Norway shootings

[FiveThirtyBird]

If alcohol/drugs were banned, the amount of violence/crime would decrease by at least 50%. If video games were banned, people would become more violent, since many partake in games (outdoor competitive sports exluded) for stress relief. Simple folk have been at war with machines for the last 200 years. What has changed now is that they have learnt to use machines to fight machines.

A.Hitler or J.Stalin? How about Pol Pot and a Jew who is responsible for Palestinian genocide, can we wail upon them instead?

[Marius]

Or we could stop comparing mass murderers to heads of state and making dubious references to jews in every recent news thread.

Guy subject of this thread is a nutcase. He killed a lot of people for misguided and hypocrticial reasons. What he didn't have, which is where the state parallel breaks down, is the backing of a country.

[FooIsm]

Or we could stop comparing mass murderers to heads of state and making dubious references to jews in every recent news thread.

Guy subject of this thread is a nutcase. He killed a lot of people for misguided and hypocrticial reasons. What he didn't have, which is where the state parallel breaks down, is the backing of a country.

And I get the feeling this wont be the only attack...

[Nekosan]

Or we could stop comparing mass murderers to heads of state and making dubious references to jews in every recent news thread.

Guy subject of this thread is a nutcase. He killed a lot of people for misguided and hypocrticial reasons. What he didn't have, which is where the state parallel breaks down, is the backing of a country.

Unfortunately I see the part in bold as the whole problem, the man was obviously mentally ill (that's undeniable just from the multitude of conflicting views in his manifesto) and he didn't have the support that he needed.

The media choose to look at many of these things as the work of a lone nutball who decided to shoot up a political rally/presidential parade/highschool cafeteria and to an extent that's true, but any blame for events like this should be placed firmly at the feet of society as a whole rather than blaming any single cause.

[Marius]

The manifesto has multiple conflicting views because 75% of it is copy and pasted from other peoples' documents.

[FryzieDelta]

but any blame for events like this should be placed firmly at the feet of society as a whole rather than blaming any single cause.

Don't shovel the blame onto society, this dickhead did it himself. I'm a part of society and I don't go around killing people. You're a part of society, and I doubt that you've gone around gunning people down either. If you want to talk about society, maybe talk about whether it would be detrimental if he got put in front of a firing squad where everyone shot him in the chest with a hollow point round.

[Shaolin$alesman]

Good piece on ABC website, could expect this type of thing to happen more, any one see recently about the skin head gangs in Russia targeting other ethnic groups bashed to death some 30+ people or something over 2-3 years.

The Arab community in Norway can probably count themselves lucky he didn't come for them, Makes ya wonder how 1 person can become to messed up.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/conten ... 277093.htm

Haunted By Hitler
Extremism driven by GFC: professor

Eleanor Hall reported this story on Monday, July 25, 2011 12:19:00
Listen to MP3 of this story ( minutes)


ELEANOR HALL: A visiting fellow at the ANU's European Studies Centre says extreme nationalist and anti-immigration sentiment is on the rise in Europe.

Professor Bruce Kent is an historian of extreme nationalist groups and he says that this current spike is being fuelled by the global financial crisis in the same way that Adolf Hitler was buoyed by the economic crisis of the 1930s.

Professor Kent spoke to me earlier in Canberra:

Professor Kent, were you shocked that this could happen in Norway?

BRUCE KENT: I'm not really shocked. These sorts of things can happen if you have a cocktail of racism and religious fundamentalism.

ELEANOR HALL: It seems that this man was motivated by extreme views. Have European governments been too complacent about the rise of extreme nationalism and anti-immigration sentiment in Europe?

BRUCE KENT: Well I think one can say that in a time when these things are getting more popular in the electorate, governments of whatever persuasion whether they are right of centre government or even the centre at the moment will take on board or at least tolerate these people who could just end up as votes for them.

ELEANOR HALL: Security services have tended to dismiss these groups and instead focus on the threat from al Qaeda. Should the events in Norway change that?

BRUCE KENT: Yeah, well the situation is a different one now from the circumstances surrounding al Qaeda. This is something to do with the global financial crisis. The global financial crisis is the context because it creates economic uncertainty and people get into a xenophobic attitude in they are trying to defend their patch, as it were, cultural economics, ideological patch against outsiders. There is the fear of the outsider all the time which you can see in Australia.

In Europe it is much more palpable and there are big anti-migrant parties. The most well known is Le Pen's Front Nationale in France.

ELEANOR HALL: So just how much has anti-immigration sentiment increased in recent years in Europe?

BRUCE KENT: Well, I think it is pretty strong on cultural grounds in Germany. There is an anti-Turkish feeling but I think that the whole edge has been given to it by the global financial crisis and the tremendous movements of population and refugees and they are not getting any weaker these movements, they're getting stronger.

ELEANOR HALL: So what should governments be doing about this?

BRUCE KENT: That is very difficult to say. In places like France and Norway, I don't think they are going to do anything frankly because it is not worth their short term interest to come out very much against the anti-immigrant groups. It is almost a tragic situation I think.

ELEANOR HALL: What is the danger though of not confronting these extremist groups?

BRUCE KENT: Well, in a sense this current young man is obviously someone who can be prosecuted and put in prison for however long the Norwegians put people in prison, but strengthening police activity, surveillance of these groups, they are already under surveillance but people like this young man are very hard to predict.

ELEANOR HALL: You're a historian of extreme groups.

BRUCE KENT: Yes.

ELEANOR HALL: To what extent are you concerned that the economic crisis is fuelling this?

BRUCE KENT: Well, I know it is because it is increasing xenophobia and one could put it around the other way and saying that the European community, which is all to do with free trade and commerce and intercourse and even cultural common ground between their various member states, is fundamentally a good time organisation, it's a fair-weather organisation. Once you get a global financial crisis then the willingness to collaborate and have open frontiers and all that sort of stuff evaporates but these people like this man in Norway find that the climate, the political climate is welcoming to them.

Hitler actually got to power as a result of the global financial crisis in the early 1930s. It was mass unemployment which put him into power.

ELEANOR HALL: So are you saying we are likely to see another Hitler?

BRUCE KENT: No. I am hoping not because the very fact that Hitler got to power and then did the heinous things that he did means that for most people in government, the road to Hitler style regime in any country is blocked historically but these people who for one reason or another want to hark back to the Hitler regime, they are usually fringe people, a marginalised people. They can do a huge amount of damage.

ELEANOR HALL: Now you mentioned Australia earlier, given the opposition to asylum seekers here in Australia, do you think there is a danger that this sort of extremist violence could happen here?

BRUCE KENT: Copy cat stuff but I don't think there is a historical or a social foundation for an extreme fascist party which would make them a political threat but there's a lot of mad people around in the world.

ELEANOR HALL: That is Professor Bruce Kent, an historian of extreme nationalist groups at the Australian National University's European Studies Centre.

[Mekon]

To be perfectly honest, I don't think this guy is any more of a nutjob than any other right-wing extremist.

He planned this out as a deliberate attack on a political party that he felt was threatening his view of society... in the sense that the ruling party in Norway is fairly leftist and liberal (thus not opposed to immigration and multi-culturalism). It was an attack on the youth of the party, those who would, one day, likely be active members and politicians.

There not much difference between his views and the knee-jerk reaction against boat people/Islam/whatever in this country, fueled by right-wing dickheads. Sure, he took it much further than most would, but it was a conscious, rational attack. Just listen to the morons on talkback radio here in this country, promoting fairly extreme viewpoints on a whole range of topics - they are in the same ballpark as this guy's belief system.

He is a product of right-wing politics, taken to its logical conclusion.

[Sathias]

Exactly.

The right likes to claim that when a muslim terrorist kills someone, its the fault of the religion as a whole and all muslims share some sort of responsibility. When a right-wing nutter does something like this guy or the recent shooting in the US where a gunman shot at a Democrat politician and killed several people? Oh its a psycho, a lone wolf, nothing to do with our hateful rhetoric that just happens to completely match theirs.

Recently Alan Jones was broadcasting that Gillard and Brown should be tied in a sack and thrown into the sea, and at a recent rally Hockey was asked about the possibility of the citizenry taking up arms against the government. This sort of rhetoric is not out-of-place from the right with at all. Just like in the US it is taken advantage of by opportunistic politicians who want to get elected, but everyone washes their hands of it when someone actually acts on these ideas.

[skitzor]

yesyesyes.

Everyone involved in politics needs to realise that the completely-over-the-top rhetoric they use is influencing people like Breivik and Loughner to commit horrible acts.

Stewert's and Colbert's rally attempted to attract attention to the issue, but people still haven't learned. Fox News is as bad as it always been, and recently Beck has compared the Utoya camp to the Hitler Youth. This is **** disgusting. I'm sure some people heard him say this and think to themselves that what Breivik did was justified. The stranglehold Fox News and the rest of the right-wing propaganda machine has on people is amazing. They have somehow got themselves into a position where they can't be touched. If they ever get attacked from another person or media outlet, even if it's justified and true, they spin the story into making it seem like the lefties are out to get them. When an extremely popular news channel that has an obvious political motive can actively lie to their viewer ship and get away with it, bad things are going to happen.

Honestly I'm extremely surprised there haven't been more attacks like the one on Giffords. It's a bit off topic, but the situation would be similar in Europe. There probably wouldn't be anyone as big as Fox News pushing the right wing agenda, but Brievik seemed to be active in the blogging community.

It's really disappointing to see this sort of rhetoric and discussion making it's way over to Australia.

[FooIsm]

To be perfectly honest, I don't think this guy is any more of a nutjob than any other right-wing extremist.

I wouldn't really call anyone that has a different POV a nutjob though... Just different than the normal way of thinking

[Tastynapalm]

I wouldn't really call anyone that has a different POV a nutjob though... Just different than the normal way of thinking

Change can be made at the end of a Rifle. American war of Independence, Jewish reclamation of Palestine from the UK. Both started from violence and look how they ended up. No I am not applauding the shooting of kids by this guy either. This guy wasn't a spree killer shooting up a shopping mall. This took planning over a length of time and self control. So I don't think he can use the neighbours dog told me to kill, Ozzy Osbourne sung to me or the moon was at the right spot.

Maybe this is the start of new violence in Europe?

[Lance P King]

He is a product of right-wing politics, taken to its logical conclusion.

I would say "product" is a too complete an idea in this case, don't discount his individual will, which politics in the end, is only there to feed on.

Excellent post though.

[Shaolin$alesman]

Change can be made at the end of a Rifle. American war of Independence, Jewish reclamation of Palestine from the UK.

Because the Americans turned out to be war mongering gun freaks (they have done a lot of good in the world and also a lot of bad, much more than most countries), Israel/ Palestine conflict?!!? that area is better now since that happened? Hardly good comparisons.

Changes were made but not always for the better.