Heroes for Today: A German, two lesbians, a mayor and a prime minister…

…and, hell: a whole slew of plain, ordinary Norwegian citizens of all faiths and colors:

Meanwhile, here’s the German, who saved as many as 30 people from the frigid waters in his small boat. He didn’t stop making trips out to find them until he saw the police coming.

And here are the lesbians (a lawfully married couple, no less!), who saved 40 people in theirs. They were shot at by the terrorist, too. Their boat was riddled with bullet holes.

Here’s the Mayor of Oslo…

…and the Prime Minister of Norway.

Heroes all.

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Economics for Dummies: “Austerity” explained

…in terms so simple, even a Repug could understand them:

Shamelessly stolen from here. (Thanks, Pale!)

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Music for a Monday: A lament for Che

Yes, I know, this is very belated; I should have put this up yesterday:

Steven Soderbergh’s two-volume movie of Che’s Cuban triumph and his Bolivian downfall is hugely ambitious, and in some instances falls short of its obviously high intent. Benicio del Toro, despite the first film’s subtitle “The Argentine”, isn’t from Argentina, and, though an excellent actor, he can’t do the unmistakable Rioplatense accent at all; he also, sadly, misses much of Che’s wicked, mordant sense of humor; and that’s just for starters. But it’s a valiant effort. Even though this scene muffs Che’s last words to Mario Terán, the Bolivian sergeant chosen to execute him (the actual words are not “shoot, do it”, but “I know you have come here to kill me. Shoot, you coward, you are only killing a man”.) What makes it worthwhile, besides the incredibly beautiful cinematography throughout, is the way the story ends, with this tender, heartbreaking lament by the late (and very great) Mercedes Sosa. Crank your speakers and prepare to cry.

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Wankers of the Week: Terrorist sympathizers and fellow travellers

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Crappy weekend, everyone! Anybody feel like sending old Tailgunner Joe spinning in his Nazified grave? Because I sure as hell have, all week. And here’s my list of terrorist enablers, fascist symps and fellow travellers who, at long last, SHOULD have some shame…but probably don’t:

1. Erick Fucking Erickson. Yeah, dude, you are most definitely not of this world. And that’s precisely what’s wrong with you. If you were living in reality, you’d see that your ideological soulmate, Anders Breivik, is in fact a jihadist terrorist, albeit a western capitalist Christian one. (Same shit as the so-called Islamists, in other words; only the color of the asshole varies.) “Strangers in a strange land”, and all that cal. Stop talking biblespeak, and learn to speak English. If you’re a stranger here on Earth, you’re just as dissociated as HE is. And that makes you a fucking fellow traveller, dipshit.

2. Jennifer Fucking Rubin. When do you plan on correcting your assertion that it was Islamists who bombed Oslo, you fucking idiot of a worthless neo-con? And yeah, let’s all go on throwing more money down the bottomless “anti-terror” war hole, too. It’s not like the US can’t afford it, right?

PS: Oh, wait…

3. Robert Fucking Spencer. Whatsamatter, wingnut — can’t handle the fact that Anders Breivik got his marching orders, so to speak, from YOUR drivellings? You can’t go around whipping up blind ideological hatred and NOT expect someone to act on it in an organized, terroristic fashion. And if Breivik is a nut, then so are you…and worse still, because you helped MAKE him one. He cited you no fewer than 46 times in his 1,500 page puke-out, after all.

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4. Pamela Fucking Geller. Surprise! This deranged fruit-bat is another of Breivik’s inspirations and fellow travellers in fascism. Watch HER try to spin her way out of it, too. Sorry, Pammy, but you’re coated in that shit from having wallowed in it for the last ten years. It’s not going to come off no matter how fast you rotate, because you’re still fucking wallowing!

PS: Oho, what have we here? An e-mail from Norway? From WHOM in Norway, I wonder? Surely not HIM? And it says he’s stockpiling weapons and ammo! And she protected his identity because he was subject to hate-speech laws! Gee, I wonder who’s a fellow-traveller now, eh? And a TERRORIST ENABLER. Know what that makes you, Pammy, by your own definitions? That’s right, one of those. And no, deleting incriminating info won’t change the fact that you are one, either.

PPS: Oh look, the useless idiotess is still spinning. At this rate, she’ll drill a hole to China!

5. Glenn Fucking Beck. What? He didn’t join the mad lemming-rush to blame the Muslims? Yeah, sure, Biff, whatever you say. And yeah, a social-democrat campground is totally like the Hitler Youth. That must be why none of those kids were dressed in uniforms and armbands, like the REAL Hitlerjugend wore (but Boy Scouts do). Why, I bet they even sang Kumbaya — the Horst Wessel Song of the liberal left! Scary! So, tell me, Biff: How much longer before your disintegrating brain finally disconnects from your mouth, so that we no longer have to listen to another deranged (and deranging) word out of YOU? (And if you think that political youth camps are somehow sinister, may I remind you of three little words: VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL. Okay, two more: JESUS CAMP. Oh, wait…)

PS: What Keitho said.

PPS: And Juan Cole. Yes, let’s boycott Biff — AGAIN.

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6. Adrian Fucking MacNair. Yeah, that’s right. Go right on blaming the Muslims for your own side’s collective fucking panic-driven stupidity. How else to save face when you’re one of the many crapagandists whipping up the anti-Muslim fervor while the real terrorists — the various shades of brownshirts, all right-wing and white like you, and inspired by crapaganda like yours — are doing the worst and most terrorism of all?

7. John Fucking Bolton. First thing out of his ass he pulls, within hours of the attack, is “the Muslims did it”. Then, when it becomes apparent that the Oslo massacre was not 9-11 but Oklahoma City all over again, he suddenly thinks it’s “too early to speculate”? Now we know why #4 has the screaming thigh-sweats for him. That much bat-shit sure smells attractive…to another bat. (And, as an aside, what a testament this is to the depth of Dubya’s dumbth, not to mention his fascist ideological motivations. Just think, kiddies, this one was Dubya’s ambassador to the UN — which he said should be levelled by terrorists. Remember that? Pammy-poo does. And she masturbates to that tape every night.)

8. Michael Fucking Coren. I forgot to add him last week, but Simon, bless his heart, has dished him up nicely — along with the odious Kathy Fucking Shaidle and her vile Muslim-baiting husband, Arnie Fucking Lemaire, who are Coren’s icky ideological/religious soulmates. So go and enjoy a few laughs at the expense of Sméagol, eh?

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9. Geert Fucking Wilders. Why the unseemly haste to distance yourself from the terrorist? After all, he’s your ideological spawn, too. Your right-wing babblings inspired him and helped him find targets to hate on; he couldn’t have done it without you. Why else would he specifically mention and praise you in his ludicrous ravings? Own your shit, asshole.

10. Frank Fucking Gaffney. Oh look, another rightard eager to distance himself and his ideological ilk from the terrorist, who got all his chops from THEM: islamophobia, gun nuttery, misogyny, anti-leftism, you name it. And, in the process, score ideological points by slagging those who point the finger in the right direction…namely, the direction of rabid rightards like Frank Fucking Gaffney. Who are these culprits? Why, “an unholy axis of Muslim Brotherhood operatives and those on the left”. How very fucking convenient!

11. Mark Fucking Steyn. Disingenuous much? Why does a person have to kill Muslims to prove his islamophobic “credentials”? Oh, I get it: Mark Shit-Steyn is mad that Anders Fucking Breivik didn’t kill enough Muslims. Oh c’mon, Mark, buck up — he killed leftists and feminists! The very people you claim enable Muslims in their nonexistent quest to take over the world! Doesn’t that make you happy? To read the drivel you normally write, I would have thought that you’d be cackling with vindictive glee, instead of trying to distance your pathetic cowardly shit-ass self from him, too!

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12. Jonathan Fucking Kay. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya: That word, “mainstream”, I do not think it means what HE thinks it means. And I know for a fact that Mark Fucking Shit-Steyn does not fit into it anywhere, either. That man is a blatant fucking flap-jawed bigot, utterly unrepresentative of Canada in any way, shape or form. And so is Jonathan Fucking Kay.

13. Markus Fucking Määttänen. Yeah, dude, you’re so totally right. Breivik just needed to get laid and maybe find a girlfriend, and then he’d have been all right. He’d be as liberal as Jesus, and there would never have been a massacre or that vomitous cribbed-from-the-Unabomber “manifesto”, and everyone on Earth would have rainbow-maned Pegasus ponies who shit marshmallows to carry them high above the clouds. Problem is, he doesn’t seem to like other people very much. Not just Muslims, but humanity in general. Plus he sounds positively Howard Hughes-y about STDs. And, given his weird penchant for steroids and macho fanboy costume-play, probably too manly-manly to bother with a condom, either. (Or too nerdy-geeky for anyone to want to get with. There’s that, too.) That all kind of puts a crimp in the getting-laid thing, knowwhattamean?

14. and 15. The Fucking Wall Street Urinal and the Fucking Jerusalem Pest. Really, publishing op-eds claiming that Breivik had good ideas? That, gentle readers, is what honest reporters call a BAD idea. But then again: What does one expect from rightard crapaganda rags owned by Rupert Fucking Murdoch and Conrad Fucking Black, respectively? Their entire premise is that Israel is some poor defenceless little bastion of western democracy in a sea of evil islamofascist Ay-rab backwardness. (Yes, really. Stop snickering, you up there in the Peanut Gallery. They are Serious Cat!)

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16. Stephen Fucking Lennon. Oh, of course the wanker-in-chief of the “English Defence League” doesn’t condone mass murder…but he sure does understand where it comes from. And why not? It comes from the same place as his own racism (and that of his fuckheaded followers) comes from. And of course, HE BLAMES THE MUSLIMS.

17. And at the same link, Mario Fucking Borghezio. Some of Breivik’s ideas are “good”, and some are “great”? How does one say “That’s fucked up” in Italian? (Figures that he’s from the anti-immigrant camp of Silvio Fucking Berlusconi, eh?)

18. Margaret Fucking Wente. She thinks Norway has “no significant far-right party”, which only goes to show that she hasn’t been following the news. In fact, the very significant far-right party of which Breivik was a member (before leaving it because it just wasn’t hateful enough for him) comprises one fifth of Norway’s electorate. And Wente’s wank doesn’t end there: She also thinks all the far-right rhetoric, from the punditocracy to the politicians, somehow isn’t to blame for the shaping of Anders Fucking Breivik’s madness. Never mind that he cites it repeatedly, and approvingly, in his vomitfesto, leading one to conclude, rather logically, that it IS in fact to blame. But then again, can you blame her? After all, she’s a right-wing hate-monger too. You can hear the bleat of fear behind her words. It’s not censorship she fears, it’s that she’ll lose her easy paycheque at the Grope and Flail when enough people start putting pressure on the paper to drop her imbecilic ass. So of course she’s gonna push the “he’s just plain crazy” canard. After all, that’s what all the lazy pundits do every time they’re challenged to rethink their all-too-easily-jumped-to conclusions about, well, anything after a “deranged” individual proves conservatism to be, at base, just a plain old hate ideology. When your gravy train’s in danger of derailing, jump to the easiest and most popular conclusion, never mind how far from logical it actually is.

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19. Theodore Fucking Kaczynski. Yeah, that’s right, the Unabomber. He may be in the Big House for life, but since his “manifesto” forms the backbone of Breivik’s toxic spew, he deserves a place on this list right along with all the other right-wing ideologues and terrorists already listed.

20. Michael Fucking Savage. The Savage Wiener thinks it’s a conspiracy to discredit the right? BWAHAHAHAHAHA! As if a conspiracy were needed to do that. All we have to do is report accurately, and play back their nuttery verbatim. That shit discredits itself with no help from us at all.

21. Francesco Fucking Speroni. Another Berlusconi partisan rears his oily head. Breivik’s crackpot ideas “were in defence of western civilization”, were they? Well, then, by that definition, western civilization is racist, backward, bigoted, imperialist, irresponsible, intensely sexist, and a shameless polluter. If this is “civilization”, I want none of it. But, again, as Inigo Montoya would say, “That word…I do not think it means what YOU think it means!”

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22. Bruce Fucking Bawer. “Legitimate concerns about genuine problems” don’t lead to the writing of 1,500 pages of toxic bilge, one blown-out government building, and an island campground being turned into a slaughterhouse. But thanks for justifying terrorism. Now we know why he included you in his rantings!

23. Bill O’Fucking Reilly. Yes, Breivik IS a Christian, and one just like you. Even thinks the Protestants should all be reabsorbed by the Vatican. Spin THAT, Billo! (And if you don’t think Christians CAN be terrorist extremists, let Frank Schaeffer — former right-wing evangelist and crapagandroid — school you.)

24. The Fucking FBI. Or should that be Fucked-Up Bureau of Investigation? Call them what you will; I call them stupid for having such a simplistic view of Islam. One that, incidentally, fits right in with all the right-wing anti-Islam yeehadis so far mentioned. And, given their own penchant for playing agent provocateur, one gets the feeling they had to gin it up as some kind of raison d’être, no?

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25. Walid Fucking Shoebat. He’s an absolute fraud, but both Breivik and the FBI apparently believe him, because they both cite him approvingly in their respective crapaganda. Shameful, but utterly unsurprising.

26. Pat Fucking Buchanan. He has plenty of praise and justification for the terrorist. Don’t anybody look shocked. After all, Puke-Cannon did the same for Adolf Hitler. And yeah…why IS he still allowed on TV? Oh yeah, silly me: He doesn’t challenge corporatism. Neither did Adolf Hitler!

27. Bryan Fucking Fischer. The “manifesto” was “accurate”? Well, considering that it was largely plagiarized from your fellow rightards, of course it’s verbatim. But as far as correctness goes, it’s a big goose-egg. But thanks, Bryan, for passing the Terrorist Fellow Traveller Litmus Test.

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28. Debbie Fucking Schlussel. You know that old saying, the one that goes When you point the finger at somebody else, three more fingers are pointing back at you? Well, it applies here. Little Debbie is pointing three fingers right back at herself when she calls the young democratic socialists killed at Utøya island “hateful, privileged brats”. Has she even been outside her own neighborhood, never mind the US? I get the distinct impression that she hasn’t. Her brain-free whinings are hard evidence that Little Dumbass leads an all too sheltered and yes, PRIVILEGED life. From which it is all too easy to cheer for the murders of people she never knew. Which means that yes, despite her disingenuous disclaimers, Little Debbie Dumbass is siding with a terrorist, too…exactly what she FALSELY accuses those Norwegian teenagers of doing.

29. David Fucking Solway. Why is everything always the progressives’ fault…including illiberal hatreds (note the prefix il-!) that lead to 1,500 pages of puke, dozens of dead bodies, and a blown-out government building? Why is nothing ever the fault of conservative crapagandists who whip up said illliberal hatred and couch everything in the rhetoric of a war on this and a war on that? In other words: Why is nothing ever the conservatives’ fault, even when it’s all sourced exclusively FROM conservatives?

30. Michelle Fucking Bachmann. Getting your foreign policy “advice” from Wanker #10, eh? Fellow traveller.

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And finally, to the man himself, Anders Fucking Bering Fucking Breivik. Why the double Fucking? Because he’s doubly fucked up. Not only is he a terrorist and a mass murderer, he’s also a wanker. He plagiarized large swaths of his “manifesto” (is any of it actually his own original writing?), he blames slutty feminist women, he blames the uppity niggruhs with their hippity-hop, and he probably also blames his parents’ divorce (which occurred very early in his life). I’m still waiting to hear if he also blamed the effeminate homo-sex-you-alls for leaving their back doors open. But as for taking personal responsibility, that canard so beloved of the do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do right? Nope…and his conduct in court this past week was proof enough of that. “Not guilty onnaccounta I’m at war” isn’t, in fact, a valid plea in any criminal court that I know of; self-appointed armies of one don’t count, and one-sided gunfire on peaceful, unarmed adversaries does not a war make.

But hey, you gotta admit it’s a nice try! That bastard’s poor lawyer sure has his work cut out for him, trying to get this one off on an insanity plea. The super-organized nature of this crime makes such a plea unlikely to succeed. As does a lack of evidence that any organic disease of the brain was at play. (And the accused himself would probably also dispute the “crazy” gambit; he wants to be taken for a prophet and a Führer, not a lunatic.) While there’s certainly ample evidence of chemically-induced derangement (steroids and Ayn Rand-esque ephedrine use being factors), as well as some seriously raging narcissism (did you know he got plastic surgery?), the real source of his alleged insanity is, in fact, strictly environmental. And no, it’s not the “Cultural Marxists” or the eeeeeevul femmunists. As the old joke goes, How do you get hearing AIDS? From listening to too many assholes. He listened to an awful lot of crazy fucking assholes, and he became the terrorist who carried out, to the letter, what they, collectively, were telling him he had to do — namely, make war against Muslims and socialists.

If this guy’s a nut, he’s certainly not a lone one; he’s surrounded, formed and ideologically backed by all kinds of them — and all are from the right, as evidenced by this week’s list. It doesn’t get any more wankish than that.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Quotable: Johan Galtung on the Oslo massacres

Democracy Now interviews a man who understands a thing or two about the dangers of fascism and the need for nonviolent conflict resolution: Johan Galtung — sociologist, author, activist…and, by eerie coincidence, grandfather of one of the survivors of the Utøya Island massacre:

All of what he says is worth quoting, but the following bits of the transcript are what stand out most prominently for me:

You can imagine the shock when I heard that my granddaughter had arrived not only on the island the day of the massacre, but together with the assassin on that small boat. And he was carrying a huge weapon, according to Ida—I-D-A is her name, member of that young Labourite youth organization, where I, myself, was a member many years ago. And she then understood, when the shooting started, that this is serious. So Ida escaped with a friend, a girlfriend, Johanna, and they were able, after getting rid of a red rain jacket, to camouflage themselves behind a stone under her green rain jacket. And on the other side of the stone, the assassin was standing, shooting. And their friends fell down, and crying, crying, crying. And there was a pool of blood. But she escaped, together with her friend, unhurt. And you can imagine that when, after one hour or close to an hour, a boat came, they didn’t dare go out. But then came a big unmistakable boat, and they escaped to that one.

This brings it very close. It’s a small society, you know? And we Norwegians, as you put it mildly, are not used to that kind of thing, 76 people killed on one day. And with an annual murder rate of 40, two years’ rate on one day. I don’t use the word “terrorist.” That’s an American vocabulary, which has found much too much usage. It’s a sign saying, “Stop thinking. He’s just simply bad and evil.”

[…]

Don’t try to explain this in terms of anything Norwegian. Our right-wing populist party, which is very far from anything I stand for, I have to defend. They had strongly anti-Islamic, also racist, connotations two or one decade ago. They have, to a very large extent, liberated themselves from that. Anti-immigration? Yes. But they are not alone in that in Norway. He’s not a reflection of that party. He was a member and left it, and left it because he found it much far to the left or to the center and not to his liking. And the general climate in Norway, of course there are Islamophobes, and of course there are people to the extreme right not organized as a party. We have our fair shares.

But we also have something else. We have 10 percent of Norwegians born abroad, and a heavy portion of them are Muslims. And by and large, they are integrated perfectly, speak fantastic Norwegian. You now have them second generation. And as I say to my family members, I am totally prepared for the circumstance that there will be a Mohammed Galtung and a Fatima Galtung in the future. And Galtung is some of the oldest families in Norway, from Viking times.

Now, having said that, I have the impression that their encounter with middle-range social democratic Norway has also modified and made their Islam less, shall we say, confrontational, although I know enough about Islam to know that the word “confrontation” is not built into it, except when it is trampled upon—the fourth stage of jihad, to put it that way. In general terms, with some few exceptions, the relations are good, and very different from what you can find in other countries. You have England, Netherlands, of course, Hungary. And in Italy, a parliamentarian just said that he was 100 percent in agreement with Anders Breivik, but not with his violence, but ideologically in agreement.

[…]

His ideology, OK, we have to go into it. And it doesn’t help anything, as I said, to call him a “terrorist.” We have to try to understand him. So I identify three features very quickly. Point one, a civil war in Europe between deep Christianity, which is his essentially as Catholic, and Islam. And a civil war has been going on and is going on. Point two, Islam is penetrating on a road greased by multiculturalism, tolerance, and key proponents of this tolerance are the builders of that road, which he finds in what he calls “cultural Marxism” and social democracy. And point three, debate is impossible. You cannot end the Norwegian democracy and have a debate about this, because people are deaf and dumb. The Islamists, as he calls and would refer to all Muslims, will not listen; they are just pursuing their cause. In other words, the only possible response, horrible as it is, is violence—terrible, but necessary. There you have three features.

And that makes me immediately ask the question, what does it remind me of? And I have one simple answer and one horrifying answer. I will take the simple answer first: it reminds me of Nazism. There’s a civil war in Europe between Jews and Aryans—also a very basic tenet of Hitlerism, Nazism. And the Jews are of two kind: the Bolshevik Jews in Moscow and the plutocratic money Jews in London. Point two, there is something greasing the way for them, and that is miscegenation, racial mixing, marriages between Jews and Aryans—the worst crime imaginable. And point three, these people have their minds set; there is no dialogue possible. The only thing one can do is to expel them. You might even reward them for expelling them. And if not, the alternative is to execute them. Now, that last point was picked up by Breivik. I don’t think he had it from Nazism, but his idea was that each Muslim family in Norway should be paid 25,000 euro to leave, back to their own country. And if they rejected that, the alternative was execution—exactly the same as the Nazis did under the famous Transfer Agreement during the 1930s, when 60,000 Zionist German Jews were given not only the permission, but encouraged to leave for Palestine. Well, I can call this ideology neo-fascism, and it’s an updating, where instead of being anti-Semitic, it’s anti-Islam, and instead of miscegenation being the fantasma, it’s multiculturalism. So Breivik talks cultures where the Nazis talked race. But otherwise, the similarity is almost point to point.

But you see, then, when again you ask the question, “What does it remind you of?” there is a horrifying answer, which will be very difficult for Norway to process. This is exactly the ideology of the Washington-led attack on Muslim countries. There’s a civil war in Europe. It’s called “clash of civilizations,” the idea that came from the Princeton professor Bernard Lewis and was taken by Samuel Huntington’s publishers and put as title of his book, and I think wrongly attributed to Sam. But that doesn’t matter; that’s a small detail. The road is greased by failed states and by local groups taking command those failed states, so that in these failed states, the local groups, be they Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, these groups can launch decisive attacks on the Christian Western mainland, and particularly then U.S. And 9/11 is then interpreted in that context. And point three, makes no sense to have any dialogue. These people, you cannot talk with them. Terrible as it is, the only language they understand is violence. Well, my country, Norway, is a part of that: sharpshooters in Afghanistan killing Taliban.

I had talked to a number of Taliban. I feel very deeply touched by that. They are human beings. They are fighting for their country. Some are what we would call “extremists,” most of them are not. I think their ideology has essentially three points. Point one, they stand up for Islam, but know they have made—know very well they have made mistakes, particularly with regard to women. Point two, they hate Kabul as the landing platform for foreign invaders. And they hate being invaded. I have no difficulty accepting those three points. I have great difficulties, or I cannot—I simply reject the Norwegian government signing up with the U.S. effort to try to quench what they see as a rebellion of people with whom they cannot talk.

And then you have Norway in Libya, F-16s, 535 sorties, throwing 501 bombs on what they call military targets. OK, Breivik could say, “My bomb killed very few, and it was on the target.” The target was the center of decision making. The parallel is disgusting. And the point about it is that, suddenly, my little country Norway stands as victim. We are mourning today. There are beautiful ceremonies. And I must reach out to the Prime Minister, saying his words are extremely well chosen. He does it beautifully. And at the same time, Norway, under the leadership of Washington, is doing exactly the same thing, only on a much larger scale: perpetrator—victim and perpetrator.

Well, I hope my country will be able to process that. And I think the way to process it, there’s only one road, and that is to point to positive openings, both in Norway, in Europe, and in the world. So, as a mediator, I’m working on that and have a couple of small things to say.

[…]

My granddaughter ends her letter to all her relatives, and I do not have her permission to circulate this in any detail, but she ends with a very important sentence. “I want you all to know that if I haven’t answered to all the expressions of compassion that I have been reading by now, it’s because I have tried to think, and I have tried to think of one thing: how can we prevent movements like the movement Breivik participated in?” I find that very wise. And the question is, what are the answers?

Let me give one answer immediately. Challenge these people on the extreme right in debate. Get them out in public space, in the open. Challenge them. Let me only say one thing. If you want to challenge them, you should have been well prepared. These people are well prepared. Don’t underestimate them—point one. This has to happen all over Europe. It is not a question of just identifying cells. It’s a question of going to them personally. Get them out. Invite them into the best of our society, the open, free debate. But—and then comes the difficult point—it’s difficult to do that unless you are willing to open for the same possibility in dialogues and debates with Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda. And I can only say, having done it, it’s very, very easy. But you have to understand them. That doesn’t mean you have to accept them, but you have to go your portion of the way.

And I can add to that one point. The mourning today in Norway is in churches and in mosques. How about a joint ceremony? A joint ceremony would be beautiful. We haven’t quite come to that stage yet, but we could be close. And the closest place in Europe would be the Mezquita in Córdoba, which was a mosque and was destroyed partly. They were trying to make a cathedral, and now is some kind of mix. Well, the Muslims in Spain have suggested to have, let us say, Muslim ceremonies on Fridays, Christian on Sundays, and I could add, how about joint ceremonies on Saturdays? It’s been rejected by the local clergy. And then I turn my face on the map to Turkey. OK, you had a big, big cathedral in Constantinople, and it was turned into a mosque. How about doing the same there? How about doing the same? You have Premier Erdogan in Turkey, Zapatero, and they have made the Alliance of Civilizations. What a fantastic symbol this would be, leaving these rightists behind, saying, “You are not a part of our history. You belong to the past. You belong to the past. Come and join us in this endeavor. Talk with the Islamic people you are so afraid of.” And you will find them 99.99 percent very, very reasonable.

Lots of crunchy nuggets for thought in there. Sit, listen to the interview, and chew them over.

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Festive Left Friday Blogging: Ollanta inaugurates, Chavecito celebrates

Yesterday was a busy, festive day in Latin America. In Peru, a progressive finally got himself inaugurated president:

Ollanta Humala is in the sash! That’s his wife, Nadine Heredia, applauding behind him. Radio Rebelde has more on what Peru can expect of an Ollanta presidency. Sounds like more international unity is on tap, and that’s a good thing.

Meanwhile, look who didn’t show up to hand over the sash (which, I’m sure, had to be retailored to fit Ollanta’s much slighter physique):

“Just so nobody says I had too much of an ego, I decided to come to the ceremony.”

Guess Twobreakfasts “Julius Caesar” García knows he won’t be missed — except, maybe, by foreign mining company execs, who are all crying in their Pisco Sours still this fine morning. I doubt Ollanta is going to be quite as quick with the rubber stamp as his vendepatria predecessor; hence the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And while a certain somebody from Venezuela couldn’t make it either (both he and his Paraguayan counterpart, Fernando Lugo, had to absent themselves for health reasons, not ego), there was still plenty of celebrating going on in Caracas:

Yes, the big birthday boy is 57 as of yesterday. And he vows he’s good for 57 more! I can well believe it; he’s looking plump and healthy, which is always a good sign. He looks just about as youthful as his lovely daughters and cute little grandsons, actually, thanks to plenty of rest, good food, exercise and the assiduous care of those excellent Cuban doctors. (Jack Layton, on the other hand, worries me; at his press conference this past week, he looked painfully thin.)

Definitely no worries about Chavecito, he’s not going anywhere:

He was in great spirits, wishing Ollanta (who’s already visited with him) all the best, and thanking his amigo, El Ecuadorable, for the spiffy sunglasses the latter gave him for his birthday (he even models them briefly in the video. Very sharp!) And of course, Fidel, Raúl, and the Cuban medical team that looked after him on his last stay in Havana. With friends like those, another 57 years are easily in the bag.

Pa’lante, Comandante.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), Ecuadorable As Can Be, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Huguito Chavecito, Inca Dink-a-Doo, Paraguay, Uruguay | 1 Comment

Short ‘n’ Stubby: After Oslo, and before the next big fascist terror attack

Ms. Manx has a terrible confession to make: She’s worried! Yes, our eternally merry and sweetly skeptical cyberkitty is seriously bothered about Oslo…and not just because of all the carnage (although that, in itself, is terribly upsetting, too.) Beyond the immediate shock and grief, there are so many larger implications that she wants me to draw to your attention, so that enough people who might be able to do something, collectively, can start the counterattack where it counts…

At Alternet, Frank Schaeffer talks about the crapaganda of the “Christian” (note the quotes) right wing that he used to be part of before he grew a real Christian conscience. He notes how much the “Christians” and other neo-con right-wingers have become the jihadist menace they keep telling us the Muslims, and the Muslims alone, are. More worrisome than that, though, he finds the anti-government sentiment growing, and believes it will lead to more OKC-style terror attacks. He also notes how right-wing anti-goverment rhetoric has spawned numerous terror attacks in more recent years. Ms. Manx worries about that, too. Especially since the terrorists have too often been dismissed as “lone nuts”. Once more, she reiterates, ALL CAPS: IN THIS CURRENT RIGHT-WING CLIMATE, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A LONE NUT!

Another expert on right-wing terror, the Southern Poverty Law Centre’s Mark Potok, has a startling chart in the New York Times. Ms. Manx would like you to pay special attention to who was in the White House when antigovernment terrorism was at its worst. (Hint: It wasn’t Dubya.)

And at Truthout, there’s a list of ten questions the media aren’t asking about all this, that of course they should. Ms. Manx can think of many, many more. Can you?

And at Kadaitcha, Jinjirrie analyzes how the “cherry-picked” ideologies of fascism play into the Oslo massacres. Recall, too, that Italian fascism and Nazism in Germany were also conglomerates of right-wing ideologies, and it was this unholy admixture that gave them the inordinate power to sweep up seemingly disparate right-wing factions all under one big, ugly umbrella. Ms. Manx gives this analysis two paws up.

Two more paws up for this commentary by German journalist Gerd Appenzeller, writing for the English language website, The Local. Ms. Manx especially likes this bit:

Groups that hold such extremist views don’t just exist in Norway – there are similar ones in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. And there are comparable political movements in Germany too. Xenophobia is on the rise in Europe, a continent which has always been marked by cultural diversity in spite of long centuries of being unified by Christianity, and whose influence has affected the world from the Americas all the way to Africa and Asia.

And now that globalization is returning to the continent that transformed the world, many people just can’t cope, and feel their identities are being betrayed. They blame politicians who they believe are failing to protect them from foreign influence, and failing to preserve old traditions.

They want their countries to insulate themselves from change, they want them to shut everything out that they consider bad, and if that isn’t possible, they want to destroy multiculturalism, Marxism and Islamism – everything they consider foreign.

But they overlook the fact that Europe always suffered when it reacted like that – Hitler’s Germany, Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy and Stalin’s Russia shut themselves into a madness of race or class supremacy and exterminated people who thought differently or were just different.

And they also forget that Europe prospered and achieved international importance when it overcame boundaries and embraced open societies. Whenever Europe divided itself into groups to be preserved and groups to be destroyed, then it became the continent of inhumanity. But whenever it celebrated freedom and democracy, it became a model and a yardstick for others to measure themselves by.

That is why the response to terrorism should never be separation and isolation, but a cosmopolitan outlook and the “compassion” former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt once spoke of – a man, incidentally, whose values were influenced by his years in exile in Norway during the Nazi era.

Zwei Pfoten hoch hinauf! sagt die Manx-Mieze.

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Posted in Confessions of a Bad German, Short 'n' Stubby | 2 Comments

Stupid Sex Tricks: There’s an app for WHAT?

And it advertises WHAT?

This ad banner actually appeared on an iPhone sex app. I’m sure it was completely random, but it’s also completely stupid. A screen that small doesn’t need anything more to clutter it up. Just one more reason to ban advertising from anything that connects to the Internets, IMO.

(And no, that’s NOT how you make babies, either. But that position is a pretty good way NOT to make them, provided you use it consistently!)

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Posted in Isn't It Ironic?, Madvertising, Stupid Sex Tricks, The WTF? Files | 1 Comment

The post-Fordist era can’t come soon enough

Oh Toronto. So glad I don’t live in you right now. Not just because of the horrible summer heat, but because you have a troglodyte for mayor…

Rob Ford is getting a thumbs-down on social media after a Facebook post described an unexpected encounter with the mayor Friday night at the intersection of Dundas St. W. and Spadina Ave.

According to the post, Ottilie Mason and her 6-year-old daughter pulled up next to Ford and spotted him talking on his cellphone while driving. So they did what they always do when they dislike something.

They gave him a thumbs-down, and Mason rolled down her window and said: “Get off your cellphone.”

Mason said Ford responded by giving her the finger.

And another for city councillor…

Councillor Doug Ford has fired back at world-renowned author Margaret Atwood for her criticism of suggested library cuts, telling reporters: “I don’t even know her. If she walked by me, I wouldn’t have a clue who she is.”

Ford also said that the literary icon and activist — who took him to task on Twitter for saying, erroneously, that his Etobicoke ward has more libraries than Tim Hortons — should get herself elected to office or pipe down.

“Well good luck to Margaret Atwood. I don’t even know her. If she walked by me, I wouldn’t have a clue who she is,” said the councillor and advisor to his brother, Mayor Rob Ford, after a committee meeting on proposed cuts.

“She’s not down here, she’s not dealing with the problem. Tell her to go run in the next election and get democratically elected. And we’d be more than happy to sit down and listen to Margaret Atwood.”

…and they are joined at what passes for a brain. Which David Olive likens to that of a chicken, thereby insulting the poor chickens, who have done nothing to deserve such an odious comparison.

Many of the other councillors think Dougie can’t be serious about not knowing Margaret Atwood, but I can well believe that he doesn’t. As with his brother, Doug Ford’s line of sight ends about where his gut does. Read a book? Unless it’s all about how greed is good, I doubt either of them would bother.

Honestly, the only culture these two boors have is what’s growing around their hemorrhoids and between their toes. And in a city famous for being a rich and multifarious Canadian cultural hub, that’s a deep and lasting embarrassment. One that I’m sure real Torontonians can’t wait to see the end of, although its repercussions may well last longer than the reign of Ford & Ford.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Uncategorized | Comments Off on The post-Fordist era can’t come soon enough

Courage

Yes, it’s more bad news on the cancer front. Another well-loved leftist has been diagnosed, and today Jack Layton went public with the diagnosis, announcing that he was temporarily stepping down to undergo treatment. Hang in there, Jack…and don’t pay the fucking haters any mind. Decent people all across Canada, from coast to coast to coast, are pulling for you.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch | Comments Off on Courage