Vis-a-vis James Jay Lee, the Eco-nut Terrorist who took hostages at the Discovery Channel, and was killed by police;
1. I cannot excuse anything Lee did (and I don't want anyone to think I am), but I have some sympathy for the man in this respect, only -- he was someone who needed some serious help, and didn't -- or couldn't --get it. It is absolutely shameful how we treat the mentally ill in this country, and it's only AFTER they do something shocking (but entirely foreseeable) that we even begin to discuss the mental health system (such as it is).
2. There are thousands of assholes, just like this one, walking around just waiting to go off, but no one is willing to make the effort to protect society from them because it's either too expensive, or because no one in the medical profession will admit that when it comes to mental illness, your guess is as good as mine, despite the appearance and assumption of scientific knowledge.
3. You know you're dealing with a potentially-dangerous person when his first demand is that the Human Race be exterminated.
4. No one questions the basic premise of Lee's "manifesto"; that human beings and their technological progress are an existential threat to the continuance of life on this planet, despite the fact that Lee and his ilk a) wouldn't be here without any of it, b) couldn't continue to exist without it, and c) seem to have no trouble using the very technology they decry in getting their own warped message out, or in killing others.
5. Some in the environMENTAL movement have now decided that they have the right to decide who lives, who dies, and even who gets born, according to some calculus that even they can't explain, but which somehow aims to leave them alive to enjoy the untrammelled delights of the return of Nature...providing they aren't eaten by a bloody great tiger, or die of malaria after the bulk of we "disgusting human beings" -- and our technology -- are gone.
If you think your average tree-hugger is just a concerned human being who simply has a passion for something warm-and-fuzzy, then guess again; some are aiming at the extinction of the human race (excepting themselves, of course).
6. James Jay Lee is, in his own way, no different than Woodrow Wilson, George Bernard Shaw or Adolf Hitler who's special brand of "Progressivism" always leads to forced sterilization and extermination. There are others, more well-known, more "famous" than he, and they are deserving of careful and closer scrutiny.
7. These folks are always on about the evils of human technology, but have no trouble, apparently, using it when it suits their needs. James Jay Lee had no issue with making free use of guns, explosives and the Internet when it suited his purposes, and in the end, tried to hijack a massive media and broadcasting organization. When a single Squirrel-lover can explain that one to me, in a way that makes it all seem sane, I have a $1,000 bucks for you.
In his own way, James Jay Lee is the enviroMENTAL Al'Qaeda; the idea is promulgated that the West produces nothing of value, and which is little more than poison...unless you just happen to need an AK-47, Semtex, an airliner, nuclear weapons, the Internet or the Media. It's hard to make those things from hemp and bark, I guess.
8. At least James Jay Lee won't be polluting the planet with either his "disgusting" human presence, or any more offspring. In the end, he got his wish. It's my belief the guy was out to commit suicide-by-cop, but he just figured he might make it a more meaningful suicide by blowing up a Daycare center and forcing a media conglomerate to bend to his will.
Now, what's absolutely fascinating to me (and entirely too-predictable) is that people KNOW this guy is a walking time bomb, and yet, no one seems able to stop him before he goes off. Quote from one of Lee's "friends":
Yaya Fanusie, an acquaintance of Lee's, saw him on a
bus, carrying two boxes en route to the building yesterday. She said his going
off the deep end was no surprise.
"He was a danger to society," Fanusie said.
Thanks for the "heads-up", Sweetheart.
If that doesn't make you go "hmmm", try this:
"When we heard the news" yesterday about the
hostage-taking, "we joked, 'It must be that Lee guy,' " said Dave Glanz, a
motion graphics designer who does work for the (Discovery) channel.
Fuck, even his intended victims knew the guy was a walking diaster!
But, it gets better. In the middle of the whole drama, FoxNews' Megyn Kelly manages to get the guy's brother-in-law on the phone, and he says Lee's had a number of known issues for years!
Why is it that everyone seems to know this guy is a menace to himself and others -- and he's still roaming the streets?
The same theme seems to repeat itself with every one of these televised psychodramas that pop up every few years: known crazy finally goes berserk, forty thousand acquaintances who knew he was a danger to himself and others finally decide to break their silence...but only after someone, often many someones, is dead. Why aren't they trying to get the guy help before he flips out? Why does it seem as if there isn't any help to even get? I'm certain that in the following weeks, as more of James Jay Lee's life is revealed (assuming no one forgets about him altogether over Labor Day Weekend), we'll find at least one "Mental Health Professional" who was aware of the danger he posed, but did little more than feed him pills and hope for the best, because, well...that's how modern medicine works.
We don't institutionalize anyone anymore (too expensive). Insurance companies often don't cover mental health issues (too expensive, too esoteric to understand, few reliable predictors for success/failure in treatment which makes it difficult to establish a cost model). When state and budgets need to be cut, the Crazy get the short end of the stick. Mostly because it's more important -- politically -- that drug addicts have clean needles (AIDS-fighting measure), and the inner-city-chronically-unemployed breeder class (coincidentally, the very same people that Lee's brand of Progressivism sought to eliminate through extermination and forced sterilization) be kept alive in order to vote democrat, and PROGRESSIVE democrat, at that.
Figure that one out!
I cannot condone what James Jay Lee did, and I shudder to think what might have happened if he had gotten to the Day Care center in that building (that might have been his intended target all along; we'll soon find out), but he's just another in a long line of warnings that our mental health system pretty much sucks, in all respects. He's also a stellar example of human stupidity: people know this guy's a crackpot, and no one tries to help him very much, nor do they report him to the authorities. The few times he IS in contact with the authorities, no one finds him crazy enough to lock up. We'll soon discover that where treatment was available to Lee, it was of the predictable "Tell me about your Mother, that'll-be-$400-for-the-45-minute-hour-thank-you-and-here-take-this-pill-that-may-improve-your-condition-or-turn-you-into-a-zombie-your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine-don't-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out-next-sucker-please!" sort. This should be our first lesson; someone should have noticed, someone should have cared, and a better standard of treatment might have been available, if anyone had.
The second lesson of James Jay Lee, one we really shouldn't need to relearn, is that Eco-this-that-and-the-other is largely a scam, perpetrated by the well-informed-and-ill-intentioned upon the will-intentioned-but-ill-informed. Or in this case, the ill-equipped. And it often drives people to the most extreme behavior, as people try to make themselves "Carbon-neutral" or show their devotion to "the Cause". Al Gore and this execrable author Lee was on about, Daniel Quinn, now have blood on their hands. I'm positive neither will give back any of the money they made from peddling their stupidity, though.
Then there's the lesson of extremism.
The Discovery Channel runs eco-friendly programming all day long, and somehow this idiot (Lee) singles it out for not promoting the Eco-agenda enough. I wonder how many more Lee's are in the environMENTAL movement who believe that a network that devotes pretty much 24-hour-a-day/7-day-a-week programming devoted to the natural world is insufficiently solicitous of the Green Message? The Discovery Channel is absolutely lousy with David Attenborough, or shows in which some hippie douchebag (Ed Begley, Jr.) show you how to turn your own turds into everything from cough syrup to rocket fuel.
And this wasn't good enough for James Jay Lee?
Some people in Tree-hugger-Land had better start getting a grip, taking stock of the more dangerous people within their ranks, and start reining some of these nutjobs in, before they go beyond mere advocacy and make the great leap to terrorism. Because that's what Lee's little drama was. That it was terrorism on behalf of Mother Gaia doesn't make it any less ugly.
No comments:
Post a Comment