Oslo Attacks

I made the same mistake about the Oslo attacks as I did about the OKC bombing: Muslim terrorists.

Your mind takes you to strange places if you jump to conclusions and I'm trying to train my mind to think "possibly" instead of "probably"---and most definitely instead of "certainly." Because, smart as human beings may be, we don't "know" everything. Most of us "know" almost nothing about anything. Humans have the gift of imagination, which is probably a good thing in the final analysis, but imagination works for good or for bad----just because we think something up, doesn't mean it's "true."

Anyhow. The Norwegians impress me with their response to this attack. Instead of a collective tightening of the asshole (and thus, tightening of "security") they've decided to maintain an open society. In America the response to any "threat" is to clamp down----a guy tries to detonate his shoe on an airplane, from then on we have to take our shoes off when we go through "security" at the airport. Funnily enough, you don't have to remove your shoes when you go through security in European airports. Total number of subsequent attempted shoe bombings in Europe as a result of this "lax security:" exactly ZERO.

Here's a link to an enlightening interview with Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, a peace and conflict advisor, as broadcast on DEMOCRACY NOW! last night. You can watch the video or scroll down below the video screen and read a transcript of the interview, which might be easier due to occasionally difficult to understand audio.

The killer was upset because he believed whatever societal status quo he preferred was crumbling. It always astounds me when someone picks a particular set of circumstances and / or period of time as "ideal," then gets all nervous if it appears that a bit of change is coming. By that logic we all ought to be happier as Neanderthals, or mid-14th Century peasants, or whatever other period of time someone wants to randomly select as "ideal."

It's not 1350 any more, and we don't live in villages, constantly worried about what "God" wants. People mix and intermingle in modern societies. Whatever "purity" the angst-filled hopelessly try to maintain isn't going to be maintained, because people aren't staying in their villages any more---they're intermingling. You can kill every kid on an island camp and that ain't gonna change.

I guess that's hard for some people to deal with, and so they twist off.

And when they do, those of us left standing have to decide how to react. Or over-react, as the case often is.