Luigi Mangione's senseless debt to the Unabomber

The lesson he drew from Ted Kaczynski's 35,000-word manifesto

In May 1996, the New York Times and the Washington Post did something they had never done before: They collaborated to publish a 35,000 word “manifesto” by an anonymous author, one only identified by the initials FC.

In the text, he railed against the impact of technology on society, excoriated “leftists” and echoed Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idealized vision of primitive societies. He acknowledged that the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of the press was a good thing but argued that in practice, it meant little.

“The mass media are mostly under the control of large organizations that are integrated into the system,” he wrote.

Then in chilling fashion, he said, “In order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we've had to kill people.”

Over nearly two decades, the writer of those words — Ted Kaczynski, the “Unabomber” — had killed and maimed a random assortment of people who received his bombs, some through the mail.

The three who were kill…