Anders Breivik is avowedly anti-Islamic and anti-Marxist. Rather than being ideologically confused, he is chillingly coherent. Furthermore, I think it will be difficult to claim he is "just plain nuts", unless a definition of insanity is the commiting of multiple murder, and if that is the case, it means that all multiple murderers cannot be tried for their actions in any category other than criminally insane... in which case they are not, technically, responsible.Lalaith wrote:I read something about Marxism, too. That also makes me question his driving ideology. Perhaps, he's just plain nuts. (Well, in fact, I'd bet money that he's insane.)
ETA: Of course, now I'm thinking that I can't remember whether the article said he visited sites for Marxism or against.So, um, never mind. That may be a completely irrelevant point...or it may be a salient one. You never know with me.
I believe Anders Breivik is absolutely in control of all his faculties. His planning for this, over two years, has been brilliantly meticulous, from signalling his status as a "farmer" in order to purchase the huge quantities of fertilizer to make the bomb, to his impersonation of a police officer. He knew exactly what he was doing, and why.
It is uncomfortable to accept that sane people commit "evil" acts, and so we often retreat into "otherness" mode; "they" are different, sociopathic, evil, alien. It is just such a mentality that allows the media, and the conditioned "us", to expect Muslims to be the perpetrators of each and every despicable act. It is lazy but so, so convenient. Islam has been flagged as inherently violent, primitive, even despicable. There is a constant meme forced upon "us"; a tirade of anti-Islamic propaganda, whether it is the need to ban the veil for the furtherance of "women's rights", to the designation of the democratically elected Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, as "terrorists".
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the "talking heads" are preaching from the same hymn book, and so we have become indoctrinated into a default anti-Islamic mindset. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Islam barely merited a mention. In fact, the major reference to Islam in the mainstream was to laud those Mujaheddin who fought the evil Soviet empire in Afghanistan...
There is one final aspect of the news coverage of Anders Breivik that I find significant, and I have hinted at it earlier; there is almost a "reverance", or grudging respect, for the efficacy of his plan. Here is the blonde haired, blue-eyed, "Aryan" Übermensch. Even in their condemnation, the media "praise" him.
A step back is, I feel, required, and Michael Moore, for all his crass distortions, would seem to be right. "Whitey" is, and has always been, the problem.
Yes, it's an underground movement, yes the German govt tries to keep tight tabs on these people ... but they exist, all right. 
)
