A Life Wasted

Vanity

The celebration didn't last long. It's not much fun celebrating alone.

After the elation from my success I wasn't really thinking about another action. I was pleased with what I had done and had no illusions that I could ever match that success again with non-violent methods. Since I wasn't willing to use violence I pretty much thought I was done. I don't think I articulated this to myself, but this was where I stood in that I wasn't considering another attack.

A week later this changed. While watching CNN I caught an interview with an abortion industry spokesperson who commented on the anthrax threat letters. She said that their industry had now enacted such effective counter-measures against anthrax letters that there would never again be an abortion clinic closure because of an anthrax hoax. That statement didn't bother me as I believed it to be true. I knew these people were sharp so they could easily enact a policy where no mail was delivered to the clinics and no mail was ever opened at the clinics. That simple change in procedure would prevent what I did from ever working again. I knew this and I fully expected them to figure this out, which they did.

So I didn't take what she said personally, but I didn't like what she said next. I didn't like it at all. Her next statements were directed at President Bush and his administration. I don't recall her exact words, but it was something to the effect of, "If Bush wasn't such an arrogant idiot he would send people to us and we could teach them how to completely stop fake anthrax letters. But Bush and his cronies are all too stupid to ask us for our help." Okay, so I did paraphrase that a little. She might not have actually called the President of the United States an idiot, but that was the meaning behind her words.

After this interview I looked at the TV and thought, "I'll just have to show her that they can still be hit with anthrax threat letters. That'll shut her up." So I grabbed a pen and paper and began forming a new strategy for hitting them again. Had it not been for that interview I would have never hit them the second time. Because of the interview I was offended about what she said about President Bush, but more than that I felt like she had issued a direct challenge to me. In my mind I heard, "We're smarter than you Clay Waagner. You can't touch us." I had to prove her wrong.

The first attack was done to save babies. The second did save babies, even more than the first, but my motivation was not as pure. In the second attack my motivation was vanity.