Norwegian Men’s Rights Activist blogger Eivind Berge, known for his violent rhetoric and rape apologia, has been arrested for death threats against police.
Not too surprising, given that he once announced on his blog that “[k]illing at least one cop is on my bucket list.”
Here are some Google-translated details from a news account here:
The right-wing extremist and anti-feminist blogger Eivind Berge has been arrested for having encouraged and glorified the killing of policemen. The police have found both ammunition and textbooks in use of explosives at Berge.
The police regard the threats as an invitation to others to kill police officers, but also feared that he would commit the acts themselves shortly.
He was evidently arrested on Wednesday. According to this story — at least as far as I can tell from the obviously crude Google translation — he made a specific threat to kill a police officer this Saturday:
Berge also writes about how he was planning to attack a policeman with a knife on a Saturday evening:
“Then I used the trial to come forward as a good example for men, and I considered it to be worth 21 years in prison for premeditated murder.”
According to this account, Berge is being held for two weeks. He claims innocence.
Berge, as readers of this blog may well already know, is a fan of right-wing terrorist and mass murderer Anders Brevik. On his blog, he’s also argued (among other things) that “Rape is Equality.”
He’s glorified the murder of police on his blog numerous times.
Some examples, taken from the second news account:
“… attack on the police is something 100% in harmony with everything I stand for.”
“I maintain that police murder is both ethically and tactically correct.”
Some other examples, direct from his blog (each paragraph is from a separate post; click on the quote for the source):
I viscerally despise cops and wish them the worst. Killing at least one cop is on my bucket list.
If ever a victim of psychiatry, here is what I would do. I would first attempt to kill the cops or whoever tried to apprehend me. Failing that, I would feign docility in order to get out as soon as possible and then kill a representative of the industry as revenge. … killing cops is also very much a men’s issue. Every pig killed is also a blow against feminism, so men should be doubly elated whenever an officer goes down in the line of encroaching on our cognitive liberty.
This was his reaction to a news story about a police officer being killed:
Good news for men is rare in this hateful feminist utopia that is Norway, but today is a joyous day! Today I feel schadenfreude in my heart along with all the hate that feminism and resultant mate deprivation have instilled in me. One blue thug less on the streets.
From another post on the same subject:
The swine Olav Kildal died while trying to enforce our lack of cognitive liberty. This was a defensive, much deserved killing that cheered me up.
Here he threatens a female prosecutor:
To feminist prosecutor Anne Cathrine Aga I have the following message: The Men’s Movement is watching you, bitch, and we are seething with hatred against you personally and the police state you represent. Actions have consequences. Trials are still (mostly) public and they sink into our collective minds, where they form the basis of future activism. Hate breeds hate — that is a fact of life too smugly ignored by feminists. …
2011 is the year Norwegian men as a group emerged out of the blogosphere and into the battlefield. This in turn has led to a breakthrough for MRAs such as my good self in the public discourse, probably for the simple reason that the powers that be now realize ignoring us has deadly consequences. Men are angry now, and we have proven that we are deathly serious about resisting feminism. So the feminist prosecutors referred to above ought to wipe that smug look off their faces before it is too late. Clearly seventy-seven body bags wasn’t enough, but I am fairly confident that you will be sorry one day.
Aside from the explicit threats of violence, the violent and threatening rhetoric here is not unlike much of the rhetoric we see regularly on A Voice for Men and other MRA sites. AVFM founder Paul Elam, for example, told one feminist that:
I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection. … We are coming for you.
The blogger Emma the Emo, Berge’s girlfriend, has posted comments here in the past defending him. The news account quotes someone identified as Nataliya Kochergova, described as his girlfriend; I assume this is “Emma,” because what she told the media is similar to what she posted here. She of course denies that he planned any real violence. According to the article, she said:
There are not really threats. He has never had plans to kill someone, he has said several times in his blog. When for example, he says that “the police killings are an effective way to prevent stupid laws,” it’s a factual description and not a threat. Even those who love the police agree with it.
Berge, for his part, has stated publicly that if he had not met Emma, he probably would have killed by now:
At the time I wrote my last blog post, I believed I would probably become Norway’s first modern violent activist in peacetime. Celibacy enforced by a feminist regime had driven me to the point where I saw no other option. I would target the pigs who enforce feminist law, knowing I could realistically at least kill one of them before I would be captured or killed myself. Thus revenge would be assured and if I lived, my reputation as a violent criminal would make me attractive to some women. But then in the nick of time this blog attracted a lovely girl commenting as “Emma.”
This is why I take violent rhetoric from MRAs very seriously.
Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, MRAs glorify MRA “martyr” Thomas Ball, who killed himself on the steps of a New Hampshire courthouse last year in hopes that his death would inspire MRAs to literally burn down courthouses and police stations.
Ball’s manifesto is still up on A Voice for Men in its “activism” section, including these passages:
So boys, we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses. … This is too important to be using that touchy- feeling coaching that is so popular with business these days. You need to flatten them, like Wile E. Coyote. They need to be taught never to replace the rule of law. BURN-THEM-OUT!
Most of the police stations built in New England over the last 20 years are stone or brick. Fortunately, the roofs are still wood. The advantage of fire on the roof is that it is above the sprinklers
AVFM tastefully omitted Ball’s specific instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails, but left this in:
There will be some casualties in this war. Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.
For many more examples of violent threatening rhetoric from MRAs, I urge you to go through some of my posts here and here.
I do agree the mra is very cult like but I have no idea what you are talking about with the sex bit. Sex doesn’t magically cure you from being a misogynist asshole, there are lots of mras and misogynists who are in relationships and have sex yet still are misogynist assholes. Plenty of misogynist men who get laid also still think of women as “holding their vagina and dangling it out of reach” because its a common misogynist trope that doesn’t vanish from your mind when you have sex.
Not to mention I have never seen on mra break away from the mra after getting laid.
The magical vagina cure doesn’t seem to have worked very well on Berge.
I have to agree with mert, I really can’t feel much pity for him after all the nasty shit he has said. I wouldn’t mind a permaban on the NWO bot considering how tiresome, repetitive, and nasty he is.
Also, this Eivind Berge guy is just ludicrous. “Rather than cowering in fear of the police, I assumed a warrior mentality”. Seriously? You’re no warrior, you waste of skin. You’re a cowardly little man with a lot of misplaced anger, no different from any of the other angry cowards the MRA idolize. Worse, you managed to shoot yourself in both feet by loudly advertising what you were going to do before you even got going, making yourself an even bigger failure. None of you are warriors. You’re not even brave enough to qualify as assassins or terrorists because the only risk you face is your own idiocy and incompetence.
I’m wondering if the ease with which they get away with bullying women online has given some of these guys a false sense of security. Realistically random women being bullied aren’t going to do anything nasty in return – not only do they usually not want to strike back in kind, but they don’t really have much in the way of means to do so. But threaten a cop and they really will fuck your shit up, to borrow Elam’s phrase. What kind of idiot doesn’t realise that threatening cops usually doesn’t end well for the person doing the threatening? I’m not hugely fond of cops either, but I’m not stupid enough to try to pick a fight with them.
“And I again question why this rape apologist piece of shit is still allowed to post here; any amusement value he had is long gone and all he does is say the same vile things over and over with little variation.”
“I wouldn’t mind a permaban on the NWO bot considering how tiresome, repetitive, and nasty he is.”
Second/third’ing that. (However, that would render the hilarious Book of Learnin’ obsolete…guess that’d be a good thing though.)
Cassandra, chalk it up to delusions of adequacy. Their community pumps them up with these grandiose ideas of warrior-hood, this is one of the natural results. The other results cover a wide scope between tragedy and comedy.
I’m also chalking it up to privilege. If a substantial percentage of them were POC they wouldn’t be dumb enough to think that picking a fight with the cops is a good idea.
“What kind of idiot doesn’t realise that threatening cops usually doesn’t end well for the person doing the threatening? I’m not hugely fond of cops either, but I’m not stupid enough to try to pick a fight with them.”
I really don’t fucking know. This is going to piss NWO off to no end, but pampered white boy syndrome? No one’s ever actually been particularly scary to him before so why would they start now?
(Of course, the whole point of “pampered white boy” is that most everyone else has dealt with the cops enough to know they don’t really work for us, they work for, well, the rich folks, who are mostly pampered white boys *awaits NWO calling zir racist*)
Seriously, can we boot NWO so we can have a damned conversation without perpetually debating how he’s going to twist our words? Even saying that, I’m sure he’ll reply something like “yeah you princesses would like an even bigger echo chamber wouldn’t you?” and act like he’s so much better than us. Fuck “the squeaky gets the grease” — “the nail that sticks out gets banged down”. (And in further NWO predictions, no NWO, that is not a threat, it’s a proverb)
proverb? idiom? whatever
If NWO had ever experienced any sort of actual loss of privilege he wouldn’t say half the stuff that he does. He has no real fear of the authorities at all, for all that he bangs on about Big Daddy government and men being sent to prison on a woman’s whim. People who are actually scared of what the people in power might do to them just don’t talk like he does.
Oh and NWO, you can claim all day that you don’t bear false witness, you know the rest of that verse?
Proverbs 6:16-19
New International Version (NIV)
16 There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
I don’t think anyone honestly gives a shit what he’s going to say if he’s booted. We won’t be the ones listening to his whining anymore. He can go play martyred MRA hero somewhere they actually believe that crap.
Has NWO ever answered the age long question of how the “Big Daddy Gov” censors and punishes mra (for being mras) yet he is not censored or punished for posting his stuff?
“People who are actually scared of what the people in power might do to them just don’t talk like he does.”
Yeah, I know, I ran “just how paranoid is NWO?” by my best friend (he works with NGRI clients, and is thus versed in what paranoia looks like) — his answer was “not really that paranoid, or he wouldn’t go on about it so publicly”.
He’s more like the kid who saw a scary movie and now wants the lights left on (lol, if the MRM just wants a ghost light, I still think we can oblige them that much).
MertvayaRuka — sorry, I could’ve been clearer, I didn’t mean what he say when/if booted, I meant what he’ll say to us currently discussing the idea of booting him. I don’t give a fuck what he says anywhere else, I care that I have to screen my comments through the lens of “how will NWO freak out at this?” or have him snarking at me about something I said a month ago. (This may partly be the complex I’ve developed because I’m not privileged enough to get away with not caring what I say or whom I piss off, but either way, it’s quite frustrating…and he probably thinks that means he’s “winning”)
@ Jumbofisch
I’ve no empirical evidence to back it up, but I suspect that the MRM is made up of a hardcore of perhaps 50 bloggers, usually older men, with perhaps another few hundred who comment very regular. There is a much bigger rotating fringe of support (still probably less than a couple of thousand) of mostly younger men who feel marginalized by society in general. The MRM comes along with lots of bluster and cliche and explains that the reason you feel the way that you do is because of the evils of feminism. The MRA newbie will have been fed the drip,drip,drip of anti-feminist cliche and this, coupled with their existing vulnerability, makes them very susceptible. Thankfully, most of them don’t stay for long, the total unpleasantness of the MRM means that nobody can stand it for very long before seeing it for what it is.
I think it’s more likely that novice MRAs get burned out by all the hating on women. Like I said, I think most of the new ones are young, maybe they fall in love, maybe they realize that MRAs hating on women are also hating on their moms and sisters, as well as their college classmates. Saying they stop being MRAs because they get laid is a bit simplistic, and a touch patronizing.
For all of the rhetoric, the MRM remains statistically insignificant. The Westboro Baptist Church gets far more publicity and neo-Nazi skin-heads have far more support.
This Norwegian dude will become a martyr of sorts, that’s pretty obvious. But I also think it’s fairly obvious that average misogynist wouldn’t become an overt MRA – it would be too troublesome for them to announce that a mere woman had any kind of control over him.
On a different note, and following on from a comment by someone else a while ago, I urge everyone to take a break from Manbooz, AVfM, Spearhead etc. A few weeks away from the disturbing words of disturbed people does wonders for the mind and the soul. It’s draining being exposed to so much hatred. David, I include you in that – I thank you so, so much for running this blog and exposing them like you do – but a week away from it all, seeing how people in real life are just so unlike the bloggers featured here is cleansing.
Um, Happy, most of us are very well aware that MRAs are a minority group and not the norm. They’re worth keeping an eye on, though, because for such a small group to have produced 3 mass murderers is troublesome, and their rhetoric is worth countering. I’m not sure why you’re assuming that everyone who comments here is walking around seeing MRAs around every corner.
Not really sure why you addressed your comment at me, I really didn’t talk about any of that….
Argenti, for my part I apologize if it seems I was being short with you. I’m long past giving a damn what he says beyond the potential damage it can and has caused readers here. As you say, he’s always doing that “gotcha” routine with past comments, or blatantly trying to shock and upset people, and the whole routine’s been tired for a long time now. Having him here isn’t worth the irritation anymore. Doubtless he’ll see it as a victory of some sort but the plain truth of it is he can call it whatever he wants as long as he’s doing it somewhere else. Hell, he probably only posts here because he gets more attention from us than his own ilk and possibly because they don’t really like him either. Can’t say I’ve never seen that before.
“On a different note, and following on from a comment by someone else a while ago, I urge everyone to take a break from Manbooz, AVfM, Spearhead etc. A few weeks away from the disturbing words of disturbed people does wonders for the mind and the soul. It’s draining being exposed to so much hatred. David, I include you in that – I thank you so, so much for running this blog and exposing them like you do – but a week away from it all, seeing how people in real life are just so unlike the bloggers featured here is cleansing.”
…is David even actually back from vacation yet? You’re asking someone who just took a vacation to take another for his own sake, not three paragraphs after “…and a touch patronizing” — yeah, just a touch. As for the rest of us, I can only speak for myself here, but feminism in general is permeated with this assholes, and most places that allow their comments do not take kindly to just going “oh you asshole” at them. So, since I can’t actually get away from the assholery fully, I’d prefer it in an environment where 1) I could always close the laptop and 2) I don’t have to try to coddle them to prove feminists aren’t mean.
Of course, I don’t count at all, I am “disturbed people” (well, person, but anyways).
And frankly, it’s more than a little off putting that you think the solution to assholery is to give up and let the assholes run the place — I will not give up my source of humorous stories, cooking tips, geekdom, brilliant conversation, etc etc, just because NWO is a really annoying ass. He really is about the only regular troll these days, the rest troll-and-run, or last a week — glossary troll was impressive in lasting 2 weeks, and honestly, that was a lot more amusing than NWO. (I got to play Victorian time traveler! Glossary troll was the cause of Spot That Fallacy!!)
Perhaps you need a break, but please don’t presume to know what’s best for the rest of us.
MertvayaRuka — no problem, I took your comment as annoyed at him and me not being clear enough (for the same reason, annoyance at him) — agreed as to the rest of your comment.
Happy, the MRA, like Westboro Baptist and neo-nazis, are nothing but a symptom of a larger problem. They’re hatred coalescing around ideas that are reflexively and unthinkingly expressed elsewhere in our society. They’re the purified form of casual racism, sexism and homophobia engaged in by “normal” people every day. The problem is not that they exist or that they have any real influence; the problem is that they are the visible face of something that usually hides itself behind a mask of civilization. There’s no endgame where any of these groups come out on top, no glorious revolution that puts them back in charge. All they will ever amount to is producing random murderers and thugs. But what they espouse openly in their small numbers is what a larger number of people sympathize with quietly. That’s the real problem. That entrenched, casual hatred among a greater population causes more harm than any of these clowns could ever dream of.
Happy, the thing about being a minority (in this case, I’m referring to my status as a woman; in other conversations, I might bring up my mental disorder) is that we can’t “take a break” from bigotry, much as we might like to. I can’t not get subtly told, all day every day, that golly gee whiz, I’m just not as smart as the men in academia.
And the choice is either believe that message or fight.
Half on (the current) topic — as I’ve made clear before, I’m a big Emilie Autumn fan, and when her own damned fans are debating if FLAG gives a bad name to feminism by being man hating and not including boys…we have a problem, and it isn’t misandry (if anyone can cite where she’s ever called herself a feminist, I’d be curious to see it). This is kind of doubly on topic, not only are cis men not exactly my damned problem, but well —
http://youtu.be/QUP-53A5_bw
“Who’s scary now?” — The MRM is scared of us, they can claim all day that’s because we hate men, but really, they’re like the neo-nazis and Westboro Baptists — they’re afraid of giving up power they shouldn’t have, and feminism is getting the point across that we aren’t going to quietly go away.
And NWO et al — no, you don’t need to be afraid because we’re going to get violent, well, unless you start it that is. You should, however, fear that we might not vote for you to keep your undeserved power. (Watch, NWO’s going to claim we’re a violent hate movement, and then go “women good, men bad”, when all I fucking mean is “women, sometimes not bad; men, sometimes not good”)
Oh and the point of that song? First, “you fight like a girl” isn’t a school yard taunt, it’s a compliment; second, the Asylum book is (going to be) a musical, all the violence parts are the inamtes taking over the asylum, literally.
By Happy’s standards, she gets shit, so she should just fold up shop and go get some boring day job. Does she get some superhero permission to put up with it because she’s simply amazing on a violin? (Except no, none of us except Happy needs Happy’s permission to do anything…)