2011 Oslo/Utoeya Norway attacks

Just saw the latest news w.r.t. death toll and figured it's time for a separate thread.

So in total we're talking about at least 91 people killed, so far linked to only one perpetrator (Anders Behring Breivik (32)) who's posted as a nationalist and anti-multiculturalist online.

links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/world/europe/23oslo.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/23/norway-attack-utoya-shooting-oslo

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/07/2011722222451150369.html

In 2009 29 people were killed in Norway, in 2010 31 people, and now, in ONE day at least 87 are murdered. #Utøya #Osloexpl

BBC regularly updating here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14254705

so terrible. those figures re: total deaths in the country in an entire year vs total deaths caused yesterday really bring home how much of a blow it is.

i can't get over how terrifying it must have been for the kids on that tiny island...if people were trying to swim to safety rather than hiding, he must have been going on a deliberate rampage. i presume he was only overpowered once help managed to get to the island?

the sun covering itself with glory with its front page today, which ignores every fact that had emerged quite early on yesterday in favour of just blaming THOSE MUSLIMS http://twitpic.com/5u6n2l

Ugh. I know, I should know better, but getting revolted at CNN's "it's terrorism! Wikileaks said they were unprepared!"

Heard a survivor telling R4 this morning how a lot of the kids lay down and played dead but the gunman walked around methodically shooting anyone on the ground in the head to make sure. Other reports that help was delayed because he'd booby-trapped the island with bombs. Hideous.

Last night it was 20 deaths, waking up and it is 84 at least. This is sickening.

Saying it is "Norway's 9/11" is an insult to victims of 9/11 and this attack. Sick of the childishness here.

news coverage insensitivity number 8436269204738392742 from the sun with the camping offer on the front page ALONG with the fucking stupid 9/11 line

+ dudes web postings were full of anti-Muslim sentiment

Ugh. I know, I should know better, but getting revolted at CNN's "it's terrorism! Wikileaks said they were unprepared!"

Being that all political violence is terrorism, this is also terrorism.

It was natural to think in the direction of Al Qaida because the entire thing in Oslo seemed so big and so well-planned. Once he entered Utøya, I was in doubt though. It just didn't seem natural for Al Qaida or other Muslim terrorists to attack a political youth camp, particularly not for an organization which is against Norway's participation in Libya and Afghanistan, which has far from supported the Mohammaed caricatures and which is in favour of boycotting Israel.

Btw. ideologically, it seems this guy is more closely related to extreme American Christian fundamentalist right wingers than to nazis.

Video of the rescue operation

http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/07/23/nyheter/utoya/bombeangrep/innenriks/17424074/

be warned, it's pretty graphic and horrible.

that link was from the guardian page which is updating pretty regularly

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/jul/23/norway-attacks-live-coverage?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

You can read some of his thoughts here, should you wish to:

http://dougsaunders.net/2011/07/political-thinking-anders-behring-breivik/

Thanks for that link ShariVari. He seems well-spoken, friendly, conservative, Protestant, politically involved. Right wing but not in a nutcase sense in his writing. But his last comment there is from October 2010. A lot can change in a few months, I gather...

Right wing but not in a nutcase sense in his writing.

Really? You must have just skimmed.

For me it is very hypocritical to treat Muslims, Nazis and Marxists differ. They are all supporters of hate-ideologies.

What comes across is how similar his posts are to those of any old fuckwit posting in the Telegraph or Guardian comments; they make an effort to appear reasonable but a little prodding reveals the real sentiment driving the obsessive, repetitive posting.

I admit, I skimmed. I was more looking at his style of writing perhaps, which wasn't as ranting as I expected. But that is as You say the "to appear reasonable" schtick here.

rumours of at least another shooter surfacing again

the bbc interviewer just asked a survivor from utoya 'was there panic among the young people there?'

Foreign Minister cautioning against making assumptions based on attacks in other countries. Perhaps The Sun should take the hint - though did it actually go out to the newsstands with that cover? It was circulating yesterday evening, so surely there was time for them to change it?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6028/5966417535_6a8a3814ee.jpg

Only slightly changed. Main headline the same.

so this guy is in custody? they took him alive?

Yes, police have been talking to him all night.

This has left me kind of numb, it's so horrific, when I went to bed last night they were saying 10 dead on the island, when I wake up it's 84, and supposedly it could rise a lot higher. I'm speechless...

The post from Geir is so right, and he would know better than any of us, that the political nature of the target should have alerted people to the possibility that this was not an Al-Qaeda/Jihadist operation, instead we had hours and hours of "terrorism experts" on rolling news telling us that's exactly what it was.

ya newsnight was still going on about libya etc at 11pm last night

i p much never watch tv news and whenever i make an exception for an event such as this, it only serves to remind me of its inadequacy - the time lag, the spacefilling banality, the forced emotions

Rolling news is at its worst here, it's just filling time to excuse the gawping. The bbc's 'end of innocence?' piece was up by the time I heard the news and is entirely irrelevant afaict; when I got up this morning they were questioning the emergency service response as if: (i) they knew what it was; (ii) a great big bomb hadn't gone off immediately beforehand; and (iii) that's what went wrong here.

the bbc is so embarrassing for this stuff, the hosts are so painfully awkward when talking to "real people" (a phrase used casually in bbc meetings, all the time) that they act like someone is daubing them with shit throughout.

that plus the anchor this morning describing the suspect as being "of a right wing orientation"

what like...militantly straight??

I have a certain amount of sympathy for anyone tasked with processing, live on air, the fact that a man had just murdered eighty children because he didn't like their political beliefs, to be honest. The rolling news was handled terribly but, as has been suggested, i think it's more a structural issue with the format than the fault of any particular reporters. Apart from Kay Burley.

i just find the way they speak to people v odd and detached

It's not reporting for facts in an odd sense, more ambient reporting, reporting the shock/grief and confusion. Was odded out by one of the first interviews I heard on Radio 5 last night, with....the ex-footballer Jan Åge Fjørtoft.

Foreign Minister cautioning against making assumptions based on attacks in other countries. Perhaps The Sun should take the hint - though did it actually go out to the newsstands with that cover? It was circulating yesterday evening, so surely there was time for them to change it?

It is still being described as our 911 here. Of course it is different in that this is not a Muslim extremist, but maybe it will also teach the world outside Norway (like it has taught some - slightly, but just slightly, more moderate - right wingers in this country) that Islamic extremists are not the only ones capable of doing such horrible acts?

You guys are funny. So worried about the reputations of terrorists.

right wing Christian fundie / Islamist fundie, what's the difference, ultimately?

If this had been an Islamist fundamentalist the backlash against the Muslim community would be outrageous. I doubt this will cause any movements to kick Christians out of Europe.

yeah kinda shows what fucking morons these guys are when their "statements" just involve mass murder, regardless of their views. xpost

Fuck 'em all. I'd shit on Allah, G-d, Yahweh, Jah, and zombie Jeebus if they existed.

*removes bookmark*

urgh i only just looked at the news. i only heard about the bomb yesterday :(

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/23/nyt/index.html

basically, Geir is right: this guy is a terrorist.

oh man that washington post thing that greenwald links to

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/norway-bombing/2011/03/29/gIQAB4D3TI_blog.html

This is a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists.

ugh

yeah there's a lot of outrage going on about that & about how she's merrily posting away again without in some way saying "ok, I had that one wrong." Michelle Malkin's doing the same thing she always does after attributing something to Muslims that turns out to be something else: "looks like this wasn't RADICAL ISLAMISTS, but I won't let that stop me from covering the real threat posed by RADICAL ISLAM"

Another brilliant post by Rich Perry's foreign policy adviser.

*gets sober, empties bank account, wages war against jihadists*

If it turns out that the suspect in custody is a non-Muslim with no connections to jihadist groups, it would be unreasonable to focus the investigation on Muslims and Islamic terror groups.

Thanks for clearing that up, Corner guy.

it's cool, i'm sure in the light of the profile of the shooter that's come to light, the authors of all articles linked heretofore will be turning their attention to the pernicious dangers of islamophobia

this story has a grainy photo of the suspect on the island -- looks to me like he's dressed head to toe in a police uniform

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8655175/Oslo-explosion-live-coverage.html

yeah so of course parts of his 'politics' are starting to appear on the web now, along with a batshit youtube i don't feel like posting here. it's the typical islamophobic hate that fremskrittspartiet (and their counterparts in every european government) so heartily endorse.

dont read the telegraph comments then

http://www.kevinislaughter.com/wp-content/uploads/2083+-+A+European+Declaration+of+Independence.pdf

This manifesto is supposedly related to the shooter. Key quote:

"Once you decide to strike, it is better to kill too many than not enough, or you risk reducing the desired ideological impact of the strike."

I have been thinking about my post-operational situation, in case I survive a successful mission and live to stand a multiculturalist trial. When I wake up at the hospital, after surviving the gunshot wounds inflicted on me, I realize at least for me personally, I will be waking up to a world of shit, a living nightmare. Not only will all my friends and family detest me and call me a monster; the united global multiculturalist media will have their hands full figuring out multiple ways to character assassinate, vilify and demonize. They will possibly do everything they can to distort the truth about me, KT and our true objectives, and attempt to make even revolutionary conservatives detest me. They will label me as a racist, fascist, Nazi-monster as they usually do with everyone who opposes multiculturalism/cultural Marxism. However, since I manifest their worst nightmare (systematical and organized executions of multiculturalist traitors), they will probably just give me the full propaganda rape package and propagate the following accusations: pedophile, engaged in incest activities, homosexual, psycho, ADHD, thief, non-educated, inbred, maniac, insane, monster etc. I will be labeled as the biggest (Nazi-)monster ever witnessed since WW2.

I have an extremely strong psyche (stronger than anyone I have ever known) but I am seriously contemplating that it is perhaps biologically impossible to survive the mental, perhaps coupled with physical torture, I will be facing without completely breaking down on a psychological level. I guess I will have to wait and find out.

http://imgur.com/tCp90.gif

the united global multiculturalist media will have their hands full figuring out multiple ways to character assassinate, vilify and demonize

wow what will they use as the crux of their perfidious argument

that he pops his collar like a frickin douche

According to his lawyer, he calls his actions "atrocious but necessary"...

so, is it true that this guy can only get a max of 21 years in jail

I have an extremely strong psyche (stronger than anyone I have ever known)

copied & pasted from the brains of every grandiose asshole ever

I read max of 21 years unless he's deemed unfit for release, which seems like it would be...true.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/07/23/what_did_the_oslo_killer_want

Andrew Berwick

just noticed st0rmfr0nt has a 'ladies only' forum

jesus, this is horrifying

Survivors told how they hid under bunk beds, behind rocks and in cabins as Breivik, dressed as a police officer, beckoned the youths to him, promising them safety. Youngsters who fell for his ploy were shot in cold blood. Survivors told how they had heard people plead for mercy. Thorbjørn Vereide, 22, who ran away and hid in a cave, said: “He seemed very focused. He took his time and picked victims out one by one. People lay on the ground, and he went over them and shot them in the back. He shot them all twice to make sure they were dead.

“He kept shouting: ‘It’s safe to come out. You’ll be saved. I’m a cop.’”

Nicoline Bjerge Schie, 21, who cowered behind a rock near the beach, said: “I could not see the gunman but I heard him screaming and laughing and he gave several cheers.”

She watched at least five of her friends being hit by the gunman’s bullets and watched as the bodies tumbled off the rock and into the lake.

Adrian Pracon, 21, who was shot in the shoulder, said from his hospital bed: “He was yelling out that he was going to kill us all and that we all must die.” Mr Pracon played dead but survived.“He tried everyone, he kicked them to see if they were alive, or he just shot them,” he said.

Erik Kursetgjerde, an 18-year-old Labour Party youth member, said Breivik “would tell people to come over: ‘It’s OK, you’re safe, we’re coming to help you.’ And then I saw about 20 people come towards him and he shot them at close range.”

Edvard Foernes, 16, said the gunman walked through the camp, saying: “Come out and play with me. Don’t be shy.”

just so unbelievably disturbing. I feel like I can't even process it.

so sick that he targeted a camp of young people. fills me with all kinds of of terrible emotions. :-/

Judging from the article linked a couple of posts above by polyphonic, this guy was deeply, deeply sunken into a fantasy life of heroic self aggrandizement, but as I read the indications he might be clinically sane, as opposed to Jared Loughner who was purely psychotic and barely functioning. However that may be, he is one sick fuck.

Police have just arrested six people in Oslo, bomb squads are onto something at an industrial terrain right now.

Excerpts from his highly detailed plan, written by himself

god this is horribly sustained ^^. irrespective of how nuts and nonsensical he is (even 'hungarian girls are so hot' feels like the kind of dumb shit that should have picked a hole in his logic), it seems like he pretty levelheadedly chipped away at this for years.

so disturbing

It really is. Harrowing especially when he talks about his friends, engaging in meet-ups with them, seemingly having a genuinely nice time, yet all the time already knowing what he is going to do.

I’ve also scheduled to meet my stepmom, Tove Øvermo, in March. She used to work as a director in Norwegian UDI (the foremost government organization tasked with approving applications and granting foreigners (mostly Muslims) legal permits). Ironically, UDI is a highly valued target for Knights Templar in Norway as it is an essential tool and facilitator for the Norwegian multiculturalist regime. However, I think she’s retired now, so she is currently not in danger of any KT attacks. Although I care for her a great deal, I wouldn’t hold it against the KT if she was executed during an attack against UDI, as she used to be a primary tool and category B traitor for the multiculturalist regime of Norway, high treason she should be familiar with. Tove, being very intelligent and committed in the advancement of her own career under the multiculturalist regime, is fully aware that she is a willing and participating subject/tool for the Multiculturalist Alliance in the indirect genocide of Norwegians through the continued Islamisation of Norway.

demographics of norway

Islam 	98,953 	2.0%

I guess I just can't wrap my head around the fact that someone methodically killed 90+ people, with a gun, in under an hour. just passes in one ear and out the other, nope, can't comprehend.

conservapedia's angle is, get this, "the obvious culprit here is violent video games"

Islam 98,953 2.0%

yeah like ... i was skimming through the google docs thing above and, i know that that isn't the thing where he's laying out his MO but, it does just seem like a fantastically tenuous thing for him to be so entirely focused on. i do not know the dynamics of multiculturalism in norway & cannot inhabit the mind of someone to whom i guess national identity is all and everything, but, it just seems like the most ridiculous explosion of that cliched, base hatred-of-otherness thing.

lots of other weird angles to this, his 'anti-socialisation' & insularity as a means to prepare himself to do something inhumane, & the whole stockpiling of chemicals.

That's one scary piece of writing. There's a real Patrick Bateman feel to that google doc. I can almost imagine him discussing Château Kirwan or the minutae of buying sodium nitrate with him.

urgggggggggggggh why am i reading this

creepy as hell

can't stop reading this. Fucking terrifying. Even the more mundane elements have a creepy edge, all the 'partying' and stuff.

Anyway, back to email farming on Facebook, aaaaarrrrggh:/ It’s driving me nuts, lol.

I have now sent an application for a Ruger Mini 14 semi-automatic rifle (5.56). It is the most "army like" rifle allowed in Norway,

On the application form I stated: "hunting deer". It would have been tempting to just write the truth; "executing category A and B cultural Marxists/multiculturalist traitors" just to see their reaction:P

the emoticons, the emoticons

The six arrested have been released again.

^^^yes.

his use of emoticons particularly skeeves me out.

xxpost!

whoops, the "yes" was supposed to be in response to the "creepy as hell" post :P

banality of evil emoticons

deathdrone ;P vs. this guy's:P

1518 sickening pages of grotesque, megalomaniac (the plan is to end in 2083, I guess the 21 years in jail are part of the plan) psychopath "logic" - can't make out if his new templars are all in his head or if there really is a bigger organisation.

just clicking on some of the chapters, life's too short to waste on all of this crap -> Looks like he is accusing Rupert Murdoch of being a multiculturalist force on p 381? (ch2.19a)

How nice, muslims have until 2020 to convert to christianity (or else)

ha, so he cut and pasted sections of his manifesto from the unibomber.

sorry, "unabomber"

"I’ve also scheduled to meet my stepmom, Tove Øvermo, in March ... Although I care for her a great deal, I wouldn’t hold it against the KT if she was executed during an attack against UDI, as she used to be a primary tool and category B traitor for the multiculturalist regime of Norway, high treason she should be familiar with. Tove, being very intelligent and committed in the advancement of her own career under the multiculturalist regime, is fully aware that she is a willing and participating subject/tool for the Multiculturalist Alliance in the indirect genocide of Norwegians through the continued Islamisation of Norway"

You don't need to be a psychiatrist to see a certain degree of projection here.

I thought only America made freaks like this guy.

this part about going to prague to buy guns from a mid level drug dealer is incredibly, incredibly naive

I guess I just can't wrap my head around the fact that someone methodically killed 90+ people, with a gun, in under an hour. just passes in one ear and out the other, nope, can't comprehend.

― dayo, Sunday, July 24, 2011 6:54 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

conservapedia's angle is, get this, "the obvious culprit here is violent video games"

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, July 24, 2011 7:13 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I almost wonder! not that he was 'influenced' but would this kinda practice help? (I have never played these games and honestly have no idea.)

"I just bought Modern Warfare 2, the game. It is probably the best military simulator out there and it’s one of the hottest games this year. I played MW1 as well but I didn’t really like it as I’m generally more the fantasy RPG kind of person – Dragon Age Origins etc .and not so much into first person shooters. I see MW2 more as a part of my training-simulation than anything else. I’ve still learned to love it though and especially the multiplayer part is amazing. You can more or less completely simulate actual operations."

Has there ever been a gun massacre anywhere near this size? Columbine was 2 people killing 13 people.

iatee, this is by far the deadliest spree killing in modern world history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_killer#List_of_spree_killings

yeah that's what I imagined

also I'm sure someone has pointed this out elsewhere but norwegian nationalist writing a tome in fluent english, apparently consuming nothing but american culture...is worried about...islam??

also he was taking steroids

the long torturous and hamfisted discussions of deconstruction and literary theory make me feel o_0

not only because it's a crazy rewind to the culture wars of the 80s/90s in the US to think that the main political issue of the present moment is "multiculturalism" in the "it's political correctness gone MAD I tell you"/free-speech-on-campus mode

but also because the sleight-of-hand in thinking that deconstruction = Marxism = cultural relativism = political correctness = affirmative action = cultures of tolerance = the EU as an entity . . . I mean, the jumps in scale and context and meaning are just baffling and wrong but it's not baffling that they would appeal to someone as a kind of explanation, I guess

I thought only self-important literary critics would believe that literary theory had this kind of magical power, but most actual academics that I know are entirely familiar with their marginality and isolation- this guy is more of a true believer in the power of theory than most, yknow, actual theorists

BUT . .. has anyone really corroborated that he wrote this?- the site that disseminated this doc points out lots of slightly sketchy things about the document- could someone else be circulating their crackpot plagiarized-from-the-unabomber nonsense on the heels of a real crime by someone else?

this was quite different to the usual expulsive spree killing by being so calculated. norway presumably has a fairly small political class and many of the attendees at utoya were children of labour party grandees and likely future politicians/civil cervants etc. seldom have organized terrorists groups tried to to cull an entire cadre of a political party on a single day.

yeah I had an argument with my bf about this guy's actions, he was saying "oh he was crazy" and I was pointing out that this was so ideologically driven that it seems much more like terrorism than insanity- this person had political beliefs and was acting on them in order to further them, fully realizing what he was doing- he wasn't schizophrenic, he wasn't out of touch with the basics of reality (though obv. he was in terms of the geopolitical scenario/reality of the threat of the Islamification of Norway which is not going to happen)- so then he was just . . . . what? factually wrong? At which point we then argued about psychopaths and whether they are "insane" or simply "deficient in empathy"- a psychotic person doesn't know what they are doing or what is or isn't real, a psychopath knows that they are hurting people and doesn't feel pity/sympathy/empathy. But this person doesn't seem to fit either model- he has a cause. That seems more like the classic def. of a terrorist to me.

yeah I think that's otm

Norwegian police have not confirmed that an online manifesto ranting against Muslim immigration and multiculturalism was written by Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to the bombing and shooting on Friday. However, Breivik's lawyer referred to it.

nakh and dr3w otm

Just because someone has ideas that place him at the farthest margins of society and those ideas inspire a passionate belief that anyone who holds ideas antithetical to his are criminals, wholly alien to him, and constitute the source of massive oppression, to the point where he wants to kill them, to the point where his convictions override any lingering compassion that might prevent him from killing them - all this does not make a person insane. All these mental mechanisms are pretty common.

What makes this guy completely unusual is how sustained this process was, and how carefully he nutured these ideas and feelings of alienation, and how completely he protected them from being contaminated with empathy. He built up an entire self-identity as someone who could kill his perceived enemies in cold blood, then went out and systematically proved it was true. He rigorously trained himself to be this person and do this act. That's not psychotic at all.

The scale of this was meant to be breathtaking, for the same reasons that al-Q chose to commit 9/11. It's terrorism, but terrorism in the service of a political faith shared by only a tiny handful of angry misfits, and therefore senseless by any practical measure. That's what makes it look insane to an outsider.

I don't think it's an either / or situation with psychopathy and terrorism. I'm not sure how much work has been done to assess the mental health of people who have carried out similar attacks under a political or religious banner in the past but it would be interesting to find out. No doubting that, regardless of what's going on with his brain chemistry, this is as clear cut a case of terrorism as you'll find though.

What makes this guy completely unusual is how sustained this process was, and how carefully he nutured these ideas and feelings of alienation, and how completely he protected them from being contaminated with empathy. He built up an entire self-identity as someone who could kill his perceived enemies in cold blood, then went out and systematically proved it was true. He rigorously trained himself to be this person and do this act. That's not psychotic at all.

True. It seems that he somehow did what he could to rationally work on getting rid of his sense of empathy.

it's not either/or, surely psychopathic tendency just makes you more like to be a good terrorist

Thrust of the Martyr (TotM)
Breaking a flank is a dangerous move. However, keep in mind that they will not expect you to rush them aggressively (go for head shots) so you have the element of surprise. Let’s call this strategy: “Thrust of the Martyr” due to the severity and critical circumstances of the attack. It is a lethal move where either you or your opponent(s) will
die or get injured. Based on your strengths and their weaknesses you will have a success rate of aprox. 75% if facing 2 agents (scenario 1). Against 4 agents this will however drop to 30-45% (scenario 2) even taken your conviction and superior armour and firepower into account. If you allow them enough time to deploy 1-2 snipers in either scenario you will not likely get out of the situation alive, survival rate of less than 20%.

Under normal circumstances, you will however only face 2 police officers (2 per car) which should allow you to neutralise both quite easily. In any case, surrender is not an option. You either break free or die in the attempt.

This is one of the many sections wherein he sounds like a Call of Duty FAQ writer.

regardless of what's going on with his brain chemistry, this is as clear cut a case of terrorism as you'll find though.

this is important. maybe this guy is nuts, maybe he isn't (hint: he is), but terrorism is an act, not a pathological mental status.

xp darragh also otm

geir, do you know more about the chances of him being released after 21 years?

also: i have not read this guys rants/"musings"/whatever, and don't plan to (it's a beautiful day outside, why would i ruin it), so bear that in mind, but i kinda think that trying to de-pathologize the killer's actions here is concern trolling, at a certain level. we would all like to think that his despicable ideology, taken to its logical extreme, is the root cause of his actions. but really i'd wager that his political beliefs just served as a framework for his mental illness. i totally get the impulse, but painting this guy as the Natural End Result Of Right-Wing Nationalism, and dismissing any psychological factors, is nagl and sort of unwittingly cynical, imo.

no, it's not really, but you shouldn't waste a beautiful day on his ramblings

only someone totally mentally unhinged would be able to carry this sort of thing through alone. members in a group would tend to reinforce one another, but mass killing by oneself is just a nut case.

― Aimless, Saturday, July 23, 2011 3:45 AM (Yesterday)

I thought this was interesting, specifically wrt to idea of 'the internet' acting as that reinforcement network. Seems like being an extremist crank used to be much harder, lonelier, riskier work in the olden days. Were there unaffiliated nihilists carrying out random assassinations a century ago? Crime & Punishment suggests maybe there were, actually.

i missed that bit by Aimless, but that's exactly what i was thinking w/r/t loners v. cells

'Right-Wing Nationalism' in europe does kinda have a high bodycount, historically speaking

well sure, but again we're dealing with a guy who was (presumably) acting alone, perhaps with the encouragement of voices on the internet. glib comparisons to maniacal political institutions is like w/e man, nice lay-up

(i also realize that armchair mental health assessments are also nagl)

Were there unaffiliated nihilists carrying out random assassinations a century ago?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Nechayev

i don't think this guy actually got any assassinations done but he was a very busy and lonely bee.

bakunin loved him at first and then basically had a "wait. wait sergey hold on. shit." moment.

Neither the insanity interpretation nor the terrorism interpretation are without drawbacks and problems- If we just decide that "he's crazy" then we medicalize his actions- then he is sick and these actions are symptoms of a sick person who needs and deserves treatment, and this makes him a victim too- which I am not sure is more or less appealing than the decision to treat him as a coldblooded political agent who is pursuing his vision "by any means necessary". Can we treat him as a terrorist without in the process "taking his ideas seriously" i.e dignifying those ideas as somehow part of an ongoing political conversation between different parties? Dumb / badly formed / simplistic ideas have effects in the world- often they are more successful because of their very incoherence- I mean, fascism wasn't intellectually coherent either and that didn't stop it from taking over.

I guess Darraghmac is right that there is a vanishing middle / false choice if Breivik can't be read as an insane terrorist who is *both* politically motivated and a psychopath- the self-training is, as Geir points out, really striking to think about here because a garden variety psycopath wouldn't have any empathy to restrain, while a "normal" person would. To me as a partisan for the very society of tolerance that Breivik attacked, what I would hope for is that this would make extreme nationalist politics less appealing than ever, and in order for this action to discredit the politics for which it was committed we have to see the link between the act and the ideal as a tight one- if we just discount this person as "merely crazy" then we can't do that effectively, and so extreme nationalism isn't the topic anymore, it's brain chemistry, early parenting, care in the community etc.

Were there unaffiliated nihilists carrying out random assassinations a century ago? Crime & Punishment suggests maybe there were, actually.

I refer you to this:

http://images.word-power.co.uk/images/product_images/9780224078078.jpg

Neither the insanity interpretation nor the terrorism interpretation are without drawbacks and problems- If we just decide that "he's crazy" then we medicalize his actions- then he is sick and these actions are symptoms of a sick person who needs and deserves treatment, and this makes him a victim too- which I am not sure is more or less appealing than the decision to treat him as a coldblooded political agent who is pursuing his vision "by any means necessary". Can we treat him as a terrorist without in the process "taking his ideas seriously" i.e dignifying those ideas as somehow part of an ongoing political conversation between different parties? Dumb / badly formed / simplistic ideas have effects in the world- often they are more successful because of their very incoherence- I mean, fascism wasn't intellectually coherent either and that didn't stop it from taking over.

I guess Darraghmac is right that there is a vanishing middle / false choice if Breivik can't be read as an insane terrorist who is *both* politically motivated and a psychopath- the self-training is, as Geir points out, really striking to think about here because a garden variety psycopath wouldn't have any empathy to restrain, while a "normal" person would. To me as a partisan for the very society of tolerance that Breivik attacked, what I would hope for is that this would make extreme nationalist politics less appealing than ever, and in order for this action to discredit the politics for which it was committed we have to see the link between the act and the ideal as a tight one- if we just discount this person as "merely crazy" then we can't do that effectively, and so extreme nationalism isn't the topic anymore, it's brain chemistry, early parenting, care in the community etc.

I basically agree with all of this---it just seemed to me that ppl were p quick to dismiss mental illness in a rush to demonize his eminently demonizable politics. both were at work and served each other.

do these deconstructions happen when the perpetrator isn't white?

BTW, there have been several questions about whether 21 years is really the longest sentence Breivik can receive; apparently there are clauses which will allow him to be locked up for life:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/norge/1.7725087

(the above is somewhat challenging to decipher due to Google Translate.)

do these deconstructions happen when the perpetrator isn't white?

You could use the DC sniper as a test case for this, but the perpetrator identified his motive as extortion rather than straight-up politics, so the parallel is not exact.

It's very difficult to talk about 'garden variety psychopaths' as nobody seems particularly clear about what psychopathy means or how to identify it. I think most people recognise a continuum between 'can function in society' and 'serial killer' but even that's controversial. Most of the people on that continuum are held criminally responsible for their actions and are not routinely defined as crazy.

It's probably important to remember that his beliefs are not really outside of the mainstream of the European far right, even if the actions would be. It might seem impossible to understand how someone could genuinely believe, without being mad, that militant Islam is destined to conquer Europe unless someone stands up for white Christian culture but thousands and thousands of people do. They have political parties, television shows and organise marches through the streets. Is it a clear sign of mental illness that someone went one step further and tried to eradicate the people he saw as facilitating that? No. Is it likely that his brain works differently to most other people? Yes. It's impossible to know to what extent, though.

None of this would put him outside the class of the other terrorists who do pretty much exactly the same thing in the name of other causes, though.

You could use the DC sniper as a test case for this, but the perpetrator identified his motive as extortion rather than straight-up politics, so the parallel is not exact.

― Aimless, Sunday, July 24, 2011 7:59 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

The beltway sniper was a terrorist. I'm fascinated by how he's been portrayed as anything else.

"In the short term, Mr. Malvo said, their aim was to create havoc to cover for Mr. Muhammad's plans to kidnap his three children. The longer-term goal, Mr. Malvo testified, was to extort law enforcement to stop the killing, after which Mr. Muhammad would take the money and move to Canada with Mr. Malvo and the three children. There, Mr. Malvo said, Mr. Muhammad planned to create a training ground for 140 young homeless men whom he would send out to wreak similar havoc and to "shut things down" in cities across the United States."

He legitimises his actions by framing them in history: he's only doing what the legit crusades and original knights templar were doing, in his head.

Neither psychopathy nor terrorism have a very clear definition, iirc. Both follow their own internally consistent logic, except their premises and conclusions aren't what the rest of society thinks. "Wrong" is too weak a word but that's what they are, ultimately. Like this guy, he isn't crazy or dumb, but he is very very wrong. His pure white christian society is long gone, it won't magically reappear once he and his imaginary army of facebook recruits have won the battle. 9/11 was, in Bin Laden's head, a legitimate reaction to some perceived American threat or wrongdoing and every tape that was made public only gave him a new way to spread that world view.

That's also why Breivik's asking for a public hearing: he wants a soap box to let us all know he's saving us, etc
I don't think loads of extremists who got his manifesto will join his cause, but it is a danger - they're often very sensitive to that kind of historic glory blah blah blah.

It's very difficult to talk about 'garden variety psychopaths' as nobody seems particularly clear about what psychopathy means or how to identify it.

Yeah, I read that "Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us" book by Robert Hare a while ago and it was fascinating to a point but also pretty apparent that there wasn't a conclusive and convincing account of the genesis of this condition, its boundaries- there are actions and patterns and tendencies but not some clearly evident bright line that separates these people out- a case of "you know it when you see it"- but do you?

Stan otm about why Breivik made sure to be captured alive- he can't wait to start blathering into the mics and cameras about his views and longs to be persecuted by his enemies- his sentencing will confirm his narcissism (I'm guessing his reaction to his conviction will be not dissimilar to Varg Vikernes' great big shiteating grin at hearing his own conviction)

ShariVari very much otm. his political ideas, however extreme and incoherent, are not just his own made-up misconceptions but part of the public political discourse and to leave that out and sum it up as simply madness would be terribly wrong i think.

otm

Psychopath: not mad but wrong.

bumper sticker?

The analysis piece on one belgian news site focuses on the most important issue of this whole story: violent computer games. Sigh.

Surgeons, meanwhile, confirmed he used "dum-dum" bullets designed to disintegrate inside the body and cause maximum internal damage.

Sort of feel that targeting white Norwegians (however much they are "traitors") gives the game away a bit. Isnt this the standard resentment of your imagined persecutors, those you imagine are excluding you? I'm probably wrong but I can't help but feel there is a disconnect between his politics and his act--he just wants to hurt those people who he imagined hurt him.

So, I am really speechless when I see the cult calling themselves national socialists
today. If you truly love our tribe, the Nordic tribes or any other European tribe, you must
learn and acknowledge that Hitler is a traitor to the Germanic and all European tribes,
NOT a hero. Hitler had the military capabilities necessary to liberate Jerusalem and the
nearby provinces from Islamic occupation. He could have easily worked out an
agreement with the UK and France to liberate the ancient Jewish Christian lands with the
purpose of giving the Jews back their ancestral lands. The UK and France would perhaps
even contribute to such a campaign in an effort to support European reconciliation. The
deportation of the Jews from Germany wouldn't be popular but eventually, the Jewish
people would regard Hitler as a hero because he returned the Holy land to them.

there is a strange recursive logic throughout, having created these strange taxonomies (category a and b traitors) they are reified to the nth to degree and treated as self-evident things

hundreds of pages seem to be devoted to the evils of miscegenation

though he is at pains to point out that he is very much not a racist

3. Destructive role models who propagate and glorify anti-authority/
revolutionary/anarchistic attitudes through the graffiti movement (which is a central part
of hip-hop).

I remember my active years in the hiphop movement as a continuous and intense orgy of
misconduct, manifested primarily through tagging and piecing. During my two most
active years at the age of 15 and 16, I estimate that myself (Morg), Richard (Spok) and
Jon Trygve (Wick) inflicted property damage (through bombing raids - "tagging") of
approximately 2 million Euro combined of which I inflicted aprox. 700 000. The three of
us were the most active of a loosely distributed "tagger force" numbering approximately
1000 at the time. This was during a primary peak of Hiphop, in 1994-1995.

That's also why Breivik's asking for a public hearing: he wants a soap box to let us all know he's saving us, etc
I don't think loads of extremists who got his manifesto will join his cause, but it is a danger - they're often very sensitive to that kind of historic glory blah blah blah

I'd be more concerned about his success in carrying out the killings, if we're talking about his being an example pour encourager les autres

geir, do you know more about the chances of him being released after 21 years?

Only his shrink knows. And only after 21 years.

The practice that makes it possible to lock up lunatics for life is still no older than 11 years or so. A guy who, together with his friend (who was not deemed "crazy" enough), raped and killed two little girls at a lake in Southern Norway was the first one to get this kind of sentence and he has still not yet even finished his ordinary sentence. So there is no practice to speak of, and not a lot of experience. However, a guy who had molested his own young son more than 100 times got out because he was a "hopeless case" and later travelled to Gambia to molest more kids, so it doesn't seem like it always works properly. :(

Sort of feel that targeting white Norwegians (however much they are "traitors") gives the game away a bit. Isnt this the standard resentment of your imagined persecutors, those you imagine are excluding you? I'm probably wrong but I can't help but feel there is a disconnect between his politics and his act--he just wants to hurt those people who he imagined hurt him.

Labour Youth have done a very good job recruiting immigrant youth the past 10 years or so (there weren't so many back in the 90s when I was active there), so I would guess a fair percentage of his victimes were actually immigrants. Not that it seems he went after them in particular though.

what do you think the political consequences for this will be? (do you think a historic labour landslide is in the future?) do you think gun control laws may drastically change?

do you think gun control laws may drastically change?

i was trying to work out what someone would need an automatic weapon for today. anyone?

do you think gun control laws may drastically change?

I'm waiting for the American gun nuts to launch into their standard issue spiel (this may have already happened, I've been away from news sources for much of last night and today) about how if only more people carried guns this guy would have been stopped well before he killed so many.

we need video game control

I dunno if it's trite or stupid to say it, but my strongest impulse with guys like this and say, the London bombings, is to think they're totally intellectually bankrupt as well as morally. I feel like there's a modern brand of utterly egotistical moron that does this shit, and it's not evil that should be being discussed rather than how utterly thick these guys are. You watch this guy's YouTube vid and it's like "EUR-ABIAN UNION" and you can't help but feel it's just a total fucking amoeba who self aggrandises violent tendencies into some sort of world view. Maybe it feels better to say people are dumb rather than evil, but I'd personally like if this was admitted more. I feel too much credit is given to these guys, it's not a political statement, it's some totally dumb full of himself sociopathic moron. I really believe that.

do you think gun control laws may drastically change?

They did here (Aus) when this last happened here (Martin Bryant)

beautiful speech by the prime minister saddened me, not just b/c of its content, but b/c i can't imagine any american president ever approaching it. and even if they did, they would still insist on throwing in some cowboy talk about the need for swift retribution or whatever

I'm not sure thats really fair wrt to an American president, considering they've already apprehended the suspect here. I don't think Obama engaged in any "cowboy talk" after the Arizona shootings. Not at all the same scale, but still.

He sure did when campaigning! And revisited when Osama was found.

well killing osama is not the same as having 90 people die in a massacre

if the norwegian president somehow found and killed osama he'd prob have a little cowboy in him for a day or two

He sure did when campaigning! And revisited when Osama was found.

I was specifically referring to the speech he gave after the Arizona shootings which, while not at all comparable in terms of scale or impact, was similar in that the suspect had already been taken into custody by the time it came to political speeches. I never inferred that Obama had never taken part. Just seemed like a cheap shot "lol @ dumb cowboy Americans" type of joke.

yeah, i think jon is otm

Overgeneraliztion, yes.

Just seemed like a cheap shot "lol @ dumb cowboy Americans" type of joke.

wasn't a "cheap shot" or a joke, or anything about americans being "dumb". it's more about a mentality that i think exists here and results in the fact that if an american leader were to express some of the ideas that were in Stotenberg's speech, or if they delivered it with similar emotion, i feel like they would end up being called a pussy or something along those lines

but mainly expressing my frustration that some other countries have adults for leaders whereas judging by the debt ceiling fiasco and a whole bunch of other crap we seem to mostly have infants holding things down

really agree with, of all people, boris johnson on this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/8658872/Anders-Breivik-There-is-nothing-to-study-in-the-mind-of-Norways-mass-killer.html

Michael Ryan had no ideology in Hungerford; Thomas Hamilton had no ideology in Dunblane. To try to advance any other explanation for their actions – to try to advance complicated "social" factors, or to examine the impact of multiculturalism in Scandinavia – is simply to play their self-important game. Anders Breivik may have constructed a portentous 1,500 page manifesto, but like so many others of his type he was essentially a narcissist and egomaniac who could not cope with being snubbed. We should spend less time thinking about him, and much more on the victims and their families.

"The Norwegian anti-Islamic citizen journalist website Document.no, to which Mr Breivik himself was a frequent contributor, has said large parts of his "compendium" are copied directly from US "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski's manifesto. Six of the references to the British National Party are from a Melanie Phillips article in Britain's Daily Mail about Labour, immigration and the BNP, which he appears to have cut and pasted into the document."

So now we know who reads Melanie Phillips' columns

He's being brought into court to the judge right now. The correspondent of Dutch radio is bemused: she and her colleagues can just walk in and out the building freely. No checking of bags or ID, nothing, no extra security measures or policemen separating the suspect from other people...

This OP/ED re: Oslo in The Jerusalem Post is mind-boggling. Just awful.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=230788

^^ Shameless and awful op/ed. Jeez.

Perhaps Brievik’s inexcusable act of vicious terror should serve not only as a warning that there may be more elements on the extreme Right willing to use violence to further their goals, but also as an opportunity to seriously reevaluate policies for immigrant integration in Norway and elsewhere.

confusing 'let's learn from this' with 'let's listen to what this guy is saying'

Death toll revised to 8 (Oslo bombing), 68 (Utoeya shootings).

how did so few people die in the bombings? i mean, the devastation looked major but 8 people? i can't really get my head around it, esp in a city at what, 1600 on Friday afternoon?

Apparently, hard working Northern Europeans that they are, Norwegians are wont to go home early of a Friday... so much for the Protestant work ethic!

iirc it was a national holiday

disgrace, i was in work till 7 on friday. how i suffered.

Obviously if it had been in Britain, where we idiots are worked till we drop, there would have been carnage

was the bomb solely to distract before the shootings then? given his talk of wanting such a high death toll would seem a stroke of luck he chose or had to choose to set the bomb off at a time when nobody was around.

I'm sure I heard that the bombing was a diversionary tactic and the Youth Camp was his main target

the shooting was timed to happen on the day of the former prime minister's visit (then he was 'delayed' and missed her, apparently)

Wasn't his 'aliby' to dress up as a cop and come to the island because he wanted to speak to the youths about the bombing?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14275981

"It's one of the scariest documents I've ever read," Dr Stephen said.

"It's written by a man who's absolutely meticulous in his development of his philosophy and he's researched everything, obviously shut away for a long period of time reading, researching, digging into the internet, reading books and formulated this absolute policy of hatred of anything that is Nordic in a sense and looking at planning how to take over the world totally converted in a sort of very rather insane over-complicated deluded manner."

WTF. Really articulate expert there, well done all. Talk about people in glasshouses, nice ironic vibe from the doc's own words appearing like the rantings of a mad man.

Dr Nult more like...

I wonder if this guy was a country music fan lol

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201107250006

OF COURSE

'geert wilders is the politican out of denmark'

Kind of imagine the first draft of Glenn Beck's books land on the editor's desk as a 1500 page manuscript with large sections plagiarised from the Unabomber.

I wonder if this guy was a country music fan lol

Classical music and vocal trance iirc?

150,000 people quietly gathered today in central Oslo in memory of the victims and as a show of solidarity against terror. Many more thousands around the rest of the country.

http://static.vg.no/uploaded/image/bilderigg/2011/07/25/1311613249899_255.jpg

I have just spent 30 minutes shaking my head; it's like the only response I can muster to the Beck nonsense

Islamophobia and mass murder

Good ol' Steyn. Lots of misdirection going around from a bunch of people these past couple of days. Idly wondering what would happen if Brevnik or whoever called 'em in as a character witness.

Classical music and vocal trance iirc?

'twas a little joke, in reference to the classic geirbomb on this thread:
Why does Europeans never want to listen to country music?

I'm surprised though that the most zealous comments come from those on the right calling him on his BS.

got to unexpectedly second that boris johnson article.

one of the first mainstream pieces i've seen to address the inherent masculinity of the thing.

But, in the merest evolution of post-9/11 syndrome, Muslims are now the preferred victims perpetrators even in a story in which they are entirely absent.

FIXED THAT FOR YOU AND YOUR ASSHOLE BUDDIES AT THE NR, STEYN.

On the fence about Johnson's article. on one hand, i think he's right that a massive percentage of terrorists of all stripes are driven at some fundamental level by personal inadequacies but this seems like a huge sentence to bury in the middle and not explore in more detail:

It is the ideology that gives them the ostensible cause, that potentiates the poison in their bloodstream, that gives them an excuse to dramatise the resentment that they feel in the most powerful way – and to kill.

If the ideology is also a driving force - providing a framework for damaged people to legitimise grotesque violence - then the ideology is pretty damn important. The comparisons to Dunblane seem a little cheap.

isn't johnson's point that it can be any ideology? inc non-political?

Is it true, though?

Are ideologies that tell people that a catastrophe or huge injustice is going to happen to the people they identify with, and that their political rulers are actively colluding to bring it about, with radical action the only corrective, not inherently more dangerous than most others? I don't think that we can totally separate the rhetoric surrounding the idea that there's a huge conspiracy at the heart of the US government to enslave Muslim lands from 'radical Islamic terrorism' and i don't think we can separate rhetoric Beck and Wilders push, talking about Europe becoming a Caliphate, from the actions of Breivik. It might be that, at some level, people are looking for an excuse but that doesn't change the fact that there are people out there selling them ready-made ones.

plenty of blame to go around

Conspiracy theorists workin' overtime:

http://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-webster-tarpley-norway-terror-attacks-a-false-flag-staged-event/

iirc it was a national holiday

Just to clarify this: it was not a public holiday. However, it was in the period referred to as "fellesferien" ("the common holiday/vacation"), when large parts of the workforce take three weeks off during summer. Also, it is quite usual in the public sector (I'm not familiar with the central government per se) to work shorter days in summer, e.g. a schedule of half-hour shorter workdays than the nominal day in four months of the year and 15 minutes longer workdays than the nominal days in the eight remaining months.

http://static.vg.no/uploaded/image/bilderigg/2011/07/25/1311613249899_255.jpg

Quite a powerful manifestation of love, peace and democracy today at least.

http://static.vg.no/uploaded/image/bilderigg/2011/07/25/1311613249899_255.jpg

Oops already posted...

varg vikernes chimes in http://www.burzum.org/eng/library/war_in_europe01.shtml

spoiler: he shouldn't have

ew.

anti-semitic dipshit

Yikes

Having difficulty balancing the sense that it's important to know how the attacks are being seen by hard-right figures, CIF / Telegraph commenters, etc, with not wanting to actually read it.

I think Boris is trying to excuse his mates in the right-wing press for their inflammatory rhetoric, and I don't think "dude couldn't get girls so he went on a shooting spree" is a particularly great or accurate insight, nor is the 'inherent masculinity' of terrorism ("terrorists are always male, except when they aren't").

Got a bit irritated with seemingly everyone RTing that article yesterday like it was some sort of piercing insight.

Pretending that far-right maniacs aren't driven by ideology seems to be wilful disbelief, and a desperate hope that someone couldn't carry out a massacre like this out of pure cold blood, as opposed to mental illness.

yeah, to be honest boris has probably wrote that because there is a pretty thin gap between this dude's politics and the stuff you get in the tabloids/things a lot of people in his party believe.

exactly. compare what he wrote after the london bombings:

The Islamicists last week horribly and irrefutably asserted the supreme importance of <their> faith, overriding all worldly considerations, and it will take a huge effort of courage and skill to win round the many thousands of British Muslims who are in a similar state of alienation, and to make them see that their faith must be compatible with British values and with loyalty to Britain. That means disposing of the first taboo, and accepting that the problem is Islam. Islam is the problem.

Would he have been Melanie Philips' editor at the Spectator?

These guys are just getting a taste of their own medicine, they're only too willing to blame Islam itself for Islamic terrorism and now they're getting all butthurt at the idea of right wing politics being held in any way responsible for this dick

Bullies are the biggest whiners on the planet, we all know that

This Slate article seems apposite here: http://www.slate.com/id/2299967/

Pretending that far-right maniacs aren't driven by ideology seems to be wilful disbelief, and a desperate hope that someone couldn't carry out a massacre like this out of pure cold blood, as opposed to mental illness.

I didn't agree with everything Mayor BJ wrote but I disagree with you. People go on killing sprees and then leave this "reason" for the world to digest but if you accept he has an ideology then it's as if it's actually true that multi-culturalism has "caused" this or something. A person like this, as self-obsessed, intellectually bankrupt, and hungry for fame and notoriety, would find any old cause to make themselves feel important.

It's not about whether he's mentally ill or carried the killings out "in cold blood", it's just he's not legitimately a political criminal or a terrorist. His "cause" is fabricated by himself. Nobody supports him, and it's just a wild series of "look at the sheeple" rantings. He has zero charisma. It's the same as the 7/7 bombers, these guys are just charisma-free oddballs looking to give their lives some meaning, not a "warning sign" of political violence to come or something.

So do you think if he hadn't been involved in the far-right he would have gone on a killing spree for some other reason? That seems like a huge thing to assume.

His cause isn't fabricated by himself, it's fabricated by a large number of influential political / media / online figures.

I thought Paxman's interview of the EDL guy (whatever he calls himself) on Newsnight could have been better. Interesting though, when finally he could admit that the only aspect of the killer's manifesto he didn't agree with was the killing bit. Paxman only picked up at the end that the guy was threatening that 'someone' (EDL member??) might be 'driven' to do the same in the UK. Pretty despicable IMO.

Paxo barely got a word in, but the EDL did a good job of making himself look like a ranting swivel-eyed nutjob.

What, this fine upstanding citizen?

'Any old cause' can't be true. This guy obviously needed there to be a community of fellow believers not just to randomly pluck his ideas from, but also to draw a sense of validation. The ideas themselves have to be (just) coherent enough to be compelling and to hold together a community of believers.

So do you think if he hadn't been involved in the far-right he would have gone on a killing spree for some other reason? That seems like a huge thing to assume

well to flip that, seems a lot to assume somebody can shoot a bunch of kids point blank based on rationally interpreting a political ideology? i don't think it's a major assumption to say the guy had ego problems, he speaks in the manifesto about the need for him and any followers to go to tanning salons and wear make-up for the photos that accompany their manifesto. he listened to the theme tune from lord of the rings during the shootings, plus publishing a 1500 page manifesto and his videos etc.

i think there's a huge sense of someone who wanted to be seen as important or a political mastermind or something.

he's not part of some vast movement of solidarity, there may be accomplices but he did shoot all those people alone, just him. he did write his own 1500 page "manifesto". i think it's fair enough to treat him largely as someone with their own wild interpretation of the world around him, i bet if you read the entire manifesto it's full of crazy shit about who is and isn't to blame for multiculturalism etc.

i mean why do we give him political credibility? cos he says he did this for political reasons? can someone ever murder 68 people in cold blood and have any political credibility? there are people who share his horrible views who don't murder children in cold blood.

that is to say "fellow" anti-islamic political types aren't necessarily people who support what this guy did...not by any stretch.

The events are not imaginable without his personal craziness, but also not without the existence of a network of radical xenophobes. People who would say the most important contemporary world-historical issue is a clash of civilisations etc, even if they don't explicitly condone terrorism.

do you not think, given other people have carried out similar acts for a wide variety of reasons, that the cause is invalidated? i don't see how the existence of far-right extremists can be seen to explain his actions, not least since such an act is rare, perhaps even unique in european history.

People flip and do crazy stuff for all sorts of reasons, if not usually on this scale. But having a grand narrative of grievances and cheerleaders egging you on and legitimising it have got to make the flipping out more likely.

yeah but that surely only backs up the idea it's just latching onto a viewpoint, rather than flipping out due to frustration at holding that viewpoint, which implies a rationality which just isn't there imo.

The only thing more dangerous than a lunatic is a lunatic with a cause. The paranoid echo-chamber of far-right politics feeds and focusses the violent resentment of people like this. Some people are saying the extremity of this action makes it a one-off but there's a sliding scale.

well to flip that, seems a lot to assume somebody can shoot a bunch of kids point blank based on rationally interpreting a political ideology?

I don't think you can "rationally" interpret an ideology as extreme as something that's essentially reheated Nazism, but it's not a stretch to believe that some pretty hateful stuff in mainstream media (in Britain and elsewhere) contributed to any feelings of resentment that eventually led to this. I'm not directly attributing any of this to Melanie Phillips or whoever obviously, but I don't think columnists like this really pay much attention to how that sort of overheated rhetoric might be interpreted - that's getting into Palin/Giffords territory.

The paranoid echo-chamber of far-right politics

Or any other type of extreme "politics". Or any other extreme views. I just think an act like this comes after so many years of warped personal development that it's v hard to really attribute it to a political cause. I mean, there is so much out there in the media or in the world that you could latch onto if you had violent tendencies or the sort of personal issues that lead you to a violent spree like this.

The Slate piece is OTM - guilt-by-association cuts both ways. If a right-wing writer has consistently had the decency not to conflate ordinary muslims with jihadis then I'll extend them the same courtesy on this occasion. Struggling to find one though.

LocalGarda - I agree, it's not just the right though it seems to be dominant. The conspiracy theorist left isn't really extreme left in the traditional sense.

In the case of this guy quite possibly (xps to ronan) but I think the constant background of grievance can give what would otherwise be just angry young men the reinforcement to become killers. I think you'd do all sorts of stuff you wouldn't normally if you knew your peer group (real or virtual) backed you up. It's why abu hamza and that ilk specifically targeted detached young men and isolated them from normal outside influence, it skews their moral foundations.

i pretty much agree with ronan, in the sense that if it wasn't far-right ideology driving him it would have just been something else; and once any political ideology veers into "extreme" territory, it inevitably becomes hateful by its very nature.

disagree that this sort of person needs a network or a number of voices supporting him - maybe he did in this case, i haven't read any of his rantings yet, but more often than not it's the lone wolf aspect that spree shooters get off on right? and as we know, whatever lunatic belief system you latch on to (cf jared loughner's obsession with currency, iirc) the internet will provide you with backup.

there's enough to criticise far right rhetoric for on rational, political grounds without throwing some dodgy blame game for insanity in there as a distraction.

But unlike most spree shootings the targets and expressed motive were political - that can't be brushed aside. I'm really suspicious of the "huh, loonies, who know what they're thinking?" argument.

He may be a loony but if you consistently point at a Muslim/socialist/liberal across the road and say to the loony "that guy's out to get you" then I'd say he's a darn sight more likely to go over there and do something crazy.

jared loughner was, for whatever its worth, way off the deep end in a way this guy doesnt seem to be--i mean loughner was incoherent on a syntactical level, not just in a "crazy political philosophy" way

i don't think it's a major assumption to say the guy had ego problems, he speaks in the manifesto about the need for him and any followers to go to tanning salons and wear make-up for the photos that accompany their manifesto.

It is rather obvious he has big thoughts about himself. One example is his past in the Progress Party. Apparently he was never on a meeting except for the small local Western Oslo suburban branch he was a leader of. He was never in the board of the Oslo branch, and surely never centrally. Other members of the Progress Party hardly knew who he was at all. Yet, he seems to believe he is the one person responsible for the increase in votes that the Progress Party have gotten over the past ten years (hopefully ended this year). Surely sees himself as a more important figure than he is.

"do you not think, given other people have carried out similar acts for a wide variety of reasons, that the cause is invalidated? i don't see how the existence of far-right extremists can be seen to explain his actions, not least since such an act is rare, perhaps even unique in european history.

― LocalGarda, Tuesday, July 26, 2011 12:37 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark"

To the extent that his ideas were interchangeable with some other set, then yeah it does make them less relevant. otoh I think there are fairly strong reasons why it was more likely to be this than, say, animal rights. Basically because some right-wingers dishonestly link intl. terrorism to domestic issues surrounding immigration - which allows antipathy to muslims to serve as the basis for a whole 'clash of civilisations' worldview also applied to mundanely domestic issues.

i defo agree there's intrinsic factors in this actual viewpoint but it's a chicken/egg debate and i think it's more a case of that sort of view suiting someone who is resentful and angry or has personal problems, rather than prompting the person into violence. i feel like in 2011 there might be a few extreme viewpoints most likely to appeal to someone who is planning a spree, but historically there have probably always been paranoias or whatever for people to seize upon to justify or aggrandise murder.

this is what i mean when i say i think it could potentially be any cause, i guess tho in saying this it allows for there to be some worth in examining what the given areas where hatred festers are or what they say about a society.

really though someone disgruntled will find some "other" to blame, it's not that indicative of the times is it? only in a sort of simple way, ie there weren't muslims in norway x many years ago...

That fuckin' moron at The Washington Post, as all these morons do when backed into a corner, decided to double down today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/evil-in-norway/2011/03/29/gIQAtsydVI_blog.html

That the suspect here is a blond Norwegian does not support the proposition that we can rest easy with regard to the panoply of threats we face or that homeland security, intelligence and traditional military can be pruned back. To the contrary, the world remains very dangerous because very bad people will do horrendous things. There are many more jihadists than blond Norwegians out to kill Americans, and we should keep our eye on the systemic and far more potent threats that stem from an ideological war with the West.

In our own debates about national security, conservatives argue that national security spending is deserving of a higher priority than other expenditures. The defense budget is not numbers on a balance sheet as some of those on the left and right insist. Cutting defense spending is not the same as cutting domestic spending. That light rail project can wait, or states can do it, or we can decide it’s a boondoggle not worth doing even if we had the money. But national security is solely a federal function, and it can’t be put off.

There are lone-wolf domestic terrorists, and there are organized jihadists. Bombs go off near our embassies. There is no shortage of threats. There is no shortage of evil. Democratic governments have many demands on tax dollars, but none is more important than defending the lives and security of our citizenry.

"I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er."

I'm not sure how much some people understand what 'ideology' means. Ideology does not have to be rational or self aware, nor is it value neutral. Like culture, people don't have ideology; it has them. Obviously a pacifist would be much less likely to do this than a fascist, and an aversion to violence can be a part of ideology. Fascism is an ideology that sees a redemptive or purifying element in violence. Ideology has everything to do with the actions this crazy person took, the scale of his actions (an old fashioned 'propaganda of the deed' anarchist might just have killed a political leader) and his choice of targets.

Maybe people would be happier with 'Weltanschauung'?

Analysis from Stratfor:

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2011/07/26/consequences_of_a_moderated_far_right_in_europe_99603.html

The whole thing is interesting. Somewhat paradoxically, it concludes that the mainstreaming of the far-right in Europe has left the most extreme members more isolated and frustrated than before and hence more prone to resort to violence.

A harrowing account by a survivor:

http://midgetviking.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/hell-on-utoya-an-eyewitness-account/

The conspiracy theorist left isn't really extreme left in the traditional sense.

man, tell that to the guy who threatened to put a bullet in my head for not agreeing with his most batshit pseudo-Marxist beliefs

g-d crut!

Curt1s, was this your former roommate, or someone else? How did this happen?

I'm not sure how much some people understand what 'ideology' means. Ideology does not have to be rational or self aware, nor is it value neutral. Like culture, people don't have ideology; it has them. Obviously a pacifist would be much less likely to do this than a fascist, and an aversion to violence can be a part of ideology. Fascism is an ideology that sees a redemptive or purifying element in violence. Ideology has everything to do with the actions this crazy person took, the scale of his actions (an old fashioned 'propaganda of the deed' anarchist might just have killed a political leader) and his choice of targets

I'm not really satisified with this, yes ideology just means somebody's opinions or beliefs/goals, in which case a useless word to use in making a point here. There's no distinction between "people don't have ideology; it has them". Opinions and beliefs are out there in the world and people adopt them. It's not an either or.

Of course "ideology" has everything to do with the actions this guy took, yes his opinions or beliefs or goals (fairly sure a dictionary definition supports me here) had something do do with what he did.

But that doesn't say anything whatsoever, it says zero to point that out. He had opinions and goals. He had an ideology. He killed teenagers in cold blood, repeatedly. Everyone has "an ideology". He committed the standout spree shooting Europe's ever seen, perhaps the world. Far more an issue of somebody's own utter psychotic lack of empathy than just saying "oh it was ideologically motivated".

I'd normally lean towards understanding but somebody like this has no right to have their motivations considered. Egotistical and detached murder.

It's not so much that he had an ideology (which as you rightly point out is to say nothing) but that the ideology he embraced may well have validated and reinforced and mental illness that he may (or may not) have had. Presumably people's illnesses manifest themselves in very different ways depending on the society in which they live - the most obvious example would be the difference between medieval manias focusing on God or the devil and modern manias focusing on media etc. (TVs feature in a large amount of schizophrenic delusions for example, as do tracking devices and other surveillance techniques.) It isn't, I think, beyond belief to imagine that prominent ideological messages could make the difference between a man seeking treatment and committing an atrocity, especially when such an ideology is expressed in violent language and images, attacking those considered weak and subhuman.

Mostly I think that all the refusal to engage with the social and political beliefs of this man achieves is to let the far-right off the hook for the content of their propaganda. The fact that they don't act upon their beliefs to this level is cold comfort. I have no idea what was going on in this guys head, or if it could have been prevented, but I know that the european far-right needs to be checked, and such circles are unhealthy for anyone, never mind those who may be more vulnerable and confused.

i dunno, i don't want to exonerate the far right, but i do think someone like this aggrandising their actions with a really spurious cause is wrong too. i agree totally about you as regards people's illnesses, even surely "communists" something must have been targets before (tho breivik's anti-marxist thing strikes me as really into realms of madness, that sort of "anyone i hate is a marxist" vibe.) feel like there's an intellectualising that breivik wanted, either through mental probs or otherwise, that he doesn't deserve. i know i'm seeming blunt in saying "he's a madman" or something, but i don't think you can be rational and do something on the scale he did it. i mean, it really was a huge calculated mass murder. when would he have stopped, theoretically, if he had the bullets?

like this has no right to have their motivations considered

They may not have a right but it might be worthwhile to demolish the 'logic' behind it, to engage with the thought process if only to show how wrong-headed and counter-productive (not to mention batshit evil) it is.

Worth a read (not from Frum himself, but a Norwegian contributor):

http://www.frumforum.com/oslo-killer-posted-on-my-site

The comment from Carney -- who is well known as a pretty trollish sort on FF -- is of interest, in that this whole thing seems to have caused him to sober up a bit.

but i don't think you can be rational and do something on the scale he did it. i mean, it really was a huge calculated mass murder. when would he have stopped, theoretically, if he had the bullets?

If you can rationalise it as an act of war, not an act of revenge as most spree killings would tend to be, i guess anything's possible. I think this is one of the ways in which the underlying ideological nature of the crime at the very least acted as a magnifier. Viewed as part of a narrative of a distasteful act necessary as part of a 'greater good', people have done far worse. That's the mentality of Beslan, Bologna and Mumbai, not the mentality of Dunblane. The fact that there might be a madnes driving that mentality is important but so is the context in which it is expressed.

it's incredibly difficult to pick out what kernel- ideology or mental health issues- started the feedback loop that led to breivik committing these acts. I think someone upthread pointed to the nurture of isolation/reinforcement of certainty mentality being a lot more prevalent on the extreme right, though, making it a lot easier for either root cause to become a driving force of this or similar acts. Attributing this to either root cause really does let the unreflective nature of right wing discourse off the hook imo

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/25/the_super_lux_super_max?page=0,0

hmm a country that doesn't treat its prisoners like chickens, pretty novel

I feel like there is a line between "not treating prisoners like chickens" and "make sure they have a professional recording studio available to them"

this is pretty amazing, i must say

considering flying to norway and stabbing somebody

I feel like there is a line between "not treating prisoners like chickens" and "make sure they have a professional recording studio available to them"

― iatee, Tuesday, July 26, 2011 10:50 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark

lol i typed that post before i got to the "professional recording studio" part

An inmate learns to ride a unicycle in the prison gym. Seriously.

seriously considering becoming a Norwegian criminal, wau

this definitely explains Burzum's continued existence

wonder what their re-arrest rate is. also incidence of violence in prisons.

I bet there's very little violence in the prisons

I also bet there is a small but persistent number of repeat offenders who just like chilling in jail on their unicycles by the recording studio

why are you planning on going to norway and committing a non-violent crime?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14287822

BreakingNews Breaking News
Police in Norway are hunting a 'dangerous', unstable man who identifies with alleged mass killer Breivik - state TV via Reuters

for the love of god

i assume i'll be pilloried for saying this but there's no reason this breivik guy needs to exist henceforth. i hope someone manages to kill him before the trial is over.

Presumably allowing the right to point to killer 'leftist extremists' and conspiracy theorists to suggest it was all a huge fix and they had to get rid of the fall guy before the truth came out.

Nothing has been more moving than the 150,000 people in Oslo protesting against the idea that murder is a legitimate solution to anything.

good job, norwegian police

BreakingNews Breaking News
CORRECTION: Norwegian police correct their own information and say the man they seek has nothing to do with Breivik - Reuters

Ah but they're suggesting that anyway, it was linked upthread. They should show those pages to Breivik.

Dowd completely OTM on this thread by the way.

I'm not going to pillory amatuerist (is that right? pillory? looks weird) because when I saw his stupid grinning face in the papers yesterday I felt pretty much the same. But I also think I would have been wrong to act on that impulse.

Also Michael White OTM xps. The amount of weasel words coming from the right about this is sickening me.

I feel like there is a line between "not treating prisoners like chickens" and "make sure they have a professional recording studio available to them"

Bobby Beausoleil wasn't in prison in Norway

I don't think that all norwegian prisons are like that, just like not all prisons in America are like the ones on those America's Hardest Prisons type shows.

Norway's Rockingest Jails

He's put in Ila and may stay there, which is a pretty sad-looking and typical jail

http://www.svd.se/multimedia/dynamic/00770/ila_770480c.jpg
http://multimedia.dn.no/archive/00152/D2_Fengsel_p__innsi_152096i.jpg

Fun fact: Was used as a concentration camp by the Nazis under the name of Grini.

he still gets a pommel horse, tho

grini & bear it

Thought about posting the same thing, refrained

i admire your restraint

The shit I'm reading about this guy on Le Figaro is rather telling. He claims his stepfather has slept with 500 women, passes his time in Thailand with hookers and gave his mother herpes which somehow led to meningitis and that she now has the IQ of a ten year old. Supposedly his half-sister has slept with 40 men, has had chlamidia and is "almost sterile". None of this prevented him from living with his mother, of course, and he explains that, as a self-styled 'Templar knight', he wasn't ashamed since it helped him save money for his neafrious plans.

He sounds like a case of arrested development turning inward into sociopathy. It's as if he never made it past the age of 13. Apparently he slept with a high class hooker the night before he went on his rampage.

he... gave his mother herpes?

His step-father purportedly did

I somehow missed "his stepfather" in my original readthrough, which made that really alarming and upsetting; now it is merely upsetting.

I'm pretty sure that herpes doesn't lead to meninigitis and a diminished IQ

dude is a total sociopath and a narcissist

herpes can cause meningitis btw

Oh, nm then.

I'm kind of indifferent to the truth of his allegations; it's the man-child state of mind he exhibits that I find telling.

well yeah---the allegations seem entirely fanciful

I'm not sure if this is the best place for this quote, but I found it somewhat infuriating and sad:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/fbi_recommended_complete_idiots_guide_anti-muslim_books_to_new_agents.php

The FBI was telling new bureau recruits as recently as Jan. 2009 that Islam "transforms (a) country's culture into 7th Century Arabian ways" and recommending a book written by one of Norwegian terrorism suspect Anders Behring Breivik's favorite authors as well as the Complete Idiot's Guide To Understanding Islam.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jul/28/morrissey-norway-attacks-mcdonalds-kfc

Melanie Phillips strongly denied any suggestion that her writings influenced Breivik, dismissing him as "mentally abnormal" and accusing left-wing elements of attempting to badmouth her.[95][163]

Breivik today demanded that for him to continue cooperating during interrogations, the cabinet should retire, the royals abdicate, and command of the armed forces should be yielded to him. The same demands will probably be made during the trial. O_o

"Some of his more innocent demands have been granted, such as preferences regarding food."

oh

They probably had to really deliberate for a while about whether or not to yield command of the armed forces to him. Like, hhmmmmm, should we?

haha knowing norwegians they probably did hold a little meeting

at this point i guess they're only interested in accommodating him in any way because they want info on possible co-conspirators? i mean other than that, there's not much purpose to the police hearings

...aaaand it's this lot again, apparently planning to picket some funerals. Not gonna bother linking, I'm sure you can find it yourself if you want; a pic will have to do.

http://gfx.nrk.no/B6pIvWbquhRGSnWNxkRgrgrPzhjfzfOtGYHh8NOTsstg.jpg

Sigh. Just posting so I can bookmark and not arrive at that particular image.

WBC will never receive anything but an eyeroll from me. They're not worthy of my disgust.

Whoa:
http://talkaboutequality.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/if-a-married-lesbian-couple-saves-40-teens-from-the-norway-massacre-and-no-one-writes-about-it-did-it-really-happen/

An attempt at analyzing the bogus URLs in the manifesto - they seem to be GPS coördinates and they may point at precise locations in big European cities

http://analysis.no.net/

^ this is all still very theoretical and no reason for public panic yet (maybe they should have kept quiet about this until they're 100% done and know what's really going on)

dude wants to blow up belgravia, fine by me

Breivik was back on Utoya yesterday for a reconstruction. There's photos here: http://vg.no/vgpluss/article/1LaxOvUp

that picture is creepy

it's a bit weird and insensitive...

is that common practice in norway?!

that is the weirdest thing

lex: don't think the term 'common' applies to much in this case

that said i think having perpetrators back at the scene for reconstruction is common practice where possible and helpful

wow, that is fucking weird

It's quite common over here in Belgium too. No need to curse.

i imagine this is prob SOP in the US as well---it's only in the news, i'm guessing, because, you know

i've heard of detained suspects being taken out w/ police to locate a body in a very remote location or something, but i've never heard of a suspect recreating the crime for police at the crime scene. pretty sure that is far from SOP in the US.

i imagine it would be if all our spree killers didn't end up topping themselves when they were done

i mean, they wouldn't do it if there wasn't something to be gained---in this case i'd imagine it isn't being done just to bolster the prosecution's case, but is instead a way to figure out exactly ~how~ breivik was able to do what he did. knowing what happened could make it easier for the police to respond in the future

I heard he remembered an unusual large amount of details, of nearly every single kill he did... They were on the island for nearly 8 hours, filmed everything and it's supposed to be an important part of the court case against him.

It's a practical way to check the story for inconsistencies, time frame, details investigators couldn't have found out by themselves (guy says he moved the couch but can't move it by himself during the reconstruction = he wasn't alone) etc

i'm just thinking that in the wake of columbine/VT/etc there were countless "reenactments"/timelines on the news. so it's def SOP to gather operational forensics (or something). also bear in mind (if you can stomach it) that most of the ppl that could have provided statements on how exactly breivik did what he did were executed. not really the case for other spree shootings that happened in v public places

xps

oh it makes sense, it's just weird seeing it and i've never heard it being done here (reconstructions in the UK tend to be actors' recreating the last movements of people who have gone missing - at least, those are the ones that get reported)

Aren't actors mostly used when a crime isn't solved yet? To try and re-enact the situation in order to get clues?

Or for daft tv shows.

i'm pretty sure in the US they just do recreations with interviews & diagrams & stuff. i guess we'll see with the ft hood shooter or the gabby giffords shooter? idk. highly doubt that they're gonna bring either of those guys back out to the scenes. not saying that either way is better or worse, just that i've never seen this.

anyway point is, calling it weird and insensitive or w/e is...also weird. while i don't necessarily want to know the details personally, i think it's important that the courts know as much as possible, both for building a case and for future investigation/prevention

but yeah, def weird to ~see~ this monster walking around on a tether, acting out an atrocity

xp again, with the ft hood/giffords shooters, most of what happened was out in the open and witnessed by a lot of ppl. utoeya is relatively isolated in comparison

hey--jordan--no need to curse, okay?

my apologies, i know it's been tough for belgium

thought this was really out of the ordinary when i heard about it earlier

ok, fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gg-v5xuTgs

this dickhead is at his arraignment atm

live on tv here. the dickhead actually cried when they showed his youtube in court.

^ A Ken Livingstone moment or what?

Amazing that "dickhead" was exactly the word that came into my head when I saw this thread title

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/16/11220262-anders-breivik-to-norway-court-i-killed-77-people-but-am-not-guilty

As he arrived in court - the early part of the session was broadcast on television - Breivik gave a salute, raising his arm with his fist clenched.

He said that he did not "acknowledge the authority of the court."

"I do not recognize the Norwegian courts. You have received your mandate from political parties which support multiculturalism. I do not acknowledge the authority of the court," Breivik said.

Breivik appeared impassive as the list was read and appeared to smile when the court was shown a picture of his avatar from the internet game, World of Warcraft, Sky News reported.

However, he became emotional and appeared to be wiping away tears when a 12-minute video that he made prior to the killings was shown to the court.

lol

appeared to be wiping away tears when a 12-minute video that he made prior to the killings was shown

No doubt he was overcome with emotion recalling how, back when he'd made that video, the massacre of the multi-culuralists and their spawn was still just a long-held dream. So much could have gone wrong. He had fretted his days away, worrying, planning, hoping. But in the end, he had triumphed!

This guy is self-made evil.

he is so incredibly thick.

Dangerously thick!

the last two posts in this thread have been nommed for understatement of the month awards

"I have carried out the most spectacular and sophisticated attack on Europe since World War II,"

Dickhead

“July 22, wasn’t about me. July 22 was a suicide attack. I wasn’t expecting to survive that day,” he said. “A narcissist would never have given his life for anyone or anything.”

Asked why he started crying in court on Monday, when prosecutors showed an anti-Muslim film that Breivik posted on YouTube before the attacks, he said: “I was thinking about Norway and Europe, which are ruled by politicians and journalists killing our country. I was thinking that my country is dying.”

Guy's not insane, he's stupid

he's both

Where can you place this guy in terms of diagnosis for mental illness though?

Honest question.

murderous sociopath?

Okay, he is a murderer and a sociopath. Does he show any sign of being 'not guilty by reasons of insanity'? The coverage on the news focused on the forensic psychiatrists overseeing the trial. I was thinking about whether this is a factor? I really don't know anything about this.

depends on whether you believe can personally kill 77 ppl for your wider political beliefs while being sane, i suppose

The most recent psychiatric evaluation at least called him "accountable", which apparently meant he wasn't "psychotic" at the time of the crime.

yeah, i'm happy calling him insane, but not legally insane. i.e., the nature of his crimes makes him de facto crazyperson in my book, but he's not a gibbering loon, not so out to lunch that he wasn't aware of the moral and legal significance of his actions.

not so out to lunch that he wasn't aware of the moral and legal significance of his actions.

yeah I would think this is the sticking point, legally speaking. but I dunno anything about Norwegian criminal law/insanity pleas.

he's not a gibbering loon, not so out to lunch that he wasn't aware of the moral and legal significance of his actions.

^^^ This is the main point, really; dude knew and understood the consequences of his actions (in fact, he was attempting to avoid them via the whole "suicide mission" angle) but decided to do this anyway.

i read that his *defense* team is arguing that he is sane - why would they want to do that?

dude's reasoning is that being deemed insane invalidates his political goals

sanity = martyrdom for the cause, by his reckoning

norwegian foibles mean insanity could be permanent whereas murder is capped at 21 yrs

wow no life imprisonment for mass murder?! that's ... insane

Yeah the max was like 20 iirc??

20 yrs, obv.

does that 20 years hold for even 77 deaths?

iirc yeah its 21 yrs tops lol legal systems based on treatment/redempion obv

Not this again.. he won't be let out, ever, no matter if he's deemed insane or not. Should be pretty clear by now.

(sorry, i missed the conversation the first time it went around, genuinely baffled at that number right now)

i read that the 21 years thing can be indefinitely extended though there wasn't any detail about the process for that - maybe for "capital crimes" everyone gets something like a parole board hearing?

the court could also sentence Breivik under a provision called "preventive detention," which also has a maximum of 21 years but can be prolonged in five year increments after that -- which means the court can detain Breivik indefinitely after his sentence if he is found to be a continued threat to the public.

there you have it, virtual life sentence

Maybe he'd rather be in a regular prison than in a mental hospital?

But with a chance of reversal every 5 years? It seems like that would never, ever happen, but...? Clearly he thinks it's preferable to being found unsane?

i can't imagine - given how civilized norway is - that you could judge someone *permanently* insane, i'm sure that's up for review too

are his defense team ultranationalist psychos too?

i don't know how likely he is to be deemed an ongoing danger to the public once that sentence is served.

insanity is subject to review but it's more likely to lead to an easy avenue to keeping him locked up permanently, based on what i've read

Well in 20 years he'd only be 53 - still capable of considerable mayhem. xp

don't think the review would be based on his physical abilities so much as his mental rehabilitation tho

That's true -though harder to predict. If he's still spouting fascist nonsense then no doubt they'll keep him locked up tight.

that system - essentially a conditional life sentence with many opportunities for parole - seems remarkably fair to me

iirc yeah its 21 yrs tops lol legal systems based on treatment/redempion obv

― diafiyhm (darraghmac), Tuesday, April 17, 2012 8:04 PM (16 minutes ago)

nice mix of reactionary smugness a factual inaccuracy here deems

ya i was quite happy with it tbh

kev otm, it's v sweet that he is tried & sentenced in a manner that's anathema to him, it reinforces the moral high-ground. not granting him special treatment & sticking to the same procedures as used w/ every mundane case undercuts his ridiculous sense of his own significance&impact & is mb a healthy bit of normalcy for norway as a whole too idk

yeah, i'm happy calling him insane, but not legally insane. i.e., the nature of his crimes makes him de facto crazyperson in my book, but he's not a gibbering loon, not so out to lunch that he wasn't aware of the moral and legal significance of his actions.

― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Tuesday, April 17, 2012 2:47 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

why this guy and not manson?

i see manson as a "gibbering loon"

ok cool

i don't know how likely he is to be deemed an ongoing danger to the public once that sentence is served.

I'd expect a guy capable of murdering 77 people will always be deemed a danger to the public

i don't know how likely he is to be deemed an ongoing danger to the public once that sentence is served.

― diafiyhm (darraghmac), Tuesday, April 17, 2012 2:23 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

honestly i don't know that i've ever witnessed a murderer MORE likely to be a continuing danger to the public than this fucker

this is the kind of dude you hope is on heart meds and one day a prison guard "forgets" to fork them over

Prosecutors in Oslo are questioning Anders Behring Breivik about his contacts with militant nationalists as they seek to prove his far-right European network does not exist.

Breivik, who killed 77 people last July, gave few details but told the prosecutor not to ridicule him.

Hard not to, tbf

If you don't want to invite ridicule, you don't grow a nu-metal beard.

See, the thing is that the network kinda does exist -- he was definitely hooked into the Austrian scene, which the big middle right party like to pretend doesn't exist -- so I don't know exactly why the prosecution would belabor this point.

Possibly because of assertions he's been making like this:

he met a Serb nationalist in Liberia in 2001 who was one of the founding members of the Knights Templar

... aye, sure you did, son

Take out the Knights Templar bit and it's believable, though, based on what I know from my antifa buds.

he has liberia stamped on his passport. very curious about what's real and what isn't. he did make the trip to london too.

highly possible he wants to create fear though and seem like he was part of something that didn't exist.

what's the logic of this: "...as they seek to prove his far-right European network does not exist."

?

good question

are they going for the insanity verdict? doesn't that mean he can be locked up indefinitely?

A "far-right network" can just be similarly-minded ranting losers like him tbf, most of whom will never actually do anything other than post on the internet about "pakis" etc

i think for the benefit of the public they want to deflate his grandiose claims

But the networks do exist, & the one in Germany has killed a bunch of folks. Ties btw. German & Austrian networks are known. So the question remains.

Ridicule is the best approach to take with a hateful loser like this

Asked if he wanted the court to give him the death penalty, he replied: "No, but I would have respected it. I would not recognise 21 years of prison, it's ridiculous."

Try 91 then, arsehole

This is some extraordinary victim-blaming bullshit:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100151677/breivik-a-monster-made-by-multiculturalism/

that dude's last column turned up on a different thread somewhere

Brendan O'Neill: a monster made by multiculturalism

spiked - the independent online phenomenon

that editorial is a steaming fucking pile, jeez

I don't need to spend any minutes of my life cluing dude in but I don't think "deconstruct" was used in the same way by the dude who thinks his "culture" is getting torn apart.

hey brendan o'neil, your mom is multiculturalism

by o'neill's logic, the nazis were multiculturalists. they weren't.

paranoid, racist, reactionary nationalism is not multiculturalism.

it's the fucking opposite, not to put too fine a point on it. multiculturalism is the idea that all cultures and traditions deserve equal representation and protection, not that volk and land must remain pure.

http://i.imgur.com/iBMSm.jpg

take him out back and shoot him imo

Nah he'd be happpy with that. Lock him up and subject him to as much overt government harrasment and red tape as possible, make him suffer the very indignities he percieves.

They should have found a muslim judge for the case...

what's that weird belt he's wearing

glad this guy won't get the death penalty, Trayce OTM

i assumed somethign to do with handcuffs

which they removed so that he could give a white power salute?

i don't think that's why, as such, no

The photo is nak's post is kind of great. Po-faced idiot and his salute and the rest of the ppl are all 'Oh great!'

thats a black power salute, actually

Whatever it is, he looks about as talented doing it as a three year old.

lol

I think you have to be black for it to be a black power salute tbf

(altho tbrr black power salute is the arm upraised, not just extended forwards)

What the hell are the Norwegians going to do if he's found sane? Wouldn't he face a max of a mere 21 years?

http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media//40/129340-050-6FA35ED5.jpg

xp

Wouldn't he face a max of a mere 21 years?

this is addressed upthread. the answer is no, he'd be in jail for life.

http://www.parenting.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/21-Years.jpg

children's pig otm

I like how he is looking directly at the camera, calmly delivering his message of strength to 'his people', who are nothing but a miserable little fringe group of losers and idiots like him. So self-dramatizing.

seems as thought the worst punishment the dude could face would be indifference and humiliation. no one treats his crime as anything other than a sad and tiresome expression of madness, no one gives any indication that they're at all impressed or frightened by his idea & behavior. he's found insane and publicly mocked to the extent that anyone cares at all. he spends the rest of his life in a drab little room eating pudding off a steel plate and talking weekly to a condescendingly "friendly" and unflappable psychiatrist about his mommy issues and toilet training.

Shouldn't laugh but:

he named the guns he used in the Utoeya shootings after characters in Norse mythology

he took a year's "sabbatical" from business activities in 2006 because he was planning the "suicide action"
he spent the year playing the online role-play game, World of Warcraft, for up to 16 hours a day

so curious about his WoW character, why won't they released this important info?

*sigh*

http://i.imgur.com/wSB87.png

oh my god

surprised?

Do books lead to impure thoughts?

Do newspapers lead to pandering?

Do video games lead to Lana del Rey?

eh i'd be cool with banning video games

I'd be cool with banning the song "Video Games"

this fucking guy

it has to be some kind of nazi conspiracy that the media is even discussing this video game angle

RIGHT WING RACIST KILLER kills a bunch of LIBERAL KIDS, posts RIGHT WING RACIST MANIFESTO about KILLING LIBERALS

could it be...

http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/world-of-warcraft-2.jpg

rofl

the video game thing isn't really getting a ton of traction as far as I can tell.

if it leads to the banning of WOW, let it get a little traction

eh, the military uses video games as kill training. comes as no surprise that they might also help psychos hone similar skills. this doesn't mean that they're evil or should be banned, but i won't pretend to be *shocked* when people draw those conclusions.

not that WoW seems like a particularly instructive thrill-kill simulator

it's not "shock"

gotcha

misread your "oh my god"

This guy is such a dork, a murderous dork to be sure, but such a dork and is often the case, horribly self-unaware.

i was saying the other day that the thing that breivik and derb and all these super arch reactionary paleo conservative racists have in common is that they seem to have been beaten up a lot in high school and rejected by girls

by that reasoning I should be a super arch reactionary paleo conservative racist

in my case it was the super arch reactionary paleo conservative racists doing the beating/rejecting

did derb ever talk about getting bullied or beaten up as a kid? idk i'm always a little suspicions of a-to-b stories like that tbh

certainly do feel like there's a connected phenomena of above-avg intelligence and waaay-below-avg ability to understand other people that leads certain dudes to extreme politics & simplistic solutions -- nobody likes me, everyone is so stupid, nobody can see the truth, everything is so corrupt and nobody understands

goole otm, but that kind of alienation can lead people off in all sorts of directions. i mean, i was one of those guys and in many ways still am. i just sought solace in different things.

yeah i'm wary of making that connection too, for reasons goole explained. almost a form of bullying itself

"certainly do feel like there's a connected phenomena of above-avg intelligence and waaay-below-avg ability to understand other people..."

This kind of sounds like Asberger's, though.

He definitely had issues with his sister and mother, iIrc.

it's almost frustrating that on account of his extreme actions it's become so much of an understatement to point out that this guy is such a stupid dick.

observing the banality of evil has become incredibly stale, and yet evil is still banal

leftists all have a certain look about them, apparently

this guy has said a lot of vomitous stuff but this might be the most vomitous yet

“When people say they have lost their most beloved, I also lost my entire family, I lost my friends. It was my choice. I sacrificed them, but I lost my entire family and friends on 22 July. I lost everything. So to a certain extent, I understand.”

feel like this guy exists specifically to test my convictions re: the death penalty

you know the difference asshole? the victims' families didn't have a fucking choice!

certainly do feel like there's a connected phenomena of above-avg intelligence and waaay-below-avg ability to understand other people...

No way is this idiot of above-avg intelligence

There's always a temptation to look at someone who creates an elaborate and internally consistent narrative to explain the world and conclude that this is a sign of high intelligence. The difficulty is that it is easy to create an elaborate narrative, if you're allowed to discard or ignore the majority of reality, substituting fantasy wherever you wish. Children aged five are easily able to do this.

above-avg doesn't mean 'smart' let alone 'right'

feel like this guy exists specifically to test my convictions re: the death penalty

i feel the same way, haven't really felt that way since tim mcveigh blew up all those little kids

also i think there's broad consensus that intelligence in terms of a one-dimensional quantity (like IQ) is an outmoded concept anyway but that's a different thread

id guess he has a reasonably high iq but is evidently a total bawheid who would struggle to hold down a job in a hardware store

the notion that this particular boring psycho deserves execution as opposed to all the other child rapists and serial murderers who don't is pretty specious and self regarding

some ppl jumping on his skull every now and then would probably be deserved

as i understand it he's kept in a 3 room cell with its own gym and "library" just to prevent fellow inmates from maiming him. a shame imo.

id guess over the next fifty years or so, someone who wishes do him harm will get close....

the notion that this particular boring psycho deserves execution as opposed to all the other child rapists and serial murderers who don't is pretty specious and self regarding

not that i'm going to jump on the "execute him" side of the debate here or anything, but given the scale and his total lack of awareness i can 100% understand why this particular case might test people's beliefs, as opposed to just any "other" child rapist or murderer

the 'total lack of awareness' is something of a mitigation, since it suggests a cognitive deficit not present in all of those serial killers who justify their acts as wilful pleasure-seeking

some of the things he says are total challops and it's natural to wish ill on him, but it's facile to pretend he alone deserves to be a recipient of lethal state violence

i don't think he deserves to die at all. i think it would be both just and rich for him to be dealt with in the manner that norwegians have designed without exception

yah it's best that he understand that however much he tries everyone's patience, he deserves no more special consideration than the dude who just beat his wife to death jerking off in the next cell

what about the dude who beat 77 wives to death?

the gaols are probably full of ppl who would murder 76 more wives if they could

I could wish death on him by teh State or by a vengeful relative of one of his victims if I didn't feel like it would legitimize his use of killing. He's a complete and utter fool, imho, and life in a mental hopsital, a high-security mental hospital will do quite nicely.

well kant disagrees w/ you fwiw

(xpost but i guess the point would apply to mw's post too)

i mean that kant disagrees w/ the self-regarding part, not the gaols part

anwyay i've already had a bad experience on this board being an apologist for theories of retributive justice, and since i don't actually support the death penalty i should probably just shut up about it already

yah id guess i would reject kantian precepts cuz the state should never execute as universal law, but i would be quietly pleased if his protection momentarily failed and he was subject to the same fate as jeffrey dahmer

i'm okay with situational ethics

oh sure, you say that NOW...

lol

Part of my not wishing death on him stems actually from my almost utter lack of care for him. I wouldn't care that much if he died though a murder is still a murder, but however monstrous his acts, I don't want the State to compound them by adorning itself with his shrunken post-retributive head and pretending like it means justice has been served or the victims will find 'closure' more easily or it will dissuade future psychotic nutjobs from following in his footsteps. He's beneath contempt and he should be treated as the inhuman monster he's become and locked away until he can see and realize the enormity of his crimes and callousness. Until then, let him rot in an antiseptic nightmare.

^^ I will sign onto that opinion.

i get what you're saying MW but at the same time supposing he rots in the antiseptic nightmare of a scandinavian prison i still won't necessarily feel like "justice has been served".

OTOH the more i think about the more i think "justice" is a fleeting concept anyway.

justice will never be served is the thing

None of those kids he killed is coming back. None of the trauma visited upon his country can be undone. Rertribution is fleetingly fun but it degrades a person and they either want more retribution or they spend delusional lives defending the righteous ways in which they've debased themself.

Whether sane or not, this guy doesn't deserve the attention. He's not all that bright and he has some major flaw in his works, where I don't know, but I don't particulalry care to see him 'martyred' when he can be quietly sequestered surrounded by all the condescension of a hospital and not the big-boy honor of a prison. Venality, wrath, anti-social behaviors - those are all at least typically human. His narcissism is so immense it's like he's a two-year old. That emotional immaturity allied to crank theories about race or ethnicity or saving your country or whatever daft little fantasies glimmer in his dank little psyche make me literally think him a kind of subhuman - not inalterably so, who knows? - but I also don't believe in killing animals w/o a reason so what's the point in a re-instating the death penalty and going through a trial which will invariably lead to his conviction and then leading him out to whatever the most civilized slaughter the Norse can think of?

Conversely, they used to be pretty good at disuassive punishment as I recall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_eagle

if he was killed and eaten would you feel better?

eaten by what...

i dunno, pigs or victim's dogs or w/e, it was a throwaway line tbh- tho we have a (p. good iirc) death penalty thread somewhere and i agree that this guy is v close to the perfect strawman for the argument

Thrown into a snake pit, perhaps

TBH i probably would feel better if he was killed and eaten by pigs

but i think the martyrdom argument - don't let him become a symbol for other right-wing nuts - is a very compelling argument against execution, and is basically why i *don't* think he should be executed.

and who knows, maybe someday he'll recant

what if he just has to sit quietly for the rest of his life and think about what he's done.

re: his possible maryrdom, the worry is that the 'success' of his attack will serve well enough as inspiration to other nuts, what happens to breivik after the fact isn't going to lessen the havoc they've seen one guy cause.

Fantasies of horrible tortures inflicted upon those who have inflicted much pain in real life can be very satisfying as long as they stay at the level of fantasy and are recognized as nothing that you shall ever attempt to realize.

Shakey Mo, go ahead and dream up all the degrading, horrific scenarios for disposing of this guy that you want. Whenever one becomes boring, move on to another. Just don't tell us all about them, ok? I really don't want to know what depths are lurking in your psyche. I just assume they are there, as they are in us all.

sanctimonious much?

I think the right way to understand the urge for retributive justice is in the context of justice being impossible. it doesn't matter what you do. you might as well let him walk free, except for the risk of him hurting more people: absolutely nothing you do will do a lick of good. those people are all dead. nobody's going to feel any better or be any less dead no matter what you do. that's really frustrating, that the person who acts to harm really gets the last word in preemptively: you kind of can't touch him; he's already touched you. so you want to kill him, to make him go away. I get that. I also think it doesn't make any sense in terms of policy, much less when you place it in the hands of the state, but I don't think many here are actually arguing for that, just parsing the rage we feel in the face of how truly helpless we are & are proven to have been in the face of something like this.

lol at the exculpatory 'as they are in us all' at the end of aimless' post

there's probably an argument that breivik deserves no attention at all, that no good will come from reprinting and scrutinizing his tedious aberrant drivel

He's right, tho (Aimless that is). We all fantasise horrible things, but no one needs to know.

just think if 'fantasia' consisted of walt disney's actual fantasies

(shrugs) I've never yet met anyone who wasn't capable of dark fantasies of violent retribution, so I figured I was just saying what I knew to be true. But pardon me if I really don't need to see the scars from your last operation to establish you had one. I'll take your word for it. Really. Same thing with retributive fantasies.

yeah it's more at how it read as one long tirade against shakey until the final clause

there's probably an argument that breivik deserves no attention at all, that no good will come from reprinting and scrutinizing his tedious aberrant drivel

I would completely make this argument - there is imo literally nothing to be gained from attempting to sift through the thoughts & expressions of a narcissistic murderer

Yup, also agree. Stuff him in a hole, let him bore himself to death, basta.

i agree. and don't ever give him access to pen and paper. nothing he ever says or thinks should ever make it to the outside world. he's a poisoner. no books either. or anything. just a nice little hospital room with nothing in it except a bed and a toilet. forever.

i'm mean when it comes to guys who murder a zillion people.

give him a quran and a norwegian-arabic dictionary, and nothing else.

He should probably be treated no worse than Rudolph Hess.

imo he should pretty much be treated exactly how it seems he has been and will be treated by the norwegian justice system - like the human being he is, with a chance to spout any sort of drivel he pleases, and the right (likely in his case) to live the rest of his life in relative dignity behind bars (instead of locked in a cell deprived of all outside contact for years on end, as we do here in america). it's difficult to see someone who does something so truly evil as a person, which makes it easier to want to mistreat him - that's completely understandable and difficult to overcome, but imo it's important to try. and if everyone here shares my dislike for the way we treat prisoners here in the US, it should be seen as a test of our principles when someone like a breivik, or a mcveigh, or a steven hayes comes along. they all deserve the respect and compassion they couldn't show their victims.

getting into lol-excatholic hippie shit now but on some level i always feel terrible for these people - i mean they put out this great front like they're completely remorseless but - assuming they're playing with a full deck, which may be a stretch in some cases - what kind of human being can really feel nothing after doing something like this? i like to at least imagine that deep down they're being torn apart by regret and completely hate themselves - the misery any human being must feel in that situation must be terribly difficult to bear

You assume he feels what he has done is wrong, though - and he has made it very clear that he truly believes he did what he did because it was the neccesary and correct and moral thing to do. There is no way he has any remorse over this, because he wasnt mad or unthinking: he truly believed in what he did.

Not that I'm saying that means he deserves death or extreme mistreatment, but I do honestly believe he is not only remorseless, but unrepentant, and will remain so, in much the same way anyone with strong beliefs (cf Fred Phelps for eg)

well i tried to imply that part of that might be wishful thinking on my part - not a bad attitude to have tho imo. but whether he feels remorse wouldn't have any bearing on how i'd want him to be treated now that he's in custody and a threat to no one

Nothing wrong with hoping everyoine has a redeemable core somewhere in 'em, no matter who they are :)

Shakey Mo, go ahead and dream up all the degrading, horrific scenarios for disposing of this guy that you wan

wait waht? I have expressed no wish to do so, and have detailed no such scenarios. I am against torture. I am against the death penalty. end of story.

but keep on strawmanning word up

How about hooking him up to a device that tortures him a little bit every time his WoW character takes a hit.

one of the best things i've read on this http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2012/04/who-are-breivik’s-fellow-travellers

that is a decent article, tho i think people shd be careful about asserting a direct lineage of poisonous ideas in that Adam Curtis style. closer to the truth to think in terms of a permanent sea of poisonous ideas that individuals will adopt and adapt to their own ends and their own personal motivations.

that's why i think, on balance, that it's okay for somebody like Breivik to be allowed to express his ideas publically. Because he will never "convert" anybody to his cause, and he has nothing to say that hasn't been said by a thousand poisoned misanthropes before him. better to acknowledge that those people and ideas exist than to justify their paranoia and conspiracy delusions by using state power to repress them.

he should be made to inhale helium before being allowed to speak, like the IRA in the 80s.

what kind of human being can really feel nothing after doing something like this?

I can conceive of many. In an odd way I feel that their hell is just being such inhuman freaks.

the absence of grace iirc

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-27/norwegians-sing-song-breivik-hates/3975198

Norwegians in being excellent trolls awesomeness :D

sweet

Quoting of the final sentence from Trayce's very nice article:

If he is found criminally insane, however, he will be sent to a closed psychiatric care unit for treatment, a fate he has described as "worse than death".

Not sure if he will be so found, but the thought that he may cheers me up, given this quote.

Re: Norwegians sing...

That the whole world is against him plays to his narcisism, better to not show him any attention.

think its more for the norwegian people than it is for him

But he's aware of it, surely.

who cares what he thinks

don't throw me in the padded briar patch

It's painted in a very utopian light but not everyone here are happy about all the various public responses towards Breivik. Some people like to pretend we're much different from others, but the overly nationalistic celebration of our nation and our flag is present here as it was in other countries after terrorist attacks: Otherwise sympathetic demonstrations like that sing-a-long moment or rose marches always include, to me, slightly tiresome "this kind of response shows off how great Norway is, responding to hatred with love" statements or variations on "this is the Norwegian spirit!". Just focus on the respect for each other, why do we need to wrap it up in a Norwegian cross? I think some people lap up praise from foreign media, and nationalism feels even less rational to flaunt in the aftermath of this particular terrorist attack than many others.

totally recognise that :(

not really directly analogous but cf a lot of the "clean-up" response post-riots in the UK, and the "keep calm and carry on!" rhetoric that accompanied it

that thing of nice middle-class (liberal) society wanting to put total distance between them and the nasty man, as though breivik/the rioters/[insert menace to quotidian society here] was a monstrous aberration rather than an extreme, macabre manifestation of sentiments that are more widespread than most care to admit

ehhhhhhhhhhhh

that thing of nice middle-class (liberal) society wanting to put total distance between them and the nasty man...is healthy & should be encouraged

it's like...yeah...I guess Norway could don sackcloth & ashes and say THE MONSTER IS US in a public square but collectively saying "no, this guy sucks" is I think a lot healthier. people play out their identifications; a collective response is "really, this guy is more an expression of who we are than we care to admit" might be intellectually satisfying but is not, I think, constructive. That view might be better suited to history. In the present moment, what you say you believe & how you act on that is more important than The Sum Total Of The Big Picture

imo

a collective response is of "really, this guy is more an expression of who we are than we care to admit"

It's painted in a very utopian light but not everyone here are happy about all the various public responses towards Breivik. Some people like to pretend we're much different from others, but the overly nationalistic celebration of our nation and our flag is present here as it was in other countries after terrorist attacks: Otherwise sympathetic demonstrations like that sing-a-long moment or rose marches always include, to me, slightly tiresome "this kind of response shows off how great Norway is, responding to hatred with love" statements or variations on "this is the Norwegian spirit!". Just focus on the respect for each other, why do we need to wrap it up in a Norwegian cross? I think some people lap up praise from foreign media, and nationalism feels even less rational to flaunt in the aftermath of this particular terrorist attack than many others.

― abcfsk, Friday, April 27, 2012 10:14 AM (4 hours ago)

this is right

surely hes going to be in his cell, between refreshing the wikipedia table of most prolific spree-killers, caclking at all the l4m0rz who are unwittingly chanting crypto-marxist hippy drivel as an ineffectual riposte to his murders

have we ever done a serious conversation on patriotism/nationalism/jingoism?

one would imagine so?

ya it's the rolling us elections thread i thought?

no it's the one that starts oi mates and ends with ilxor chums

tend to agree with aero (i think) about the media/cultural studies exam answer steez of 'this guy is us'. I think that focusing on the fact that this guy held certain views shared, to a greater or lesser extent, by others in society as a whole is missing the point- he's the one that felt that his views justified an irl fantasia shootfest, and as such he's in a very exclusive member's club that sure, emerged from the same society as the rest of us but can't seriously be held up as a mirror for it.

media/cultural studies exam answer steez

was going to use almost the exact same diss

The fact that everyone has terrible thoughts does not automatically mean everyone does terrible things, nor that everyone's terrible thoughts are equivalent to everyone's terrible actions.

ah, people take solace in shared culture, signs and symbols, "we is us" identifications of collective solidarity. there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this kid of thing, and sneering at it seems tiresome and juvenile.

http://i.imgur.com/w7qu2.jpg

is that person about to catch on fire?

yeah

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/man-sets-himself-on-fire-outside-833899

cant find any more info

the fuck

People are weird.

what a shitshow

that monk is frowning down from nirvana like, uh no dude sorry

i think you mean from rage against the machine

the video is just so strange

Police say the man is a Norwegian citizen in his forties with no link to the trial. They believe he acted alone. His injuries are serious, but not life threatening.

A local solicitor said she was contacted by the man just before he set fire to himself.

He smelt of paraffin and wanted to hand in some of his papers relating to the social services and unemployment.

oh, max

sick burn, max

nakhchivan on fire

ah sorry that was no match for your joke

He smelt of paraffin and wanted to hand in some of his papers relating to the social services and unemployment.

"How can I get down to Sidcup in these shoes?"

However, in 1999 at the age of 20, Breivik, suddenly underwent an operation to make his nose look "more Aryan".

But this detail did not surprise his group of friends, who merely teased their friend, who was also known for using powdered make-up, for his vanity.

Breivik, who has claimed to be on a "crusade" against multiculturalism and a pending "Muslim invasion" of Norway and Europe, has meanwhile insisted that his nose was broken when he was attacked by a Pakistani, but none of the friends he claims were there at the time say they recall the event.

According to the witness who is a fireman, Breivik was "a bit special" at this time, with very personal clothing choices, including wearing sunglasses when he went out to bars at night.

So he could, so he could, keep track of visions in his mind.

Sane. Obviously... not that I'm an expert, but come on

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23327165

So Breivik secures a place at university. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/12/anders-breivik-university-oslo

He did so on merit? I can't imagine his ramblings of racist lunacy were up to much.

it's a symbolic gesture. the poli sci department will be in contact with the prison staff, and he'll be given access to study materials and tests, after which he earns 30 credits and no degree. the key point here is that norwegian prisons are only allowed to limit the right of free movement, and other than that life in the prison complexes has to be as similar to the outside world as possible.

i thought the bump was going to be the "breivik's party part of new government" story they've been trotting out recently in foreign papers, which is ridiculous.

If there's anything this guy needs education on, it's politics

i don't really see any purpose of this guy continuing to exist, but, you know, democracy and civilization etc.

Well, if he killed himself, noone would be sad. But I don't think he is worth turning norwegian society into killers as well.

i know that--my gut reaction is different than my considered reaction.

http://www.bustler.net/index.php/article/swedish_artist_jonas_dahlberg_to_design_july_22_memorial_sites_in_norway/

This is great!

So Breivik secures a place at university. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/12/anders-breivik-university-oslo

He did so on merit? I can't imagine his ramblings of racist lunacy were up to much.

― mmmm, Thursday, September 12, 2013

just noticed this. the university's entitled to do what it likes, and honoring its rules has some (nominal, in this case) value, but its justification is nonsense.

Nasty feeling this dude is going to be out of jail and leading Norway's biggest opposition party in about a decade and a half.

The headland memorial concept is beautiful and very fitting, I think.

very moving even in the design mockups. i'm curious about the engineering of it.

PFO, that is never going to happen. His role in the Progress Party (which is in the current coalition government now, btw) is severely exaggerated in non-Norwegian media. So is the extent to which that party's positions on immigration (which are nevertheless quite unattractive) overlaps with his.