Magasinet Monitor

- With hate from nothing to nothing

The Magazine Monitor started as a newsletter in the 90ies with anonymous editors. The purpose of the newsletter was, together with other publications from the Marxist and pseudo-anarchistic cult around Café Blitz in Oslo, to keep young activists informed on who their enemies were - groups of skinheads, nationalists, anti-immigration activists, Christian fundamentalists and neo-Nazis. Today "Magasinet Monitor" is reduced to a webpage which serves the purpose of giving credit to the editor, Tor Bach, who displays himself as some sort of expert when addressing the media and the courts.

The phenomenon Bach

The Activist Tor E. Bach was early on a main figure in the publication Magasinet Monitor. Bach has a long, but strange curriculum vitae as a political activist. As early as the latter part of the 80ies one could observe Bach in midst of the violent activist from the Blitz-sub cult. However, the young Bach found it somewhat tricky to be accepted, even in a sub cult. The Blitz-sub cult was to a great extent built around a traditional and violent sexist pattern where young men impress the female elements by courageous and self-sacrifying attacks on the police and other representatives of the government and their parents. Though with none or little danger of being harmed themselves. As a young exhibitionistic, homosexual male, Bach had certain problems fitting into these dynamics and thus evolved alternative strategies to obtain the attention that conscious or unconscious is the psychological fundament for activities in such sub-cults. Strange behaviour and paper organisations - such as the "Militant Barbie Action" - saw the light of day, but proved to be counterproductive and only fanned the sub cults view of Bach as a somewhat disturbing eccentric.

"Research" and cold steel

As the tribal war with skinheads, nationalists and neo-Nazis increased in intensity towards the mid 90ies the sub cult underwent brutalization. Blitz adapted the black uniforms of the neo-Nazis and weaponry and explosives became a part of everyday life. Bach, now in his mid 20ies, adapted his strategy accordingly and was soon regarded as a dangerous and fanatic "warrior". He carried  knifes on all occasions and frequently talked about the use of such instruments. During a photo-confrontation after a young skinhead was stabbed  in september 1994, Bach was picked out. However no arrest was made and no charges raised despite the fact that Bach himself bragged about the deed to several sub cult members at the Café Blitz the same night. (The blitz-cult has on numerous occasions avoided charges by giving eachother alibi - a phenomenon addressed by the former police chief of Oslo in his memoirs.)

By now Bach had found a safe ideological haven in traditional Marxism and had manifested himself as one of the more brutal members of the sub cult. This was the basis of the conflict with another activist, Espen "Espa" Lauritzen, who with his knowledge of Thaiboxing could choose between a variety of the sub cults young women. Lauritzen saw Bach, despite his homosexual orientation, as a challenger to the status of the "toughest Blitzer". The conflict was strengthened by ideological disputes. Lauritzen was the more popular of the two and to stay in competition Bach created an aura of secrecy around his person. He erected and led the "research group" - a collection of blitz-members who were to occupy themselves with intelligence and counter-intelligence activities. Through this work he tied connections to the Workers Communist Party who shared his paranoid views and this became a large part of his identity as the sub-cults own J. Edgar Hoover.

Bach and the moles

During 1994 the suspicion grew that the neo-Nazis had infiltrated the sub-cult. They looked to Bach to get them out of the mess and smoke out the uncomfortable neo-Nazis within their ranks. In the "task force" to do this piece of intelligence-work Bach included a 17 year old young girl called Karen Marie Espenes. Espenes was rejected by Lauritzen when she declared her love for him, and was thus strictly Bach-loyal. Few months later it was, to Bach’s horror, widely known that it was Espenes herself that had contacted the neo-Nazis after Lauritzen had rejected her. Both Espenes` Nazi-contacts and Bach’s major intelligence-miscalculation was on everybody’s lips in the sub-cult. Espenes ended up on the sub-cults death lists and "most wanted" posters, and for Bach this was the beginning of the end for his career as an activist in the Blitz-sub cult. Lauritzen used the incident for all it was worth and together with rumours that Bach supposedly had molested a 13 year old Blitz-member (male) while he was doped up resulted in Bach withdrawal from the sub cult. He then turned to his friends in the workers communist party who was down on recruitment and gladly accepted him into their open arms.

- Khmer Rouge, AKP`s and Tor Bach`s allies display head and inner organs of a political opponent. Was he a "fascist"?

Turbulence and lack of footing

The workers communist party has a well established and rigid chain of command. After being employed at the party headquarters and been a writer for the newspaper "The Red Star" for some months Bach grew tired of the lack of focus. He then went on an ideological and political contradictive walkabout which took him from Baptists to "Agenda - X" (an organisation and a centre for youth of foreign background) to SOS-racism. The latter was more than happy to accept an expert like Bach, but after claims of infiltration by the workers communist party and downloading child porn onto the organisations computers Bach was marginalized also in SOS-racism. Behind him in SOS-racism Tor Erlend Bach left a number of former comrades in disbelief after he had conned them for substantial amounts when his social security cash grew short. This even though he had filed a false report to the police with the intent to increase his social security .  V

Finally some attention - Bach and the press

After years on the lookout Bach came to an apparent rest within the "Magasinet Monitor". As the newsletter`s unrivalled dictator assisted by a band of assistants with a high turnover-rate, Bach can again devote himself to surveillance of political opponents. Bach has during the recent years also been able to rise to the status of "convertite" - a non-Jewish member of the mosaic community - probably with the hope of finding himself in the Torah and new friends in religion. The transfer to Mosaic believes will probably not lead to a decline in the number of declarations of hate and burning antipathies, but must be regarded as a new part of the network-masterplan. A network that has proved very efficient as mr. Bach has been in possession of important seats in a number of organizations with left wing interests from "Norwegians people aid (an atheist version of the red cross)" to the mentioned Blitz-subcult. Through the process of publishing articles based on deliberate errors and some times pure fiction and influencing his contacts to print the stories in their various media Bach has been able to construct a number of alternative truths in Norwegian public life, well knowing that his frequent change of colours will go unnoticed.   

- Bach (right) on an outing-trip looking for "fascists" to give him attention.

- and his close, personal friend and new editor of "Monitor" Espen Grønlie

Pro or anti Holocaust?

The fact that on the homepages of Monitor one until recently was able to find banners glorifying Burkas - the symbol of Muslim fundamentalism and suppression - seems to be no problem for the Jewish community in Norway. In addition to this Bach has as mentioned above broad experience in working with people and movements who is in alliance with the leading anti-Semites of today, including the recent Yasser Arafat. Furthermore, the left wing scene in Norway has on numerous occasions been responsible for a substantial number of physical and ideological attacks on Jews and their property. The last incidence took place on Crystal Night 2004 when representatives from SOS-racism ran Jews out of Oslo. To meet the massive criticism that followed Bach constructed claims of a Jewish conspiracy. However Bach`s network had substantial problems saving the remains of their anti-racist alibi from burning down in front of their eyes due to one brave TV2-reporter who dared to report the incident as he had witnessed it, in stead of the one Bach - who was not present - constructed in the aftermath of one of the greatest Freudian slips in the history of the Norwegian so-called anti-racists.

Bach`s quick change from fanatic PLO-supporter - which is the proper view for a party secretary in the Workers Communist Party - to a convertite and one of two activists in the organization "Norwegian union against anti-semittism" is most probably due to that even Bach himself got the feeling he was loosing credibility. As time passes by it will become harder and harder to accept an "expert" who at one moment participates in a number of organizations hostile to Israel and in the next shouts antisemite claims against parties and activists in fanatic support of the same Israel. By portraying himself as a convertite the credibility is upheld and one can contiune the naming of names and pointing of fingers. Even the Mosaic community in Norway has been fooled by this and has chosen to expel true Jews to stay allied to the false.

http://www.norskisraelsenter.no/nor/ekstremisme/index.php

- The pictures show a family of victims of the horrible policy of the Taliban regime. A policy supported by Monitor with their Burka-banner (middle).

Through years of giving comments to the Norwegian press Bach has now, in despite of his background, managed to be treated as some sort of expert on Nazism and anti-Semitism. The Norwegian press quotes Bach with no criticism. Neither Bach’s lack of relevant education, his own status as an actor in the political scene nor his paranoid view of anything to the right of centre seems to limit the press` will to use a man who shares their own views and will help them understand the political scene in the way they find the most comfortable. Bach reached a temporary climax when he, without a question asked to his credibility, was treated as an expert by the courts during the trial of two skinheads accused of killing a coloured boy. During that testimony Bach showed a substantial lack of knowledge about the history of Norwegian Nazism during WWII, something one would not expect in an expert.

Until now Bach has concentrated his activities around the small neo-Nazi sub cult in Norway, however, during the last years the latter has almost seized to exist and headlines about neo-Nazis grow ever less frequent. Bach has therefore seen the need to include the small party "The Democrats" and its leader Vidar Kleppe in his studies to uphold some minimum level of interest in his work. It could, however, end up as a new major mistake. Bach is used to outing small groups of politically disorientated young men. It requires no witchcraft to portray small groups of articularly disabled youngsters on the dole as hardcore Nazis. However it is a much harder task to influence the Norwegian public to regard Vidar Kleppe, supported by the Christian right, as a Nazi. Bach has, so far, avoided any debate and has with paranoid accuracy made sure that all gatherings he is attending will pose no threat of difficult questions or photographs being taken.

When Bach in May 2005 was in a debate with the former mentioned Vidar Kleppe the result was that the leader of the small party ended the debate with the words:”The Norwegian public does not care about a nothing like you".

The victims of Khmer Rouge and Taliban probably do.

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