We can no longer ignore the far-right threat

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/norway-bombing-attack-far-right
<snip>
Breivik is not a Norwegian oddity, but symptomatic of a growing culture of politically motivated violence across Europe.
The tragedy in Norway this weekend may prove to be a watershed moment in terms of how we approach far right followers, groups and their ideology. Until now, European democracies and their security services had focused almost exclusively on the threat from al-Qaida -inspired terrorism. Rightwing extremist groups and their more violent affiliates were dismissed as a disorganised, fragmented and irrelevant movement.

Two years ago, anti-terrorism officers in Britain warned of a growing threat from rightwing "lone wolves". At the same time, the US department of homeland security warned of the way in which the wider economic climate and election of the first African-American president could result in confrontations between rightwing extremists and government authorities "similar to those in the past". These past events included the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma that killed 168 people.

It would be easy to denounce Breivik as a Norwegian exception, but this would be a mistake. While he is distinguishable by his actions, it is important to note that some of Breivik's core concerns have also played a prominent role within Norwegian and European politics more generally. I spent four years interviewing far right activists, many of whom rejected political violence. Yet what became clear during this research was that there is, unquestionably, a culture of violence within the broader far rightwing subculture. Many of the ideas that were voiced during this research have also come to light over the past 48 hours: the perceived threat posed by Muslim communities, a belief that mainstream parties are incapable of dealing with this threat and strong emphasis on a "clash of civilizations" between members of the majority population and minority groups.

I recently reviewed an academic book that ended with the prediction that the next wave of terrorism in Europe will come not from al-Quaida-inspired groups, but rather rightwing groups that want to respond to this threat and reassert the position of their wider group. It is far too early to tell whether Breivik's actions will inspire copycat attacks, but one thing remains clear: the threat from rightwing extremist groups and ideas deserves far greater attention.

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:donut:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/norway-tragedy-extremism-europe
<snip>
Like every other citizen of Oslo, I have walked in the streets and buildings that have been blown away. I have even spent time on the island where young political activists were massacred. I share the fear and pain of my country. But the question is always why, and this violence was not blind.

The terror of Norway has not come from Islamic extremists. Nor has it come from the far left, even though both these groups have been accused time after time of being the inner threat to our "way of living". Up to and including the terrifying hours in the afternoon of 22 July, the little terror my country has experienced has come from the far right.

For decades, political violence in this country has been almost the sole preserve of neo-Nazis and other racist groups. During the 1970s they bombed leftwing bookstores and a May Day demonstration. In the 80s two neo-Nazis were executed because they were suspected of betraying the group. In the past two decades, two non-white Norwegian boys have been killed in racist attacks. No foreign group has killed or hurt people on Norwegian territory since the second world war, except for the Israeli security force Mossad, which targeted and killed an innocent man by mistake on Lillehammer in 1973.

But even with this history, when this devastating terror hit us, we instantly suspected the Islamic world. It was the jihadis. It had to be.

But, it always does a great job infiltrating and disrupting Quakers and the anti-war and whistleblower movements.

Gee, could these facts be related, somehow?

The establishment, starting with ReTHUGS, Teabaggers, Conservatives, racists, Fundamentalists and M$Greedia, have allowed the extreme right to grow and thrive - they have even fertilized it with hate speech and second amendment rhetoric.

abortion clinic bombers or timothy mcveighs or eric rudolphs of the world.

It's clearly the MUSLIMS who are the terrorists.

*sarcasm*

When the world believed this to be an act of international Islamist terrorism, state leaders, from Obama to Cameron, all stated that they would stand by Norway in our struggle. Which struggle will that be now? All western leaders have the same problem within their own borders. Will they now wage war on homegrown rightwing extremism? On Islamophobia and racism?]

we need to put to politicians. Where's the "we will not tolerate this/we will answer to this" rhetoric now??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

The message to the populace is that it's fine to ignore threats from within, while exaggerating threats from without. Plays right into the conservative strategy.

:sarcasm:

:kick:

I think they will fight back against the right wing forcefully, actually slaughtering them before they can take over Europe the way they have here.

Germany's ban on Nazism being the most obvious.

We don't have that in the USA. The freedoms of thought, speech, and association are strongly protected here. We can only outlaw overt behavior when it becomes a malum in se crime.

I'm talking about the people who actually live there.

They won't let that happen again.
But we're opening up and saying, please, Fascist, Hitler type people! Take our country!!

should be sawed in half , lengthwise and alive, as an example to copy cats.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14260195
<snip
Sweden, by contrast, has seen a sharp drop in far-right extremist activity since its peak in the mid-1990s, when every national newspaper in the country published identical editions with photos of every known neo-Nazi in the land.

But at the same time, aspects of the far-right agenda have risen to greater prominence on the mainstream political arena, with Expo reporting how the revulsion displayed by the Swedish people during the 1990s is increasingly turning towards a curiosity about toned-down far-right rhetoric.

Similar sentiments have been felt in Norway, where politicians have openly been voicing concerns about how the country's culture might be diluted by immigration from countries with different religions and values.

Following the attacks in Oslo and on Utoeya, it will be interesting to see whether many in the country develop a more sophisticated view of where the greatest threats are coming from, amid a growing realisation that extremism is deadly regardless of nationality, ethnicity or religion.
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I have long said that the right wing extremists are the biggest threat to our planet

thanks

since it is indicating the RW parties are growing once they minimize speaking directly about their real goals. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't still think that way.



He stated he was active in the local Progress Party in Norway and building and communicating with far-right groups in other countries.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4931714#4932578

have worked several years for the Progress Party and guarantee you that the Progress Party had less than 10% support if they had not chosen Vienna School of Thought as an ideological basis.

More ugliness here:

I have on some occasions discussed with SIOE and EDL and recommended them to use conscious strategies.

The tactics of the EDL is now out to “entice” an overreaction from Jihad Youth / Extreme-Marxists something they have succeeded several times already. Over The reaction has been repeatedly shown on the news which has booster EDLs ranks high. This has also benefited BNP. WinWin for both.



He also noted the Progress Party had been doing well in school elections in Norway.
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/07/23/anders-behring-breivi-worried-that-muslims-were-threatening-norways-youth-wanted-to-establish-norwegian-edl/
Well, this is certainly part of the reason that the Progress Party was larger than the AP at the last school elections


If true, this reminds me of the way RW's started building here awhile back by running for school boards and getting power locally.


Even if he carried out these violent acts alone, he seemed connected up in the time leading up to this and those connections should be uncovered and investigated. Hard to say if they will be since it looks like some of them, especially those in the Progress Party, could lead to connections with people and an organization that is worming itself into more of a "mainsteam" role.

Instead, we are seeing a "lone wolf" portrayal, much as we have for some U.S. terrorists who were similarly connected to RW groups, but that aspect was minimized once they were in custody:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1552501&mesg_id=1556992



Thanks for your work on this malaise.
I entirely agree with you.

yet all the wolves share the same ideology and contempt for the lives of others.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/201172412744740495.html?utm_content=automateplus&utm_campaign=Trial5&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_term=tweets&utm_medium=MasterAccount
<snip>
The Norwegian terrorist who murdered more than ninety innocent civilians - many of whom were teenagers - did not act alone. Or rather, he acted within a cultural and political context that legitimises his fearful and hate-infested worldview. It is now clear that Anders Behring Breivik was exposed to large amounts of right-wing propaganda. This tragedy underlines the urgency with which normal people around the world must combat fundamentalist nationalists and chauvinists wherever they may be. But it also demonstrates the extent to which reactionary bigotry has infected mainstream thought.

Many reacted to the news from Oslo with wide eyes and a pointed finger. The most animated reactionaries took to the pages of the New York Times comment section to issue sweeping proclamations about the Clash of Civilisations and something called "the cult of death". In many ways, readers were merely reinforcing the paper's woefully editorialised reportage. As Glenn Greenwald helpfully pointed out, the editors of the NYT - America's allegedly liberal newspaper - reserve the word "terrorist" solely for use in conjunction with the word "Muslim".

When news emerged that the perpetrator of the murders - the terrorist - was a man whose religion and skin pigmentation closely resembled those of the editors of the NYT, the story changed. The terrorist became a deranged "Christian extremist" whose tactics clearly mirrored "Al Qaeda's brutality and multiple attacks". In that way, the paper linked the terrorist with Muslims, despite his strong antipathy for them.

Blame for the Western media's panting pursuit of a non-existent Muslim triggerman quickly focused on the feckless, credulous, overeager and inept source of the NYT's journalistic failure. Will McCants - proclaimed by one of his acolytes to be at the top of a "list of five terrorism experts you can trust" - was quickly discredited. In his defence, he only sought to affirm the confirmation bias that he and the editors of the NYT suffer from. The meme that underpins their worldview goes something like this: "Muslims are bad. When bad things happen, Muslims are responsible." This is a mainstream view in the US today; it cuts across party lines.

And it is important to read and evaluate what is being written in MSM like the NYT through this context.

This section is an example. It is from the NYT article printed in the Seattle Times today:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2015711360_norway24.html

Norwegian analysts said that right-wing groups were very small, having shrunk considerably since the 1990s, and had been quiet. Even the Progress Party, which began as an anti-tax protest and has been stridently anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim in the past, has moved more to the center, to the point that it is seen as a potential coalition partner for the Conservative Party in the 2013 general election.

Breivik had been a member of the Progress Party but quit in 2006, disappointed by its move toward moderation; his Internet postings also indicate contempt for the Conservative Party. He said it had given up a serious battle against multiculturalism, which he said was diluting the nation's character. He also criticized the government for spending too little of Norway's oil wealth at home.

Joran Kallmyr, Oslo's vice mayor for transport and a member of the Progress Party, said he met Breivik several times in 2002 and 2003 at local party meetings. "He was very quiet, almost a little bit shy," Kallmyr said. "But he was a normal person with good behavior. He never shared any extreme thoughts or speech with us. There was absolutely no reason to expect that he could do something like this. We're very shocked."




Note that this starts out with the now frequently noted statement that RW groups there are small. In the same paragraph, it notes that the Progress Party, with which Breivik has been connected, has in fact grown enough through supposedly moving to "the center" that it may become a coalition partner. So, in two sentences, the article has redefined the RW party as a centrist one, which illustrates the sentence in the Al Jazeera article:
"But it also demonstrates the extent to which reactionary bigotry has infected mainstream thought."


The article admits of Breivik having been a member then works to distance that party and its members from him, both by dates being old and by lack of communication of plans. The date part is interesting, given that there are now indications Breivik started his plans in 2002, which means he was still an active member of that organization for years while he was planning this.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1563375

Putting that info together in the article would, however, undercut the impression given that Breivik left this this now deemed "centrist" organization early on when it was supposedly moving to the center and well before he started planning any of this.


This is the party that put out the following hate message in 2005:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Party_(Norway)




From 2005 electoral campaign. A person pointing a handgun towards the viewer, with caption "The perpetrator is of foreign origin!" with the undertitle "(Quote in the press we often read)". The party explained that it wanted to focus on the increasing crime rates among immigrants, which it claimed was a result of failed integration policies.<117><118>

More about that ad here:

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1097512.ece


And Greenwald nails it about the purposeful choice in using the terms terrorist vs extremist.

:fistbump:

Back at ya:
: :pals:

He is their McVeigh and he sure planned this in detail!!
This was an intentional slaughter of the youth of the Labour Party.

Norway PM: 'We Must – and Will – Meet Terror with More Democracy, Not Less'
Resilient and peaceful Norwegians won't allow attack to change their way of life
by Adam Lee-Potter

Resilient and peaceful Norwegians won't allow attack to change their way of life


Norway is in shock, but its 4.9 million people are a rugged, ­resilient race who will recover from this terrible attack on their shores, its leaders have vowed.

Crime rates – especially murder rates – are incredibly low by UK standards, and with few safety concerns even key members of state such as Prime ­Minister Jens Stoltenberg walk the streets without security.

Norwegian social commentator Tobjorn Holt said last night: “The nation is in shock. We are quiet, low-key people who don’t like fuss. That way of life’s been rocked to its core but I hope it will ­survive. We are resilient.

“We will endure and emerge stronger. The worst of it is that this attack struck at our best and brightest. The teenagers killed symbolised our future. But we will pull together.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/07/24/resilient-and-peaceful-norwegians-won-t-allow-attack-to-change-their-way-of-life-115875-23292298/




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The threat to freedom and democracy and equality for all will always be RW political violence --

Always has been - always will be --

It is the only way the RW can rise --


This is the RW using violence once more -- in a highly peaceful nation -- to create a world

more in their image -- violent and chaotic, brutal and torturous, fascist.

This scumbag used disintegrating bullets according to news reports

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/24/norway-gunman-not-guilty-plea
<snip>
Although Breivik told officers he had acted alone, Norwegian police are investigating whether he received help during the attacks. Surgeons, meanwhile, confirmed he used "dum-dum" bullets designed to disintegrate inside the body and cause maximum internal damage.

As more details emerged of Breivik's possible affiliations with British extremists, the authorities were investigating whether he had travelled to London to plot his rightwing "crusade".

European security sources confirmed they were investigating claims that Breivik and other far-right individuals attended the inaugural meeting of the far-right Knights Templar group in London in 2002. They said there had been increased internet chatter from individuals claiming they belonged to the Knights Templar, an organisation referred to by Breivik in a 1,500-page manifesto published online hours before he began his killing spree.
----
George Bush's crusade again.

I stopped donating to the democratic party and give most of my charitable contributions to the SPLC !

You can depend on them to ACTUALLY fight the right. They don't go necking with them on a Friday night.