Media Bias Gets Dangerous: Minimizing the Ecoterror Threat
Whether or not James J. Lee, who invaded the corporate offices of the Discovery Channel Wednesday armed with explosives and a gun, was a terrorist or not would seem to be open to debate. Certainly PJM has been unable to discover any ties between Lee and any known ecoterror group — despite his radical environmentalist manifesto.
At the same time, groups such as the Animal Liberation Front could be expected to disavow any connection to him. As PJM reported earlier this week, the operational model groups such as ALF use would preclude them from taking responsibility for incidents where a human being was harmed or potentially harmed.
PJM did contact Dr. Jerry Vlasak, spokesman for North American Animal Liberation Press Office — an ALF front organization — to pose that very question:
We haven’t heard of him. … We do not approve of his methods. … I’m not going to say we don’t agree with some of his ideology, but there is no reason to believe he’s part of the animal liberation struggle.
This incident does serve to point out the real potential for violence from the environmental movement. More troubling is the fact that Lee — who had a long-running grudge with the Discovery Channel and who spent time in jail on disorderly conduct charges after a 2008 protest against it — was not on some sort of watch list.
Such as the kind advocated for “right-wing extremists” by a Department of Homeland Security document last year.
Lee claimed to be inspired by a book, Ishmael, written by Daniel Quinn. Regardless, he seems to have been a severely disturbed individual who needed help. With his death, we have only his writings, his manifesto, and the posts on an Ishmael discussion board (found by TheWrap.com) to determine what drove the 43-year-old to pick up a starter pistol, construct eight explosive devices — the four he took to the Silver Springs, MD, location and four more which were discovered and detonated at his house — and take hostages.
What’s really strange about this is that it was an attack on their own – a media source. Imagine an anti-abortion activist doing the exact same thing to the Discovery Channel.
I don’t think the media simply minimizes the threat of ecoterrorism – in some cases they actually promote it. Whale Wars, on (ironically, Discovery Channel affiliate) Animal Planet, is, plain and simple, a show that glorifies a rag-tag band of eco-terrorists. These aren’t heroes or saints – they are criminals who like to use violence to attain what they want. That makes them terrorits, yet they get their own tv show. Great.
I’m not a fan of ecoterrorism by any means, but after watching Whale Wars and learning a little about Sea Shepherds, I am less critical of that PARTICULAR group of environmentalists. The Japanese are uncontrollable out there on the open seas. They are defying international law and no government is doing a damn thing to stop them.
Wrong, Sea Shepherd people are pirates pure and simple. As a professional mariner I have nothing but contempt and disgust, and yes, hatred for these dangerous buffoons. Were they really concerned with stopping whaling they’d take the money they spend on their ship, hire one or two sharp lawyers, and work through the international courts.
But then, no TV show. That alone should tell you they’re grand standers.
Incidentally, what operations do they take against the Russians or Norwegians? None, right? Why not? Could it be because they know the Japanese are much more scrupulous about not endangering human life? I’m sure everyone has seen that photo of Putin with his harpoon gun. Now imagine the Whale Wars publicity whores in front… not gonna happen.
Tell you what, since nobody appears concerned with the hazard these people pose to professional mariners, how about picturing them belonging to a militant vegan organization on motorcycles, interfering with truck deliveries of meat. On, needless to say, the streets of your own cities. Picture them racing through supermarket parking lots, endangering bystanders’ lives in order to “save the cows.” Still cute? Still admirable? Still heroic?
Eventually these people will pull a stunt that gets somebody killed. Best case scenario would be it’s one of theirs.
Steve, it’s the same logic wherein nutjobs will throw fake blood on celebrities who wear leather or fur, but never go after the local biker’s club. I don’t doubt they would be quite safe throwing crap on one of the Freedom Riders.
Minimizing the danger from extreme environ-mental people is an application of the principle “it’s not what you are but who you are that’s important”. Progressive left good; conservative capitalist bad. No matter if the progressive leftist is bat-shit crazy; he is from the good side.
Violent crazy people are a menace because they are violent and crazy, not because of the way they vote. The press tries to sanitize lefty crazies and demonize righty crazies. The media denizens can’t help themselves because that kind of thinking is the very essence of being a lefty progressive collectivist.
A tweak is needed here. There are crazy Right-wingers and there are sane Right-wingers. But no sane person can subscribe to the Leftist ideology. A sane chimpanzee can be anti-human, but a sane human can’t be.
Hmmmm – I’d like to hold the pleasant delusion that all socialists are crazy – but polls show that a much higher percentage of women than men seem to be drawn to the socialist flame. Is it civilised, fair or safe even, to imply that most women are crazy?
No, it would not be correct, but I suspect that it is correct that a larger percentage of women are very concerned about safety and security. There is safety in numbers and the need for security that drives the creation of the welfare state. So, it would be fairly safe to assume that, while not crazy, most women are collectivists when it comes to their political tendencies. It will soon be apparent to all that this is a foolish tendency.
You’ll also note, one day after his attack, very little media coverage.
Compare that to the multi-day wall to wall coverage of the murder of Dr. George Tiller.
Patrick
Reminds me of that Tom Clancy book about eco-terrorists. I can’t remember the name. I’ve read “Ishmael” and enjoyed it too,I don’t think you can blame the author for this deluded mans’ actions any more than blame Clancy for 9/11. There are some nutty greens about but I think they are actually declining in number in proportion to the population.
“Rainbow Six” Great read, also a frightening example of what environmental crazyness leads to when taken to it’s logical extreme.
Patrick
I have the book-firghtening as hell that a billionaire biotech econut, a former FBI agent econut and a white house science advisor econut can plan on mass murder for “the ecology”. Funny how it took a former KGB agent to turn them in, thinking they were too nuts even for him.
Crichton wrote a book called “State of Fear” a few years ago. It was about eco-terrorists and exposed AGW as a hoax. Not surprising you don’t remember it, it was roundly ignored in all the right places.
I noticed a page 2 article yesterday on Lee in our local paper, the San Jose Mercury-News. It made no mention of Lee’s political views, nothing about Al Gore, or his manifesto.
Maybe the editors and staff of the Mercury-News thinks that their readership (declining, of course) doesn’t have the intelligence to properly process the raw information.
The San-Jose Mercury News ? I can’t believe they even touched this story. But their reluctance to mention relevant factors is what their left wing spin filter is designed to do,of course.
The National news media is now “all in” regarding this kind of news recipe. Slant it or sanitize it and compare the outline to the current roster of acceptable templates. Then position it with respect to its political importance.
IMHO, If we stopped giving lunatics publicity there would be fewer lunatics.
The last refuge of a progressive liberal is “That’s offensive!” So their being offended by the facts is why you won’t see any of them dwelling on the ideological origins of Mr. Lee. Pointing out the ideological theoreticians formerly and currently in the administration, and their ideas that influenced Mr. Lee’s behavior, is just too offensive–one might conclude that if Mr. Lee is a nut sack, what’s that say for the ideologues? I mean, have you noticed how nutty people are usually drawn to nutty ideas? So apparently we have to submit to the editorial judgements of the tolerant enlightened from the Ivy League, enjoying the democracy on their terms, like good children minding the grownups who know better. The Cordoba Mosque has nothing to do with snide triumphal Islamic innuendo–indeed, Islam doesn’t even mean “submission.” Never mind the celebrating Arab street when the mosque is finished, the Arab street celebrated during 9/11 too. It doesn’t mean a thing.
OilCrash: So what would be wrong with “programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility”? There are way too many people on this planet. My personal motto is “Human beings, no damn good.”
If you’re so convinced there are too many people on the planet, OilCrash, why don’t you set the example by killing yourself? Oh, you just want the rest of us dead, isn’t that correct?
The western societies are actually declining in population. You’d think in a world with limited resources that would be a good thing, but our supremely intelligent ruling elite think the best thing to do is import more muslims, that breed like flies, to out populate us and overwhelm our social welfare and medical plans to drain our already dwindling resources and pension plans in order to send our countries into bankruptcy and place an even greater stain on our struggling planet. Can the planet survive a culture that encourages men to have 4 wives and to reproduce to maximum capacity. Islam is the cancer of the earth in more ways than one.
OilCrash’s real motto is “Human beings, no damn good (except for me and people like me).”
P.J. O’Rourke titled a piece on the population hysterics “Just enough of me, way too much of you.” He noted that the horrifying examples Erlich presented of runaway population density always featured lots of disgusting brown people in places such as Karachi or Calcutta. Metropolitan areas such as NYC, Tokyo, or London never sparked the same panic.
I posted a link to this on my facebook page…this is a comment from one of my fb friends about the article. I thought it was interesting….
Chris Cherry
This after Discovery glorified the Sea Shepherd Conservation folks. They have blown up or rammed and sunk a number of ships, and proudly have the names painted on their ships like they were military honors.
I particularly love the irony where one of the Sea Shepherd ships was sunk after a collision, and they were crying on camera wearing hats embroidered with “Prepare To Ram”.
Whaling and population growth are weighty subjects best left to diplomats and philosophers – not vigilantes
You know if a certain person writing this post used training received by the United States Navy to disable and or scuttle one of the Sea Shepherd vessels, and were apprehended for such an action, the liberal outrage in the MSM would be monumentous.
That would be because “innocent” civilians were being hurt by some big bad “militant” person with “military” training. NO matter what spills out of Obama and his cronies mouths the fact is our soldiers and military are the the big bad guys because they’ve been trained to kill and those idiots who are ramming Japanese ships are the “heroes”.
I’m not a big supporter of whaling, but ramming ships to stop them is stupid and once again a bunch of nutjobs taking things into their own hands because they think they know better than the Japanese people I think that’s insanity. Mind you it’s interesting they’re also the kind of people who would say that the “Americanization” of the world is evil because one’s own “culture” is paramount. Well if that’s the case let them eat what they want! IMHO of course.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10199808
31 May 2010
muslims and their ignorant sympathizers attacked the BBC…
“More than 800 people marched through the city centre and down Oxford Road, where the crowd surged at the BBC’s entrance, smashing its front doors.
One man climbed to the top of the building to plant a Palestinian flag and there were at least three arrests.
Protesters said they were also angry about the BBC’s coverage of Israel.”
=========
You see, once the fanatics think they have you in the bag, any deviation from the narrative, even if factual, will bring retribution…
i just want to be clear are you,declaring the biblical scripture”teach the children in the way they should go and they will not depart from it;”is a lie?i say the bible was exactly right.that it is humanity’s own version of right and wrong,in conflict with god; that confuses our children,as well;society,as a whole;who give,and recieve mixed messages,of what is right,and what is wrong;what are truths,and what are,lies,or speculation.are you saying there is no connection,when an innocent child is molested,and justice was never served,against the predatorial pedophile,or is made to believe,what happened,to that innocent child,wasn’t rape.because he ,or she was told to trust them;that there isn’t a connection,if that child grows up to be a predatorial pedophile,themselves;sadly there are to many so called professionals;that claim that harming a childs body baaad’,and it is; but raping a childs mind,is not;i say thats a load of political/scientific/medical,voodoo,crap;evil knows that teaching children in the way they should go,and they will not depart from it is true;because they use this; biblical philosophy.to brainwash our children;in our schools,our media,our,entertainment,our politic’s,and,our perverted culture;children,learn,and will become like those who are their greatest,influences;whether for good,or for evil.”we are what we eat”although we do have a conscience,that knows right from wrong;(holy spirit vs.demonic spirits;)yes i said plural,when speaking of demonic spirits;because lucifer requires,and relies on collective salvation,in order to defeat,his enemies,and god requires,and relies,on individual salvation;in order to defeat his enemies;when the n.o.w.feminist organizaton,first formed their manifesto;was to kick fathers,out of their homes,put the women into the workforce,and put the children under there care,and atthority,and in one generation,we will own these childrens minds;in order to destroy the family unit;and have these predatorial,and deadbeat,poor excuses for humanity;having full control of the hearts, minds,, spirits,and bodies;against the rights,of these children’s parents,even when they object;yet when someone molest,rapes,or destroys a childs body;most call the predator,a pedophile,rapist,or a murderer.but when they do the same to a childs mind;”a mind is a terrible thing to waste;”we shrug our shoulders,and call it education,entertainment,politics,science,and culture;instead of calling them what they are;pedophiles,rapist,and murderers,of innocent,and vulnerable human beings;our mind,and our character,are humaniy’s greatest assets;and most fragile;as many of our greatest hero’s whose bodies were maimed in battle would testify;it was what was in their mind,and their character,that made them the hero’s they are.their bodies like our transportation is just the vehicle that made that possible;whenever someone like this al gore worshipping wacko’took these people hostage, he was individually responsible,for what he did;that is true;but the next time,politicians want to give trillions of taxpayer dollars,to scientist,and professors,to give the answers their special interest groups;want to sell for their own agenda’s to continue peddling perverted,deception,and propaganda;so these professional parkbench pedophiles can continue having access to other peoples children,against the rights and will of the parents who god give his atthority to;”teach in the way they should go;”no there are some really bad parents out there but whenever they are found guilty of negligence;we intervene and remove the children for their own protection.we do not give atthority to government,to charge all parents with negligence,because they think they are more qualified;these are the very one’s who think so;that are the one’s most likely to molest,rape,and murder,the very innocence they claim they care about;so they can,”teach your children in the way they want them to go so they will not depart from it;”jimmy joe “the liarfryer;”
Perhaps most disturbing? The number of people on left-wing blogs who have ignored Lee’s environmental and left-wing leanings and dismiss him as a nut — which he undoubtedly was — and who deflect along the lines of: “but look at the real violence on the right.” (Of course, without providing examples.)
No disrespect, but you’re not citing any examples, either.
http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2F2010%2F09%2F01%2Fdiscovery-channel-hostage_n_702308.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHuwgYFWE7e940F9-pLjSlzsj616w
Read the comments there. I included that link in the piece I sent to PJM, I have to conclude the formatting was lost between saving on googledocs and downloading to a. rtf file for submission.
Patrick
You’re wrong Pat, they will be ignored after someone dies also.
Well according to the University of Maryland and their research group Mr. Lee was an EcoTerrorist:
“COLLEGE PARK, Md. – A new report by terrorism researchers at the University of Maryland concludes that the deadly hostage-taking incident at the Discovery Communications headquarters in suburban Washington, D.C. meets the criteria of a terrorist act – a rare one for media organizations and the nation’s capital region. Hostage-taking, though, is a familiar pattern in capital-region terror, the researchers add.”
http://newsdesk.umd.edu/universitynews/release.cfm?ArticleID=2223
And for those that think that the left didn’t try to spin this as a “right wing” incident must not have seen the post the Center for American Progress put up on their blog Think Progress and the comments that ensued:
“zxbe says:
The right sows hate. This is the result.”
“eyeswideopen1 says:
Add one more to the body count produced by Faux Noise. Either as brainwashed believers or victims.”
“Add one more to the body count produced by Faux Noise. Either as brainwashed believers or victims.”
“tom says:
Add one more to the body count produced by Faux Noise. Either as brainwashed believers or victims.
I’m sure that Little Seanie Vannity, Limpballs and BeckyBoy are hard at work now to characterize this fruitcake as an “environmentalist”. ”
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/01/discovery-terrorist-immigration/
To me this is the logical end-point of moral relativism. When people no longer have intrinsic value, when animals are elevated to the same level as human beings, it is only “rational” that the dangerous ones (us) be eliminated to preserve the others. Of course, that kind of thinking implies at least some moral framework- that all living things are equally worth preserving. It seems to me that a TRUE rationalist and atheist would just subscribe to evolutionary theory alone, and if we run rampant over other species, as long as it doesn’t hurt us, so be it. I’m fine with that, too.
Lee is the perfect Poster Boy for environmental whackadoodlism. Of course the leftist, liberal media isn’t going to publish the truth about Lee and his crazy ideas because they actually “sympathize” with this CRAP.
Most would chalk up the media’s dismissal of this whackdoodle to ‘bias’. But it’s worse than that!
These people have lived within echo chambers (journalism schools, news rooms, professional organizations, etc.) for so long that they don’t even realize that they are biased. They actually believe that they are operating as objective journalists. They are operating on a feelings-based world view that has be instilled by their secular clergymen. We should not expect that these fellow travelers would do anything to expose the contradictions of one of their own!
Our paper printed an AP article that called Lee a ‘homeless man’. But he had a house, where the police found and detonated explosive devices? So much for fact checking.
Remember after Oklahoma City, President Clinton decried right wing radio for fomenting this violence?
Do you see anyone decrying the dirtbags who promote tree-hugging over human activities? No?
There’s your bias.
Actually, I believe Al Gore is just as responsible for Lee’s actions as Rush Limbaugh was for McVeigh’s. Perhaps that conclusion is so self evident that the media feel no compulsion to point it out.
Who am I kidding? I’m still waiting for the media to apologize for the nonstop slandering of the Tea Party as ignorant violent bigots. Which will come just after their mea culpa for irresponsible and unprofessional reporting on Katrina. Of for that matter, the “oops, my bad” for the endless litany of “Bush lied about WMDs” mendacity.
I’ve only read the first paragraph and already I see a fallacy.
You don’t have to be connected to any terrorist organization or group to be a terrorist. There are such things as “Lone Wolves”
Not according to the media, Frank. If the terrorism can’t be linked to the right, then it’s just an inexplicable event with no connection to anything at all. Witness the Ft. Hood shooter shouting “Allahu Akbar!”, the shooter at the El Al counter at LAX who walked past dozens of non-Israeli airlines to select his victims, the guy at UNC driving an SUV through a crowd trying to kill non-Muslims, nope, not acts of terrorism. Random events unconnected to anything at all.
We’re just going to keep whistling past the graveyard until… wait, did they guy own a shirt with the US flag on it? TEA PARTIER!!!!
Ecoterrorism, Ted Kazinsky, and James Jay Lee
The Unabomber–remember him?–was treated more benignly and received less negative press than just about any serial murderer in American history.
Dr. Theodore John “Ted” Kazynsky killed 3 people and injured 23 over two decades beginning in 1978, ending in 1995. Characteristic of his treatment by liberals, the left-leaning Wikipedia, while mentioning that killing spree, describes Kazynski as “an American mathematician and social critic” and “intellectual child prodigy,” within the first 58 words of its Ted Kazinsky article.
In other words, he may have been a murderer but he had redeeming values, especially that “social critic” feature.
Kazinsky wasn’t labelled an “ecoterrorist” primarily because that term had yet to be invented but he may be regarded as the inspirational godfather of ecoterrorism, the blazer of eco-trails who was followed by equally-disturbed psychopaths who got off by acts of arson, sabotage, bombing, and tree-spiking.
By coercion and threats of more killings via his chosen and cowardly technique of mail bombings, Kazynski succeeeded in having authorities publish his “Unabomber Manifesto,” the “fatal conclusion” of which has been summarized as: “Technological society is incompatible with individual freedom and must therefore be destroyed and replaced by primitive society so that people will be free again:” http://tiny.cc/10b2w
Paraphrased, Kazynski was saying that people can only attain true freedom, be free at last, if advanced societies return to the pre-Industrial Revolution Age–and return to the times of horse manure-filled streets, unchecked disease, lifespans of 40 years or so, astronomical infant mortality, reading by candlelight, etc.
Nice vision there, Ted! Sort of like life in Somalia today, the existence that today’s extreme Greens would love.
After being captured and diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, the Unabomber was tried, convicted and sentenced to life without parole.
Fast forward to September, 2010 and James Jay Lee, a 43 year old extreme green who was inspired by the Goreacle’s very imaginative and grossly incorrect film, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1882)
OilCrash: So what would be wrong with “programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility”? There are way too many people on this planet. My personal motto is “Human beings, no damn good.”
The answer to these people should always be the same:
So, “OilCrash”, who do you propose we eliminate first?
Nice vision there, Ted! Sort of like life in Somalia today, the existence that today’s extreme Greens would love.
Nice. That charge sticks to lefties far better than the libertarians it’s lobbied at (well, with the exception of complete idiots like Lew Rockwell, of course.