Anders Behring Breivik, charged in the terror attacks in Oslo, Norway, described himself in online posts as a cultural conservative and a Christian conservative who felt that Protestantism had lost its way and that Christianity should recombine under the banner of a reconstituted and traditionalist Catholic Church. These views are almost identical to the views of the late Paul Weyrich, founder of the Christian Right epicenter in the United States, the Free Congress Foundation. Weyrich and Lind developed an aggressive theory of Cultural Conservatism as a way to save Western Culture. Lind addressed the right-wing group Accuracy in Academia in February 2000. See also: What is Cultural Marxism? by William S. Lind.
via www.talk2action.org
As Gore Vidal demonstrated in his essay, "The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh," it can be as overly-simplistic--reckless even--to dismiss a politically-motivated mass killer merely as "crazed" as it can be to assign blame for a politically-motivated mass killer's actions to an entire movement, even a hate-based one.
Timothy McVeigh did not hear little voices in his head before he set off a car bomb in Oklahoma City, targeting a federal government building (one that, unbeknownst to his callous and not-always-so-clever self, had a child daycare center in it). He was a cold-hearted killer. (He saw the children killed in the blast as collateral damage.) But, he picked the target that he did for a reason. A political one, too.
While not all evidence of Anders Behring Breivik's actions before his attacks in Norway this week are currently known, it seems at this time pretty clear that Breivik also picked his targets for a reason. He killed because he was capable of it. But he targeted who he targeted based on a fear of "cultural Marxism," based on a political concept and goal. He didn't kill just to kill--an entirely random act. It is not true to say, "Oh, if he'd not attacked young members of a progressive-socialist political party organization, he would have killed someone else." Who? The neighbor's bridge club?
To be sure, extremist, eliminationist, rhetoric has at times in history certainly existed on the political left, too, and created rationales for cruel and unloving people to rip others' lives away and toss them upon a pyre of ideology. That doesn't mean Berlet should not draw our attention specifically to the extreme right-wing's decades-old actions--including, especially, those promoting illegal activity--in the US and Europe.
As Berlet rightly tweeted recently: "To stop terror investigate illegal activity not ideology or 'radicalism' - Right-Wing violence is a concern." And as he elaborated on Facebook, it is important not to blur "the line between right-wing ideology—protected by the First Amendment—and right-wing violence and illegal activity." Clearly, the ultimate problem to be dealt with when it comes to the extremist rightwing is illegality, violence. And the US and Europe remain vulnerable to it.
Yesterday Tea Party Nation president Judson Phillips sent to TPN members a post by activist Kevin Lehmann titled “51 Bullet-Pointed Facts That Dispute Barack Obama's Identity & Eligibility to be President!” Phillips has consistently praised the ‘birther’ movement, and Lehman’s “facts” were mostly a long list of discredited claims about President Obama’s eligibility to serve as president that were put to rest with the release of his long form birth certificate. Lehman’s diatribe against Obama includes accusations that the president is the product of a Hawaiian communist conspiracy and may have been involved in murder. He also republishes the claims of Larry Sinclair, who failed a polygraph test over his claims that he had sex and used cocaine with Obama
