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Discovery channel gunman's militant manifesto
The origins of Discovery Channel gunman James J. Lee's disturbing manifesto.
Thu, Sep 02 2010 at 7:06 AM
Screenshot of James J. Lee's MySpace page. (Photo: AP)
By now, you've probably read the news story about James J. Lee's standoff at the Discovery Channel yesterday. Now that the standoff is over and the hostages are safe, the world has turned its focus to the manifesto this madman left behind, a manifesto that's about as anti-kid as you can get.
"Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution."
These words are from the manifesto that was posted on a website allegedly run by Lee. Here's more:
"All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions."
What makes a man hate children (and I'm assuming all humans) so intensely? The speculation is that it all comes down to a book Lee read four years ago. The man was obsessed with the Daniel Quinn book "Ishmael", a 1992 novel featuring a telepathic ape that discusses solutions for humanity's problems. The book apparently led Lee to believe that humans must stop reproducing to stop overpopulation.
"Saving the Planet means saving what's left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies!" he wrote on his website.
Lee developed these militant beliefs less than four years ago, but in that those few short years, he evidently felt strongly enough about his manifesto that he was willing to die for it.
Also on MNN:
- What is environmental extremism? James J. Lee isn't the first to follow this path
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For those that think Lee is a madman, see this interesting observation of Lee and his motivations.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-zimmerman/a-deeper-meaning-in-the-...
Lee was wrong - taking hostages, using explosives to threaten harm are the actions of a madman.
Sadly, Lee is right. Each day we watch more forest coming down for parking lots and the planet doesnt get any bigger. His anger is really frustration at humanity's collective inability to look beyond our individual needs (more money, better car, children, entertainment, etc). I suspect that if we lived on a planet sustainably (i.e., zero polutation growth and all resource consumption is renewable) he'd have no problem with people.