The truth about Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is bound to disappoint anyone on either end of the political spectrum who might have hoped to exploit his actions for propaganda purposes: he really was just a lone nut.

First, debunking his claim to be at the center of a vast anti-Islamic terrorist network, the police concluded that he acted alone. And now, as reported here on November 29th, the court-appointed psychiatrists have found that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Believing oneself to be endowed with a grandiose mission is typical of such patients. Sometimes they imagine that their incomprehensible scribbles conceal an earth-shaking formula to rival the discoveries of Einstein. Sometimes they think they have been chosen to save the world from Martian invaders or a next-door neighbor possessed by Satan.

But sometimes their belief system is cobbled together from less obviously fantastical elements. Breivik drew on polemical writings from the political fringes that many people might deem “crazy,” but not in a clinical sense. What was truly delusional about Breivik was the exalted world-historical role he assigned himself. Read more

After America: Get Ready for Armageddon
Mark Steyn
Regnery Publishing

After America: Get Ready for Armageddon is pretty much exactly what you would expect from the fellow who brought you America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.

In After America we pick up where the end of the world left off in Steyn's last book: Europe and much of the rest of the Western world is still in demographic upheaval and financial crisis. America is fast joining its declining neighbors in a race to the bottom. 

In Steyn's words, "It starts with the money." As he lays it out, the United States is being buried under a mountain of debt that it has no hope of ever paying off, at least at the current rate it is spending money and maintaining its entitled, ever-growing, unaccountable bureaucratic class. What shrinking amount of working class America is left to pay the bills can't possibly hope to keep up. The border to the south is getting hazier every day, the education system is churning out dumber and dumber students, and things show no sign of getting better anytime soon.  Read more

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) is the quasi-judicial body that has become semi-famous for its one-week show trial of Macleans Magazine after it had the audacity to publish Mark Steyn in its pages, and for fining comic Guy Earle over $15,000 after getting into a tussle with some lesbian hecklers at an open mic. It is the living embodiment of everything that is wrong with government involvement in what we say and how we live our lives.

Last summer we learned that Heather MacNaughton, the head of the BCHRT at the time, and tribunal member Judy Parrack were not going to be re-appointed to their positions. Indeed, for a little while, there was even a little doubt as to the future purpose of the BCHRT itself. That didn't last long, however, and long-time bureaucrat Bernd Walter was appointed in MacNaughton's stead to carry on her, erm, fine work. 

But whatever became of Heather MacNaughton herself? Well, this May she was appointed, as of June 1st, by the province's lieutenant-governor as a BC Supreme Court master, which means that she'll be making decisions about procedural motions and pre-trial hearings. It also means that she will be making about as much as your average provincial judge in British Columbia, which, as of 2007, was around $200,000 a year.

Not bad for a government-appointed hack who, just a while ago, was holding hearings about magazine articles and McDonald's hygiene.

Walker Morrow is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist

Here is a list of 750 areas France euphemistically describes as Sensitive Urban Zones where the French state has effectively lost control. Illustrated by sattelite maps.

Mark Steyn, writer, polemicist, sometime-guest host for Rush Limbaugh, and all-around darling of the right, has a new book out that some of our more conservative Allies may be adding to their reading list.

After America: Get Ready for Armageddon - not to be confused with Mark Steyn's previous apocalyptic tome, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It - officially launched last week. Its topic? The collapse of Western society. In its own words: 

In his New York Times bestseller America Alone, Steyn warned of the impending collapse of just about every country in the western world except America. The good news is the rest of the west’s demise is still on schedule. The bad news is America has now signed up for the same program, supersized. And, unlike AIG, Fannie Mae, Detroit and Greece, the United States is big enough to fail, and spectacularly so. If, like Mark, you want to avoid that fate, then After America is the book for you. It starts with the money, because it always does - for Washington, as for London and Rome before it. But it ends with a ruined and reprimitivized planet - and even liberals won't like that as much as they think.

Nobody loves equality
more than the French.

Their Revolution proved it;
defined it with a blade.

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite
ou La Mort in 1793. The death part

was dropped after the Terror.
The trinity is still their motto,

even after they found out
that every threesome is a couple,

with a detached disrupter.
Liberty is married to Fraternity

and Equality tries to break them up.
The French, fond of mistresses,

naturally spent more time
with the beguiling Egalite.

The guillotine was the divorce.
Off went the heads of Liberte.

Fraternite got soaked with blood
and fled the celebrating throngs,

public rape of Liberty’s daughters,
theater of theft and death.

The mistress is never satisfied.
Even her rogue lover is not immune,

and may find himself in line,
behind the aristocrat and the priest.

Leveling needs head cutting.
Blood is Egalite’s wine.

When Egalite becomes drunk,
and debauchery sets in,

and people sicken with excess,
the usual savior shows up,

some short dictator
with a tall ambition

to impose submission
on as many nations as he can.

Today, the aging Egalite
has lost her sharp edges

but still retains a sense of humor:
a spacious chateau for some

with servants busy
easing the strain of living

and for others a closet-sized garret
in some decaying building

where the public toilet overflows
and other tenants steal

from the unprotected working
woman who fears coming home.

The thieves work for equality;
she labors to escape it.

"Egalite" and other poems will appear in Lilija Valis' forthcoming book, "Freedom on the Fault Line".

Equality is reassurance your neighbor
will not get too far ahead of you.

The promise is we’re all one
but someone else decides which one.

Force is used to take from you
to give to others not of your choosing.

Equality invites not doing more
than others, until nothing works.

Plymouth Pilgrims lived it
into discord and starvation,

It continues to inspire. Unmarked
mass graves testify to its appeal.

Inequality is an open road.
A safe journey is not guaranteed.

No assurance is motivation
for hard work and invention.

Want and envy are harnessed
to produce what others desire.

Choice is virtue’s tool:
You cannot escape responsibility.

Equality is theft.
Inequality is insecurity.

Fairness and equality
are forever estranged.

Equality or freedom. The more
you have of one, the less of the other.

"Equality" and other poems will appear in Lilija Valis' forthcoming book, "Freedom on the Fault Line".

In all honesty, one should probably know better – know much better – than to expect cogent argument from a publication like the Socialist Project.

But when considering a recent essay published on their website decrying what they consider to be the relentless oppression of the “Palestine Solidarity Movement”, only one response really comes to mind: oh, brother.

You see, it apparently isn’t enough for the “Palestine Solidarity Network” to stand up on behalf of what they considered to be an oppressed people. Apparently, they themselves have to be oppressed, even if they themselves actually tend to be the most relentless censors.

The essay, penned by Mary-Jo Nadeau and Alan Sears, starts out with the narrowest sliver of merit, and quickly degenerates into a disingenuous effort to conflate legitimate criticism into oppressive censorship.

Nadeau and Sears kick off the essay by complaining about a very recent effort to ban “Israeli Apartheid Week” entirely from the campus of McMaster University. This happened in 2008. They also point to efforts to shut down a 2009 conference at York University entitled “Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace”.

Indeed, academic freedom does demand that the “Palestine Solidarity Movement” be allowed to hold their Israeli Apartheid Week, even if the very name of the event is incredibly dishonest. Likewise, if the “Palestine Solidarity Movement” wishes to hold a conference discussing “paths to peace”, they should be free to knock themselves out doing it, even if they all-too-frequently show zero interest in genuine peace. Read more

A policy of free speech at all costs, even if it means incitement to hate, terror and violence, is an irresponsibly dangerous thing. Yet at least one might be able to respect the commitment to the principle behind such a policy. No such respect then is due to the London School of Economics. Under the guise of operating a free speech policy, it has opened its doors to countless hate speakers only to slam them tightly shut in the face of speakers that might offend certain benefactors and key constituencies on its campus. 

Earlier this week the LSE German Society was scheduled to hold its annual symposium, the panel was to debate on the subject of multiculturalism and the integration of Germany’s immigrant communities. Included among the panellists was Dr Thilo Sarrazin, author of the controversial book ‘Germany Abolishes Itself’, or as The Independent described him, the ‘anti-Semitic Banker’. True, Sarrazin is a former executive of the German Central Bank. But the rest is utterly fallacious.

Curious how The Independent seems to rarely trouble itself with other genuinely anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate speakers that regularly find their way onto Britain’s University campuses. When the speaker is perceived to be of the Right however, well then it’s a different story it would seem.  

Read more

Earlier this week, I wrote about the Never-Ending Controversy of Geert Wilders in Holland, and noted that Wilders was back in court on February 7th to hash out some procedural matters: will the trial start up from scratch again, will the venue be moved from the Amsterdam District Court, or will Wilders' trial be dismissed entirely?

On Monday, February 14th, we got our answer. From NIS News Bulletin: 

"THE HAGUE, 15/02/11 - The entire court case against MP Geert Wilders will be retried. His lawyer Bram Moszkowicz yesterday obtained the right to conduct his entire defence anew, including challenging the validity of the Public Prosecutor (OM) case.

The lawyer wants to ensure via the challenge - a request to declare the OM's case inadmissible - that the OM loses its right to prosecute. If this is successful the case will have to be dropped. Moszkowicz will among other things argue that it is not possible to prosecute Wilders because he is an MP.
 

The OM wanted to resume the case where it had been adjourned, meaning the defence would not be allowed to challenge the OM again. Moszkowicz unsuccessfully challenged the OM before. But the judges that handled the case then have been replaced.