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Manifesto: To America

35:28 recording · EN · 6 speakers

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Brief overview

Dan Taberski's Manifesto argues manifestos channel rage into change, and asks why violence keeps hijacking them.

  1. Manifestos start at the end of someone's ropeKalle Lassen, 84, began writing after jamming a coin into a supermarket cart slot and feeling liberated.
  2. Violence became a manifesto's credentialFrom Virginia Tech's 1,800 words to Breivik's 1,500 pages, the El Paso shooter felt almost obligated to leave one.
  3. Dorner's grievances kept proving themselvesPolice shot two innocent trucks during the hunt, and a man told the chief, "I believe what he said."
Executive Summary AI
  • Host Laura Beal closes the season of Dr. Death, The Cowboy and recommends Dan Taberski's Manifesto, a podcast about changing a system that isn't working without violence, bingeable ad-free on Audible.0:00
  • The clip itself opens in February 2013 in Southern California, where 27-year-old Keith Lawrence and his fiancee, 28-year-old assistant basketball coach Monica Kwan, are found shot to death in a white Kia Optima in Irvine, with her necklace and engagement ring untouched and evidence of 14 shots that no neighbour heard.1:56
  • The suspect is Christopher Jordan Dorner, badge number 6748, an LAPD officer through 2009 and a Navy reservist, who uploaded a manifesto of over 11,000 words to Facebook claiming racist cops set up his firing, mailed a copy to Anderson Cooper with an LAPD coin shot through with three bullet holes, and named dozens of people, including Kwan's father, as next on his list.3:47
  • During the eight-day manhunt police unloaded over 100 bullets into the wrong pickup, shooting a 71-year-old Salvadorian woman delivering the LA Times in the back, while Black men like Jerome Hilliard went shopping in T-shirts reading "Not Chris Dorner, please don't shoot" and Facebook groups such as Team Dorner grew.16:11
  • Taberski then moves to the crowd outside Luigi Mangione's New York court appearance, selling swag and defending a three-page, 262-word note, and to 1976's Network and the bicentennial, before landing on point one of his 11-point manifesto on manifestos: you gotta get mad.19:56
Key Quote
“To me, a manifesto is actually an action. It's something that you decide to do, to think in some new, fresh way.”
— Kalle Lassen7:25
Key Quote
“Then all of a sudden, there was that one moment when I sat there and said, fuck it. I'm not going to do this anymore.”
— Kalle Lassen8:40
Key Quote
“And if you ask me, most aren't really manifestos at all. They're more like giant fuck yous.”
— Dan Taberski11:33