Glenn Beck compares murdered Norway campers to "Hitler Youth"

Glenn Beck has found new depths of depravity to plumb, this time by comparing the campers who fell victim to Anders Behring Breivik's murderous rampage to "Hitler Youth," because they were attending a "political camp." The camp in question is a 60-year-old annual event that where young people gather "learn about and be part of democracy." Which is weird, because that isn't very similar at all to the Hitler Youth, a paramilitary organization that "instill[ed] the motivation that would enable HJ members, as soldiers, to fight faithfully for the Third Reich."

"There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler youth. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing," Beck stated in the first minute of his syndicated radio show Monday.

Glenn Beck hits 'new low'; compares Norway victims to Hitler Youth (via Reddit)

(Image: Glenn Beck, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from gageskidmore's photostream)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: christ what an asshole • glenn beck • godwins law • norway • politics

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Tyler Firth

He must be completely unaware of Boys State, which is an American institution and does the pretty much the same thing as the camp in Norway.
- Harvey Lake
  
  Uh, Boys State is about a Representative Republic, not a Democracy. Democracy is Mob Rule.
  - Gulliver
    
    Not quite. Direct unlimited democracy is mob rule. Mobocracy and representative republic are both subsets of democracy.
    
    http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/democracy
    
    The USA in particular is an example of a constitutionally limited democratic republic, my personal fave BTW.
    - mfrankly
      
      My problem with representative democracy is that it leads to oligarchy/plutocracy.
      - ecflan
        
        so your alternative is…. ?
      - mfrankly
        
        I never said I had an alternative, I don’t think that invalidates my opinion.
        
        Maybe we could figure something out together.
  - Applepackard
    
    Not really. Not mob rule. It was more white collar.
    
    True democracy (demos) is really about one person one vote. True representation. The fact there was great lobbying (even in Grecian times) and this lobbying cast out people through the vote. The ancient Grecian general Themistocles is a good example of the dangers of true democracy. This form of government is not mob rule, though like our republic of today, abuses can and do occur.
    
    After lying and deceiving his own government to protect Greece, Themistocles created the first Grecian city-state navy, created the land and sea battle plans for the Battle of Thermopylae, saved the people of Athens by ferrying the polis out of the city, and a while later avenging the betrayal of Thermopylae in the Battle of Salamis. And after he did all that…the people voted in a true democracy, influenced by lobbyist and bought votes, and exiled him to the island of Argos.
Martin Johnstone

So now he is no longer on tv and just teh radio he tries to be even more shocking and outragous so people remember he exists.

Just let him troll on his own and ignore the little troll
- sigdrifa
  
  You see, the problem is, you can’t ignore these people. They are dangerous, because there are a lot of people who buy this cr*p. You have to constantly expose and contradict people like him.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=521240745 Ryan Griffin

We really don’t need a picture of this ass clown on BB’s glorious feed. I propose a picture of a steaming pile of feces instead. At least that wouldn’t warrant a unicorn chaser.
- Gulliver
  
  Now now, fertilizer serves a useful function.
  
  Here are some alternatives to consider (potentially NSFW):
  
  http://mywiki.ws/The_World%27s_Most_Expensive_and_Useless_Things
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Sanders/100000011989161 Robert Sanders
  
  I thought that was what we were looking at already.
Palomino

Boy Scouts of America:

…….and my country……..”Help keep the United States a strong and fair nation by learning about our system of government and your responsibilities as a citizen and future voter.America is made up of countless families and communities. When you work to improve your community and your home, you are serving your country. Natural resources are another important part of America’s heritage worthy of your efforts to understand, protect, and use wisely. What you do can make a real difference.”

Excerpted from page 45-46, Boy Scout Handbook, 11th ed,
(#33105), copyright 1998 by BSA, ISBN 0-8395-3105-2and from page 420-421, Webelos Scout Book, 1998 edition,
(#33108), copyright 1998 by BSA, ISBN 0-8395-3108-7
- Teller
  
  I like that BSA thingie. Nice sentiments.
http://oddboyout.blogspot.com/ oddboyout

Hey wait a minute~ I thought AmeriCorps were Hitler Youth. The US and Norway can’t BOTH be Nazi Germany.
- Gulliver
  
  You clearly underestimate the paradoxical power of Beckian Algebra.
  - zombienietzsche
    
    I totally read that as Boolean Algebra and was confused for a second.
rocjoe

Of course he did, because Glenn Beck is a ginormous douche.
Duffong

…the last of the flat earthers are becoming desperate.
Karl Williams

Wait. Doesn’t the Tea Party do something similar to this? A camp where kids can learn about politics (or what passes for politics in the Tea Party)?
- Kevin Pierce
  
  It’s called Jesus Camp
http://www.facebook.com/HyperionToASatyr Jack Holmes

Glenn Beck, ladies’ man.
knoxblox

Just to clarify, Boys AND Girls State are held in every state of the country, excluding Hawaii (probably due to transportation costs, I guess?). Delegates from each of these meetings go on to Boys or Girls Nation.

“I mean, who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics?”

Well, Glenn, just about every state in the country it seems, you doofus.

I’m kind of regretting giving up my spot to go to Boys State when I had the chance. I’ve always felt I’ve been more suited to visual arts, writing, and film over engaging directly in politics, but I still wonder what kind of difference I could have made if I had attended.
I may not have been the most politically engaging, but I’d have had fun trying to subvert the goals of the Glenn Beck-minded in attendance.
- Vnend
  
  “I’m kind of regretting giving up my spot to go to Boys State when I had the chance.”
  
  Oh, good, I’m not the only one.
  
  I occasionally look at the fields in local politics and wish that I had attended, so I would have more information about how I would fit in if I ran for a local office and won. Then I consider that perhaps having myself committed wouldn’t be the most logical treatment for those symptoms…
BarBarSeven

Keep on spouting that nonsense, Beck! 4 more years for Obama!
http://crackajack.de/ René Walter

„Tea Party summer camp: Indoctrination for kids? New York – Welcome to Tampa Liberty School, a Glenn Beck – inspired summer camp that teaches 8-year-olds how to fight The Man.“

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/232480-Glenn-Beck-Indoctrinates-Kids-With-His-Upcoming-Tea-Party-Summer-Camp
http://twitter.com/OmCrapTerri Terri Smith-Morse

He is a sad, sad, crazy man. The more he talks the more evident it is that he is bat shit crazy.
- http://profiles.google.com/andrew.l.wood Andrew Wood
  
  He’s not crazy, he’s a populist nut (see also 1980s televangelists). Let’s be clear that he makes a fortune from spouting this crap. It’s his followers who are crazy.
Mexicant

….and people ask why I never saw his TV show.

Good God
http://twitter.com/vpgreg vpgreg

FFS. Keep trying to avoid this one. Oxygen. Publicity. …of. Exactly, let’s just leave him to rot. Far-right troll.
catgrin

When I was in high school, I went on a week-long trip to Washington D.C. I’d consider that equivalent to camp even though it was a state school sponsored function (paid for by parents). The whole point of it was to learn firsthand about U.S. politics and visit historical sites so that kids growing up on the west coast could be more in touch with our country. I’ve been back since, but I still remember the video they showed of Oprah Winfrey discussing the danger of “ism’s” (no joke, it was a really interesting show) and visiting the Lincoln Memorial that first time.
haineux

Found, in Mac OS X Lion’s new Apple Color Emoji font, a picture more suitable than Glen Beck.
haineux

Found, in Mac OS X Lion’s new Apple Color Emoji font, a picture more suitable than Glen Beck.
catgrin

When I was in high school, I went on a week-long trip to Washington D.C. I’d consider that equivalent to camp even though it was a state school sponsored function (paid for by parents). The whole point of it was to learn firsthand about U.S. politics and visit historical sites so that kids growing up on the west coast could be more in touch with our country. I’ve been back since, but I still remember the video they showed of Oprah Winfrey discussing the danger of “ism’s” (no joke, it was a really interesting show) and visiting the Lincoln Memorial that first time.
Mexicant

….and people ask why I never saw his TV show.

Good God
mfrankly

Wait. Is Beck defending Breivik? Is he saying those kids, being evil brainwashed automatons, deserved what they got?

Is that what he’s saying?

Why does the radical right despise democracy so much?
- Kevin Pierce
  
  He’s got time to fill – it’s not a question of quality – it’s quantity – just enough to fit between the ads.
Sasha Milinkovic

I hope he comes to Norway on a vacation or something…
( that is if he ever leaves the states… Something tells me that if he did he’d turn into a puff of smoke and dry leaves of evil tea)
ClayManBob

I had a hound dog that was smarter than Beck, and she was dumber than a sack of bricks.
Huwman

I think we Canucks are always a bit leery about commenting too earnestly on entities like Beck or Coulter since, in the back of our minds, we can’t shake the nagging belief that they must be part of some massive hoax being perpetrated on us by our canny neighbours to the south. I mean, can comments like this be genuine? It seems to beggar belief.
- snoproblem
  
  I swear that all the comic book, over-the-top mustache-twirling going on in the U.S., lately, is just a noisy smokescreen to cover for something far, far nastier.
  
  Watch yer asses, neighbours.
- Gulliver
  
  I held out that same hope for years, and I live here! Alas, Beck is really that divorced from reality. Coulter on the other hand…I recall a couple years ago an essay by her listing all the people she’d ticked off and wondering if she missed anyone. Very strange. Either way, both have a screw loose. But I’d wager Beck get’s the gold medal for pundit d-bag world champion, he seems to want it more than the other contenders.
  
  Besides, trust me, we’re not that well coordinated down here.
- jmcgarry
  
  Huwman, we Canucks only need look to the Ford brothers currently holding sway in Toronto to know that we have the same problem in Canada. Oh they aren’t quite Mr. Beck, but claiming not to recognize Margaret Atwood is somewhere on that same curve. And our neo-cons seem to be a whole lot smarter at hiding teh crazy.
FranzAblinger

He disqualifies himself by his lack of knowledge. Hitler Youth was not something you attend by choice. Every child _had_ to sign up (except disabled persons – much of them were murdered during WWII), against their own and against their parents will, enforced with police power. And it was the only organization allowed. Please learn history, but not from wikipedia.
http://laroquodexperiment.com/hypo/0.1/ Paul Laroquod

“My Norwegian colleagues have verified that the only way to gain entrance into the Norwegian political structure is through these camps.”

I’m calling a great big bullshit on that one.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=702160440 Simen Mikalsen Martinussen
  
  It’s not entirely wrong, actually. At least on the national level, and keep in mind that Norway is a small country. All the parties, from the far right to the far left, have their own youth organizations. Typically, the members range from mid-teens to mid-twenties. Most politicians have experience from youth organizations. Voters would probably be skeptical to a candidate for prime minister who has not been active in politics from an early age. That said, politics is obviously not a secret society. You could just as well become active in politics as an adult and even get elected to various positions. But there would be a lot of people around you with years of experience.
  
  The youth organizations are connected to the party and attend the national meetings, but often have great independence from the official party policy. It’s not uncommon for a party’s youth organization to disagree with the party, even on important issues.
  - http://laroquodexperiment.com/hypo/0.1/ Paul Laroquod
    
    You just said the same thing I said only with a lot of irrelevant implication and innuendo considered. The point is, there’s nothing actually stopping any average Norwegian citizen from getting elected regardless of their attendance at any youth camps; therefore the line I quoted is utter bullshit and should probably not be dignified with attempts to see what it was trying to get at.
- FrodeSvendsen
  
  As a licensed norwegian, I can assure you that this is not true. I’m sure that for some parties, like the Labour Party, it’s might be easier to climb the party-ladder if you have attended these camps, but it is not in any way required.
gianfrancolopesci

And an Italian politician, Borghezio, member of the European parliament, said that “Breivik’s ideas are right nonetheless”. Miserable european and american scumbags.
ackpht

Our Canadian neighbors have it right. Taking this sort of commentary seriously -even if only to ridicule it- is buying into a game that someone wants us to play.
gianfrancolopesci

@ ackpht I disagree. Just mocking them in a sort of “snob-ism superiority” is a great mistake. In fact, their rants feed the souls of people like Breivik, or the Oklahoma guy. We don’t take them seriously till a tragedy happens.
Ahkenhaton

What’s odious about this pathetic man is not his views, which are clearly ignorant and absurd, but his shameless use of a tragedy on an unimaginable scale to promote himself. All those Norwegian youngsters dead at the hand of someone that would likely have been a Beck fan, and yet Beck still lives and breathes. No justice in this world.
ecflan

“Will no one rid me of this troublesome Jackhole?”
- http://www.facebook.com/thewilliamg William George
  
  Oh, if only we still lived in such an era…
snakedart

Mr. Beck,

Vade et caca in pilleum et ipse traheatur super aures tuo.
CastanhasDoPara

One of my favorite words, ‘kakistocracy’. Look it up if you dare.
Lodewijk Gonggrijp

Glenn Beck wants attention like Breivik wanted.
You gave it to him.
Beck wins.

Also, I feel sick now.
RuthlessRuben

I think sooner or later we’ve reached the point now where we’re allowed to be glad when Glenn Beck dies. Right now, it’s like “Glenn Beck has a heart attack, nobody cares” but a couple more like that and it’d be like “Glenn Beck is attacked by pack of rabid baboons, onlookers cheer the baboons”.
Morten Gulden

This one was actually noticed here in Norway, we’re not… impressed. Also, Utøya is about teens gathering on an island to talk about the world, get drunk/high, make out in the bushes.
- EvilSpirit
  
  Yeah, I can’t imagine the Norwegians brushing Beck’s dickery off lightly. Norway already had its ordeal with a Hitler-like figure, and his name was Adolf Hitler.
  
  Perhaps Beck failed to look up the word “quisling” in the dictionary.
http://twitter.com/tackmac tackmac

Dork… enough said
http://twitter.com/P_Catt Peter Cattermoul

about that free speech thing…
- RuthlessRuben
  
  Free speech? Yes. But: If I come to the funeral of a person who was shot in the face in a terrorist attack and basically berate that person, I should not be surprised to have my teeth relocated to my lower intestine. Action-reaction.
  
  Likewise, if anyone, Glenn Beck included, makes comments such as these, exercising his right to free speech, then I can exercise my right to free speech by telling him that in my opinion he’s a smear of feces across the face of humanity. Action-reaction.
  
  Free speech cuts both ways. And just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
- Xopher
  
  about that free speech thing…
  
  What about it? No one has said he should be silenced by the government. Free speech doesn’t mean freedom from criticism.
  
  Glenn Beck is a colossal turd. That hasn’t changed. He just made it a little more obvious with this statement. Personally I think we should just remember this as “Beck made comments sympathetic to the Oslo mass murderer.” It’s no more than he deserves.
  - jaduncan
    
    You mean “In 2011, Glenn Beck viciously slandered the victims of politically motivated violence. Why does Glenn Beck love terrorism?”
    - Xopher
      
      I’ll withdraw my version in favor of yours. You have my full support!
jackie31337

who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics?

Hmm… maybe a culture that values educating young people about politics so they can make informed choices when they’re old enough to vote?
jonjonz

Here is the deal. Show one more example of that horses arse here and we will abandon this site forever. Think of the children.
Phillip Wise

Yeah, who does a camp for kids all about politics? And who pledges $10,000 to it?

http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/03/21/teaching-kids-about-the-founders-principles-and-values/
- http://profiles.google.com/andrew.l.wood Andrew Wood
  
  Good find.
Mujokan

Glenn Beck is not that far off of the shooter himself. He does the same kind of generalized demonization of Muslims, multi-culturalism, socialism, etc. So he defends the guy. Fairly easy to understand. That and whatever speed type drug he is addicted to.
OldBrownSquirrel

Somehow I have trouble imagining a future pope growing up in Norway.
krjames

Beck defends Breivik.

Need anymore be said?
bruckelsprout

Beck is a witch hunter. He’s just trying to recapture the magic of the Salem witch trials, the Spanish Inquisition or McCarthyism… you know – the good ‘ole days.
george57l

Doesn’t it still only take two qualified doctors to commit some one to an asylum?
http://www.facebook.com/daniel.z.klein Daniel Zenon Klein

Don’t feed the troll.
Frank Minutillo

Why can’t we just make up our minds to simply ignore this character. He does not exist….
calebcharles

Who is Glen Beck?
- bruckelsprout
  
  God bless you. Please, preserve your innocence for as long as possible. Don’t Google him or ask anyone sitting around you. There is far too little purity left in the world.
Jason Haas

Every camp for children is political. I think Althusser sums it up pretty well: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm
finette

@Tyler Firth: Yeah, I told my brother who attended Boys State as a teen and is now a Congressional liaison at the Library of Congress that he might as well cop to his Nazi indoctrination now, because Glenn Beck is on to him.

Boys and Girls State are sponsored by the American Legion. I’ve been hoping they’ll give Beck a nice veterans’ smackdown, but alas it hasn’t happened.
http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

I went ahead and skimmed the “manifesto”, and much of it is indistinguishable from a Beck show transcript. Since getting called out on this bullshit, Beck has doubled-down instead of apologized, raging on about how liberals are nazis and America is lost without revolution. He doesn’t really stop short of calling for more of these kind of atrocities, he just stops short of immediate legal liability.

For an example of how the right wing forums are full of such murderous talk, one need only go to see what the freepers were saying as the tragedy unfolded:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2752400/posts?q=1&;page=1

For example:

“A time of ethnic cleansing will come again to Europe.

If it comes soon, the Muslims will be purged.
If Europe waits long enough, it will be the Europeans who will be purged.”You’ve just about said it all in three lines.White/Christian/Western Europeans know in their hearts what must be done.Whether they will discover the intestinal fortitude required to do it in time — well, that’s the $64 question. Right now it doesn’t look all that good, but it’s not yet time to completely give up hope.There _are_ political parties in Western Europe that know what must be done. However, they are attacked by the _other parties_ as being “racist”, “xenophobic”, or whatever. Yet if ANYone is able to “save Europe”, it will be the far-right-wing parties. NONE of the other parties will come around in time; indeed, amongst them, it will more likely be a question of which one surrenders first.I’ve posted this before on FR, and I’ll post it again:Western Europe has but two choices:
1. Boxcars, or…
2. Burqhas.If Europeans do not choose option #1 in due time, they WILL have option #2 forced upon them.That may go for us here in North America, too.Just sayin’….
53 posted on Fri Jul 22 2011 13:34:56 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) by Grumplestiltskin (I may look new, but it’s only deja vu!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]
Rich Keller

Beck’s comment came from a man who, while on the air, phoned and mocked the wife of a radio show rival after her miscarriage. [According to the wikipedia article about him, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_beck#Radio. Some people have the talent to say the most comforting thing in a situation. His talent lies in his ability to think of the wort possible thing to say and then blurt it out in a self-piteous way that somehow makes him the victim of every awful thing that’s ever happened in history.

If you want him to fade into obscurity and wish never to hear from him again, go after his sponsors. Tell them that even though you love their products and have been a loyal buyer for years, you cannot conscientiously buy anything they sell since they sponsor such a poor quality program full of lies and hate. With enough of this, they’ll stop giving him money and stations will drop him and, for all practical purposes, he’ll just disappear.
- L_Mariachi
  
  Last I checked he had already lost all his mainstream sponsors and now gets by advertising largely for fly-by-night gold specie hucksters, fellow wingnuts’ self-published vanity projects, things of that nature.
Brainspore

Like I said on another thread, the part of Beck’s brain that recognizes Nazi-esque characteristics appears to have been put in backwards. Most of the people he labels “Nazis” (like the mixed-race President, the gay Jewish congressman or the philanthropist who narrowly escaped the death camps as a child) wouldn’t be accepted into the Third Reich if they came with a truckload of jackboots and a bouquet of swastikas. Then, when an actual, bona-fide neo-nazi white supremacist comes along Beck says he’s more like Osama Bin Laden, but those liberal democracy-minded kids he slaughtered were looking pretty darn nazi-ish.

And yes, there are a number of summer camps in the U.S. tied to Beck’s 9/12 project that are much more analogous to the “Hitler Youth” than this Norwegian group.
lthrcoat

Sounds reasonable to me. If you’d get your emotions in check it’s extremely logical. Beck is certainly not comparing their ideologies, he’s comparing their methodology. Can’t imagine sending my kid to a camp to indoctrinate them into politics….sheesh.
- Xopher
  
  Don’t feed the troll, fellow commenters.
- http://grumer.org/ Avram Grumer
  
  No, lthrcoat, he is deliberately drawing the comparison to the Nazis because that lets him taint the victims of an anti-Muslim right-wing zealot for whose views Beck has some sympathy.
  
  In every major democratic nation in the world, you can find kids’ camps with a political bend. Here in the US, there are right-wing camps, left-wing camps, Zionist camps, etc. Are they all creepy and Nazi-like?
cazart

Who’s Glenn Beck?
loroferoz

Let’s do ourselves a favor. Ignore the troll. Simply ignore the radio troll called Glenn Beck.
TripleE78

Christ, what an asshole.