Word: terrorism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Certainly the headlines from Oklahoma were warranted. Death comes not just in quantities but with qualities, and there was something uniquely terrifying about these 167 deaths. But since terror can drive policies-policies on how readily the government taps our phone lines or looks at credit-card records -- understanding it would be useful. If this sort of crime on a regular basis would scarcely change the amount of violence in the nation, why does America seem suddenly at risk? If your chance of dying wasn't appreciably raised by the bombing, why do you feel uneasy...
...last-minute inspiration:There's nothing like the incredible terror in the pit of your stomach when you have two hours before your paper's due. You have the Cliffs Notes at your side and you're trying to find out what the question is. Nothing inspires you more. One the gun is at your head...(FM stops BO for fear of forced wackiness...
...letter to the Times makes it clear that they were right-that the Unabomber, like the right-wing extremists believed to be responsible for the Oklahoma City blast, views terror as a way to fight what he sees as a pernicious trend in modern society. Just as the right-wingers fear intrusive government, the Unabomber evidently has a big problem with the Industrial Revolution and all that came out of it. "Through our bombings," says the letter, "we hope to promote social instability in industrial society, propagate anti-industrial ideas and give encouragement to those who hate the industrial system...
Whether a loner or not, the Unabomber clearly craves attention and publicity. Complaining in his letter that "it's no fun having to spend all your evenings and weekends preparing dangerous mixtures" and "filing trigger mechanisms out of scraps of metal," the Unabomber offers "a bargain." The campaign of terror will end, he says, if the Times or another nationally prominent publication, such as Time or Newsweek, publishes a long tract explaining the group's ideas...
...would stop the bombings. Asks James Alan Fox, dean of the criminal-justice college at Northeastern University: "Since when did serial killers start telling the truth?" Even if the Unabomber's demand is met, the letter says, he reserves the right to commit "sabotage" against property as opposed to "terror" against human beings...