Not at all. Not necessary. I know that most people dont feel like that over there. But thanks anyways. Becks just a demagog and an agitator. He is in poor taste in my opinion. Our media has shown messages of sympathy and and support from across the world and I have seen this in other US and British coverage too. All in all I feel that support as sincere and more significant than Mr.Becks offending remarks.
As for the youth camp - its more like a convention of something somewhat like the College Democrats/Republicans of America - although high school kids are often part of the local branches.I think I should point out that the organization in question has its counterpart in almost every other party in Norway. There is no indoctrination, but an emphasis on school debates and creating awareness of issues etc through stands,rallies,practical political work etc etc.
As for our political line and supposed neutral/spineless stance - I dont get the negative undertow in what was said/implied. We are a fighting ally of the US and have been since WWII. We were in Korea,we were in nATO on the Soviet border all through the cold war, we were in the Gulf,in Somalia,Bosnia,Kosovo,Iraq,Afghanistan and most recently Libya.Admittedly ours isnt the biggest and most powerful army - but we rotate our batallions in at an attritious rate just like the rest of the willing.
Anyways - some people will say anything, even in times of tragedy but messages of support and compassion is what I am going to remember.
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Originally Posted by Raellus
I feel like I need to apologize on Beck's behalf. He's a national embarrassment.
Glenn Beck is not a journalist- he's a political pundit and rabble rouser. He's basically a far right, conservative mouthpiece, and one of the more extreme and outspoken ones at that. He has a bad case of verbal diarhea. He's constantly in trouble for making inane, innacurate, and/or offensive statements (usually all of the above). It is fair to say that absolutely everything that comes out of his mouth will have been filtered through his narrow worldview in order to serve a specific political purpose. This makes most of what he says wildly inaccurate. He was trying to paint the "socialist" party summer camp targetted by the shooter in the most unflattering light possible. He obviously wants to demonize that particular political demographic by comparing its youth program to the Nazi youth organizations of Hitler's Germany. Unfortunately, a lot of his listeners don't know any better and he knows this. He's using the tragedy to score political points for the far right conservatives here in the U.S. He doesn't care at all about the dead kids, their families, or Norwegians in general. It makes me ill.
Unfortunately, this sort of "journalism" is becoming more and more common here in the U.S. There are entire radio and TV networks devoted to one or the other of the two major American political parties. You can be sure that anything that casts the other party in an unfavorable light will be harped on ad nauseum and anything embarrassing to the host's political leanings will be ignored, glossed over, spun, or excused. It's a shame. A lot of Americans are either too ignorant, too lazy, or too ill informed to come to their own political conclusions- they tend to rely on folks like Beck to tell them what to think and do. If Beck compares European socialist parties to Nazis, much of his audience will accept his assessment and run with it. It's really frightening. If Beck wants to make Nazi comparisons, he ought to look in the mirror first. If Goebbels were alive today, he and Glenn would probably be BFFs.
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