Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Month: July 2025

Do you hear the distant rumbling?

31.07.2025 /

From their gardens or small vegetable patches men and women, some decidedly old, others somewhat younger, stop their pruning, cutting, weeding – whatever they are doing – straighten their tired backs and peer into the middle distance. Was that thunder? Or was it the sound of bombs? Many of those who come from far away will have good reason to fear bombs. Those of us who have lived here all our lives don’t really want to know what bombs are, but news of Gaza haunts us, no matter how hard we try to shut our eyes when those ghastly images flicker across the screen.

But I decidedly heard rumbling in the distance.

Garden work is hard on backs and knees. Yet, those who engage in it are, more often than not, retirees. Now they are turning their faces towards the sky, gratefully accepting the first few raindrops, while rubbing the small of their aching backs. Some cast a glance towards the tool shed, where the old pitchfork is hanging from its hook. It hasn’t been used for years, but it is still there.

If I were a painter, my next picture would have as its background the EU headquarters. In the foreground are thousands and thousands and thousands of human figures and their pitchforks.

We’ve been had, you know. Even in the global north, we’ve been had, but in the Global South… The Global South has fed us and clothed us and provided us with gold and gems and beautiful handicrafts and received nothing in return. Less than nothing. Much of the Global South is starving.

Gaza is in a sense the metaphorical Christ who was crucified to save us. Gaza has shown us the evil of our ways.

Here in the global north, we are just beginning to suspect how evil our ways are. Not because of the pruning, cutting and weeding in vegetable plots, but because of the neoliberal system in which we have faith. Mind you, I too have been criminally blind, criminally naive, criminally complacent for most of my life. I am not ashamed of it, because – as I now see – indoctrination is no joke. It’s not taught as such at universities, but it is taught!

The metaphorical pitchforks are appearing, though. More and more people find it too painful to bear that their governments and financial elites are contributing to the massacre by bombs and starvation of the people of Gaza.

The opening words in the statement of UK’s new “Your Party” apply also to the hoodwinked population of the UK. These words are a metaphorical pitchfork:

The system is rigged when 4.5 million children live in poverty in the sixth richest country in the world. The system is rigged when giant corporations make a fortune from rising bills. The system is rigged when this government says there is no money for the poor, but billions for war

The UK’s “Your Party” is the rumbling that I heard! It is not bombs, but the contrary of bombs.

And in the US, the following video should shake up at lot of people too.

There is hope.

Theorising conspiracy theories about conspiracy theorists

24.07.2025 /

When I looked up the title to this post, in case anybody else had used it, I found a title that looked a little too similar for comfort: “Criminology, Conspiracy Theories and Theorizing Conspiracy“, an academic paper, published 30 January 2025. I took a long and increasingly appreciative look. I quote from the abstract:

The first part of the article suggests that a moral panic over conspiracy theories has given rise to a conspiracy theory research agenda that has pathologized and criminalized conspiracy theories. The second part of the article argues that although conspiracies are important sociological and political phenomena, the term ‘conspiracy theory’ functions to stigmatize certain narratives.

And from the beginning of the introduction:

In recent years, conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists have been lambasted and ridiculed by politicians and journalists, and psychologized, pathologized and criminalized by academics. This article challenges criminologists to adopt a more critical orientation to conspiracy theories and theorizing conspiracy. Rather than dismissing conspiracy theories out of hand, criminologists should consider hypotheses about elite wrongdoing on the basis of their merits and the evidence available to us.


Just so.

The other day, I sent a text message to an old fried. Roughly summarised:

News about Trump’s reversal on disclosure of the Epstein files and the resulting hullabaloo in USA is somewhat entertaining and a welcome distraction from news from Gaza. I never paid any attention to the sordid Epstein case, but I must admit his frequent meetings with Ehud Barak and his sex-services to members of the economic elite must have given a number of persons reason to want him dead.

The old “friend”, sent me in return four irate emojis, including two of scull and crossbones. No text. Knowing his abhorrence of “conspiracy theories”, I assumed he did so to indicate that he disapproved of mine, though I had not advanced any “theory”. I was merely indicating my lack of respect for and distrust of the country that has a military stranglehold over my country.

To my mind, the failure of the US courts to prosecute Epstein’s child sexual abuse clients – surely there must have been a number of very powerful clients, in view of his fabulous wealth – is intriguing. And how on earth were Israeli lunatics – the ones who invented the Gaza Method – able to persuade reasonably normal US politicians to very actively facilitate it, the Gaza Method, that is? Surely those US politicians must have known that children all over the world will hereinafter be taught to loathe and fear not only Israel but also USA: Having developed an effective method to exterminate entire populations, the hateful perpetrators are sure to use it again. Are they not aware of the scorn and revulsion with which references to the US political and financial establishment are met. Surely, they know that the very concept “American Democracy” has been as sullied as if the stars and stripes had been used as toilet paper. So how could they? Were they coerced, or were they merely greedy (i.e. bribed)?

***

Every day, Norwegians wake up to the morning news with the death toll from the last 24 hours in Gaza: “30 shot dead queueing for food”, “86 shot dead queueing for food”, “15 dead of starvation” Every single damned day!!! The number dying of starvation rises day by day.

However, the morning news does not report that Ukrainian males are being hunted as animals to serve as cannon fodder in the proxy war against Russia. The Norwegian media have not reported the realities of the Ukraine war. In Norway, as opposed to in USA, there is no market for independent media.

So where is the conspiracy? Whose conspiracy? Is there a conspiracy?

Of course there is! There have always been conspiracies, here, there and everywhere. During WWI (cf. Arthur Ponsonby’s little book Falsehood in War-Time ) and WWII (when a whole nation was bamboozled by the “Untermensch” narrative). During the Middle Ages, kings and prelates were incessantly engaging in all sorts of plots. Business and politics are all about conspiracies. Take the Mont Pelerin Society, for starters. Or take the Wolfowitz Doctrine (1992) or TheGrand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Brzezinsky, President Carter’s national security adviser. The book is one big conspiracy, as you will see if you download it from CIA’s website.

More correctly, then, who gets to decide what is a conspiracy theory as opposed to a real or a possible conspiracy?

Answer: The corporate media. To be de-platformed or cancelled as a conspiracy theorist you simply need to present information or suggest an interpretation that fails to conform with the information and analyses presented by the corporate media. It’s basically a loop. Increasingly, the corporate media all echo one another, because they all repeat, almost verbatim, statements from their respective governments’ spokespersons.

Yes, I admit I am suggesting there is some sort of conspiracy, here, but I have no evidence (in Norway) that active censorship is involved. All I know is what everybody knows: articles from a number of formerly respected political analysts are no longer printed by the corporate press. And I know for an absolute fact, that we – not least my old friend – are being subjected to Information omission.

In short, most people in my country, who rely mostly on Norwegian news outlets, have no idea of what has been going on in Ukraine, whereas we have been fairly honestly informed about developments in Gaza. We are in fact so dazed, now, and frightened, by what is going on in Gaza, that we hardly notice that Ukraine is losing its war, its territory, and its male population. But we know – we feel it in our bones – that something is very, very amiss. Everywhere.

My old friend has defined me as a conspiracy theorist. I define him as disrespectful. On Greyzone, Aron Mate disagrees with Max Blumenthal about the Epstein files. He does not think they are important. They disagree cordially, each arguing his case. I put to you that they set a good example.

Since I have been so disrespectfully reproved for holding opinions that differ from those of my old friend, I shall take the joyful liberty of cancelling him. I have wiped him off my contact list.

The moral of this post is: Don’t send scull and cross-bones-emojis to your old friends if you cannot even be bothered explaining why you are doing so.

To a hero while he is still alive

13.07.2025 /

The heroic Palestinian journalist, Wael Al-Dahdouh, is still alive! Let us at least be grateful for that, although his wife, 7-year-old daughter, 15-year-old son, and an adult son who was also working as a reporter have all been killed, not to mention many other members of his family.

And many other heroic journalists. And many, many heroic healthcare workers!

What follows are photos of paintings by the Icelandic artist Thrandur Thorarinsson. He has kindly allowed me to reproduce them here.
All text accompanying the photos is my own.

A small part of a long mural about Gaza:

Behold USAID:

Friends meet after a hard day’s work:

You’ve bombed me, and starved me, and tortured me, but I shall haunt you even in your coffin:

Meanwhile dreams of freedom:

As for the rest of us, what can we do?

and

It’s not much, but better than nothing: On behalf of those who have already been murdered as well as on behalf of those who are resisting being murdered, please consider
this recommendation.

Please consider passing on the message.

The future for Europe

11.07.2025 /

We are seeing, I think, the outlines of what lies ahead in the medium term, at least. The European leaders are definitely not going to admit they made an extremely unwise choice back in 2021, in following the lead of the USA by refusing to back down on the issue of NATO membership to Ukraine.

Though a number of European leaders must long since have understood how disastrous their adherence to NATO policies was, they will only acknowledge their mistake posthumously, at best. The European countries have invested too much in their infantile narrative, which is that you cannot, may not, shall not negotiate with Putin, whose demands are a priori evil.

They have faithfully followed the US course of explaining the Ukraine conflict as one between Good and Evil. They have suppressed information to their own populations. They have more or less bankrupted their own treasuries to provide financial support and arms to Ukraine. They have failed to take issue regarding the disruption of gas supplies from Russia, which rendered their own industries uncompetitive. Now they are even considering following US orders to break off business ties with BRICS countries.

How much money does your country send to Ukraine every month? My country sends enormous sums, in addition to arms. I very much doubt that the Ukrainian people are seeing any of it. Zelensky and his gang are certainly getting richer by the day. So why aren’t the media loudly asking: “Just how is all of this taxpayer money helping Ukraine and the Ukrainian people?”

Meanwhile Russia has long since won the Ukraine war. At least militarily. A large portion of Ukraine’s population has fled. Much of the remaining male population has died.

Until recently, Russia did not seem to be in a hurry; the front line moved sluggishly. There is no indication, except statements from Western leaders, that Russia wished to conquer more than Donbas until quite recently. Indeed, one would think that Russia has more than enough territory. Occupying antagonistic populations over any period of time is very costly, regardless of who the occupant is.

Russia knows full well that it would not benefit from conquering territory that is adamantly anti-Russian unless… and here comes the crux of the matter … unless the goal were to somehow paralyse the Ukrainian Fascists who, funded by the West, are probably the dominant force in Ukraine, not in number but in terms of power. They have used the same methods to gain the upper hand as Fascists used in Germany and Spain in the late 1930s. Western news media have been silent about them since 2014, and since Ukraine is currently a totalitarian state, details are hard to come by. What is certain is that the Fascists insist, and have done so since the very beginning, on continuing this war at any cost.

After the recent western-aided “Spiderweb” attacks on several important military airfields deep inside Russia, the Russians appear to have decided to step up matters. Moreover, it is now also clear that Trump will make no progress in persuading Zelensky to engage in realistic negotiations (many analysts suspect that the Fascists control him and that he is no more than an expensive puppet), so Russia appears to have decided that there are no non-military options and that all of Ukraine will have to be occupied and forcibly demilitarised. Such, then, is the embarrassing result of the West’s long and very costly campaign against Russia.

***

In the medium term, there will be no negotiated peace. Ukraine will be an occupied country. Zelensky and his thugs will form a government in exile, lavishly funded by Western countries. Just as the Iranian Shah Junior has been nurtured for decades, at the expense of and unbeknownst to the US taxpayer, Zelensky and his court in exile will be generously remunerated for many years to come. Why? Because he and his court will serve as the pretext for an Orwelllian “never-ending-war“, the aim of which is to perpetuate US dominance, or rather the dominance of the US dollar, the reserve currency.

We shall have a war between Europe and Russia allegedly aided, but in reality initiated, by the USA; in reality a war in which Europe will be a US proxy, though Trump doesn’t seem to know it yet. This will, to begin with, probably take the form of a nominal cease-fire punctuated by acts of sabotage and terrorism, military and economic support to Russian political dissidents, etc. In short the usual “regime change” paraphernalia at which the British and the US Americans excel. Meanwhile, Europe will be rearming at full speed.

The rapidly accelerating arms race will hopefully not culminate in outright nuclear warfare, but with such idiots at the helm, you never know. Arms contractors will be very happy, but we will see the pauperisation of growing swathes of our populations who will find comfort only in cheap digital entertainment. We have already seen incipient authoritarian tendencies in most of the so-called free Western countries, which are becoming ever more repressive.

Such is the prospect in the medium term, I think. How long the medium term will last is anybody’s guess. The long term is another matter, altogether. The silent majority cannot fail to notice that this whole business, the “defence” of Israel, and the battle between “Good” and “Evil” is all a whole big bag of lies. Even cheep digital entertainment and gaming may not be capable of turning us into zombies. We must hope that sooner or later we will be able to hold our leaders to account. It’s been done before.

***

Post Scriptum: Jacques Baud, formerly a colonel and strategic and intelligence analyst, has written no less than three books about the Ukraine war, most recently “Covert Wars in Ukraine”. I believe he has correctly predicted what has happened all along and from the very start. In this 75 minute interview, he maintains that Europe and Ukraine will be forced to the negotiating table. Personally, I don’t see this happening, but his analysis – long though it is – is so knowledgeable that I believe it is well worth listening to. And who knows, maybe a negotiated settlement is possible, after all.

Global Inequality

05.07.2025 /

Do we know about it? Do we even want to know about it? Don’t laugh, because I think the two questions are difficult. I think I have to admit that for many years, I suspected the iniquity you will find carefully documented here. But I liked my life, liked feeling nice and warm, not too warm; liked knowing that a decent meal awaited me at the end of my working day and that I would start my next working day with two pieces of delicious buttered bread and cheese. I liked imagining that I was not exploiting badly paid workers in Bangladesh or anywhere else. I was going about my business, earning my monthly wages doing what I had been taught to do.

And of course I was not actively exploiting anybody. But for the clothes I wore, the coffee and tea I drank, the chocolate and even most of the fruit I ate, the workers that produced those goods were earning next to nothing and living as slaves. I still drink coffee and tea, still eat chocolate and exotic fruit, by the way. The workers’ plight would not improve if I did not. Only system changes will improve their lives.

Now it has become clear to me that my children and grandchildren will probably not be assured the easy life I have enjoyed. I don’t like that at all! More and more of those of us who live in the so-called West will, with increasing frequency, feel cold and wet and hungry (or very much too hot), and more and more of us are even now dying during dramatic climate events. Moreover, there will be worse to come due to future financial events that will dwarf even the one in 2008.

I know a bit more now than I used to, about the economic trends that have been prevalent over the past decades. I know, in short, that we’ve been had. Yes, even we who live in the West are discovering, country by country, that we’ve been had. The spirits of Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman and the Mont Pelerin Society are still with us. The results of the power they wielded are all too evident. Everywhere.

For details, cf. Chapter 2 in The Revolt of the Rich – How the Politics of the 1970s Widened America’s Class Divide, by David Biggs (2024). I have highlighted this book, because it really is – the whole book – a pretty shocking eye-opener and extremely well sourced.

The prevalent economic order is not slowing down the accelerated ecological breakdown and GLOBAL INEQUALITY. On the contrary.

I admit that the information on the linked site is academic stuff, but it is carefully explained, though not exactly in the form of bedtime stories. I, too, tend to want simple messages, the kind so generously offered by demagogues of all political colours. Sometimes, however, we just have to take the time to sit down and really concentrate. To understand the lessons offered on the said website, you do not need an academic background, but you will need to exercise your brain to understand a message which runs so totally contrary to what has been inculcated in us by Milton Friedman and his ilk. Learning that something is the opposite of what we thought it was tends to require mental muscle.

Few if any Norwegian economists will admit, now, to adhering to Milton Friedman’s tenets. Nevertheless, “Neoliberalism” is the system we all are governed by. It is unsustainable in every sense of the word, and most of us suspect that now. That is the good news. (Goodness knows there is plenty of bad news.) The problem is, few of us have any idea of what alternatives are, or might be, sustainable.

I therefore also recommend Jason Hickel’s substack, a far more amenable read, and a very interesting one, indeed. In 2017, Jason Hickel authored the book The Divide – a Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions (2017). He believes – and many with him – that sustainability is possible; not only possible, but also rewarding!

Plenty of economists agree with him, too, would you believe it? However, as Philip Mirowsky explained in his book Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown (2013), any economist who wants a job must forget all about that sort of thing. Mirowsky also taught me the word “discombobulate”.

We have been discombobulated into believing that there is “no alternative” to the system – call it capitalism, if you will – to which we are shackled. “No alternative” my foot! Take a look at the links I have listed above and, if possible, also the two books, The Revolt of the Rich and The Divide. You will see that a better world is indeed possible.

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