What To Listen To Next: Dan Taberski's Manifesto | S5-E7

Dr. Death

This episode of 'Dr. Death' introduces Dan Taberski's podcast 'Manifesto,' which explores how anger and collective frustration can fuel transformative change. Through gripping stories like Christopher Dorner’s 2013 manif

Key takeaways

• Christopher Dorner, a former LAPD officer, wrote an 18-page manifesto accusing racist police of framing him; he murdered two people, including the daughter of a man named in his manifesto

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) This is your host, Laura Beale. I hope you enjoyed this season of Dr. Death, and I want to thank you for listening. Now that you're done with this show, you're probably looking for the next thing to listen to. I have a recommendation. It's called Dan Tiberski's Manifesto. And Dr. Death, the cowboy, Dr. Schneider took advantage of a broken system. Dan Tiberski's Manifesto is a podcast about what to do when you want to change a system that isn't working. What begins as a historical narrative blends into modern-day conversation that asks the question, how do we envision what the future can be? And how can we do it without violence? Manifesto guides the listener through a history of human frustration and collective longing for something better. Ultimately, the series proposes a new approach to history, one shaped by a diverse group of visionaries with nothing to lose but the brighter future that they're demanding. We're about to play a clip from Manifesto. Listen to Manifesto wherever you get your podcasts. Audible listeners can binge all episodes of Manifesto ad-free right now. Start your Audible subscription in the Audible app or on Apple Podcasts. February 2013, Venice, California. It's my last few months in Los Angeles before I move back east. I'm in my late 30s, living by the beach. learning to surf the crumbly waves on my longboard. My skin smells like the ocean all the time. I feel amazing. I look amazing. I look amazing. But I'm not taking you back in my time machine because of how good I looked, which was very. It's because of what happened next in Southern California that cut through that dreamy scene and swapped it out with harsh reality. Police in Irvine, California, are investigating the double murder of a young couple in the parking lot of their apartment complex. Reports of a homicide in neighboring Orange County. 27-year-old Keith Lawrence and his fiancé, 28-year-old Monica Kwan, were found shot to death in Lawrence's car late Sunday night. Two young people, a couple recently engaged. The guy was a public safety officer at USC, and she was an assistant basketball coach at a local university, murdered while parked in their white Kia Optima. Investigators do not yet have a suspect of script. or a motive. And immediately, the details of the crime begin to add up to something bigger than a one-time thing. Like, when their bodies are found by the police, the victim's necklace is still on her neck. Her new engagement ring is still firmly on her finger, which means this isn't a robbery. Also, investigators find evidence of 14 shots having been fired. It's a lot of bullets for just two people cornered in their car. But the number of neighbors who actually heard those 14 shots? zero. So maybe there was a silencer on the gun, which would mean the killer probably isn't new to this, that maybe they're a professional. Irvine detectives have been working day and night since this tragedy. The Irvine police chief takes to the podium to tell the people of Southern California that they are going to have to buckle up for a ride. Today, we have identified Christopher Dorner as a suspect in this double homicide. Because the suspect, Christopher Dorner, is no ordinary suspect. Dorner was an LAPD officer. through 2009 and a reservist for the United States Navy. Dorner is a former LAPD cop, and he's still out there. And there's reason to believe that he's going to kill again, that maybe he already has. And we know this because Christopher Dorner left something behind. A particular interest at this point in the investigation is a multi-page manifesto in which the suspect has implicated himself in the slings. And this manifesto on Facebook is 11 pages long. This manifesto from this suspect who's targeting cops, it's stunning. It is stunning, Shep, and it says... He's been very well trained, you know, LAPD, some of the best trained officers in the country. And I tell you, this manifesto, it scares a hell out of me. I'm Dan Tiberski. From Audible Originals and Please and Thanks Productions, this is Manifesto. Episode 1, 2 America. Subject, Last Resort. I am in the market for a manifesto. I have been for a while now, to be honest. The world is on fire. I'll spare you the details. We've all got our own faves. And I mean, really, what fresh words could be left to describe what fresh hell were presented with day after day. But even more concerning for me, even more surprising, has been my own reaction to it, and how difficult it's been to get a handle on how angry it has all made me. I'm not an angry person. I am a relatively happy guy. But I find myself seething underneath all the, time. My patience has become strained. My temper too short. My ability to hear anyone has vaporized while I simmer just under the surface. And I'm afraid pretty soon I'll have slid all the way over to the dark side, not the right side or the left side, but the burn it all downside. And I'm waiting for someone to tell us how do we move past this shit show that we've created for ourselves. What do we do now? So, yeah, wanted. Explosive Manifesto. A vision for the the future. No font, too big or small. A manifesto is a call to action. It's an artful scream. It's words spoken or written that are putting the world on notice, that the way things are, the way they've been, they've got to change. I've been mainlining manifestos for months. Long ones, short ones, sad ones, mad ones, piles on the floor and in my Google Docs, as many manifestos as there are gripes about the world, and big ideas to fix it. I read a manifesto against cussing, written by a middle schooler. Then I read a manifesto that starts manifest this motherfucker. The painter David Hockney wrote a manifesto for smoking. Death awaits you even if you do not smoke. He lived to nearly 90, smoking two delicious packs a day till the very end. There's hacker manifestos, there's surrealist manifestos, there's polygamist manifestos. The Communist Manifesto, that Spectre haunting Europe, inspired revolution after revolution. In the 60s and the 70s, there was the bitch manifesto, the skum manifesto, the manifesto of 343 sluts. That one's in French. Manifestos can demand just about anything, a new world order or a new way to milk cows. That's real. But from talking to the people who've written them, most manifestos seem to come from the same simple starting point, a person who has reached the end of their rope. The writing of a manifesto isn't anywhere near as important for me as a car. paring out of a manifesto. To me, a manifesto is actually an action. It's something that you decide to do, to think in some new, fresh way. This is Kale Lassen, age 84, originally from Estonia. Think of him as the spiritual grumpy uncle of this project. He wrote one of the most troublemaking manifestos of our lifetime. But he started running manifestos, period, because of something that happened, something teeny tiny. And teeny tiny can be all it takes to push a guy right over the edge. That was one of those moments when I just suddenly had this emotion suddenly welling up inside me. It happens at, of all places, a supermarket, where the whole economic order is reduced down to cans on a shelf, where you can buy two of crap you don't need for the price of one. And then this feeling of discontent that I've had in shopping at supermarkets for years and years before that and being dissatisfied with the whole feeling of walking in there and having the choices that they're giving me and the way that I... It just felt like something that I don't want to do, but I kept on... doing it. He goes to grab a shopping cart, only it's one of those setups where you've