Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Kiss of death

10.12.2025 /

Today was the great day. The Nobel Peace Prize was formally awarded to the Venezuelan Ms Dracula. If you watch the video in Ben Norton’s article about her, you will hear her promise that Venezuela’s riches are up for grabs, if the USA manages to topple Maduro.

I am talking about a $1.7 trillion opportunity, not only in oil and gas, which is huge, and you know that there are opportunities, because we will open all, upstream, midstream, downstream, to all companies; but also in mining, in gold, in infrastructure, power….

This woman openly supports war against her own country! Ben Norton adds:

Machado stressed that, if Trump and Rubio can help her overthrow Maduro, she would cut Venezuela’s ties with China, Russia, and Iran, and their next plan would be to work with Washington to topple the leftist governments in Nicaragua and Cuba.

So this is what Norway is applauding? What does that make Norway?

To my knowledge handing the Nobel Peace Prize to this creature is the most ignominious official act that has ever been performed by Norway. I may well be wrong; in fact I probably am, because most Norwegians including myself have no idea of what goes on behind the scenes. Investigative journalists in Norway are few and fearful.

Discussing Venezuela’s socialism is an arduous task at the best of times in most NATO countries. NATO was, after all, formed to protect the imperial powers from the Soviet Union, although the USSR did not represent a military threat. (There is a great deal of literature on this score.)

The main danger from the Soviet Union was not military, as we were led to believe, but political: It was very important that we should not be taken in by communism. Yet, when the Soviet Union was dissolved, NATO was not.

So we must ask: Who was now being protected? Against what? And Why?

We know about much of USA’s active interference in European politics after the war: Operation Gladio for instance and US support of the brutal Greek dictatorship (1967-1974). There are plenty of declassified documents. (See f. inst. David Gibbs: Guide to Using Declassified Documents).

There is no reason to imagine that the US is any less interested in protecting “US interests” now than it has been in the past, though we do not have access to “declassified documents” about current events.

Again, we must ask ourselves: Whose interests are “US interests”? I put to you that they are certainly not mine, nor yours, no matter who you are.

At any rate, one way of protecting them appears to be by making sure that Venezuela has as few friends as possible. The Western press has been notoriously biased against Venezuelan socialism from day one of Hugo Chavez’s popular coup.

What do we hear about the so-called “democracy” that preceded the Chavez coup? Did the Venezuelan people actually benefit from it? At the time of the El Caracazo, there were no poverty statistics in Venezuela. But the very fact that traffic and business was paralysed by the sheer number of people protesting the price hikes suggests that poverty was indeed very serious. The army was ordered to suppress the protests, and when the massacres had ended, a heading read: “Venezuela obeys the IMF, pays debt with cadavers.” To this day nobody knows how many people were killed. The then Venezuelan government said: 262. Subsequently, hundreds of unmarked graves containing multiple corpses were found.

Yet, Venezuela presented itself as an “oasis”. Caracas was a copy of Miami where some people lived in the lap of luxury while the lives of the majority was as described by Dickens in Bleak House. Chavez changed that! I urge you to see John Pilger’s film The War on Democracy.

Democracy is a badly abused word. Used as an excuse to rape countries, support dictatorships, misappropriate resources, it has become a contradiction in terms. No wonder, then, that President Trump does not even pretend to attach importance to it. In the new National Security Strategy he makes no bones about intending to help himself (and the 1% in USA) to whatever a Latin American country has to offer, by hook or by crook. The document has been dubbed the Donro doctrine in that it considers Latin America USAs back yard.

Trump’s absolute disregard for formerly hyped “values” is highlighted by both the Greyzone and Geopolitical economy in articles about the release from prison of a former Honduran president and convicted drug cartel leader.

However, what Trump is doing is not new. The rape of Latin American and Caribbean countries has been going on for almost as long as the USA has existed. Take Haiti, for instance, conquered by the US in 1915 and occupied for 19 years with enforced racial segregation and violently suppressed rebellions resulting in the death of thousands. This disastrous period was followed by various US-supported dictatorships. You may have read the novel (or seen the film with Elisabeth Taylor) The Comedians by Graham Green, about Papa Doc and his obedient assassins? He was followed by an equally unappealing Baby Doc.

Finally, in 1990, Aristide won an apparently free and fair election. Alas, Aristide had some slightly socialist tendencies, so President Clinton put an end to his presidency after only a few months. And things have not improved for Haiti.

Of all the Latin American and Caribbean countries, Haiti was probably the most mistreated, but it was not the only US victim.

We know quite a lot about the coup against the Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz, who wasn’t even a socialist. We know about the link between the Dulles brothers and United Fruit, for instance. Everywhere in the area designated by the Monroe Doctrine as USA’s “back yard”, there was lucrative business for US capitalists, not for the workers nor for other stake holders. To preserve this state of affairs, a number of brutal military coups were carried out under the aegis of USA.

  • 1959‑65 Operation Rough Rider, Operation Mongoose – large‑scale sabotage, subversion, and assassination attempts against Fidel Castro’s regime
  • 1965‑70 Operation Condor, dictatorships (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia)
  • 1965‑68 Dominican Intervention (Operation Power Pack) – 22,000 troops landed to prevent perceived communist takeover
  • 1973 Operation Mongoose (continued) – intensified sabotage of Cuban sugar industry
  • 1979 Operation Just Cause (planning stage) – intelligence gathering for eventual 1999 Panama invasion
  • 1980‑84 Iran‑Contra Affair – illegal arms sales to Iran, proceeds to Contras in Nicaragua
  • 1983‑85 Operation Urgent Fury – invasion of Grenada
  • 1985‑87 Operation Phoenix – continuation of anti‑communist paramilitary support in El Salvador
  • 1989‑90 Operation Just Cause – invasion of Panama to depose Manuel  Noriega

But apart from these known coups, a lot of sneaky business has surely been going on that we don’t know much about. There was for instance Marco Rubio’s visit to Equador the other day. I don’t imagine for a moment that he went to enjoy polite conversation over a cup of coffee.

There have been at least two US-backed coup attempts in Venezuela, one in 2002 and the other in 2020. Then there was the unelected Juan Guaido whom the western powers, including Norway, decided to consider Venezuela’s president, but who was being investigated by the FBI for aid embezzlement. He is currently still under FBI investigation. He’s in Miami, of course, that’s where upper class Venezuelans feel at home.

When the Western press explains the dramatic immigration flows from Venezuela over the past years, they refer to the disastrous economic policies of the Venezuelan government. This explanation is, however, a very cynical falsehood. The US-imposed economic sanctions, cf. the Lancet, have been strangling the economy and more or less starving the population. For years! One study affirms that sanctions caused 40,000 excess deaths in Venezuela in just one year, from 2017 to 2018.

Not only are the US 1 % and their various puppet presidents determined that a socialist government must not under any circumstances succeed, must not be allowed to inspire neighbouring nations; they are determined to get their hands on Venezuela’s oil and gold, which is precisely what Ms Dracula is promising.

President Trump’s truly hilarious excuse for forcing the USA to engage in extra-judicial killings in international waters and thus turning his country into an international pariah state is that Venezuela’s president is a “narco-terrorist”. The claim is so ludicrous it does not even deserve to be responded to yet Responsible Statecraft made the effort to pretend to respond to an adult.

My final point is, however, not hilarious. My country’s blessing to Ms Dracula fills me with immeasurable sadness, shame and fear.

Venezuela

05.12.2025 /

Jeg ble forleden skriftlig oppfordret til å høre på Benedikte Bulls “kunnskapsbaserte” uttalelser om Venezuela på Dagsrevyen. Oppfordringen kom fra en som nok mener mine synspunkter avviker for mye fra norske “kunnskapsbaserte” oppfatninger.

Jeg er midlertidig bosatt utenfor Norge og kan derfor ikke høre det omtalte programmet. Jeg vet ingenting om Benedikte Bull utenom det jeg i dag ser på nettet. Jeg forstår at Bull og jeg står på ulike sider av spillebanen hva gjelder årets nobelprisvinner.

Jeg må dessuten spørre: “kunnskapsbasert”?

Jeg hevder ikke at jeg er ideologisk nøytral i utenrikspolitiske spørsmål. Tvert imot. Det jeg hevder er at ingen er nøytral. Enten vi mener å vite hva vi snakker om eller ikke, har vi gjerne noen ideologiske ankere som holder oss mer eller mindre på plass innen et relativt begrenset område. Det gjelder meg og det gjelder Benedikte Bull. Så gjerne som vi skulle ønske vi var nøytrale, er nøytralitet rett og slett ikke mulig.

Mange mener for eks. at frihandel i henhold til WTO-regler sikrer ikke-diskriminering, lik behandling av alle handelspartnere og er derfor av det gode. Mange andre, særlig i det globale sør (som omfatter størstedelen av verdens befolkning), hevder at reglene er langt fra ikke-diskriminerende og at de hindrer utvikling i tidligere koloniland. Begge disse standpunktene er ideologiske.

Den venezolanske Maria Corina Machado går mer enn alminnelig langt i å tilby utenlandske investorer ubegrenset tilgang til Venezuelas rikdom. Jeg antar at mange, kanskje de fleste, nordmenn ville rynke på nesen av slik hemningsløs neoliberalisme.

Mange mener at dersom et lands innbyggere ikke får putte en stemmeseddel i en valgurne hvert fjerde eller femte år (og i henhold til våre regler), så er landet ikke demokratisk, og da har vi – de flinke demokratiske landene – anledning til å intervenere, om nødvendig med sanksjoner.

Hensikten med sanksjoner er at befolkningen i det rammede landet skal styrte sin egen regjering og erstatte den med en regjering vi liker.

Andre, som det medisinske tidsskriftet the Lancet, påviser at USAs økonomiske sanksjoner, som forøvrig i de fleste tilfeller er folkerettsstridige, dreper hundretusener hvert år, inkludert 40 tusen bare i Venezuela i løpet av året 2017-2018. Sanksjoner fører dessuten til dramatiske flyktningestrømmer.

Jeg antar at Benedikte Bull stiller seg meget kritisk til tortur. Det gjør også jeg, og det er nok dessverre sant at det forekommer tortur i Venezuelas fengsler. Men det tortureres langt flere av sult og sakte død pga av sykdommer som kunne ha vært behandlet om ikke sanksjonene hadde blokkert medisiner og medisinsk utstyr.

En annen sak er at sanksjoner sjeldent fører til at landets ledelse blir erstattet med et demokrati.

Jeg vil gjerne si noen ord om demokrati som Benedikte Bull og de fleste nordmenn er så opptatt av. Jeg er muligens naiv, men jeg tror Norge fortsatt er relativt demokratisk, selv om det er så som så med pressefrihet i landet. Men mange land hvor stemmeurner jevnlig tas i bruk, er ikke like demokratiske.

Hva skal vi for eks. si om Storbritannia, hvor folk straffeforfølges som “terrorister” for sivil ulydighet mot bedrifter som sender våpen til en stat som i likhet med Nazi-Tyskland begår folkemord? Nylig leste jeg at man nå kan bli straffeforfulgt som “terrorist” dersom man verbalt forsvarer nevnte aktivister. Strafferammen for “proscribed organisations support” er 13 år.

Storbritannia tilhører ikke mitt interesseområde, men Øivind Bratberg ved UiO kan sikkert forklare hvorfor Storbritannia alltid ledes av ett av to partier, som for tiden kun støttes av 21% (Labour) og 17% (Tories). Kan han forklare hvorfor og hvordan disse partiene kan tillate seg å se så totalt bort fra velgernes uttalte krav, nemlig vern mot det raske forfallet i helsevesen og levestandard? Jeg lurer på om det går mot folkeopprør i Storbritannia hvor ca. 1 av 6 personer lever i “absolutt fattigdom (“ikke i stand til å dekke primærbehov som mat, klær, bolig”).

USA er langt, langt fra demokratisk! De folkevalgte og presidenten er kjøpt og betalt og bryr seg katten om hva deres velgere mener. Det har vi sett gang på gang, så jeg skal ikke bruke min og leseres tid og krefter på å dokumentere påstanden. Men USA har en stor fri presse og en såkalt “First Amendment” som de er mektig stolte av, som beskytter fri presse. Den frie pressen later til å klare seg utmerket, ved hjelp av reklame og givere. Derimot går det riktig så dårlig med konsernpressen.

Den frie pressen i USA omfatter hummer og kanari – hele poenget med “fri” er jo nettopp at det er rom for alt mulig, inkludert synspunkter vi kaller “brune”. Men den omfatter også “seriøse” nyhetsformidlere av høy kvalitet.

En av de første frie nettavisene i USA var Consorcium News, som ble stiftet av stjernejournalisten Robert Parry, som avslørte den såkalte Iran-Contra skandalen. CN er enda viktig, siden de som skriver der, for det meste er systemkritiske etterforskende journalister som ikke lenger får uttrykke seg fritt i konsernpressen, nettopp fordi de er systemkritiske.

En annen systemkritiker er Glenn Greenwald. Han foretrekker å uttrykke seg muntlig, på et program han kaller System Update.

Mistilliten til konsernpressen i USA, har ikke nådd Norge, hvor man enda leser de gode gamle avisene og Klassekampen (som ikke lenger er den gode gamle Klassekampen). Man lytter enda til Dagsrevyen og vil helst ikke vite at det finnes en annen verden der ute, bortenfor den som presenteres av vår vernende konsern- og statsmedia.

Selv Reuters, som jo i høyeste grad må betraktes som “konsern-presse” mer enn antyder at Maria Corina Machado går over streken i sin iver etter å bli Venezuela’s neste president, at hun faktisk med stor tyngde har hevdet at Venezuelas Maduro er en sikkerhetstrussel mot USA. Denne absurde påstanden kan ligge til grunn for de avskyelige drapene begått av USA i internasjonale farvann siden september. Den frie systemkritiske pressen i USA har for lengst demontert Trumps påstander om farene fra Venezuela. Men først i en artikkel av 3. desember valgte Responsible Statecraft (som ikke er helt fri, men “partipolitisk uavhengig”) å ta definitivt avstand fra påstandene matet til Trump av Machado.

Staten Norge må balansere mellom opinion innenlands og press utenfra. Sympati med Palestina har vært sterk i Norge i flere årtier. Også Cuba nyter godt av venstresidens beskyttelse. Norske myndigheter har tydeligvis klart å formidle til USAs myndigheter at det ville ha uheldige følger å motarbeide borgernes støtte til Palestina og Cuba.

Venezuela vekker imidlertid liten interesse i Norge og omtales så godt som uimotsagt som et fælt diktatur.

Men Venezuela har i det minste én norsk støttespiller, og det er lille meg. Maduro er nok ikke min yndlingspolitiker, men Chavez var en helt så god som noen. Det folk ikke vet når de sutrer om mangelen på demokrati i det stakkars oljerike landet, er at det i 1989 hadde hatt demokrati i 3 årtier, da en lenge tikkende gjeldsbombe gikk av. Følgende sitat er fra en artikkel fra 1989

Hadde ikke regjeringen innført prisøkningene, sa [president Carlos Andres] Perez fredag, ville den ikke hatt noen sjanse til å få 4,8 milliarder dollar i lån fra IMF. Han koblet den sivile uroen direkte til Venezuelas utenlandsgjeld på 33 milliarder dollar, og sa at rentebetalinger tok 70 prosent av oljeinntektene og undergravde landets evne til å forsørge sine 18 millioner innbyggere.

Hva slags demokrati er det, spør jeg, som i et slaraffenland lar de fattige unngjelde for de rikes eksesser. Caracas hadde lenge vært kjent som de rikes “oase”, en kopi av Miami. Resultatet av prisøkningene for kollektivtransport, brød, strøm osv. var protester og opptøyer, som beskrevet i denne lille videoen: El Caracazo.

Som en annen artikkel fra 1989 uttrykker det: “Venezuela adlyder IMF, betaler gjelda med kadavre.” I årene som fulgte fant man hundrevis av umerkede fellesgraver.

Resultatet ble, som filmen El Caracazo påstår: Hugo Chavez og hans “bolivarianske revolusjon”. Han er til denne dag elsket av latinamerikanske sosialister og hatet av neoliberalere, og det er dessverre sistnevnte som dominerer mediabildet i vesten. Derfor vil jeg varmt anbefale John Pilger’s viktige film The War on Democracy som han før sin død la ut i “public domain”

Jeg er nemlig ikke sikker på at norske avislesere får anledning til å forstå hvor kvelende “the rules-based order” er for det globale sør, som vi rett og slett hindrer i å utvikle egen industri. med bl.a. WTO-regler, gjeldsslaveri og SAPs.

Avslutningsvis vil jeg hevde at det er absolutt ingenting som tyder på at USA er bedre for Latinamerika nå enn på 70-tallet da Norges ambassadør i Chile var knallbegeistret for Pinochet. Den norske venstresiden var fortvilet over Chiles skjebne, så den litt for entusiastiske ambassadøren ble kalt hjem og erstattet med Frode Nilsen. Argentinas skjebne under det USA-støttede diktaturet brød venstresiden seg ikke om – men der ble det drept 30 tusen, 10 ganger flere enn i Chile. Der lever forresten over 50 % av befolkningen i fattigdom nå i 2025!

Men norsk presse bryr seg nok ikke om det heller.

Jeg ser ingen grunn til at pressen skal være taus om drepende urett, uansett hvor eller av hvem det uretten begås. Også dette er et ideologisk standpunkt som flertallet nordmenn antakelig ikke deler.

Shouting match

29.11.2025 /

I get very annoyed when people tell me that BRICS will fail, not because they are wrong, but because I assume they want BRICS to fail. Either they are extremely ignorant, I think, or they are – forgive my French – callous bastards. Maybe I’m unjust. Allow me to explain my position.

Throughout history, underdogs have revolted in various ways and almost invariably been crushed as a result. Successful revolts, or revolutions, are a rare exception. So BRICS is not blowing trumpets, not marching proudly through the streets shouting slogans and waving flowing banners. BRICS is going about its business quietly – no slogans, no insults.

The preamble to BRICS started in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, when the Non-Aligned Movement was founded by countries that refused to be pawns of either the USA or the USSR. In retaliation, the hosts of the Bandung Conference, the Indonesian people and Sukarno, were crucified by US minions in 1965-66, cf. The Jakarta Method (2020) by Vincent Bevins. Quoting Wikipedia:

The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World is a 2020 political history book by American journalist and author Vincent Bevins. It concerns U.S. government support for and complicity in anti-communist mass killings around the world … The title is a reference to Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, during which an estimated one million people were killed in an effort to destroy the political left and movements for government reform in the country.

I add for the record, that the book reads almost like a gripping novel, as it follows the author’s painstaking search for an understanding of what happened.

The title of the book says it all. Many of the promising leaders of global south countries died mysteriously or were not so mysteriously murdered in the years following de-colonialisation. Nevertheless, the newly liberated colonies continued to see GDP growth for some years because, as Jason Hickel writes in The Divide, “Governments across the region realised that because they controlled most of the natural resources and raw materials that Western powers needed for their industries, they didn’t have to accept the shoddy terms of trade that the West offered.”

Have you heard of NIEO? Personally, I find it interesting that I had heard of so many acronyms, WHO, WTO, GATT, G7, G20, OECD… but not of NIEO, not until I read The Divide. Yes, the NIEO was the Global South’s previous attempt to prevent the Western block countries like my own from continuing to help themselves to dirt cheap labour and raw materials (“cash crops”) and debt service at compound interest.

Needless to say, nothing came of the main reforms required by the original NIEO, although they were endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 1974.

Why? Because the former colonial powers and the new bully on the block, USA, were not imbued by the Christian spirit of sharing. They formed the G7 and systematically set out to undermine the NIEO. If you don’t believe me, read Chapter 5 of The Divide.
Or read this paper on Unequal exchange of labour in the world economy from 1995 to 2021 And that’s just labour!
Or this paper Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015.

I have tried to find videos about “neocolonialism” and have looked at a handful of them. They all stress that the former colonies were dependent, poor dears, on their former masters and that is why they are doing so poorly. Fie! The truth is that the former masters were determined to continue to exact maximum profit from the global south.

The Western block’s treatment of the global south has not improved, according to Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr. former Executive Director at the IMF (2007-2015) and a founding Vice President of BRICS’ New Development Bank:

The Western bloc has been holding on to its privileges and using it increasingly as a political weapon… It’s weaponised the dollar, weaponised the euro, weaponised the SWIFT payment system, weaponised the IMF, weaponised the World Bank… .The United States is willing to use all instruments in a harsh and violent way to preserve the power it has…

We, the general public in the “Western block” want to believe our (Western) governments are just. We want to believe we don’t do slavery anymore. After all, we all believe in equality, don’t we?

So why do we allow “our” banks to impose Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) that literally sap the blood out of each and every country they harass? SAPs deliberately preclude industrial development and strap their victims in a condition of perpetual destitution, cf. Plundering Africa – Income deflation and unequal ecological exchange under structural adjustment programmes.

We pretend we don’t know, pretend we don’t understand. Sorry, I’m being unfair: Actually, we honestly don’t know, don’t understand. Because our media tells us that we give aid and that we comply with international law. And laws are just aren’t they? Law is the English word for the Latin “juris”, which is closely related to the English word “justice.

With good reason we accuse our politicians of making false promises during election campaigns, of betraying their voters. We ask: Is this Democracy? Voting for Tom, Dick or Harry so that he (or she) can have a four-year field day? Many of us in the “Western block”are angered by the steady deterioration of our living conditions. Many of us actually freeze in our homes during winter and/or die of overheating in summer for lack of air conditioning.

But we cannot feel the hunger of the global south and our media does not tell us that the global south pays our financial oligarchs infinitely much more (thanks to compound interest) than it ever received in the shape of aid + loans.
Even AI services recognise this:

Q: How much have the African countries paid servicing debt over the past 10 years?

AI: Debt‑service has more than doubled compared with the early‑2010s level. ….

African nations have paid on the order of one trillion US dollars in external debt‑service over the past ten years, with the annual burden accelerating sharply and now exceeding $150 bn per year. This scale underscores why debt‑sustainability reforms and concessional financing remain central policy priorities for the continent.

Alas, debt‑sustainability reforms have been on the African agenda since day 1 . All our talk about “equality”, “liberalism” and “justice” is window dressing. What is real is something else, something rather ugly. I’ll leave that for another day.

Fiction versus science versus compassion

27.11.2025 /

Listening today to the mild-mannered social anthropologist Emmanuel Todd on Glenn Diesen’s substack, I was struck by the fact that he does not claim to be a political scientist. Yet he reaches conclusions similar to those posited by the political scientists I have been following, who focus on economic, diplomatic and military observations of the geopolitical chessboard.

Emmanuel Todd uses the tools of his field, the science of social anthropology. Similar conclusions are reached in an article on the role of energy over the past five centuries by means of another scientific field, that of the historian Alfred W. McCoy.

I am stressing the word “scientific”, because what we hear and see in the media regarding geopolitical issues does not even pretend to be scientific and is often divorced from reality. Is it fiction? In a sense, yes.

On the other hand, much of what I have learnt in life, I have learnt from fiction, i.e. from novels and short stories. Science is not supposed to be ideological. We can like or dislike its findings, but like it or not, science is heartless. Science will not tell you that genocide is evil. Treatises, scientific papers, statistics, etc. can support or dismiss hypotheses about human interaction, but only fiction can flesh out the real thing.

Let me spell it out: If your wife breaks your heart telling you she wants a divorce, statistics won’t heal your heart; far less give you a clue as to how you can reignite her attachment to you. Fiction will be your best bet.

So my third source for today is the 2024 novel Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad. The protagonist is a British actress, whose father is a Palestinian. She feels British, but visits, almost reluctantly, her father’s family in Israel/Palestine and gets involved in a theatre production of Hamlet on the West Bank.

I chose to read the book because it seemed innocuous. There would be no explicit genocide, no horrors of Gaza. What there was, however, was in a sense worse; the day-to-day humiliation of Palestinians. This undramatic aspect of life under Israeli subjugation was actually not really known to me. I was forced to feel what Haneen, Ibrahim, Wael and the others felt, for example at IDF-controlled checkpoints. Only an accomplished writer of fiction could force me to continue reading after having cringed at the insults of a 19-year-old Israeli brat with a gun.

The worst part, for me at least, is that the Palestinians cannot, must not under any circumstances tell the brat what they think of him.

If you have been following me here, you will know that I feel very strongly about Palestine. I ask myself: Had I suffered as much compassion with the protagonists if they had been from Sudan or Yemen?

Alas, no. Why? Because I know Palestinians! I have witnessed their grief, shared a little part of their pain. For decades I have known that Israel was committing genocide! I know no Sudanese and nobody from Yemen.

One of the characters in Enter Ghost tells a disheartened compatriot: “[No] we haven’t won, but it doesn’t exactly look like they’ve won either.” That’s just it! Palestine is occupied. Yes, But the diaspora of the Palestinian people is alive and well. They have lived to tell the story. Israel tried but could not silence them. Israel will for ever be compared to Nazi Germany. That is not “victory” and it never will be.

There is no diaspora from Sudan or Yemen. Alas. I truly wish there were!

My conclusion, then, is that knowledge requires both science and fiction. However without compassion, knowledge is hollow. Compassion requires people with whom we can bond.

Coincidences

15.11.2025 /

I am no angel, believe me. Every year I commute, as it were, across Europe, not once, but twice: Four trips in all, by plane. Moreover, I have four computers, bought within the last six years, and three mobile phones, the most recent of which I bought just last week. So my carbon footprint is no better than that of my compatriots, which is worse than that of citizens in any other European country.

Why am I confessing my sins to you? I am not a Catholic and you are probably not a priest. The answer is simple: I know that I am no better than most. We Norwegians buy too many clothes, too many new cars and we refurbish our houses too often. However we look at it, most of us Norwegians throw away too much and buy far too much. Period.

Perhaps you did not know this, but “Nordic countries have among the highest consumption-based CO2 emissions in the world, worse than the rest of Europe…. Gains in domestic renewable energy are wiped out by consumption-based emissions”.

My country is virtually self-sufficient in terms of clean electricity, yet … Well, to be brief, I suggest you listen to this zoom presentation by Jason Hickel.

In much of Europe, the indigenous population is plummeting because young people cannot afford to buy a flat where they can procreate and rear children. So the European countries need to import desperate immigrants who, incidentally, are willing to work for next to nothing. Even in Norway, that is increasingly the case. Why? Why are the prices of ordinary flats prohibitive for hard-working young couples?

Is it a coincidence that while the price of a place to live is exorbitant, outdoor temperatures are starting to kill us? “A searing heatwave that swept across parts of Europe in late June 2025 has been linked to nearly 2,300 excess deaths, …”

The heat wave referred to by the journalist lasted only “ten days”. But for much of Europe, the heat continued to kill people for four months. The murderous temperatures are no longer a “heat wave”; they are the new “normal”.

I ask again: Is it a coincidence that more and more young people have nowhere to live, that much of this continent is becoming uninhabitable from June to September, while deliberate total destruction (AKA war) is being perpetrated all over the planet. Most ongoing wars could have been avoided! I put to you that the reason they are not avoided is that for a handful of powerful people with seriously warped mindsets, war – per se – is a source of enrichment and/or power and therefore a blessing.

Even Forbes admits that

[r]ecent research has found that global militaries are responsible for nearly 5.5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions—a staggering figure that puts military emissions on par with the global cement industry. If it were a country, it would be the fourth biggest emitter in the world.

But the real cost is much greater, cf. Covering Climate Now

because a loophole the US inserted into the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 exempts all militaries from disclosing their emissions – meaning the world’s total emissions are significantly higher than officially recognized.

Now why would the US insert such a loophole, I wonder? Is it a coincidence?

Distrust

05.11.2025 /

I was taught in primary school – we all were – to adore my country, its flag, its king and its government, which represented us and acted on our behalf.

As we grew older, we could not fail to notice that our government often made what we considered mistakes, though we assumed it always did its best. After all, nobody’s perfect.

In high school, more and more of us started taking sides, right wing or left wing. Of course you also had the smug set, the people who maintained they followed a middle course.

We voted, defended the party we voted for, and denigrated the other parties. We read the paper we subscribed to and/or listened to our favourite news channels. Those were the days of innocence! Governments came and governments went; left side, right side (or, as they are now called, “centre left” and “centre right”). We would grumble when our side lost as though the whole business of elections was a sports event, and between elections we would discuss the performance of prominent politicians when they appeared on television.

Did we really think that the lies that led to the war on Iraq were a one off? Yes, I’m afraid we did. As for the lies that led to our war on Libya – well, they were never really exposed, were they. At least they were not loudly exposed, not in the mainstream press.

The outrageous persecution of Julian Assange was a wake-up call for quite a few of us, not least since even the Guardian joined the witch hunt.

For some time now, I have realised that we need to go back and re-assess a great deal of post-WWII history. What really happened when Yugoslavia was dismantled, for instance, and why? What they told us was definitely not true. What is? David Gibbs has spent years studying the matter.: I find his book very unsettling and interesting.: First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. I also enjoyed the documentary The Weight of Change, which challenges the official record.

Now, many of us “Westerners” – even many of Charlie Kirk’s people – have understood that we have been lied to about Gaza. Actually, we have been lied to for decades about Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian refugees after the Nakba (many of whom settled in Gaza) and about its gradual but methodical ethnic cleansing of the occupied West Bank.

I wonder how Trump voters of median and lower income will feel in the face of the unassailable fact that living conditions will remain as bad or worse under his rule as under Biden. Trump duped his voters.

They all do, of course. It’s a show, after all.

Someone shouted at me the other day during a discussion: “I don’t want to distrust everybody!” No, I certainly understand that.

And it’s not that everybody merits distrust. It’s not the players that need to be replaced, but the rules of the game. That’s what Zohran Mamdani seems to have understood. Who knows, maybe he will prove to be the spark that sets fire to the refuse left by years of mismanagement in Europe, as well as in the USA. If he can inspire the rest of us to demand the Democracy we were promised, that would indeed be great.

Alas, I am not optimistic. Many have tried in various parts of the world, and they have been undercut or killed. Even JFK was killed when he showed indications of leaving the track that had been laid out for him.

And if there is to be real democracy – Ben Norton maintains that Western governments are NOT democracies, they are oligarchies – we must understand that financialization of our countries’ economies is not the way to go.

Another thing we must understand is that “sustainable growth” is a contradiction in terms economically and certainly ecologically. At least in the so-called West. My country talks louder than most about “sustainable growth”, and performs worse than most, according to an assessment of the Nordic countries’ very considerable contribution to the accelerating ecological breakdown .

Finally, let it be clear: War destroys immeasurably. Yes, there are occasions when there is no alternative to armed self-defence. But it must be a last – a really LAST – resort. Imposing “democracy” is not a plausible excuse for violence.

Never before?

31.10.2025 /

Advertisers, news outlets and Trump all subscribe to superlatives:

The biggest, the best, the greatest, the worst, the smallest, the most …, the least…, etc. We also often hear expressions such as “never before” and “for the first time”. Grammatically speaking, these are not superlatives. Semantically, however, they are.

I would have liked to ask the linguist Noam Chomsky, whether this fascination for superlatives is universal, hard-coded into the genetic make-up of our species, or whether it is merely a cultural by-product of Western hubris.

There are some polite non-western expressions floating around to describe Western hubris (I repeat for the record that we represent only 12-14 % of humanity), among them: “US exceptionalism”, “US sense of entitlement”. Note that Europe and other US allies don’t count; we are just appendages to the US.

I am less polite. If you behave as a brigand, a brigand is what you are. The US is so riddled with debts that it has to attack countries to steal their mineral wealth!!! Having starved Venezuela with deadly sanctions for years and engaged in extra-judicial killings of its citizens in international waters, the US is now going to pilfer its riches. The US is preparing to engage in outright robbery in broad daylight. And its European minions are not going to interfere.

The dissenting media are not howling. They are merely shaking their heads. Why? Are they afraid? Or are they grieving? The corporate media are not even shaking their heads.

Maybe they are speechless for lack of superlatives. After all, this is not the first, nor the worst nor even the most…. not even since WWII. This is just business as usual.

I must admit that not until fairly recently have I realised how underhanded US and European foreign and domestic policy have been since WWII. Why did it take me so long?

After all, I read Manufacturing Consent years ago. I perused it as an intellectual, dispassionately, and with respectful interest. For me, the tide only turned when I read Nineteen Eighty-Four, shuddering as I did so: So much of the novel was terrifyingly recognizable!

Novels address your gut. They aim to immerse you into the matter, forcing you to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” in a way that a cool analysis is unable to. The same applies to the film format.

Today, I returned to Manufacturing Consent, this time as it is spelled out in a gripping 1992 documentary by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick. The documentary explains what Chomsky refers to as “the terrifying aspect of our society and other societies, [which] is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe such events.”

Just so. As to why “such events” occur, you will need to watch another equally tide-turning documentary: The Corporation.

That’s why.

How a narrative was manufactured

22.10.2025 /

A book review of a book review

The book GRAND DECEPTION: The Browder Hoax, by Alex Krainer, has been “banned” – twice banned, no less – on Amazon and it is also “banned” by Barnes and Nobles. It was admittedly published a long time ago, in 2017, but is no less relevant, and still banned, today.

You may find it here.

Bill Browder was and probably still is what we used to call a “speculator” – as I see it: a good-for-nothing, big-time gambler. The “financial set” is a class of people against which I am deeply prejudiced, to say the least, notwithstanding the fact that it includes Alex Krainer himself.

So why care about the “Browder Hoax”. Hoaxes are speculators’ bread and butter, no? What made me read Krainer’s introductory pages was the fact that the financial shark Browder apparently operated in Russia and took part in the big grab of Russian spoils during the decade after the dissolution of the USSR. Russia was brought to its knees, and I was eager to learn about that. So I read on, always prepared to quit after the next paragraph.

Having done with the caveats, I turn to Krainer’s book, which starts with a painstaking analysis of Bill Browder’s self-congratulatory autobiography published in 2015, Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice.

It is so extremely well written, we are told, that it is most likely the product of a ghost writer, It reads like a thriller, but as the title promises, it is a “true” story, and its alleged author, Bill Browder, is a hero, no less. Krainer read it in one gulp, only to find afterwards that it didn’t quite ring true, so he read it again, more carefully.

While my interest in Bill Browder is non-existent and although it doesn’t take much to convince me that a financial shark is a liar and a thief, I reluctantly read all the first 42 chapters demonstrating just that, because Krainer masters the delightful subtleties of polite irony.

So the “hoax”, it appears, is multi-faceted and consists not least of the book itself: Browder’s story is simply not “true”.

What further raised my interest was that Krainer, who was born in communist Croatia and therefore has every reason to distrust Russia, nevertheless questions the virulence of Browder’s denigration of Russia and Gothic epithets referring to Putin. There seems to be a deliberate PR pattern running through Browder’s narrative. The term Russophobia is often explained by geopolitical commentators, as a result of conflicts in the distant past, but I’m not buying: I was brought up to hate Germans, but 80 years after the end of WWII, there is no trace of anti-German sentiment in my country. Krainer demonstrates, with a wealth of examples from the book, how certain stereotypes are repeated again and again with suspicious lack of nuance.

Part 3 of Krainer’s book is a heart-rending account of how Russia was taken apart and turned into a failed state. Browder, of course, blames the Russians for this. But Krainer who is – quite usefully, as it turns out – an expert within the field I so deeply distrust, knows exactly what happened. I don’t understand everything he writes, but he is evidently no man’s fool, cf. a sentence in Amazon’s piece about him:

[I]n 2000. Alex had originated the firm’s research and development program in market analysis and application of neural networks and artificial intelligence in trading of financial and commodities markets.

That was “application of neural networks and artificial intelligence” in 2000! Twenty five years ago! That’s right: no man’s fool.

Krainer more than insinuates that the destruction of Russia by a band of robbers (Russian and Western) was actively supported by US policy. Of course anybody suggesting that the US deliberately engages in despicable acts is labelled a conspiracy theorist, but that doesn’t mean that the “theory” in question is untrue.

Why else would Amazon ban the book, by the way?

What do I care about Bill Browder? Not one hoot, I repeat. But his book, as analysed by Alex Krainer is a remarkable example of how to present Russia in hypnotically monotonous terms, crippling critical thought. Having read it, we must hate and loathe the country and the ogre at its helm to our dying day. Again, we get the sense that Browder’s crusade against Russia – and he is still at it – is very much aided and abetted by USA.

I don’t think we will need many Bill Browder books before we are all convinced that Russia is the end of everything, a modern Niflheimr and its leader an ice-cold, ruthless killer.

Unlike Browder, Krainer explains in Part 4 how that very ogre went on to pick Russia up out of the dust and put Humpty Dumpty together again. Indeed, already in 2017, Russia was doing very well. I won’t quote Krainer’s figures here, because I believe his book merits being read.

As for Browder’s heroic “one-man fight for justice”, that was also a hoax, it turns out – again aided and abetted by USA – concerning Sergei Magnitsky and the 2012 Magnitsky Act. Now Krainer was not the only person who didn’t think the narrative passed the smell test. A Russian film director, Sergei Nekrasov, had made several documentaries that were critical of Russia. His film The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes, had been paid for in advance, presumably on the assumption that Nekrasov would only be too happy to confirm Browder’s story. However, Nekrasov conscientiously examined relevant documentation, and realised during the process of making the film, that the story was a scam. The film was ready in 2016. At this point, remember, when a civil war was raging in Ukraine, it was particularly important to stress that Russia and Putin were evil.

The première at the European Parliament was stopped at the last moment, and screenings were cancelled all over Europe, including in Norway, where the film was made. In other words: The film was censored! As Nekrasov explains in his conversation with Glenn Diesen and Alexander Mercouris, the very fact of being censored in the West, was deeply shocking, deeply troubling. What he basically is saying, I think, is that the West is not what he thought it was. “Sometimes I feel that I’m back in the USSR,” says Sergei Nekrasov.

I haven’t seen the film, but you might find it here.

Amnesia

20.10.2025 /

For me the word “Alzheimer’s” has merely been, until now, a figure of speech. For me and my peers, I should add. Already at the age of 25 we would start referring to our impending Alzheimer’s condition to explain lost keys or phones and forgotten birthdays.

Today, waiting in a shop selling paints, I noticed an unobtrusive sign above the counter urging customers to support family members of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Not the patients themselves, but their wives, children, etc.

I’ve been in that shop before, and not so long ago, but I never noticed the sign. It may not have been there, but then again, I may simply have been blind to it. We are, after all, blind to the infinite number of sensory impressions our brain filters decide to discard. But today my cognitive filters happened to be very attuned to the plight of spouses of people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, because today, yes, this morning even, an old friend – a very strong and physically fit man – was to be admitted to an institution where people suffering from dementia are cared for. I guess that means that he will be locked away for good. Dead to the world, to his friends, yet alive.

I have not yet heard from his long-suffering wife, who has had to look after him 7/24, because “he must not go out on his own, and he is very abusive and insulting and ANGRY.” Did she get him safely to the institution this morning?

I guess her story is peanuts compared to that of millions and millions of Argentinians 53 % of whom are living in poverty, while 28 % actually suffer food insecurity. Trump has promised 20 billion USD to Argentina’s notorious strongman, who will not share the money with his brow-beaten subjects. Here I quote Alex Krainer (see below): “I generally subscribe to the idea that political power attracts precisely the sort of people who should not have it.”

Meanwhile, as Trump generously squanders 20 billion of US taxpayers’ money, how are US citizens faring under shutdown? In 2023, food insecurity allegedly affected 13.5% of the US population. One or two persons out of every ten US Americans in 2023 “don’t have enough to eat and don’t know where their next meal will come from”. In 2024: 34.7 percent of single-parent households headed by women experienced food insecurity in the USA. I can’t imagine that US citizens of mean or lower income are doing any better today.

A country that claims to spread Democracy cannot even afford to feed its own population. QUE VERGUENZA!

I had lunch today with a beautiful and very hard-working psychologist. She complained that she and her equally hard-working husband had to pay taxes to feed people who worked “on the sly”, i.e. cheated on the system. “Yes,” I said, coward, that I was, “I know what you mean.” I didn’t say, as I should have, that those who earn an undeclared shilling or two in addition to the bare-bone benefits they get, are not responsible for the tremendous defence outlays that eat up a significant portion of our tax contributions, which are intended, “I remind you”, for our common good. That includes feeding people who are unable to provide for themselves.

I said none of that because a) I know that my psychologist friend is ready to crack from exhaustion, balancing work (to service a mortgage and student loans) and parenting and b) because it is true that there are people who simply don’t want to work, and I don’t know how to single them out.

So I stuck to my guns, as it were, and complained about the warmongering. “It’s no good blaming Putin, you know, or even the Chinese. Look at all the wars. They were not China’s wars, not Russia’s wars. Even Korea was not Russia’s war. Nor Vietnam. Yes, there were Communists in Korea and in Vietnam. So? None of our business!” My exhausted friend looked at me me as though wondering which of us is loosing our marbles.

***

Just how often has the US intervened militarily or otherwise to control a foreign governments? I decided to test an AI service:

Q: Please list all US military and /or secret service interventions since WWII

The result was a list of approx 30 well-known interventions. The Panama 1989 “Just Cause Operation” was not on the list, nor the Grenada 1983 “Operation urgent Fantasy”.

Q: Why have you not listed Lebanon, 1958?

A: The 1958 Lebanese crisis is indeed one of the better-known U.S. interventions of the Cold-War era, and its absence from the quick-scan list was simply an oversight rather than a judgment about its importance.

“An oversight”? Well, well, well. I shall keep that quote for future reference. AI suffers from “oversights”. As for the expression “quick-scan list”, please note that my initial question was ” list all US military …

I insisted:

Q: I repeat I am not interested in a “quick-scan ” list. I am interested in a list of all – I repeat – ALL US interventions military and/or secret service interventions since WWII.

A: Below is the most comprehensive catalog that scholars, journalists, and de‑classified archives have assembled of every U.S. military and/or intelligence‑service (CIA, NSA, DIA, etc.) intervention abroad from the end of World War II (September 1945) through the present day.

The list filled 10 A4 pages and I haven’t yet checked it, but it did nor include NED and USAID regime change operations. It ended in 2018.

So much, then, for “the present day”, when the US is bombing boats out in international waters, without warning, without cause. Each bombed boat sinks to the bottom of the sea, a wet and literal memory hole. The planned “liberation” of Venezuela is being aided and abetted by my country with its Nobel “Peace” Prize awarded to someone I would not want as a relative, not even as a distant one.

Norway has tagged along as USA’s obedient puppy, ever since WWII. Yet, it wasn’t the USA, but the USSR that saved Norway from the Germans. That is something we have forgotten.. We have graveyards all over the country full of dead Eastern European POWs who were made to work till they dropped for the German occupants during that war. Forgotten.

Since then, USA has had to feed its war industry. Without wars, no industry, it seems. Wars and make-belief are what USA has to offer the rest of the world. And we curtsy; we say ‘thank you’, and we award Peace Prizes, grant exceptions to International Law as required, and blame the Russians.

For decades Norwegians have been breastfed lies about Venezuela’s “evil dictators”. Yes, millions of Venezuelans have fled from their country and Norwegians think they know why. Apparently, the sanctions have also gone down memory holes.

Glenn Greenwald suggests that Venezuela’s non-existent drug cartels are a poor excuse for going to war. Instead Trump could claim Venezuela has weapons of mass destruction. WMD would at least represent a serious threat to US security.

USA needs Venezuela’s oil, or rather, as explained by Alex Krainer, the oil as “bank collateral”.

Democracy has nothing to do with US regime change operations. Ever.

Svar til en marxist

17.10.2025 /

Jeg er helt enig i at det er storkapitalen som rår.

Jeg er helt, helt enig at vår “styrking av demokrati og menneskrettigheter” i utlandet sorterer under “utenlandsk innblanding”. Det skulle tatt seg ut om etiopierne opprettet et enormt fond for å fortelle skandinaver hva som er rett og galt og hvordan vi burde tenke om dette og hint (jf. USAID og NED).

Jeg er enig i at vårt NATO-medlemskap ikke beskytter Norge; at det er et redskap for å styrke USAs hegemoni.

Jeg er selvfølgelig enig i at vi ikke har pressefrihet – ettersom pressen, de sosiale mediene og de store filmselskapene, osv., eies av storkapitalen. Narrativet er til enhver tid ikke vårt eget, men deres.

Det er nok ikke helt likegyldig hvilket parti kommer til makten ved valg, men som vi har sett i Storbritannia, går det gale veien for folk flest uansett. Jeg husker ikke hvilket parti som hadde makten da el-kraften, vår felles el-kraft, vår kronjuvel, ble stjålet fra oss og lagt ut på markedet til høystbydende. Nå forteller AP at vi skal takke for at man “gir” oss Norgespris – veldedighet! Det blir veldig dyrt for Staten, får vi høre.

Joda, pressen tillater litt kritikk, litt opposisjon. Særlig om mindre vesentlige saker.

Men akkurat nå er jeg mest opptatt av sionismen. Det som har skjedd i Gaza, og som vil fortsette å skje i Gaza, er riktignok ikke det eneste folkemordet siden annen verdenskrig, men til forveksling likt det som skjedde da. Jødene var “untermenschen”, slik palestinere er det i dag. (I vår russofobiske tilstand glemmer vi gjerne at også østeuropeere og russere var “untermenschen”, og at også de ble begravd levende, brent inne i kirker, sultet ihjel osv.)

Over tid har deler av USAnsk og europeisk kapital sett seg tjent med å alliere seg med Sionister. For ordens skyld vil jeg presisere at Sionisme har ingenting med religion å gjøre! Sionisme er et rasistisk og ofte aggressivt ekspansjonistisk verdensbilde som bruker jødedommen som påskudd.

Hvorfor alliansen er blitt så sterk, vet jeg ikke. Men at den er sterk, er det ikke tvil om. Det finnes de som har hevdet, blant dem Charlie Kirk, at Trump rett og slett er redd for Netanyahu.

EU har et påfallende tett samarbeid med Israel:

Historisk sett er EU Israels største handelspartner, og begge sider samarbeider gjennom rammeverk som assosieringsavtalen (1995) mellom EU og Israel og en rekke sektorspesifikke avtaler som dekker vitenskap, teknologi, energi og kulturutveksling.
(KIlde: svar på et AI-søk)

Dette er påfallende i lys av FNs utallige fordømmelser av Israel. Forholdet mellom Storbritannia og Israel er spesielt verd å merke seg.

I 2023-24 ble den bilaterale handelen verdsatt til rundt 10 milliarder pund, hvor Israel eksporterte høyteknologisk utstyr, legemidler og forsvarsvarer, mens Storbritannia leverte maskiner, finansielle tjenester og forbrukerprodukter. De to nasjonene samarbeider tett om terrorbekjempelse, cybersikkerhet og forsvarsforskning. Felles øvelser og avtaler om deling av etterretningsinformasjon gjennomføres gjennom Storbritannias forsvarsdepartement og Israels forsvarsdepartement, samt via NATO-relaterte kanaler der Storbritannia deltar.

(min utheving) (ibid)

Sionismens enorme makt i USA, i EU og i UK er altså påfallende, men endrer ikke det faktum at det til syvende og sist er storkapitalen som rår.

Det er helt urealistisk, nå, å gå til frontalangrep mot storkapitalen. Det gjør ingen av partiene på den såkalte venstresiden på Stortinget. Partier som FOR (Fred og Rettferdighet) og Storbritannias Worker’s Party og Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party er så små at de overhode ikke synes i landskapet.

Det er derimot langt mer aktuelt å gå til frontalangrep mot sionismen i USA, i EU og i Storbritannia. Det vi har vært vitne til de siste par årene – i realiteten helt siden opprettelsen av staten Israel – og det vi vil fortsette å være vitne til de neste årene er så sjokkerende at folk som ikke er aldeles avstumpede reagerer.

Det mange også kjenner på – nettopp i USA, UK, Frankrike og Tyskland er mistillit og sinne mot “eliten”, “the political establishment”, dvs såkalt “sentrumspolitikk”. De sosialdemokratiske partiene har alle gått i Tonny Blairs spor som ulver i fåreklær. Derfor omfatter sinnet også “venstre-politikk”, som har erstattet krav om rett til verdige levekår og utdanning med liberal identitetspolitikk – som vel og merke ikke koster en krone på statsbudsjettene.

Vi ser derfor at velgere vender seg til partier som pressen stempler som “populistiske” eller “ytre-høyre”. Noe disse partiene har til felles er at de ikke vil bruke skattepenger på krig og at de vil begrense innvandring.

Dette med innvandring er alvorlig fordi det jo nettopp er storkapitalens neo-koloniale kriger og utbytting som har forårsaket innvandringsflommen. Siden fødselstall i Vesteuropa går ned, og siden GDP-vekst er avhengig av befolkningsvekst, vil storkapitalen dessuten gjerne opprettholde immigrasjonsstrømmens billige arbeidskraft. Det vil vanskelig la seg gjøre å forhindre sosial uro ved intens tilstrømming av desperat fattige og traumatiserte mennesker.

I kampen om skrumpende velferdsgoder, utvikles lett aggresjon mot fremmede. Det er antakelig et faktum at noen velgere av populistiske partier faktisk er rasistiske, men flertallet av dem er nok ikke det, selv om de kanskje misliker de fremmedes skikker. La oss kalle det de lider av for fremmedfrykt. Etterhvert som de blir kjent med hyggelige mennesker fra kulturer de er skeptiske til, slipper fremmedfrykten taket.

I mellomtiden er de dypt opprørte over det som har skjedd i Gaza og det som vil fortsette å skje i Gaza og Vestbredden. Det har vært kolosssale demonstrasjoner i sommer og høst, sant nok ikke bare mot folkemordet. Det er i det hele tatt mye sinne ute og går. Og mange har fått med seg statenes vanvittige bruk av midler til krig og opprustning.

Tiden er inne, foreslår jeg, til å gå hardere til verks mot Sionismen og vestens krigshissing.

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