In February 2009, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) received some very good news. A woman named Brigitte Gabriel had been disinvited from speaking at the United States Air Force Academy, due to MRFF's year-long battle to stop the U.S. military from allowing Islamophobic fear-mongers to speak at our military's colleges and service academies under the guise of anti-terrorism training.

Just about a year earlier, in February 2008, the Air Force Academy had invited a group called the "3 ex-Terrorists" to speak at its 50th Annual Academy Assembly on the topic "Dismantling Terrorism: Developing Actionable Solutions for Today's Plague of Violence." One member of this trio of self-proclaimed ex-terrorists turned evangelical Christians was Walid Shoebat.

An article titled "The New Dark Age: The Frankfurt School and `Political Correctness'" ended up being mentioned once by Anders Behring Breivik in his 1,500 page manifesto.

The author had no knowledge of this until reading Internet reports about the Oslo terror attacks, and now regrets his authorship. The mention was from an extract from a work published by the Free Congress Foundation in 1997 on cultural Marxism, political correctness, and multiculturalism. The editor of that collection was William S. Lind.

After dozens of hours of reasearch and thousands of pages of reading I am confident that William S. Lind pamphlet from the Free Congress Foundation is a major conceptual influence on the core thesis of the Breivik Manifesto.

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I am documenting my research on Lind, Weyrich, and the Free Congress Foundation in this article currently being updated and expanded:
+Updated: Breivik's Core Thesis is White Christian Nationalism v. Multiculturalism
See also:
+Norway's Nightmare & The Christian Fundamentalist - Bill Berkowitz
+When is Terrorism 'Christian'? - Frederick Clarkson
+Breivik 2011 Manifesto Echoes Weyrich 1999 Manifesto - Chip Berlet
+Author Cited by Anders Behring Breivik Regrets Original Essay
+Breivik cited William S. Lind, Free Congress Foundation, & the LaRouchites
+Anders Behring Breivik: Soldier in the Christian Right Culture Wars

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The LaRouche article citation in the Breivik manifesto is ["The New Dark Age: The Frankfurt School and `Political Correctness'" by Michael Minnicino, in Fidelio, Vol. 1, No. 1, Winter 1992 (KMW Publishing, Washington, DC)] This article made no mention of "cultural Marxism" while some form of that term in English appears over 600 times in the Breivik manifesto and is a major focus of the Lind collection of essays with 29 mentions in a 51-page pamphlet.

The author of the LaRouche essay released the folowing statement:

The LaRouche organization is a cult completely dominated by the deeply paranoid and mean-spirited personality of Mr. LaRouche and by his ill-informed conspiracy theories about science, philosophy, and history.

Christians United for Israel, which claims some 700,000 members, and whose executive director says "represents the soul of the Tea Party," recently concluded its sixth annual summit, which featured a satellite address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and an energetic and spirited Glenn Beck.

In what can only be considered a disastrous choice of words to sell a message of unwavering support for Israel, Pastor John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and the head of a multi-million dollar ministry, paraphrased Alabama's segregationist Governor George C. Wallace when he told the assemblage of more than 5,000 at the close of the recent CUFI summit in Washington, D.C. that, "We gathered here with one message. Israel today, Israel tomorrow, and Israel forever."

In February 1999 the late Paul Weyrich, founder of the Free Congress Foundation, wrote a short Manifesto in which he stated, "Those who came up with Political Correctness, which we more accurately call "Cultural Marxism," did so in a deliberate fashion...it is impossible to ignore the fact that the United States is becoming an ideological state [under the] ideology of Political Correctness, which openly calls for the destruction of our traditional culture."

In 2011, Anders Behring Breivik, charged in the terror attacks in Oslo, Norway, compiled a 1,500-page Manifesto under the name "Andrew Berwick." Breivik states: "Of course, it is known that kulturmarxistene [Cultural Marxists] and humanities in Europe think they are going to reform Islam but they will fail like all before them have done. We, for our part, the cultural conservatives and anti-Marxist liberal, must focus on the basic problem - multiculturalism (kulturmarxisme) and how to combat this..."

According to Breivik, Cultural Marxism, Political Correctness, and Multiculturalism are basically the same thing.

{Updated 8:50 am ET/USA: 27/07/2011}

The commercial media is bean-counting how many times a name appears in Breivik's Manifesto. What seldom gets mentioned is that Breivik has a core thesis which Breivik articulates many times in many ways. Here it is in my short formula for explaining Breivik's thesis:

Cultural Marxism=Political  Correctness=Multiculturalism=Muslim Immigration=Destruction of Judeo-Christian nations

In other words, Breivik believes that "Political Correctness" should be exposed as a conspiracy by "Cultural Marxists" to destroy sovereign Christian nations and is the reason for political leaders  allowing mass Muslim migration into Europe.

The theoretical lineage of Breivk's thesis is primarily from cultural conservatives William S. Lind and the late Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, and to a lesser extent articles published by the LaRouche network.

Most significant is a collection of essays published by the Free Congress Foundation in 2004 on cultural Marxism, political correctness, and multiculturalism. The editor of that collection was William S. Lind.

Some form of the term "Cultural Marxism" in English appears over 600 times in the Breivik manifesto and is a major focus of the Lind collection of essays with 29 mentions in a 51-page pamphlet. Lind and Weyrich, however, began writing about their concerns as early as 1997.

After dozens of hours and thousands of pages of reading I am confident that the work of William S. Lind of the Free Congress Foundation is a major conceptual influence on the core thesis of Breivik and his Manifesto.

And since bean-counting matters:

• Breivik's Manifesto includes some variation of the word multicultural 1164 times
• Breivik's Manifesto includes some variation of the words Marx and Marxism 1137 times
• Breivik's Manifesto includes some variation of "cultural Marxism" or "cultural Marxist" 647 times
• Breivik's Manifesto includes the term "political correctness" 148 times

[I have updated and expanded my research on Lind, Weyrich, and the Free Congress Foundation in this post: Updated: Breivik's Core Thesis is White Christian Nationalism v. Multiculturalism]

I have been asked to provide details about my research showing that Breivik acutally cited Lind, the Free Congress Foundation, and the LaRouchites.

Breivik cites to LaRouchite publications in at least two places in his Manifesto:

Mirak-Weissbach, Muriel. "The case of the GIA: Afghansi out of theater." Executive Intelligence Review. October 13, 1995. (p. 482)

"The New Dark Age: The Frankfurt School and `Political Correctness'" by Michael Minnicino, in Fidelio, Vol. 1, No. 1, Winter 1992 (KMW Publishing, Washington, DC) One of the few looks at the Frankfurt School by someone not a sympathiser, this long journal article explains the role of the Institute for Social Research in creating the ideology we now know as "Political Correctness." Unfortunately, its value is reduced by some digressions that lack credibility. (p. 42)

The latter text is actual copied from Lind's essay on political correctness.

I am coming late to the reporting and analysis of the Norway bombing, but allow me to connect current events with some of the themes of this site.  

The Norway bombing in all of its dimensions -- the initial false assumption and reporting that it was Islamic terrorism; media reliance on experts with an anti-Islamic bias; the specifics and complexities of the ideology; the evolution of terms we have already used to describe the episode and the suspect -- and how the assumptions that the terms we choose reflect on us, have surfaced rapidly since the bombing and mass murders in Norway.  

How we understand violence and underlying issues of ideology can be particularly fraught, particularly in heated political environments in which name calling and dubious forms of political "messaging" tend to predominate over well informed analysis and more considered uses of terms.

What follows is a brief, revised discussion of terms and issues related to religiously motivated violence, from last year.

Friday, July 22 was an unimaginable dark day for the people of Norway. A horrible bombing in Oslo was followed later in the day by a murderous shooting spree at a Labor Party youth camp on the island of Utoya.  All told, the death toll may reach as high as 100. The bombing was an apparent attempt on the life of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Initially, few dared speculate who might be responsible for the attacks, but there is no doubt that many thought it was the work of Al Qaeda or an Al Qaeda-related organization. Apparently, according to Benjamin Doherty writing at The Electronic Intifada, such respected news outlets as BBC, the New York Times, The Guardian and The Washington Post were using information supplied to them by so-called terrorism expert Will McCants, whose posts early on insisted that there very well could be an Islamist connection to the atrocities (http://electronicintifada.net/blog/benjamin-doherty/how-clueless- terrorism-expert-set-media-suspicion-muslims-after-oslo-horror).

As more information rolled in, however, it soon became apparent that the terrorist appeared to be a homegrown right-wing extremist.

{Updated 2:20 pm ET/USA: 24/07/2011}
[Links List & Resource List at the end]

Anders Behring Breivik, charged in the terror attacks in Oslo, Norway, compiled a 1,500-page Manifesto under the name "Andrew Berwick" that cites to the U.S. Free Congress Foundation and LaRouchite publications. The manifesto states that "Political Correctness" should be called "Cultural Marxism" and is the reason for political leaders allowing mass Muslim migration into Europe. Breivik's core thesis is borrowed from William S. Lind's antisemitic conspiracy theory about "Cultural Marxism."

Breivik 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 his colleague William S. 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.

---

I am documenting my research on Lind, Weyrich, and the Free Congress Foundation in this article currently being updated and expanded:
+Updated: Breivik's Core Thesis is White Christian Nationalism v. Multiculturalism
See also:
+Norway's Nightmare & The Christian Fundamentalist - Bill Berkowitz
+When is Terrorism 'Christian'? - Frederick Clarkson
+Breivik 2011 Manifesto Echoes Weyrich 1999 Manifesto - Chip Berlet
+Author Cited by Anders Behring Breivik Regrets Original Essay
+Breivik cited William S. Lind, Free Congress Foundation, & the LaRouchites
+Anders Behring Breivik: Soldier in the Christian Right Culture Wars

---

The concepts within cultural conservatism are a confluence of traditionalist claims from Europe and the United States. Major US groups send representatives to Europe, and there is a general meet up at the conferences of The World Congress of Families. See background here: "Exporting 'Traditional Values': The World Congress of Families." This vein of culural conservatism warns of a "Demographic Winter" a term which is a coded racist warning that Muslims are outbreeding "white people" in Europe and the United States.

Religious Right activists love to spread tales of outrage about alleged attempts by government officials to censor religion. These stories are great for fund-raising and stirring up the faithful, but over the years I've learned to be skeptical of them.

Consider a case under way in Houston. According to the Religious Right, an official with the Department of Veterans Affairs named Arleen Ocasio has ordered volunteers with an organization called the National Memorial Ladies to stop saying "God bless you" to families at funerals and sending them religious sympathy cards. Furthermore, Ocasio is accused of closing a chapel at the Houston National Cemetery and even stripping it of Christian material.

If either Texas Governor Rick Perry, an initiator of the upcoming Christian event, "The Response," (and, who has also not yet declared his candidacy), or Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann manages to snare the Republican Party's presidential nomination, it will be in large part because a portion of the Tea Party movement has joined together with the Religious Right to plant themselves firmly upon the conservative movement's three-legged stool, recognizing that the combination of social, economic and national security issues are the way to the White House.

This past week, Rachel Maddow featured a series of video clips from Right Wing Watch of the "apostles" endorsing Rick Perry's upcoming The Response prayer event. Included was a shortened version of the clip posted at Talk2action in 2009 of C. Peter Wagner claiming that Japan's economic decline was due to the emperor having sex with a sun goddess. Later in the week the Texas Observer published an excellent and insightful article on the apostles by Forrest Wilder. Below the fold is my plea, originally posted at Alternet, for journalists to resist the temptation to dismiss the apostles as fringe or crazy, and to seriously investigate the phenomenon of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) including: the NAR's impact charismatic evangelicalism across the nation; their introduction of Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare or SLSW, techniques for evangelizing that were unknown prior to this movement; and their 50-state communications network, which is mobilizing "prayer warriors" for political activism.

I sometimes wonder what it must be like to live in the Religious Right's world. It's a place where if you don't like reality, you just make up something else. If you're annoyed by the fact that the Earth is five billion years old, you can insist that it's only 6,000 and that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time. If you don't like the fact that the U.S. Constitution creates a secular government, you can assert that it's really Christian.

What color is the sky in their world? Perhaps it's a really cool royal purple!

[Update, July 15, 2011--Often Talk To Action articles come out a year or two (or ten) before the issues they cover become politically salient. I originally posted this story in October 2010, and it's more relevant now than ever, especially given Truth Wins Out's undercover investigation and subsequent expose' of Marcus Bachmann's addiction recovery clinic, which features "reparative therapy" for LGBT clients. But that's not Michele Bachmann's only tie to fringe, religiously-based forms of psychotherapy. As covered by Karl Bremer of the Minnesota Independent back in October 2008, Michele Bachmann's political campaign recycled tainted campaign contribution money by giving it to Minnesota Teen Challenge (run by the Assemblies of God) which, as covered in the story below, seems to be preoccupied with all things demonic including, perhaps, exorcism.]

Tonight on CNN, Anderson Cooper will be doing "a special investigative report about a self-proclaimed former Islamic terrorist who is making good money from American taxpayers with a story that just doesn't add up."

This self-proclaimed terrorist, Walid Shoebat, was one third of a traveling anti-Muslim sideshow called the "3 ex-Terrorists," and is now a very popular solo act on the Islamophobic fear-mongering speaking circuit. The other two members of Shoebat's trio were Zachariah Anani, and Kamal Saleem.

In between his many tax-payer funded speaking engagements, Shoebat is a popular speaker at events such as Tim LaHaye's Pre-Trib (Pre-Tribulation) Research Center conferences and John Hagee's Christians United for Israel (CUFI) events. Anani is a Lebanese-born Canadian citizen who claims to have killed 223 people while a Muslim terrorist. Saleem, under his real name, Khodor Shami, worked for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network for sixteen years, was hired by James Dobson's Focus on the Family in 2003, and founded Koome Ministries in 2006 to "expose the true agenda of [Muslims] who would deceive our nation and the free nations of the world."