The Oslo Massacre and Violent Video Games: the Facts 343
An anonymous reader writes "Media hysteria is once again blaming a real life massacre on violent video games. But looking at every single gaming reference in the Oslo killer's manifesto shows that such accusations are ridiculous. He played games to unwind from plotting and used them to mask his activities."
The Oslo Massacre and Christianity (Score:5, Insightful)
..You never see THAT headline do you??
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I didn't see any video game headlines either until I came to Slashdot. If there's any media frenzy, it's about rightwing extremism. My newspaper was all about how he claimed to be a cultural conservative christian freemason who produced his own ideology about starting a European civil war. And they compared recent killing sprees in the West to the Malaysian concept of amok [wikipedia.org].
I still need to read TFA, but this is really the first time I've seen anyone mention games in relation to the Oslo killings. The violent
Massacre (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this being downgraded to a "massacre" now that we know the perpetrators aren't Muslim?
Call it what it was. It was a terrorist attack. That's a superset of massacre, and it wasn't merely some deranged nut suddenly going off--it was premeditated, and it was for political reasons. But it seems a lot of people are trying to push that under the rug.
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Don't make me come over there and terror your arse!
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"Terror" is a noun. "Terrorize" (or, since you seem to be speaking Her Majesty's variant, "Terrorise") is a verb, and a very old one [etymonline.com].
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if american english was good enough for jesus christ, it's good enough for me.
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Don't think so. Many battles have ended as massacres, and yet they involved no targeting of civilians for political ends.
You're full of shit.
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Re:Massacre (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither are likely enough to lose any sleep over or vote for someone to protect me from those evildoers of course. Fox news scares me even more than any type of terrorist combined.
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Somewhere there is a government official reading this and feeling their job is working. Keep everybody scared and they'll do what ever you ask.
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Re:Massacre (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, and I said to my girlfriend quite early on when this was hitting the news it was unlikely to be Al Qaeda, and, in Norway, was probably the far right, particularly when we heard about the shootings being carried out by the same guy that set the bomb, and the fact both attacks actually worked, the more news that came in about the fact the guy was ethnic Norwegian and it became more clear.
The profile was just wrong for Al Qaeda in Europe, but that's precisely what's scary. Al Qaeda has shown itself to be terribly inept, sure the Madrid train bombings worked, and sure 7/7 worked, but look at the latter- 4 suicide bombers and 52 casualties, vs. one gunman here and 76 casualties. The 21/7 bombings failed miserably, the failed London car bombs and subsequent Glasgow airport attack were a flop, the bomb attack in Sweden only took out the bomber and one else because he fucked up, and the underpants bomber failed miserably.
Al Qaeda relies on taking people who are willing to sacrifice their lives, and this by and large means taking on people who are, to put it bluntly, pretty fucking stupid. Because they're stupid enough to kill themselves, rather than do what this guy did- stay alive and create even more carnage, it almost certainly means they're pretty unlikely to be able to even pull off the plot succesfully.
Of course there are exception, 9/11 of course being the most notable, one might argue a large part the reason the plot succeded was because the US was innocent and naive to the threat of such terrorism at the time, but a degree of competence was required to learn to fly the planes.
But generally I fear the likes of the resurgent IRA activists, far right extremists, and outright nut jobs than I do Al Qaeda in Europe. Look at Derrick Bird, the guy who just lost it one day and went on a shooting spree in Cumbria, England- even he killed 12 people + himself, that's roughly the same as the number of victims per attacker in Al Qaeda's most succesful attack on UK soil to date - 7/7, and the only reason he didn't kill more is not because he was stopped, but because he seemingly came back to reality for a moment, realised what he'd done, and killed himself- if he was a determined attacker, he could likely have increased that count more. A similar story occured at Virginia Tech where a lone gunman who had simply flipped was more devastating and catastrophic than 7/7.
If we're going to consider terrorism a priority then we should at least be rational about it- stop profiling muslims and do a little more to deal with the real threats- the ones actually capable of doing some real damage. This Anders guy was smart, educated, motivated, but politically went off the rails, those former traits demonstrate how much more deadly a home grown extremist who wants to cause carnage more than they want to die rather than vice versa as commonly seems the case with most Al Qaeda attacks. Or to put it another way, the genuinely idealist, motivated, extremist intent on causing carnage is a far bigger problem than the brainwashed idiot, who basically just wants to die so they can go on to live a life amongst their freshly granted quota of virgins, the latter of which includes most of al Qaeda, because nearly all of al Qaeda's most vocal ideologists don't actually have the balls to follow through in furthering their ideology themselves.
As a Brit however, I also agree with you, it's nothing to lose sleep over, god only knows if the blitz didn't take out my grandparents, the IRA didn't finish my parents off in the 70s and me off in the 80s, and Al Qaeda haven't been able to touch me in the 00s I'm not likely to live in fear of terrorism if not only because that would mean terrorism was effective, and people not altering their lives because of it, means it's not- terrorism can only be terrorism if it actually effects change through terror. These people are such statistically insignificant threats to daily life that they should be treated as such, and thought of as such- less likely to cause you any harm than a rogue lightning strike hitting you on the head at the end of the day.
Re:Massacre (Score:5, Informative)
It wasnt "downgraded".
Here in Norway it is still being described as a terrorist attack.
The attack at Utøya is described as a massacre while the bomb was obviously a bombing.
These two attacks has to be differentiated when described for clarity so they are described that way.
Overall it is described as "the terrorist attacks" or a variation of that.
Do not for a second think this is some "downgrading" because of the nutjob being Norwegian.
I dont know who you feel are pushing it under the rug, but I dont see anything like that happening -here-.
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I assumed that the American media was downgrading it because it is a Christian attacking Muslim civilians, rather than the reverse. Maybe I'm wrong, though.
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I'm Norwegian.
There is a slight uncertainty in the amount of time he can be convicted for. I've seen some law students suggest that he can be convicted with reference to 'Straffeloven' Â61 . There are plenty of charges that can be laid down, all with the maximum of 21 years in jail. Â61 seems to open up for the possibility of doubling the term to 42 years (consecutive sentences). However, this might contradict Â17, which defines the maximum sentence to be 21 years. Â17 might be the
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One is not inherently juicier than the other.
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Of course you know what that means. Based on this one datapoint, family values cause terrorism.
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Why is this being downgraded to a "massacre" now that we know the perpetrators aren't Muslim?
Call it what it was. It was a terrorist attack. That's a superset of massacre, and it wasn't merely some deranged nut suddenly going off--it was premeditated, and it was for political reasons. But it seems a lot of people are trying to push that under the rug.
It was only downgraded on slashdot. In real life he has been charged with terrorism.
Re:Massacre (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's incorrect. Neither is a superset of the other, however you want to slice it.
You can have a terrorist attack that isn't a massacre. If someone used a radiological weapon for the express purpose of causing terror to further a political agenda, it would be "terrorism", but not a massacre - there might not even be any immediate deaths, though there would be terror without question.
You can have a massacre that isn't terrorism. All that requires is a large scale loss of life to violence without an express political aim or intent to spread fear. Examples range from genocide, to indiscriminate warfare, to deliberate acts of mass murder carried out by damaged individuals with no particular agenda.
Ven diagram is a better way to look at it. |Massacre|Terrorist Massacre|Terrorism| This was both, and can be called either a massacre or a terror attack.
I do agree however that the media called it "terrorism" when the bomb hit Oslo and the perp was unknown and shifted more to "massacre" when it became known that the attack was domestic rather than foreign. There seems to be a certain amount of denial around the idea that this terrorist is a white christian killing his countrymen instead of a brown muslim from some dusty corner of the middle east.
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I do agree however that the media called it "terrorism" when the bomb hit Oslo and the perp was unknown and shifted more to "massacre" when it became known that the attack was domestic rather than foreign.
I don't think that's even true. I think they were calling it a "terrorist attack" when it was a bomb blowing up a government building, and they switched to "massacre" when it was a guy with a rifle walking through a summer camp, picking off kids like Jason Voorhees.
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Might be. It depends on how much credit you want to give the media; whether they changed the wording based on the shooting or the shooter.
Regardless of how cynical you are toward the media reaction, I still think that, given the political manifesto, the attack ought to be called terrorism. Fits the dictionary definition to a T.
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Not all terrorist attacks are massacres - the attack might fail to kill anyone, but just because it failed doesn't mean it isn't a terrorist attack. And not all massacres are terrorist attacks, for the reason you explained - someone who is just a nutcase without political or religious motivation is not committing a terrorist attack. So super-set is the wrong word.
Re:Massacre (Score:4, Insightful)
Norway will probably remember it as the Utoya Island massacre.
That's doubtful. Not only because "Utoeya Island" is a tautology (oeya means "the island"), but because the Norwegian word for massacre implies an overwhelming force, and also has a viewpoint of the action, not the victim.
My guess is that it will be known as the Utoeya tragedy, and, indeed, that's how a few newspapers have already described it.
Norway will not forget, but they will remember it a different way than the US remembers 9/11. Norwegian culture is not based around revenge, and although there are those who in anger calls for it now, the Norwegian way would be to embrace everything the perpetrator was against, like tolerance and religious freedom. And expect the Labour Party to win overwhelmingly at the next election. That's how Norwegians will cope, by distancing themselves from the perpetrator and everything he stood for.
But they will always remember the tragedy.
Repeat, ad nauseum: (Score:5, Insightful)
The usual silliness.
You might as well blame the wetsuit manufacturer for making the wet suit he was photographed in for a youtube video, as it made him feel too much like James Bond.
The problem is not that he's a violent politically motivated murderer that plays video games.
The problem is that he's a violent politically motivated murderer.
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Oh, by the way, did anyone check what movies this guy watched? Not that a MOVIE would have anything to do with his actions... I mean, that would be absurd. A movie is just pictures on a screen, while video games are clearly both the motivation and the how-to guides of murderers.
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Same as 75% of the people reading Slashdot
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Premeditation (Score:2)
Surprise surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Not video games (Score:3, Insightful)
It appears that radical right wing thought, conspiracy theories, bigotry, and a healthy dose of nationalism is to blame, but god damn that's hard to shorten in to a catchy headline.
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So the guy who shot Giffords, and was a hyper-leftwing nationalist, full of conspiracy theories. We can blame on the left right?
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Considering that Gifords is a Democrat (Score:2)
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You can use google or any other search engine [thegatewaypundit.com] anytime. But that's just one of many.
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Unibomber. That wasn't hard now was it.
Monopoly (Score:2)
Personally I think Monopoly is the root cause of all the financial problems we're having for the past years.
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2.5% unemployment, 520$ billion dollars stashed away in a goverment fund for later spending, universil healthcare and ridicilously good unemployment benefits (80% of your last salary, available for 100 weeks as long as you're looking for a job). Apart from the odd massacre and a holier-than-thou-attitude we're fine thank you.
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just to be sure: I was referring to the subprime mortgages, wallstreet and we're-too-good-to-pay-sales-taxes-like-everybody-else-amazon and everything related to that.
Pft (Score:5, Informative)
His manifesto actually (readily available in english) makes a big deal out of how pretending to have a gaming addiction is really usefull for hiding nefarious activities. He wasn't a gaming addict, he was using it as a cover.
Also, if your media is one of those who kept harping on about this being muslims long after it was clear he was Norwegian you're probably better off without them either (I'm looking at you NY Times). The american coverage of this incident has been pretty much abysmal, and I'm sorry for being able to read english. I wish I couldn't.
However, while his gaming certainly didn't affect him, it's pretty clear that the fact that he was taking a coctail of anabolic steroids did. He even described it himself in his manifesto. To which extent we won't know until later, but we'll figure it out. There's plenty of time, and we have to grieve a bit of first.
Signed
A Norwegian
(Also; Glenn Beck; May you burn in hell)
Not a big topic in Norway (Score:3, Informative)
It has been mentioned in the media here in Norway, but it's really not part of the discussion about why he did this. His political beliefs (anti-Islam, anti-Labour Party, etc) is the focus now. In addition to how much of a lunatic this guy really is.
The manifesto is full of details about just about everything, so it's easy to pick one small thing and focus on just that. Remember that this document is something he put together and published before the bomb and shooting, knowing that it would be read trying to find an explanation for what he did. If he expected to die, this was to be his legacy, I guess. So who knows how much of it is true and how much is how he wanted us to look at things.
O'RLY? (Score:2)
Where is the Manifesto? (Score:2)
Re:Where is the Manifesto? (Score:4, Informative)
Found it. Thanks Wikipedia:
http://www.kevinislaughter.com/wp-content/uploads/2083+-+A+European+Declaration+of+Independence.pdf [kevinislaughter.com]
In looking for this, I found a Right Wing blog arguing that he was motivated by the belief in Evolution, another blog arguing that he was a liberal Al Queda sypathizer, a liberal blog arguing that he would be a member of the Tea Party if he lived in America and all of them using this 1500 pages of batshit insanity to justify their positions.
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It's hard to see how a guy who advocated a return to conservative Roman Catholicism, hated Islam, fancied himself one of the Knights Templar and despised and blamed those he viewed as Marxists as responsible for most of the ills of Europe as anything but a Far Right nut.
Re:Where is the Manifesto? (Score:5, Insightful)
My gut reaction agrees with you. I'm still flipping through the manifesto and a lot of it reads like what you would hear on Rush Limbaugh for the three hours that slime is on the air every day.
This guy wasn't stupid, and his insanity is of a psychopathic nature, not delusional. He killed all those people in a cold calculated stunt for attention. He's very well read, hates Muslims, hates socialism, hates hip-hop, believes in implementing population control on 3rd-world countries, has an extensive understanding of history that is completely biased, and, most of all, extremely Christian. I can easily see this manifesto being picked up by the militias in the United States and secretly admired as a great work. Scary.
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I can easily see this manifesto being picked up by the militias in the United States and secretly admired as a great work. Scary.
I don't see why you find that scary. Would you also find it scary if a nutcase killed a bunch of people after publishing a manifesto that is a slightly more extreme version of your political positions (whatever they are)?
The manifesto and the guy's ideas ultimately had little to nothing to do with his actions. They were justification and window dressing, but he could have used a completely different set of ideas just as well. And there may well be plenty of people in the US who would read his manifesto
Re:Where is the Manifesto? (Score:5, Insightful)
False equivalency. Whenever these terrorist attacks occur, it's a right-wing terrorist behind them. From the assassination of Dr. Tiller, to the attempted assault on the Tides Foundation, to the attempt to bomb the MLK Day parade in Spokane, to the bombing of a Democratic party primary in Arkansas, to the bombing of a mosque in Jacksonville, to the suicide plane crash into the IRS offices in Austin, to the Hutaree Militia's plans to bomb a police officer's funeral and spark a civil war... and that's just a sample of the attacks in the past two years alone.
When the left-wing eco-terrorists were operating decades ago, then yes, that was also scary and deplorable and turned a lot of people off to the cause of environmentalism. But today, right now, the terrorist attacks are coming from the right-wing, pseudo-libertarians. And they are being encouraged by Fox and Limbaugh and the Republicans, who are constantly on the air, reinforcing the notion that the government is illegitimate and that violent attacks ("second amendment solutions") are acceptable responses. The reason for the hate-mongering is clear - if you whip the masses into a frenzy, they'll get out and vote for you. And if you push some over the edge and they murder people, you can just deny responsibility.
The right-wing has fully embraced terrorism as a means to achieve their goals. And the scary thing is that it's working.
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Also, worth noting, there are hardly any extremist militias left, there are still militias around, but very few of the racist extremist "militias" that were the bogey man of the 90s.
incorrect [cnn.com]
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Extracting info from the document or convert from a Word file to a PDF file +
translation service
Itâ(TM)s easy to convert the document from a Word file to a PDF file or any other format
providing you have the Microsoft Word/Office software (preferably Word 2007 or newer).
If you do not have this software you can either download the free âoeWord Viewerâ which
allows you to view, print and copy Word documents, even if you donâ(TM)t have Word
installed. Just do a search for the key word âoeWord Viewerâ at the following site:
Clearly it's not his use of video games which make him a whack job but his excessive use of windows
and proprietary software.
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Found it. Thanks Wikipedia:
http://www.kevinislaughter.com/wp-content/uploads/2083+-+A+European+Declaration+of+Independence.pdf [kevinislaughter.com]
In looking for this, I found a Right Wing blog arguing that he was motivated by the belief in Evolution, another blog arguing that he was a liberal Al Queda sypathizer, a liberal blog arguing that he would be a member of the Tea Party if he lived in America and all of them using this 1500 pages of batshit insanity to justify their positions.
The way the news is going on, I was expecting it to be a modified Call of Duty manual, but it doesn't even get a mention till page 900. There is some cosplay too. Clearly that should be banned as well. Also the writing of 1518 page documents. Clearly that is the devil's true number. Let's ban reading and writing too. They convey terrorist ideas every day!
Media hysteria blaming video games? (Score:4, Informative)
The facts are, he was a right wing nationalist, conservative christian and idolizing the Knights Templar and the crusades.
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Kind of phoning it in at this point (Score:2)
There hasn't actually been any media "hysteria" around video games with this story, but I guess one hard up for ideas editor of - what is it even, an Australian gaming blog? - decides that there's life in the old girl yet.
Slashdot dutifully carries the thing, to stoke the requisite "nerd outrage" side of the story, but even that pretty much sputters out.
Can't we just agree that this one is not going t
Interesting observation about the media coverage (Score:2)
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They noted he had 3 firearms registered under him: a rifle, a shotgun, and a Glock. They did not use the generic term pistol or handgun like they did with the rifle and shotgun, they specifically mentioned the gun manufacturer. When I saw this, it made me stop and think for a minute.
You're barking up the wrong tree - this is cultural. Glock is the military handgun in Norway. If the rifle had been one used by the Norwegian military or universally known, it would have been named too, not just described as a rifle. Ruger Mini-14 would be meaningless to a Norwegian audience, but in a country with conscription, most people know what a Glock, AG-3 or HK-416 is.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Score:3)
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It's caused by people reading things on the internet but ignoring the true ones.
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Using the same logic as the anti-video-games movement, we should completely ban religion as clearly it encourages mass murder!
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Not to troll here, but Hitler and Stalin were both atheist AFAIK.
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If you believe the internet, Hitler was whatever the opposite of the person posting is. In point of fact, I'm pretty sure he wasn't much of anything. Deeply narcissistic individuals don't do religion, except insofar as they wish others to worship them.
And he did have a cult of personality.
Something similar seems to hold true for most leaders of totalitarian states. If you're The Leader, then you honestly expect others to treat you as either an actual god (see: various historical tyrants), an agent of god
Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
Christians are eager to mod you up even if your claim has no base in reality. That's so typical of religious folks.
Hitler was Christian in his public life. His mother and father were Catholic, but he personally identified more with teachings of Martin Luther. Maybe this was because Luther had very anti-Jewish views. In his book Von den Juden und ihren Luegen (On the Jews and Their Lies) Luther described jews as:
"base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth."
Seems like Hitler found a soulmate in Luther.
In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote:
" The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will. "
Those aren't words of an Atheist, are they?
Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
LOL
By killing Jews he did not put himself into conflict with the Christians, 5 min. looking into European history will tell you; Killing Jews is the great Christian pastime.
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angry Muslims
Angry Muslims? Is that the game where the birds throw themselves at pigs, effectively committing suicide bombings?
(in a perfect world, I wouldn't have to post this anonymously...)
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Go to the Telegraph's comments sections. There are a number of people posting there who have, I suspect, their own Knights Templar uniforms sitting in their closets. This guy isn't alone. I'm not saying his co-believers are common, but I suspect there are a few folks in Europe who harbor his dangerous delusions and narcissistic views.
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If you look at the comments under the first Slashdot story covering this, from when people still suspected the Muslims, you'll find several people agreeing with ABB's goals: a war against the Muslim world. Hos co-believers are far too common (more here than elsewhere, i suspect), but luckily very few of them agree with his methods or have the will to do what they think is necessary.
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"So that Breivik would have attacked Norway’s liberal Prime Minister and his party is horrifying – but it is therefore not terribly surprising: these are the politicians who, in the name of civil rights and equality, have made most of the concessions."
That sounds very much like blaming the victims... Let's see how that works:
"So that Hitler would have attacked the Jews is horrifying – but it is therefore not terribly surprising: these are the people who, in the name of civil rights and equality, have made most of the concessions."
"So that bin Laden would have attacked the people of New York is horrifying – but it is therefore not terribly surprising: these are the people who, in the name of civil rights and equality, have made most of the concessions."
For some reason, Forbes/Ms. Esman thinks it is reasonable to blame the "liberal" Norwegian victims for an attack in a way that she never would for other groups.
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Note also how Abigail R. Esman consistently uses the word "assimilate" rather than "integrate". She and her ilk won't be happy until she is unable to detect that someone has ties to cultures which did not develop in Western Europe. And when that is finally achieved, the crescent moon armbands will be brought in.
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If you get to the "Christianity" part, supporting Israel is strange. First, the promised land has already been given, the diaspora comes with the Roman destruction of the Temple but, by that time, Jesus had already spread the faith to the whole world. Some of the guys choose not to recognize Christ, to think they still have to get the promised land and await the Messiah? They are entitled to their opinion, but supporting this vision is not compatible with Christianity.
Yet nobody notices - or I am reading a
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"Why are Christians and "right-wingers" being blamed?
I guess you meant to write:
"Why aren't Christians and "right-wingers" being blamed?"
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Do you view Slashdot comments "raw"? If you do, you know that about 20% of Slashdot readers are Klan members. Sure, they get modded down, but they're not *erased*. This allows White Supremacy groups to communicate on Slashdot, where they know they have like-minded friends.
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I don't know where you got that 20% figure, but I can think of a few obvious flaws.
If a fifth of slashdot's regular posters were crazy racists, and even a fraction got mod points, you wouldn't have to read the "raw" comments, they'd get upmodded by their fellow crazy racists. Hell, I've seen more creationist drivel upmodded than racist drivel, which should tell you something right there. As it stands I've seen plenty of racist remarks coming from accounts posting at 0 or -1 or from ACs, but the fact that
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Ah, okay, I misunderstood. Or got too focused on the 20% figure.
Yeah, pretty much every corner of the internet has at least some crazy racists who frequent it. If you want an upside, they're fewer than they look; take the total number of racist remarks and filter out the obvious trolls, and then assume some of the rest are trolls being a little more subtle. Which doesn't mean the trolls aren't also racist (lots of people are at least a little racist and in denial about it), but it does mean that they are
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Do you view Slashdot comments "raw"? If you do, you know that about 20% of Slashdot readers are Klan members. Sure, they get modded down, but they're not *erased*. This allows White Supremacy groups to communicate on Slashdot, where they know they have like-minded friends.
You're obviously joking. Klan members can't afford computers let alone Internet access. They'd rather eat the packet carriers of RFC 1149 than learn to read and write.
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I think, in his warped mind, it's an "enemy of my enemy" thing. He has it in for muslims. Palestinians are muslims. Palestinians have a beef with Israel. Q.E.D he mentions Israel in positive terms in his manifesto. Doesn't make him any less bigoted.
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Honestly, I think I've seen more references in the mainstream news of Breivik's religion, politics and manifesto than I have of his preferred entertainment. In fact, the first link in TFS is the first such news story I've seen. Maybe I just don't follow the sorts of news outlets that jump on that anti-game bandwagon.
It might be that games are the default boogeyman in shootings when the killer doesn't give a motive - that explanation is offered when other explanations fail to pan out. When the perpetrator
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> the first link in TFS is the first such news story I've seen /. editors should know that readers here don't dream of rocket launchers for real life. Oh wait...
Well, it was obvious that Slashdot needed to plug into the biggest current story, and games was the way to go, despite the fact that all
Re:There hasn't been media hysteria (Score:5, Insightful)
What seems to be happening, typically, is that a number of groups are attempting to disown Breivik. I'm not sure why, as the media and the police have made it pretty clear this guy was a far right extremist, and hardly typical of the moderate right anywhere in Europe. Still, you see Christians nitpicking at his Freemasonry to claim he isn't Christian, conservatives trying to find ways to move him away from any kind of right wing ideology, Norwegians declaring him sort of alien species (despite the fact that there has long been a small right wing and neo-Nazi movement in Norway). I guess that's typical enough, people want nothing to do with this kind of person.
To my mind, and I don't even play a psychiatrist on TV, Breivik seems a very narcissistic type. I mean, this guy went to all the trouble to write a 1,500 page manifesto of his mutterings, make himself uniforms (the picture of him in his neo-Templar uniform is precious), and along with some other nuts (whose doors, I'm assuming, are already being busted down) played a very bizarre private fantasy. The events of a few days ago are sadly where Breivik's private fantasy tragically intersected reality.
It's hard to call the guy insane in the general use of the word. He clearly planned this, and if he did it himself, he's shown no lack of diabolical genius in setting of the bombs then making his way to the island to con a bunch of kids into gathering around him so he could blow them away. There's no denying that's a mad, crazy act, but this guy knew what he was doing. He still hopes, it seems, to use the court as his soap box, and while the judge has deprived of him it for several weeks, eventually this is going to go to court and the Norwegian and international press are going to have to make the hard decisions of how much of this guy's ranting they should report or not. Based upon current reporting, this will be to sensational for them not to repeat his every utterance, and so, at the end of the day, even if they throw Breivik into a deep dark hole and throw away the key, he's accomplished a good deal of what he wanted. He's got the exposure, he's got people of like mind posting all over the place trite messages about how "we deplore the his methods, but what he says makes sense!"
People will compare him to Timothy McVeigh, and to an extent, it does seem that kind of terrorist act, but in some ways Breivik reminds me more of one Colonel Hitler, and I suspect before this is done, every far right culture conservative out there from American white supremacists too Western and Central European neo-Nazis to Serbian racist thugs will be declaring this guy some sort of champion. Polite society certainly will reject him, but the wingnuts, well, he's the perfect poster boy, handsome, dashing and articulately mad.
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I meant "Corporal Hitler", btw, not "Colonel Hitler"
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I don't have any issue with this guys rantings getting out. I think we should read them and think about them, and if they're insane, discard them. But we shouldn't hide them.
How will we know if they're good ideas or not if we don't see them in their entirety? If we don't inspect and analyze them in detail? If we don't find the places that are morally unjustifiable and rip them to shreds?
As long as it remains a "1500 page manifesto" that no one has read, all kinds of people might believe that they agree with
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I'm not advocating censoring it. Quite the opposite. But let's not fool ourselves that like-minded people are going to look to Breivek's writings the way oodles of self-proclaimed revolutionaries have poured over Mao's Red Book or Hitler's Mein Kampf.
Re:There hasn't been media hysteria (Score:5, Informative)
But let's not fool ourselves that like-minded people are going to look to Breivek's writings the way oodles of self-proclaimed revolutionaries have poured over Mao's Red Book or Hitler's Mein Kampf.
Perhaps not, but they might look to his writings the way people looked at Osama bin Laden's writings. Or Geert Wilder's Fitna. The new European right-wing have constructed a narrative where immigration and Islamification simultaneously represents both an invading army and the ultimate evil to be confronted, and one which the "liberal" governments of Europe are unwilling to fight, leaving brave determined indigenous people as the only resistance.
It is a compelling narrative for people who are that way inclined, and I expect we will be seeing much more violence of this type in the coming decade; the Guardian obtained some illuminating undercover videos of the EDL [guardian.co.uk] (who Breivik has been associated with) , which has been called "the most significant far-right street movement in the United Kingdom since the success of the National Front during the 1970s". They have successfully attracted all sorts: skin heads, disenfranchised youths, football hooligans, etc. and are stepping up the game by attacking mosques and planning marches through areas with large numbers of non-whites [guardian.co.uk] in an obvious attempt at provoking violence.
The Tea Party sought an alliance with the EDL [guardian.co.uk] last year. Oddly, some right-wing Jewish organisations also seem to be supporting the EDL - you'd have thought that encouraging European ethnic-nationalism was a dangerous game for an ethnic minority to play, but apparently they forget history and believe "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
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They have successfully attracted all sorts: skin heads, disenfranchised youths, football hooligans, etc. and are stepping up the game by attacking mosques and planning marches through areas with large numbers of non-whites [guardian.co.uk] in an obvious attempt at provoking violence.
The EDL can't even muster decent numbers for a march most of the time. Their last effort, the police planned for the claimed 600 marchers, and had to police only 250 EDL members, who were seriously outnumbered by the anti-fascists who'd turned up for a counter-demo.
They've already called off one march through Tower Hamlets, because they'd get slaughtered. I'm sure they'll try to find a face-saving way of pulling out of the one planned for September as well. In much the same way as the KKK might act al
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People will compare him to Timothy McVeigh, and to an extent, it does seem that kind of terrorist act, but in some ways Breivik reminds me more of one Colonel Hitler, and I suspect before this is done, every far right culture conservative out there from American white supremacists too Western and Central European neo-Nazis to Serbian racist thugs will be declaring this guy some sort of champion. Polite society certainly will reject him, but the wingnuts, well, he's the perfect poster boy, handsome, dashing and articulately mad.
That's probably inevitable, but I doubt it will be as widespread as you suspect. As much as he tried to describe his ideology at length, it doesn't stand much scrutiny, and it doesn't necessarily intersect with the beliefs of a lot of right-wing groups here in the U.S.
He specifically went out of his way to criticize National Socialism as a dead end and categorically stated that his "Neo Templars" were not a Nazi group, so that could alienate him from some neo-Nazis right there. (At the same time, he does se
Re:There hasn't been media hysteria (Score:5, Informative)
(Maybe his aversion to "marxism" explains his distancing himself from "national socialism"?)
He distances himself from National Socialism because it is anti-Jewish. In his ideology, Israel is the frontline in a global fight against Islam, and Jews are the foot soldiers. They aren't Christians, and he probably doesn't want them living in Europe, but he's quite happy for them to be fighting his war in the Middle East.
There has been a very odd change in European extremism since 9/11 - the Jews, who were traditionally seen as the underhand enemy, manipulators of the banks, purveyors of the New World Order etc., have been embraced as brothers against Islam. This change isn't universal among extremists, but it is significant. I suspect the switch is purely one of convenience, and if these people were ever to gain power, then the Jews would be removed from Europe shortly after the Muslims and black people.
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That's an interesting point.
In fact, not only does Breivik have pretty much the attitude toward the Jews that you describe, he extends the same sentiments to "Hindus," a term he uses to mean pretty much every non-Muslim population in Asia, including Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists. That would be a pretty unusual position for your run-of-the-mill American racist.
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Interesting, yet Breivik's use of the term doesn't really jibe with any of that description. He does make mention of the Frankfurt school, but he seems to feel the most overriding effect of "cultural marxism" is the spread of multiculturalism and the loss of "traditional European values," none of which is really mentioned in that article. The phrase is mostly just Breivik's code word for the vast global conspiracy that he perceives to be eroding everything he holds dear (no matter what it is).
Central Europe (Score:2)
" every far right culture conservative out there from American white supremacists too Western and Central European neo-Nazis to Serbian racist thugs will be declaring this guy some sort of champion. Polite society certainly will reject him, but the wingnuts, well, he's the perfect poster boy, handsome, dashing and articulately mad."
Well, the Hungarian far-right (Jobbik, MIÉP) is pro Palestinian, and anti Israel, and don't have much gripe against muslims, or immigrants, as there are very few immigrants
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You're right - why, that's hardly any difference at all!
It's even more ironic than you realize, all those who want to foist onto others their judgment that murder is wrong also use the law to force people to accept their preconceptions. Just like the shooter!