There is an extremely important article here on Breivik’s funding, by Justin Raimondo.
It also makes plain that not only did Pamela Geller post a string of virulent anti Norwegian-Muslim articles on her website, not only did she travel to Norway to address a hate rally, not only did Brehvik post to her website and quote it as an influence. She actively supported and encouraged those planning to use terrorism.
This is an excerpt from an email she says she received and posted on her blog:
“I am running an email I received from an Atlas reader in Norway. It is devastating in its matter-of-factness.
“Well, yes, the situation is worsening. Stepping up from 29 000 immigrants every year, in 2007 we will be getting a total of 35 000 immigrants from somalia, iran, iraq and afghanistan. The nations capital is already 50% muslim, and they ALL go there after entering Norway. Adding the 1.2 births per woman per year from muslim women, there will be 300 000+ muslims out of the then 480 000 inhabitants of that city.
“Orders from Libya and Iran say that Oslo will be known as Medina at the latest in 2010, although I consider this a PR-stunt nevertheless it is their plan.
“From Israel the hordes clawing at the walls of Jerusalem proclaim cheerfully that next year there will be no more Israel, and I know Israel shrugs this off as do I, and will mount a strike during the summer against all of its enemies in the middle east. This will make the muslims worldwide go into a frenzy, attacking everyone around them.
“We are stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment. This is going to happen fast.
As Raimondo says, Geller goes on to say that she is protecting the proto-terrorist’s identity so he won’t be arrested. We do not know how this wannabe terrorist in Norway relates to Breivik or his other “cells”. Geller may know but the police are not asking her.
There can be no doubt at all that, were Geller a Muslim, this amount of evidence and connection would have her in jail by now. Do not hold your breath.
In a sense it is sad to see these posts discussing politics, blaming the CIA for things etc etc. These arguments of blame ar so fallacious and outmoded. Who the hell cares about whether Murdoch was allowed in by Thatcher? I can see that you guys live in the world of journalism and opinion. Who cares? all I care about is production.
In essence there is not much to be said. We should now reclaim our government and put the “dumb engineers” in charge as China has done and relegate the journalists and politicians and such people to the menial existence that they deserve. The leaders in China are geologists and engineers, and all of those guys are producing while we just talk… particularly characters like the ones I have come accross in this thread. I also give up.
Talk about talking…that is what you guys are all about! but I enjoyed the exchange and learnt some things from you.
“Been on the spirit smokes again, De Quincey?”
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Nope, your comment on rightist nostalgia was enough to remind me. I used to have a recording, but it seems to have been eaten by monsters somewhere in that perfect past … it seems to have gathered force in the 30 years since, dammit.
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Go back a little further in the same nostalgic vein and there’s Rupert Brook’s “Like swimmers into cleanness leaping”. Oh boy, did they get that one wrong.
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Hey Wayne, you seem to have reached the conclusion you were aiming for ? Get out there and make something, yes, good luck with it.
Well, actually, Wayne, you don’t really know what we all might be doing (as we do not know what you might be doing) – some of us (this blog has had 4 million visitors) might well make things. I agree with you on the centrality of engineers/manufacturing and the vacuousness of the political-journalist classes; there are of course some honourable exceptions. Glad you learned some stuff too.
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Travel well.
‘I blame that Tolkien. Heck, why not ? At least it’d make a change.’
If that was said in jest Quincy you are closer to the truth than you think. Tolkien actually subscribed in the 50s to a monthly magazine, ‘Candour’ edited by AK Chesterton, (ex BUF, leading light in the League of Empire Loyalists, ans subsequently one of the founders of the NF). By all accounts he found the world view expressed therein extremely congenial.
“The leaders in China are geologists and engineers, and all of those guys are producing while we just talk … “
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Approx 20,000 miners die in coal-mining accidents in China each year. Talking is important. Composing and enforcing regulations, whether on coal mines or banks, is very important. Don’t knock talking – or writing – Wayne. It’s what brings people together and allows for empathy.
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I know De Quincy’s Ghost, do I?? Anyway, glad you enjoyed God’s blog, Clark. I thought maybe this thread needed a little injection of bonhomie.
Suhayl, you wrote: “What I mean is, it’d be good to have more democracy, but not as a means to address extremist violence; I don’t think it does. […] As I said, I think that psychos will be psychos will be psychos”.
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That isn’t really my theory. When you have certain views that are not represented, resentment flourishes in a proportion of the population, lending a false legitimacy to aggressive protest and even violence. A non violent minority will excuse a smaller, violent minority along the lines of “well, they have a point”.
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Psychos will be psychos, yes, and more democracy will not change that. But note that many EDL are also football hooligans. If groups of people want to fight each other voluntarily, that is better than them attacking some innocent third party.
For Wayne and others like him:
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“Jesus was a Palestinian and Why it Matters”
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Because of modern alarmist reactions to the word “Palestine,” many non-Arabs and non-Muslims take offense when it is argued that Jesus was a Palestinian (peace be upon him). Jesus’ ethnicity, skin color, and culture often accompany this conversation, but it is interesting how few people are willing to acknowledge the fact he was non-European. A simple stroll down the Christmas aisle of your local shopping store will show you the dominant depiction of Jesus: a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, White man …
Continues: http://muslimreverie.wordpress.com/2009/12/25/jesus-was-a-palestinian-and-why-it-matters/
Wayne, you’ll never be a good engineer while you insist upon regarding every variable as a function of “immigration”. It’s all di/dt with you, eh?
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Dreoilin, we all know De Quincy’s Ghost. He used to comment under a different name before he passed to the other side.
“If that was said in jest Quincy you are closer to the truth than you think”
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In uneasy jest. (A.K. Chesterton – was he connected to G. K. ? He was an odd bugger …).
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My feeling of it is that when I was a confused “why’s it all so *difficult*, it’s not fair” kind of teenager, I found its simplicities very attractive; and subsequently came to feel that that could have gone in some bad directions. Noble aristocrats, cuddly peasant hobbits, anglosaxons with horses and swords, and the only good Orc is a dead Orc … all these different groups of people in their different places, all completely separate from each other, knowing their place and keeping to it. Great story, but not a good one to go projecting onto the world we actually live in.
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But remeber, he did write that foreword about how you don’t want to go taking it to mean anything, it’s only a story. Because one could take such a simple picture from it, doesn’t mean he was that simple, I very much suspect he wasn’t. He maybe didn’t like the world he was in, and maybe that’s fairly understandable … Wikipedia has some interesting stuff on him.
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And also, to take it back to Suhayl’s equation, I was thinking of a piece I read a while back (I can’t remember where) which I’m not really in a position to know enough about, on how there’s a branch of wild-eyed jihadi poster art based on images out of the film, on the theme of the rightful but unrecognised king, stalking the wild places of the world with a small band of followers and conducting guerilla warfare against the forces of the great satan/sauron …
Hi, Dreoilin. I used to be “Richard Robinson”, before I decided that the life of the spirit was, like, where it was at. Just a quick bout of WOOOOO!, I thought. I reckoned I could handle it at first, but …
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I love that godblog bit about the wildebeeste and the baby duck.
My favourite bit of Lord of the Rings is the Council of Elrond; the consideration of the most powerful weapon that corrupts absolutely. They consider who should wield it, but decide that it must be destroyed, but that is a mission that only the least of them can undertake.
However, I feel it is unlikely that Iran would have eventually suffered a revolution if the UK/US hadn’t trashed its democracy. That is one of the good points of democracy – the people can influence the state without resorting to violence. In this sense, authoritarian states do somewhat resemble pressure cookers. If there’s a choice between authoritarian repression Vs. representation and debate, my choice is the latter.
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Well, this may well be true. The Shah was indeed seen as a puppet of the US and the embassy as a “nest of spies” but what I find unusual is your statement that Khomeini’s fatwa on Salman Rushdie’s book was because of this. In fact, Khomeini wasn’t that interested in it at all to begin with. The backlash against the Satanic Verses began, IIRC, in India and Khomeini was lobbied to speak out on the book.
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But I also think that your characterization of the coup is a little unnuanced. Perhaps the big thing about the coup was that Iranians came to distrust the US as well as the UK and Russia. In particular the Iranians had long distrusted the UK and saw it as the biggest meddler in their affairs. There’s a good novel on this called My Uncle Napoleon in which the narrator’s “Uncle Napoleon” sees an English plot behind everything. The novel is set during the Thirties. And of course, the British also had a hand in seeing the end of the Qajar dynasty and first the rise to power of Reza Shah, followed by Reza Shah’s deposition and installing of the last Shah, Mohammed Reza Palahvi.
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It’s probably a bit strong to call Iran in the fifties a true democracy although it was far closer to it than what Iran is now. Iran had been moving towards democracy from the early nineteen hundreds (partly again inspired by oil concessions that the weak and bankrupt Qajars had been handing out to, I think, Mr Reuters of Reuters wire-service fame) with its constitutional revolution. In that revolution two ayatollahs actually were part of the liberalizing and democratizing movement. It’s all very interesting. Previously another commentator (Jon? Evgeni? Paul Johnston?) had said they had read Iran: Empire of the Mind. It seems a good place to start.
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Angrysoba, are you attempting to make me clarify, or is this just discussion for the sake of it, or have you some other motivation? Whatever, I’d rather you just filled in detail that you feel I’ve left out. We don’t really seem to be in any serious disagreement.
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No, I don’t think we have a serious disagreement except that there are far better reasons to insist on good government and democracy than because it will diffuse racial tensions and far more so than by saying it will give the Far right something to do to keep them occupied.
Hi Suhayl,
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Yes, I think that’s right. It’s more-or-less what I was saying to Evgueni, earlier. What I mean is, it’d be good to have more democracy, but not as a means to address extremist violence; I don’t think it does. Singapore is a very peaceful, safe place; it has multiple ethnic and religious groups. But it’s also very politically repressive. As I said, I think that psychos will be psychos will be psychos. They may be fired-up by propaganda or used by whomever, but I don’t think deficiencies in Norway’s political system caused Breivik to go out and murder 77 people.
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I agree with you completely. There has been some bizarre commentary about how Breivik’s actions show that the debate about immigration has been stifled and all that other codswallop. Those who see Breivik as a “true crusader” have some other serious problems which proportional representation aint going to fix.
Angrysoba, thanks for the detail. What a sad story, that a short term decision for money could set Iran’s political development back by decades or possibly centuries. Yes, we can “insist on good government and democracy”; here in the UK, the government have no need to comply.
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Here’s a nugget; Khomeini was personally insulted in the book, though of course he may have had no knowledge of its contents:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controversy#Questions_of_personal_motivation
“Those who see Breivik as a “true crusader” have some other serious problems which proportional representation aint going to fix.”
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Heh. That’s a fine understatement. I like that. I suppose there’s always the argument that a lot of the original crusaders were fuckups, too ? I mean, sacking Constantinople is a hell of an accident … If they wanted to claim he had the Pope’s support, that would be interesting to hear, though.
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Looks like his lawyer’s having problems, too. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/08/02/norway-attacks-demands.html
Wayne as a parting thought I thought I might tell you that it is always possible for two arguments to be contradictory and for both to be true. You seem to be constrained to bi-valent logic as an excuse to argue that what others say is wrong. If somebody writes A leads to B and then A does not lead to B it is possible that you misunderstood the context of the premise. As with fuzzy logic we may have contradictory statements and for different context one of the rules is stronger than the other. In my view you are too logical in your approach to complex topics, you should be more holistic and generous in your appraisal of others but it would seem that you are looking to score points. A lot of what you say is total garbage but that was besides the point! farewell and good luck.
Again I meant “Dear Clark” not “Wayne” so sorry
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See I put a full stop now to make a new paragraph!
Wayne, as well as constantly addressing himself instead of others, shows himself to be hilariously muddled in saying that two contradictory statements can be true at the same time and then attempts to prove it with this “physician-heal-thyself” pair of remarks:
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“you should be more holistic and generous in your appraisal of others but it would seem that you are looking to score points.”
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“A lot of what you say is total garbage”.
Yes, Tolkien was an interesting writer/person. His work often is ‘compared and contrasted’ (as the old school instruction goes) with ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ of C.S. Lewis.
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When, aged around 10-11 years, I first read both sets of books, I really enjoyed them. C.S Lewis’s work was more obviously aimed at children in a sort of pietistic Christian manner and Tolkien’s – much more ‘male’ in terms of protagonists, etc. – was to some extent framed by the rise and fall and rise of various contemporaneous totalitarian regimes. I still think they are wonderful, engrossing stories. However, even at that age, I could see that though while they were coming from two very different political/ religious positions, when it came to peoples of ‘The South’ and ‘The East’, both had a similar world-view.
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When, many years later, I watched the ‘Lord of the Rings’ films (I can’t remember which), I remember sitting in the cinema and there, up on the big screen, we (through the eyes of two of the Hobbits with whom we have identified) get our first glimpse of the armies of the baddies. These films were made at the height of the ‘War on Terror’ vis a vis Afghanistan (and maybe also the Iraq) wars. I saw that these baddies were dressed to look like ‘desert Arabs’ and I said, aloud and loudly (I don’t normally do this, btw), “Oh fuck, they’ve done it again. They didn’t need to do that. Bastards”.
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So, one recognises the limitations and frameworks of such literature/adaptations thereof, while still being able to enjoy other aspects. Yet, still, it still rankles…
Ah, it’s Richard Robinson. I should have known. 🙂
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I hope I didn’t post this, below, before, or that I didn’t get it from here. Between posting stuff from here to Twitter and from Twitter to here, it can get confusing.
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“Don’t Get It Twisted, We Are Already At War With Iran” (25 July)
“Oil, the Dollar and Iran are completely interconnected … This week Iran launched an Oil Bourse on Kish Island. At the same time, former CIA officer and middle east expert Robert Baer stated that Israel is preparing to possibly attack on Iran in the Fall. Meanwhile, a US Drone was shot down [in] Iran and a senior Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated. There are a lot of behind-the-scenes secret activities taking place right now that make it hard to say with any definitiveness what will happen next in this theatre.
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“Importantly, readers must understand that the United States is actually in an active war with Iran. Most think the US is not at war with Iran because the US does not have troops inside Iran such as it does in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and is not engaging in behind-the-scenes support like in Libya, Yemen, and Somalia. The US is involved in active war with Iran in the form of a Siege:
http://www.thefinancialmarketnews.com/don%E2%80%99t-get-it-twisted-we-are-already-at-war-with-iran
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I hate the latest reliance on “infographics” but that map is shocking (especially if you’re Iranian). And the USA will be livid about the oil bourse. Saddam Hussein tried to challenge the dollar supremacy, and Gaddafi was moving in the same direction.
By the way, Breivik’s lawyer said he (Breivik) doesn’t believe in the ballot box. Presumably those who see Breivik as a “true crusader” don’t either. How you take a “holistic” approach to those I have no idea.
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I may change my own handle here shortly.
Wayne,
you think yourself a “sophisticated guy” but you have amply demonstrated otherwise. Your logic is indeed fuzzy, I am joining Clark in giving up on you.
(Suhayl) “Oh fuck, they’ve done it again. They didn’t need to do that. Bastards”.
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Yes, exactly. (I’ve only read the book, I haven’t seen the film. I didn’t know that.)
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Writing about him/it last night took a lot more thought than I expected it to, and I ended up changing my mind about what I wanted to say. Which was interesting … I do have an impression that it comes out of a dislike of the way the world was/is – “reactionary” would be a fairly precise description ? – and I think that to have people projecting real-world stuff (er. real-world fantasies ?) like that onto it would very probably be a part of what he didn’t like.
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I’ve no idea to what extent he was aware of the possibility, or how he might have felt about it, or what follows from that … any guesswork I could go for would be me projecting my ideas, I think. It’s an extraordinary work of imagination, anyway.
Hey, don’t knock fuzzy logic. It’s a useful tool, not a term of insult.
Dreoilin, hey, that map bears considerable similarity to the map I’ve been linking to for some time. Yes, it’s a siege, obviously, but I hadn’t thought to use that word.
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http://www.killick1.plus.com/map.jpg
Clark,
I agree with you that more proportional representation in Parliament is likely to diffuse some of the tension / frustration in people with hard views on immigration, by allowing them to channel their energies into peaceful political campaigning. I also agree with Angrysoba that PR is unlikely to prevent people who are bent on violence from adopting some unpleasant cause in justifying their violent nature (I referred to them as crazies in previous posts).
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Quoting Clark: “When you have certain views that are not represented, resentment flourishes in a proportion of the population, lending a false legitimacy to aggressive protest and even violence. A non violent minority will excuse a smaller, violent minority along the lines of “well, they have a point”.”
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Clear and concise, thanks Clark. This is also my position with regard to direct democracy supplementing representative government, irrespective of whether PR or FPTP or some other electoral system is used. Furthermore, DD provides much better resolution in the political process, eliminating the tendency for moderately concerned citizens to band together with single-issue fanatics in supporting the same party, one that best fits their respective agendas. So DD could have the unexpected consequence of marginalising the really extreme political views.
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But once again I also agree with Angrysoba that this is not the best reason for more democracy (i.e. there are much better ones). I bring this up in response to critics who are concerned that more democracy will give greater legitimacy to more extreme views.
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There is perhaps one more thing to say on this. Inviting the violent fringe into the mainstream of the formal political process (in exchange for the renunciation of violence of course) prompts such people to start caring more about their public image, perhaps causing a gradual moderation in their ranks. Was this not roughly what happened with Sinn Fein in Ireland? Perhaps Dreolin can confirm or deny.
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I am aware of “fuzzy logic” as an electronics engineering term. It seems Wayne had also heard of it 🙂
“Saddam Hussein tried to challenge the dollar supremacy, and Gaddafi was moving in the same direction”
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Unlike Iraq and Libya however Iran is well-defended, with weaponry developed by its own arms industry. It also has powerful friends.
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Israel may be tempted to try something soon – a panicky response to its own domestic upheavals and the upcoming UN vote on Palestinian sovereignity perhaps – but it probably won’t. Israel has not not fought a proper war against grown men with tanks and planes for over 30 years.
‘A.K. Chesterton – was he connected to G. K. ? He was an odd bugger ‘
AK was GK’s nephew. The posh west London estate agents ‘Chestertons’ is also the same family.