Ted Kaczynski's Correspondence with Theresa Kintz (Preview)

Excerpt

... that I'd like to tell you about, but, for lack of time, I'll have to save these for later.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve given no media interviews in part because mainstream journalists have shown themselves to be completely unscrupulous and untrustworthy. But you are one journalist whom I would be prepared to trust. Would you like to interview me for the Earth First! Journal? It should be possible to arrange such an interview, since I do have a right to give ...

Appendix

[Ted] wrote to and offered Theresa Kintz, an Earth First! editor at the time, an exclusive interview, because he had been impressed by an editorial she had written for the journal defending ELF activists who had torched a ski lodge under construction in Vail, Colorado. She agreed with the rationale of the arsonists that the action was justifiable because the construction project destroyed critical habitat for an endangered Lynx species.

The publication of this editorial was protested vehemently by many activists who rejected arson as a tactic and thought embracing it was dangerous to activists and politically counterproductive. But Kintz had her own supporters, including for the idea of conducting and publishing an interview with Kaczynski. She conducted interviews during the summer of 1999 but at a large movement gathering that summer a consensus was reached that the journal ought not publish it. Consequently, Kintz left the journal staff and published the interview in the UK-based tabloid, the Green Anarchist. Like Kintz, the editors of LWOD supported and felt affinity with Kaczynski, agreeing with his anti-technology ideology and at the very least that violent tactics are sometimes warranted.[1]

[1] Revised 3 August 2019. Originally published as: Bron Taylor, “Radical Environmentalism’s Print History: From Earth First! to Wild Earth.” Environment & Society Portal, Virtual Exhibitions 2018, no. 1. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.
<www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/taylor_radenv_revision201908.pdf>