that if you don’t pick a side then you are only passively siding with the other side. Will my apathy towards political issues only serve as self-sabotage? To be honest, I really come on this bitch like I have all the answers—and I don’t. The more I learn about the world the more questions I have and the less definitive answers I find. I think I’m okay with that. All I know is that I’ll keep writing my own manifesto over here. I’ll keep reading but if I choose to live in a centrist apolitical delusion leave me be. I know I’ll lose subscribers because of it but I don’t want to make every waking moment about politics nor do I want to let it make me have me a complex about who I am. For years, I feel disadvantaged and to a certain degree I am but I am making a choice to be optimistic about the future. If you’ve read my previous work I advocate for self-preservation and self-care. My peace and my health are the only two things that make me the happiest. Everything else is out of my hands. I just know that I won’t be bullied by either of these gangs into joining them. I don’t have to pick a side.

I do want to point out Luigi Mangione's Manifesto was all of 262 words and it differs a bit in the way that other manifestos have plainly laid out their declarations and aims. His manifesto feels more like a confession than a proclamation. In his manifesto these words stood out to me “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.” While his aims are not clearly decipherable it seems that he is one of the first to approach the problem of the healthcare system in America so radically. If he did anything, he has reignited a flame in the minds and hearts of people who felt they were incapable of doing anything about this monopoly healthcare system in this country.

That’s all for today rubies.

I have a few more manifestos to read but for now I’ll be divesting from these political conversations because they are truly exhausting—they really do have a way of radicalizing you.

Appendix

The Unabomber's Manifesto

Popular Manifestos Including Feminist Manifestos

Luigi Mangione's Manifesto

—With Love, Dez