Anders Breivik -- unlike his 92 (and counting) victims -- is still very much alive and with us, so we will no doubt hear more from the man as his eventual trials progress to explain why he embarked on the worst terrorist attack in Norway's history on Friday.
And he is already explaining himself through his attorneys:
Breivik's lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said the 32-year-old accepts responsibility for his actions.
"He thought it was gruesome having to commit these acts, but in his head they were necessary," Lippestad said.
Breivik claimed that he acted alone, wanting to attack Norwegian society in order to change it, Sponheim said. But police say the investigation still open to the possibility that Breivik had help.
Moreover, Breivik already created an intentional record, perhaps to leave behind should he not survive the attacks, explaining his motives, as we noted yesterday in discussing his online postings.
Now there's more: namely, a pair of manifestoes. The first one is a 1,500-word document he claims he worked on for nine years, titled "A European Declaration of Independence" (VND.OPENXMLFORMATS-OFFICEDOCUMENT.WORDPROCESSINGML.DOCUMENT - 4.45 MB). The second is a video, the entirety of which appears below the fold.
From Canada's National Post:
Written under the name Andrew Berwick but believed to have been authored by the terror suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, it calls for a violent right wing revolution across Europe “before our major cities are completely demographically overwhelmed by Muslims.”
The lengthy text, which is written entirely in English and displays a singular obsession with Muslims, is focused on European countries but also mentions Canada several times. It cites Canada as a country that uses hate speech laws “to silence infidels” who criticize Islam.
The author claims to have spent nine years and hundreds of thousands of Euros on the manifesto. “Breivik’s goal with the book appears to be to convince others of his worldview and draw others to the cause,” the U.S.-based SITE said.
The book, as well as a video in which Mr. Breivik appears holding an automatic weapon, were both titled “2083 – A European Declaration of Independence.” The white supremacist manifesto ends with a sign off that is chilling in retrospect. “I believe this will be my last entry. It is now Fri July 22nd, 12.51.”
Breivik believed his rampage was the means to "market" these ideas -- and no doubt they will gain many more readers than they ever would have. Having read and reviewed them, however, I'm fairly confident that the only thing he'll have achieved is to permanently discredit views like his -- which in fact are fairly widespread on the Right, both in Europe and in the USA.
Breivik's manifestoes remind me a great deal of the manifesto left behind by an American right-wing terrorist who tried to embark on a similar rampage targeting as many liberals as he could kill, but who was considerably less successful: Jim David Adkisson, the Knoxville church shooter, who exhorted his readers to "Go Kill Liberals". His manifesto was functionally the logical absurdio ad reductum of the hatred spewed daily by the Fox News talking heads and radio pundits whose works filled his library -- whose wording it rather closely reflected in the leadup to the exhortations to violence.
Likewise, Breivik's work is largely a regurgitation of ideas and claims that have been circulating on the Right for a long time, including mainstream sources such as Fox News and Andrew Breitbart. There's nothing original here -- except that he, like Adkisson, simply takes the "logic" (as it were) of the cultural warriors he parrots and ratchets it up the next logical step into violent action.
Chip Berlet has been analyzing the written manifesto, and has some keen observations:
Breivik thought Cultural Marxists=multiculturalists=Islamization of Europe. This racist right-wing conspiracy theory is tied to the Islamophobic "Demographic Winter" thesis. In his online posts, Breivik considered himself a cultural conservative and condemned "Cultural Marxism." The idea of "Cultural Marxism" on the political right is an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that a small group of Marxist Jews formed the Frankfurt School and set out to destroy Western Culture through a conspiracy to promote multiculturalism and collectivist economic theories.
Breivik's video is really just a recap of his written manifesto:
Now comes the hard part: Convincing authorities, once again, that right-wing extremist terrorism really is a problem worth addressing adequately -- both in Europe and the USA. As the Hindu Times reports, the problem has been steadily worsening in Europe and has been largely ignored:
Europol's 2010 report, in fact, presented a considerably less sanguine assessment of the situation. Noting the 2008 and 2009 arrests of British fascists for possession of explosives and toxins, the report flagged the danger from “individuals motivated by extreme right-wing views who act alone.”
The report also pointed to the heating-up of a climate of hatred: large attendances at white-supremacist rock concerts, the growing muscle of fascist groups like Blood and Honour and the English Defence League, fire-bomb attacks on members of the Roma minority in several countries, and military training to the cadre.
Yet, the authors of the 2011 Europol report saw little reason for alarm. In a thoughtful 2008 report, a consortium of Dutch organisations noted that “right-wing terrorism is not always labelled as such.” Because “right-wing movements use the local traditions, values, and characteristics to define their own identity,” the report argued, “many non-rightist citizens recognize and even sympathize with some of the organization's political opinions”— a formulation which will be familiar to Indians, where communal violence is almost never referred to as a form of mass terrorism.
Thomas Sheehan, who surveyed the Italian neo-fascist resurgence before the 1980 bombings, arrived at much the same conclusion decades ago. “In 1976 and again in 1978,” he wrote in the New York Review of Books, “judges in Rome, Turin and Milan fell over each other in their haste to absolve neo-fascists of crimes ranging from murdering a policeman to ‘reconstituting Fascism' [a crime under post-war Italian law]”.
“When it comes to fascist terrorism,” Mr. Sheehan wryly concluded, “Italian authorities seem to be a bit blind in the right eye.”
The same could be said of American authorities, including the Obama administration, which actually cut its Homeland Security unit devoted to tracking right-wing extremism.
The problem may well originate with the media, which have steadfastly ignored the problem, thereby creating no political constituency for addressing it. That may be the place to start pushing for a solution as well -- especially before we get our own homegrown Anders Breiviks, acting out to defend white America from immigrant invaders.



Read the easily found via Google "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and you will underrstand exactly where this dude got his ideas. This was a made-up screed that claims to be a reason for anti-semitism as what's wrong with the world.
Can it happen here? Already has. It just hasn't been labeled as such in the media."We want our country back!" is another way of expressing what he writes and says and does.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
"The video that Anders Behring Breivik posted on YouTube before he attacked Oslo City with a bomb who killed 7 people, and atferwards killed almost 90 youth people at Utøya outside Oslo"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAwp2FnRmsE
ON EDIT:
This cold blooded murderer of children now wants to appear 'in uniform'. What sort of uniform condones the slaughter of dozens of unarmed children?
wanting to hear this man's reason's for doing such a gruesome act of violence and being willing to give this man a forum for presenting his "message" to the world.
Only when the last tree has died
and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught
will we realize we cannot eat money.
...in our system, he was so obviously deranged that it overruled him having his day in court. So far. This man's reasons have lots of adherants around the white, Christian world. He appears sensible in the photos released so far. It remains to be seen how this plays out. But I don't expect it to play nearly as much in this country as say, for example, the murder trial and acquittal that recently took up everybody's soap opera minds.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
Just like mistletoes.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
or dil-does?
Sadly there's a rebirth of Neo-Naziism, rightwing nationalism and intense Islamophobia throughout Europe.
David Neiwert covers it here in the US, and every time I read a similar story in The Guardian or other European news source I realize it's certainly not limited to the US. If anything it seems to be a bit more virulent in Europe.
The Death Penalty was outlawed in Norway in 1905.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
"the hard part, ....convincing authorities, once again, that right-wing extremist terrorism really is a problem worth addressing adequately has been steadily worsening in Europe and has been largely ignored"
I say:
Maybe thats because europeans are statistically more likely to die from attending a liposuction clinic or a bee sting perhaps?
Europeans are way more worried about the illegal NATO bombing of Libya than they are about lone nutcases?
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
David Niewert?
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
...(I would do it) ...but he won't talk to me apparently.
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
If there was ever an exception to the rule, this is it.
to force this vermin to serve several consecutive life sentences.
from British philosopher John Stuart Mill:
"One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."
Obviously he's insane. One could only be characterized as a total psychopath to do what he did.
Yet we watch the United States maneuver a drone over Afghanistan and "accidentally" kill 30 innocent civilians with the move of a "joystick" and the push of a button somewhere in the middle of Utah.
But that's just "the price of the GWOT".
Fighting terror with more terror which begets more terror seems to be equally psychopathic to me.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
seriously now David, who is the bigger wack job, Anders or Dick Cheney ???
...I have to call bilge on this; "Obviously he's insane. One could only be characterized as a total psychopath to do what he did."
It may make people feel better to believe that only a madman could commit such an act but there has been nothing reported that indicates Breivik is anything but a cold blooded right wing terrorist with an agenda.
Embarrassing to admit, but until you pointed it out, I hadn't noticed that "joystick" irony. I knew the facts but didn't see that connection among them. Thanks!
Eliminationist Nationalist Rightwinger: "Kill all the bad guys the world will be a better place."
Eliminationist American Foreign Policy: "Kill all the bad guys the world will be a better place."
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
snappy uniforms and shiny planes
Terrorist
Alfie46
Another Christian Terrorist.
FIFY...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
behind misguided notions of superiority. They all disgust me.
---
what is worse, ignorance or indifference?
I don't know and I don't care!
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
I've found that people generally respond more readily when you take the time and interest to spell his/her name correctly. Just sayin'...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
I have always opposed the Patriot Act as an unnecessary overreaction and probably unconstitutional. And I've always been clear about it: see here, here, here, here, and here.
I'm actually rather offended you would think so, but then, I'm sure you don't care.
...what do you think Europe should do about it's little problem? ...other than a European version of the Patriot act?
(according to you) ...homegrown terror is a bigger threat that al-cia-duh and we have spent trillions on the war on terror so far...and passed a bunch of laws that stripped our constitutional rights
so logically you should want to spend a lot of money on some sort of security to cover our "blind spot" ?
what should we do? get more naked body radiation scanners?
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
they should at least acknowledge as a society that there IS a problem
...acknowlege that there is a large problem with vending machine deaths.
copy/paste:
"You're twice as likely to die crushed under a vending machine as you are to die in a terrorist attack, according to this source"
http://www.mattbarr.com/archives/2006/09/your...
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front have been non-terrorist, anti-multiculturalists in the mainstream of French politics for decades, never mind that Asian and African colonials not only died fighting for France in two World Wars, but were also recruited to France to make up for the labor shortages that followed those two wars. You could say much the same thing for the UK, considering their own up-and-down National Front and its campaigns against former colonial South Asian, African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants there. In Germany, it's the Turks who are considered second class.
So, yeah, Europeans- especially "native" Europeans- may be more likely struck by lightning, but it doesn't mean they should tread all over those who moved to their nations to help rebuild them.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Down In The Tube Station At Midnight
Just for you Milquetoast. A song from 1978, the heyday of the UKs NF, about a South Asian immigrant who's beaten to death.
The distant echo of faraway voices boarding faraway trains
To take them home to the ones that they love and who love them forever
The glazed dirty steps, repeat my own and reflect my thoughts
Cold and uninviting, partially naked
Except for toffee wrappers and this morning's papers
Mr. Jones got run down
Headlines of death and sorrow, they tell of tomorrow
Madmen on the rampage
And I'm down in the tube station at midnight
I fumble for change, and pull out the Queen
Smiling, beguiling
I put in the money and pull out a plum
Behind me......
Whispers in the shadows, gruff blazing voices
Hating, waiting
"Hey boy" they shout, "have you got any money ?"
And I said "I've a little money and a take away curry, I'm on my way home to my wife.
She'll be lining up the cutlery,you know she's expecting me
Polishing the glasses and pulling out the cork"
I'm down in the tube station at midnight
I first felt a fist, and then a kick
I could now smell their breath.
They smelt of pubs and Wormwood Scrubs
And too many right wing meetings
My life swam around me
It took a look and drowned me in its own existence
The smell of brown leather
It blended in with the weather
It filled my eyes, ears, nose and mouth
It blocked all my senses
Couldn't see, hear, speak any longer
And I'm down in the tube station at midnight
I said I was down in the tube station at midnight
The last thing that I saw
As I lay there on the floor
Was "Jesus Saves" painted by an atheist nutter
And a British Rail poster read "Have an Awayday, a cheap holiday, Do it today!"
I glanced back on my life, and thought about my wife
Because they took the keys, and she'll think it's me
And I'm down in the tube station at midnight
The wine will be flat and the curry's gone cold
I'm down in the tube station at midnight
Don't want to go down in a tube station at midnight
Don't want to go down in a tube station at midnight
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
in the mirror.
.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
It would be amusing if people slipped and accidentally referred to Breitbart as Breivik, the same way Pubelickins accidentally slip and refer to Obama as Osama.
:D
The guy is not an anti-Semite, he specifically rejected Nazism and he is pro-Israel. Thus he is arguably not a Nazi.
Doesn't make him any less of a monster however.
As stated before, Arabs are Semitic people...
Therefore, would it not be more accurate to say that he doesn't hate Jews?
In the marketplace of ideas, too many people shop in the bargain basement.
-- Thunder BlueRose
Why, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU
http://saxman.bravepages.com
The language group is named for an ancient Sumerian tribe, the Semites, from Shem, the son of Noah. Abraham was a Semite.
The term anti-Semite was coined in the 19th Century by a German anti-Semite who used the term specifically as a reference to the Jews, the descendents of the Semites.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I am aware of the etymology, Andy...
But it is rather like saying only English are white people... inaccurate, and misleading... always has been.
In the marketplace of ideas, too many people shop in the bargain basement.
-- Thunder BlueRose
Why, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU
http://saxman.bravepages.com
...was coined with Judaism, the inheritor of the (tribal) Semites' traditions in mind- especially those in Europe at the time.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Hmmm... Arabs would disagree that the followers of Judaism are the only descendants of Abraham, and I would say that the term was coined by those who might have had and have a vested interest in denying the Semitic label to others... cousins do that... even those who've married in (the Ashkenazim).
In the marketplace of ideas, too many people shop in the bargain basement.
-- Thunder BlueRose
Why, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU
http://saxman.bravepages.com
Yeah, and they'd probably also disagree that that they were committing an act of cultural imperialism by claiming that the Temple Mount is the point of origin for Muhammad's visit to Heaven (after making the trip from Mecca to Jerusalem in one night) and building the Dome of the Rock above the Holy of Holies...but they were. IMO, that claim to an Abrahamic tie to anything other than Muhammad's religious creation is another example of of cultural imperialism.
(And don't get me wrong here- I think that most of Judaism's back-story is pretty fabulist, too, but Judaism seems to have been a creation of lower class Canaanites who were native to the area and the Semites who had escaped slavery in Egypt- watch this- and weren't committing an act of imperialism, but simply creating a new identity for themselves rather than an invasion or imposition of a culture. )
And, again, the term anti-Semite was coined by an anti-Semite who was talking about Jews, not Arabs. Islam had a European presence at the time only in the lower Balkans, and the Muslims there weren't Arabs but Turks. Jews, otoh, were all over Europe, and, as an identifiable minority, scapegoated, ya know?
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
And, Ashkenazim are Eastern European... Sephardim are Semitic.
In the marketplace of ideas, too many people shop in the bargain basement.
-- Thunder BlueRose
Why, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU
http://saxman.bravepages.com
Stating this as one with an Ashkenazic grandfather, and Sephardic grandmother, BTW.
In the marketplace of ideas, too many people shop in the bargain basement.
-- Thunder BlueRose
Why, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU
http://saxman.bravepages.com
As tribalists, whether here, in Norway, in the Middle East, or Africa, or even China. It doesn't matter. Cancervatives are a problem all over the world.
Gee Who'd a thunk.
People in Oklahoma City?
Don't have much time today so I didn't read all the comments. But I just want to say this about all these right wing terrorists and their violence:
Look you assholes, every one of you is espousing some foolish shit that has already gotten your ancestors killed or-- if they were lucky -- just humiliated. When you finally piss the civilized people with brains off enough, they (and by that I mean we) will crush you once again for another hundred years or so. You are a disease that keeps coming back.
off of these kid's horrible death. Michele Bachmann will get more coverage on FOX and CNN. Rupert Murdoch gets a weekend off (to propagate yet more hate, lies and incite more violence.) As we read, there are doubtless hundreds of creepy, slimy sociopath assholes tapping-away at keyboards, drunk or high... trying to out spin all the other sick NPD/BPD afflicted K Street wannabes. Noose Corpse will be flinging memos, e-mails, Tweets hither and yon; like Hitler in his bunker, the day Roosevelt died. Trying to squeeze more offhand hate, cynical dissemblance and dead-eyed inhuman lust for power, money or notoriety from yet another in a cascading tumult into a new Dark Ages. Wôdan "Frenzy" is their perfect god. When Rick Perry and his Klaven of Nazi hate mongers hurl bigotry, lies and fear; just what will all the decent, honest Christians say? The Patriotic Americans who KNOW why this nation was once so special, a beacon to all people worldwide; what will they say? This man would just as gladly murdered any of us or our families for his sick, empty hatred; simply because we love each other and hold to what we know is right and worthy about Democracy, crave justice, honor truth, ethics and strive for equality. These evil monsters wish to cow the good people and return us to slavery to God's anointed Nobility. Bullshit! The very worst people will somehow consolidate their power and control each and every time those who hurl hate send these monsters to murder us. Remote controlled, intricately programmed drones. Breitbart, Beck, Palin, Perry will grow in power and wealth. Nobody's shooting them, coldly and casually at close range. And our lives will consist of hiding from our perfectly realistic fears, dreads and powerless and the government we elected will do nothing...
Ho hum... Where was I? White pizza (with Scamorza) and bacon or Guanciale & mushrooms? Maybe some Arrogant Bastard and french fries? http://gizmodo.com/5709630/what-is-loic
Don't do it my friend! All good pizza comes with scimortz but you absolutely NEED sauce. . . but you rock anyway. I loved your post.
It's Manhattan out, so white sounded right. But the delivery took a while; so sorry everybody about the rant. I just keep waiting and waiting, for the Christians to get fed up with this monstrous blasphemy (not the churches... read Homage to Catalonia as a dum Catlik kid.) To summarize: these silly-ass motherfuckers are the exact opposite of Christians, churlish traitors to America and pathetically anathema to everything WHITE. Since when is being a petulant, sniveling little bitch (obsessing about your Nordisk SS Vidkun Quisling action-figure costume) a masculine trait, when there are innocent children to massacre? When does being a White man consist of attitude, affectation and excuse? Assholes all the very epitome of everything they profess to hate... and wish to exterminate. They don't even know when they're watching a commercial (after their puerile gullibility, drooling avarice and loutish grandiosity destroyed the planet's economy) and now... it's ALL just advertising. Back to sleep!
heavily plagiarizes that of "unabomber" ted kaczinski
I don't even want to know how one can get this f**ked up in the head.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
lots of people ... people right next to you, behind you, think this way ... they don't all take action, but they think it
we should take care not to portray breivik's ideas as somehow extraordinary, just his actions ... because we desperately need to have those people who think like him to take a long, hard look at themselves ... they won't if we simply dismiss him as a crazed monster
But I still don't want to know how one can get this f**ked up in the head. I'm not just talking about the thought process but also the incessant planning, 1500 page manifesto, and final acts of mass murder.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
...is a bigger badder version of the Patriot Act ...and a European version of the Department of Homeland Security on steriods and a super expensive "department of pre-crime"
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
Hahahahahhh! Feel better now?
The patriot act is designed to suppress and control the citizenry, not to protect us from right wing extremists. The people who enacted it don't even acknowledge that right wing extremists exist.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
"The patriot act is designed to suppress and control the citizenry"
I say:
That sounds funny as hell coming from someone who voted for Obama!
(Obama voted to re-authorize that sucker multiple times!)
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
Deflection - it's not about Obama.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Thank you!
'Talk to the hand'
If this information pans out, then i'd suggest Rupert Murdoch and his empire are guilty of far more than illegal hacking. This would not be the first right wing mass killer to be instructed by Murdoch's hate propaganda, and if Murdoch, FOX channel, and their foot soldiers aren't post haste, it won't be the last.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
insist on calling it terrorism, mass murder yes, as Christiane Amanpour called it this morning, a massacre, it is only terrorism if there is a threat of continued violence. You are determined to bring about more patriot acts, and the spokesman for Norway said that they will not allow that to happen in their country, please get it right, if you can't even define terrorism, you can't fight it.
Terrorism:
Tell me this bartfarb, how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
violence isn't terrorism, coersion and the threat of more violence is, so if we don't know what terrorism is, we can't fight it. sorry. so put this guy in jail, but inflaming rhetoric makes for more patriot acts, and more searches at airports, maybe they will find a 6 year old hiding a machine gun, and they can search old ladies in wheel chairs, but calming down and using the proper language is better. Everyone is now a suspect, we were citizens with rights and a little dignity.
Uh sorry, but you are just wrong. Use of violence against innocents forcing them against their will to change their political beliefs or follow a different set under fear of said use of violence is to me the very definition of terrorism. This man didn't just go off on a random shooting spree. He made a choice, and a plan based on his political leanings, expecting a particular result. Yes this man is a terrorist, yes he did commit an act of terrorism.
We don't need any patriot act. We just need intelligence agencies to point their attention onto the right places, and that includes onto the right wing terrorists in out midst.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Le derp?
concern trolls can be hilarious some times. Come on say it: he is white, Christian, and conservative so he can't be a terrorist, only brown people are. I know yer itching to say it...
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
i spent all day yesterday arguing with an acquaintance that he shouldn't jump the gun on blaming muslim extremists for the attacks in norway, an argument that degenerated into his giving me a litany on how muslims and islam are the root of all evil in the world ... echos of behring breivik's manifesto, his bigotry couched in callous rationality, his soldier-of-god-like righteousness
i should clarify that he is a former acquaintance
Surprise, surprise! This guy wrote his own version of 'Mien Kampf', calls for a race war, and to influence people by killing all those who disagree with him! Our hero ladies and gentlemen!
"Sarcasm mode off"
How is this guy any different than the Fox News watcher that marched into a church a few years back with the intention of "killing liberals" --- except for more weapons and access to a great deal of fertilizer?
Only when the last tree has died
and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught
will we realize we cannot eat money.
His writings and video are so silly I don't even know what to say. And did he really call them "manifestos"? Because that would be quite ironic.
= Christian fundamentalism
Ed-words
Dave, I remember several years ago coming across a reference to this whole notion of the Frankfurt School having created "political correctness." (It was probably from one of your Orcinus posts.) As I recall, the Council of Conservative Citizens was pushing some DVD on it at the time, maybe the same one mentioned in Chip Berlet's post you link here.
I've been aware of the actual Frankfurt School authors and their school of "critical theory" since my undergraduate time. And I've done some additional reading on them in recent years. "Frankfurt School" is shorthand for the Institut für Sozialforschung/Institute for Social Research, which had its first institutional home at the University of Frankfurt. This is the English version of the Institute's history at their website: http://www.ifs.uni-frankfurt.de/english/histo... It has a bibliography list, including histories of "critical theory" by Martin Jay and Douglass Kellner.
It made some kind of warped sense to me on the surface that far-rightists would pick the Frankfurt School as a bogeyman of multiculturalism. The most prominent figures associated with them were Jewish and they understood themselves as Marxists as well as Freudians. Since the far-right equates even American liberalism with Communism, no amount of actual history would persuade them of a more nuanced picture. But two of the most famous Frankfurt School writers, Franz Neumann and Herbert Marcuse, worked for the US wartime Office of Strategic Services doing intelligence analysis on Germany. And anyone who has read (or attempted to read!) an essay by any of the three core Frankfurt School figures - Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Marcuse - will seriously doubt whether even the more intellectually inclined among the Christian nationalist crowd have much direct exposure to what they actually wrote.
Lately I've been reading through the five studies in the "Studies in Prejudice" series, the results of a research project sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and led by Horkheimer, the most famous of which is The Authoritarian Personality. The AJC has made the texts available at their website: http://www.ajcarchives.org/main.php?GroupingI... Reading through these, it occurred to me that this set of studies may particularly irritate the present-day Radical Right because of its careful analyses of the crackpot right of the 1940s.
Those were Old Right isolationists. But their kindred spirit to the Tea Party of today is readily evident, particularly in Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator by Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman. The AJC also has a typed, 4-page report from Lowenthal on a local 1945 meeting of a far-right group called the Christian Front that I found interesting reading. The website doesn't link it directly; you have to search for Leo Lowenthal and look for "Surveillance report on a Christian Front meeting in New York."
I have read the entire manifesto and have written seven major conclusions about Breivik and his motivations for the attacks. I have also provided a description of the full contents of the manifesto along with photos. Pls. visit and feel free to repost.
http://shortlittlerebel.wordpress.com/2011/07...
Short Little Rebel
www.shortlittlerebel.wordpress.com
How many times are you gonna post this link?
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
I've got a major disagreement, however: I don't think that Brevik is, in any way, insane. Certainly has his neuroses, and he's a sociopath, but he knows what is reality and what is not.
In a way- but not in a moral way at all- Breivik is a lot like John Brown. In both cases, we're looking at people who felt driven by political/religious beliefs. Where Brown never claimed God sent an angel so that Brown would do His bidding, Breivik hasn't claimed he received orders from the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. Both seemed to think it wise to use arms as a call to arms.
That isn't insane. It's terrible, it's foolish, it's uncivil...But it isn't insane. Breivik, like Brown, knew exactly what he was doing, and what he wanted to achieve by doing it.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
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