From Democracy Now, “Before the deadly attack in Norway that killed 76 people, suspect Anders Behring Breivik left a long trail of material meticulously outlining his political beliefs. His 1,500-page political manifesto, titled “A European Declaration of Independence,” seeks common cause with xenophobic right-wing groups around the world, particularly in the United States. It draws heavily on the writing of prominent anti-Islam American bloggers…” Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power and C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy (Back Bay Readers’ Pick) speaks with Amy Goodman about Anders Breivik and the dangers of religious extremism in the United States and the world and how US media downplay acts of terrorism committed by Christian extremists.

…it really even comes down to their vision for what kind of society they see. So, for instance, these folks who are saying that Breivik is not a Christian aren’t reading the portions in the manifesto in which he describes the ideal society. They want to believe will be Christian government. He sort of goes back and forth and engages the arguments within the Christian right: should we call it “theocracy,” or should we call it something else? But really, they’re sort of borrowing from a kind of a Colson idea of merging these things and giving Christianity dominion over all of society. But he says, with great generosity, that you don’t have to convert, you just have to allow schools, courts, government to be ruled according to the Bible.

Stieg Larsson, author of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy Deluxe Boxed Set: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Plus On Stieg Larsson also researched right-wing extremism and how groups following this ideology treat feminism and racism. Gabrielsson says, “…Breivik in Norway, he is also what you could call a man who hates women. He blames actually women for the state of things in Europe now, and he doesn’t blame the global economy and the lack of political and economical responses to that, which he should be able to do, since he went to some commerce higher education in Norway. Instead, he blames women, saying that we have destroyed societies, we are for multiculturalism, we are against men, we have made men into something that they are not.”