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let me try to set my thinking down here. i don't find what happened on the day sus. that's clear. if we're all looking at the same set of facts how come we end up in different places? i think it has to do with the explanatory models we're using.
so what am i arguing against?
this (1) that the whole things was planned and controlled by one or many sinister and invisible hands besides Breivik, i.e. that he had inside support of some sort.
what i think is this (2) that since 9/11 the anti-muslim, racist, nationalist fear mongering rhetoric has not only been ramped up but has become mainstreamed and sophisticated. we saw it in the early expert views on who was behind this. not only that, following up on Breivik's manifesto sources and links shows (at least for me) that his fellow travelers are a lot more common, "civilised" and "academic" than i thought. we're not talking David Duke and the rough and rugged neo-nazi tea-party set. the net is saturated with people like Fjordman, Bat'Yeor, etc. they get their stuff all over the place, even from the daily mail. they've become respectable. Joe and wintler2 talk about the same types at work in Oz. someone posted Glenn Beck's reactions here today. things weren't this bad ten years ago.
what this suggests, to me, is that Breivik was a lone wolf, because the entire way the world has been driven in this direction these past ten years made him possible. he just took what was said to the next level. no conspiracy is necessary if you can find people who are completely committed to the cause they'll act on their own. no connections, no chain of command, nothing. that's "great" for all sorts of reasons including plausible deniability. you never know when or where or who. you just play on probabilities.
(1) is scary, but i find (2) scarier. and that's what i think we're looking at here.
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typo. At the begining of etc...
