Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Month: April 2026

Danger

26.04.2026 /

There are those who argue that Donald Trump is suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD). His innumerable conflicting declarations and outbursts certainly seem unhinged and his foreign policy – if he has a foreign policy – is psychedelic. I put to you that if he now has FTD, he can’t help it. However, he should be removed from power, together with his mad hatter Hegseth.

But his is not the only administration that appears to be on some dangerous drug-related trip. Keir Starmer refuses to step down, although he has – as The Guardian all too kindly puts it – “morphed from asset to liability” for his party. Not that he ever was anything but a pitiful US puppet. Remember his treatment of Julian Assange? And the very idea of accusing Jeremy Corbyn of anti-Semitism! He has turned his entire country into an unstaffed hospital ward where all too many patients are sleeping on the ground. He is, however, an asset for Israel, just like Trump. As Tariq Cyril Amar writes: The Starmer Regime is turning Britain into a genocide-complicit police-state.

Like Starmer, EU leaders, already deeply unpopular, are digging themselves deeper and deeper into a pit. Finland even “plans to lift decades-old ban on hosting nuclear weapon“. Good luck with that. Do you really believe that NATO membership for Finland will help defend Finland? Finland was a safe country before it joined NATO. Now, however… And of course Russia is alarmed. No wonder.

And they all – the EU brass – seem determined to cling to power. Here is a question to which we learnt the answer when still in primary school: If you are a famously unpopular king/president/PM: how do you divert your subjects’ attention from yourself to some lofty cause? Answer: You wage war.

Mind you, it is imperative that you first convince your subjects that

  • the war in question is one of self-defence (“He started it!” )
  • that you are defending a good cause (women’s rights, democracy, etc.) and
  • that the leader of that country is the devil incarnate.

Now to the extent we admit that men or women can actually be “devils incarnate”, they will indeed be heads of states or of corporations that design gadgets that spy on people to kill. (Read Tariq Cyril Amar’s furious rant against AI to kill and take a guided tour with Max Blumenthal through a Palantir-sponsored war tech summit ). Only in such positions can they truly exercise unlimited power and cause unlimited harm, i.e. kill and/or maim an unlimited number of people.

I do not postulate that Santa Ursula, Mertz, Macron, or Kaja Kallas are quite that evil. Not even Starmer. They are merely morally inferior. Their self-harming bellicose attitude to Russia is not depraved. At least I don’t believe so. But it is truly very strange.

In view of all the unjust and ghastly wars the USA has engaged in over the decades, in view of the torture and killings of millions of Latin Americans, in view of US/UK/EU complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and war crimes in Lebanon, the Soviet Union and Russia seem like a Sunday school.

I have been sceptical, I admit, to scholars such as Jeffrey Sachs who see Russophobia as a root cause of US/EU antagonism towards Russia. I realise now I may have been wrong, because European warmongering quite simply seems irrational, almost as irrational as Trump’s war on Iran.

I could understand that many leaders in the West might be unable to forgive the Communism of the Soviet Union. But there are scholars, such as Richard Sakwa (The Lost Peace – How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War, Yale University Press, 2023) who maintain that Russophobia goes back to 1054 AD (yes, a religious power struggle), and that it has been kept alive and burning every since.

But of course not only due to religion. In 1966, in his classic Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, Caroll Quigley warned of a powerful transnational group of elites, primarily British and American, who controlled

  • major financial institutions that influenced economic policy
  • prominent media outlets shaping public opinion,
  • elite educational institutions, training future leaders, and
  • government agencies, implementing policies.

Whatever their motives, they have been locked in deadly competition with other players for access to resources, etc. By its mere existence, Russia, with its vast land mass and enormous resources, has been an irritant to competing powers for centuries.

To this day, in effect, Quigley’s “transnational group of elites” is stronger than ever. We have the annual off-the-record Bilderberg forum, the World Economic Forum (Davos), the G7, the Mont Pelerin Society and the Atlas Network (the goal of which was and is to promote and defend at all costs Neoliberalism). These are all clubs for the super-rich and/or influential, and they are all designed to help the 1 % to manipulate government. And they have effectively managed to neuter the UN.

Back in 1966, the UK and the USA were helping each other to help themselves to the world’s resources, while the Soviet Union was offering free university education to Africans wanting to liberate their countries from colonialism and neo-colonialism. The Soviet Union has many sins to atone for, no doubt about that, but their foreign policy was comparatively benign.

***

I have been told that President Kennedy wanted to change course with regard to the Soviet Union. For the record, here is his famous university Commencement Address of June 1963, just months before he was killed. More and more historians are suggesting that the assassination was an inside job. The policy changes he had just initiated, which would have cancelled the Cold War, were reversed.

Quoting from a book I urgently recommend that you read (see below), I am fast forwarding to the second Cold War:

In 2001, George W. Bush decided to unilaterally withdraw from the ABM Treaty, so that he could deploy anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) in Eastern Europe.
…
In 2007, the Americans are in full negotiation with the Czechs and the Poles to deploy these missiles, officially to protect themselves from the Iranian threat.
….
In fact, the United States has gradually withdrawn from all Cold War arms control agreements: the ABM Treaty (2002), the Open Skies Treaty (2018) and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty ( INF) (2019).
…
In 2019, Donald Trump justified his withdrawal from the INF Treaty with a so-called violation by the Russian side. As noted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the Americans have never provided proof of these violations.
…
they were looking to get out of the deal so they could install their AEGIS missile systems in Poland and Romania, officially intended to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles
…
these systems use Mk41 launchers, which can launch either anti-ballistic missiles (defensive) or nuclear missiles (offensive). The Radzikowo site (Poland) is 800 km from the Russian border and 1,300 km from Moscow. [Highlights are Pelshval’s]

What “Iranian threat”, pray tell?

Yes, the reason I am quoting just these paragraphs is that I wish to point out that Iran is not a new issue, not a Trump invention. The Lines were written before Iran was unwillingly hauled onto centre stage. Iran has become, for several countries in Asia, a conduit for trade over land, bypassing US control of the Pacific. Trump is not alone in resenting this by-passing of US maritime control.

I urge you to read the entire book from which these quotes have been taken:

Operation Z, 2022, by Jacques Baud.

It is a particularly well sourced book about the background of the Ukraine war. Its author; Jacques Baud has been “sanctioned” without due process (without a trial). His bank accounts and his sources of income are blocked by EU, and he is not allowed to leave Belgium. Such treatment of people who write literature that is politically disagreeable to the powers-that-be, is eerily reminiscent of a 1966 film, based on a novel by Ray Bradbury. You can see the film on a Russian channel: Farenheit 451

Bondefangeriet

17.04.2026 /

Det gjelder å få folk til å se en annen vei, ikke sant, mens offeret blir rundstjålet, rundjult, rundpult – velg det som passer.

Selv små barn kan trikset: “Se bjørnen!” roper småen og peker mot vinduet. Alle de andre barna lærer fort, og vi voksne blir stadig vekk rundlurt av små krabater med stolte øyne.

Barnestreker? Ja. Vokser vi fra det? Det fleste av oss gjør det. Men ikke alle. Mossad, driver med det helt rutinemessig. Men ikke bare Mossad. USA og deres allierte driver også med det i stor stil: “Se Trump!” Og vi ser på Trump, ser hans raseriutbrudd, hans utspill mot paven, hans narsissisme…Det er ikke måte på hvor mye galskap han finner på, og vi nyter – ja, jeg er jammen ikke noe unntak – vi virkelig nyter å helle over hans fjerne person de verste adjektivene vi kan klare å komme på.

Han har nylig truet med å tilintetgjøre “en hel sivilisasjon”, å sende perserne “tilbake til stenalderen….” Ja, det er skandaløst. Han har utvilsomt opptil flere personlighetsforstyrrelser, osv osv.

Men hva så?

Ja, han burde interneres, men han blir det nok ikke, så det kan vi glemme så lenge han innehar stillingen han har. Er det virkelig ingen som kan / vil ta fra ham stillingen?

Se det er det store spørsmålet.

Husker du Hitler? Ok, de fleste av oss var ikke en gang født da, men det jeg husker av det jeg hørte om Hitler var at han nok sikkert var gal og dessuten ikke særlig klok. Det jeg også husker var: De lot ham holde på! Hvem “de” var, hadde jeg ikke klart for meg den gang da jeg befattet med med spørsmålet Hitler.

Jeg har imidlertid veldig klart for meg hvem det er som lar Trump holde på i 2026. Den usedvanlige skarpe, modige og – så vidt jeg vet – hederlige journalisten Max Blumenthal er ikke i tvil om at Trump er Israels verktøy, og det dokumenterer han meget godt. Men Israel er et lite drittland med en synkende befolkning på rundt 7 millioner. Max Blumenthal og andre vil ha meg til å tro at Israel styrer USA!

Så mye tillit jeg enn har til Max Blumenthal, og til tross for at Trump åpenbart er spist og fordøyd av Israel, så finner jeg det vanskelig å tro at ikke også andre krefter internt i USA ivrer for krig med Iran. I et par tiår, minst, har vi hørt at Kina er hovedfienden. Selv i norsk presse har det vært klart at USA ivrer etter å bruke Taiwan som påskudd til å gå til krig med Kina. En stedfortrederkrig, altså. Iran er alliert med Kina. Iran står i veien

Liksom Hitler får Trump lov til å holde på. Og Israel får skylden. Israel fortjener, vel og merke, alle de anklagene de blir utsatt for. Israel er en rasistisk stat som begår folkemord. Og Israel har nakketak på Trump. Men også Israel, mistenker jeg, blir brukt. Kan det hende at både Trump og Israel er nyttige verktøy for dem som vil ta rotta på Kina før det er for sent?

Israel blir i så fall brukt av den økonomiske eliten – kall dem gjerne sionister – i USA. Det er interessene til USAs finanselite, til syvende og sist, som forsvares under dekke av religion.

Jeg gjentar for n-te gang på disse sidene: Dersom den globale handelen, dersom selv global “finans”, slutter å bruke USD som valuta, er det ute med USAs makt over alle andre stater, blant dem vår egen.

Israel er den åpenbare skurken, ikke bare bak folkemord, men bak undertrykkelse av menneskeretter også i Europa. Jeg leser f.eks. følgende sjokkerende intro (om Storbritannia) på Grayzone (oversettelse AI)

Seks aktivister fra Palestine Action står overfor en ny rettssak etter å ha blitt frikjent i februar. De hadde da sittet i fengsel i over ett år. Dersom de blir dømt, vil de seks aktivistene fra Palestine Action og 18 andre trolig bli dømt som terrorister og risikere lange fengselsstraffer.

Juryen er ikke blitt informert om bruken i siktelsene av ordet «terrorist», og britiske medier har ikke lov til å rapportere om dette på grunn av en rettskjennelse. Aktivistene forbys å fortelle jurymedlemmene at deres innsats hadde til hensikt å hindre folkemordet i Gaza.

Under normale omstendigheter ville de tiltalte risikere inntil fire års fengsel ved domfellelse. De ville ha sonet mindre enn halvparten av straffen. Under den strenge terrorbestemmelsen – som juryen ikke er blitt informert om – kan aktivistene risikere opptil åtte års fengsel. Deres løslatelse må godkjennes av et eget utvalg for terrorisme-saker.

Jeg har fulgt med Palestine Action: sivil ulydighet, ja! skadeverk (rød maling og noen knuste vinduer): ja, uten tvil. Målet deres var å hemme den daglige virksomheten til den israelske våpenfabrikken Elbit. Men terrorisme? Det er helt, aldeles absurd!

Storbritannia hiver altså rettssikkerhet på sjøen.

Storbritannia under Keir Starmer er altså også en “tjener” av Israel. Jeg tviler sterkt på at Starmer har religiøse motiver. Det er selvfølgelig en mulighet for at Epstein (og dermed Israel) har noe også “på ham”. Men hvorfor blir han da ikke tilsidesatt av sine egne partifeller?

Jeg har ikke svaret. Det jeg imidlertid vet er at også Storbritannia er blitt “finansialisert”, dvs at landets BNP i økende grad forsynes av finansnæringen – det man i gamle dager kalte “spekulasjon” (“derivatives, shorts, futures, options” osv.). Landet produserer stadig mindre av varer folk faktisk trenger mens finanssenteret City of London er nesten like mektig som Wall Street.

Følgende punkter setter sitt preg på verdenssituasjonen i dag.

  • USA og stadig flere land i USAs innflytelsessfære produserer stadig mindre av det folk trenger,. De “deindustrialiseres” og “finansialiseres”.
  • Inntekter av finansvirksomhet fordeles ikke. Det store flertallet i USA og UK blir fattigere år for år, mens 1% blir veldig mye rikere.
  • USA og de fleste EU-land har entusiastisk støttet Israels folkemord av palestinere og andre forbrytelser mot menneskeheten.
  • USA og UK har utvist økende forakt for rettssikkerhet og pressefrihet, særlig hva gjelder avsløring og motstand mot forbrytelser mot menneskeheten.
  • USD er hele verdens “revervevaluta”. Nesten all finanshandel bruker USD.
  • USD som reservevaluta trues bl.a. pga. voksende global mistillit til USA og USD og fordi styrkeforholdet mellom USA og Kina endrer seg til Kinas fordel.

Disse punktene er sikre. Det som også er sikkert er at de alle gjaldt også tidligere presidenter. De er altså uavhengige av Trump. USA lar seg tilsynelatende styre av presidenter som åpenbart lar seg styre av Israel. Snedig.

Jeg skulle ønske Klassekampen enda var en avis som utfordret systemet. Da ville avisa kanskje ha klart å analysere sammenhengen.

That was quick

12.04.2026 /

So the negotiations have ended. In the old days, there was such a thing as “gentlemen’s agreements”. Those days are long, long gone, at least where the US or Israel are concerned, and the Iranians had few expectations. They certainly saw no reason to talk to the puppets Witkoff and Kushner. I suspect they were pressured by China to agree to “negotiate”. After all, China, too, suffers from the closure of the Hormuz Strait, not to mention the possible collapse of the global economy.

But the Hormuz strait is worth too much, for both Iran and the US.

Meanwhile, Israel, was doing its utmost to sabotage negotiations, as usual, targeting densely populated areas, as usual, killing children, as usual, and slaughtering mourners at funerals, as usual. Moreover, there is reason to fear that the Lebanese PM, and the Lebanese president are relinquishing sovereignty of their country to Israel. See also The Cradle. I see no discussions of this issue in the mainstream press.

European leaders are pusillanimous and hypocritical, also as usual. Typically, Sir Keir has now, under US pressure “paused” UK plans to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

You will know that the US has a military base there, Diego Garcia. The population of the entire Chagos Archipelago, mostly descendants of slaves brought to the Chagos Islands in the late 18th century were forcibly evicted from the islands between 1963 and 1971 to make room for the base. Why in Heaven’s name did the US have to have a military base there, of all places?

I ask you: Were you or your children or grandchildren (depending on your age) informed about this injustice at school? By the press, maybe?

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2019 and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (in 2021) both stated that the UK had an obligation to return the islands to Mauritius. (source as at 12/04/26)

Of course, neither the US nor Israel nor, it seems, the UK are particularly concerned about international law, Democracy or justice.

However, there is a sliver of hope on the horizon. Not all European leaders are sycophants and or hypocrites. Spain’s PM has dared say what others only dare think, referring to

“those who set the world on fire“

There are also faint signs that some countries are starting to wonder whether they should change horses. (With friends like the USA, who needs enemies?) Will there be a Taiwan turn-around?

Let’s hope that the Iranian delegates will be able to return home today without being targeted by homicidal maniacs.

Rhino in the White House

08.04.2026 /

I used to wonder: How did people in Sweden and England – free countries, back then – feel when Nazis on the continent went about dragging Jewish men, women and children out of their homes and stuffing them into train waggons like cattle to be transported to slaughterhouses? How did people feel, back then, knowing that German soldiers burnt Russian men, women and children alive in their homes and in churches? I have heard that they even buried them alive in mass graves.

Well now I know. Israelis have for some time been doing in Palestine and now in Lebanon what the Nazis did. And as I write this, the US and Israel are proudly bombing Iran “back to the Stone Age”. I feel sick with shame, disgust, horror and loathing.

What a magnificently ugly couple they are, the rhinoceros in the White House and the homicidal maniac that is his Israeli handler.

You will tell me that the former is not representative of the USA?

Isn’t he? Why, then, was he elected? Why was such an ignorant and deranged individual chosen to lead the country?

You will reply: He lied. He told the voters that he was a man of peace, that he was opposed to “forever wars”.

He did indeed lie. They all do, you know. Politicians lie. That’s what politics are about. Even if a politician has a decent agenda, he or she will have to trick and cheat and lie to bring it to fruition. That does not mean that politicians are “all bad”. I don’t like them, it is true, but many politicians have done much to advance the common good. Much the same applies to diplomats: Politicians and diplomats suffer from the same occupational hazards. They become habitual if not inveterate liars.

Yes, you have a liar in the Oval Office. So? He certainly is not the first. Remember Obama? He actually did receive the Peace Prize, but he is said to have dropped more than 26 thousand bombs on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — in 2016 alone! And without asking for congressional permission. He replaced soldiers with drones so that the US could continue bullying the world without risking domestic discontent. There was nothing, it seems, to stop him.

You may feel that since the rhino has a personality disorder and is appallingly ignorant, unlike Obama, he should never have been allowed to run for any public office. Indeed, the Dems did their best to obstruct his candidacy.

My point, however, is that having got into the Oval Office, the man’s words and actions should have been kept under control. In a so-called Democracy there are checks and balances – you know: the separation of powers, plus the “fourth estate” (the free press) and all that.

In USA, separation of powers, accountability, checks and balances and a free press have long since been dismantled, to the extent they ever existed, in the first place. It is not the rhino that wrecked US Democracy. He has had a free rein because US Democracy has been unofficially dead for decades. Dead without a funeral.

There was nobody to stop his Iran campaign, because the US oligarchy basically supported him. They thought the campaign would be over in a jiffy, after which they could all just help themselves – looting the broken land. That was what they have been doing in their back yard – Latin America – for decades, what they did in Russia under Yeltsin and what they intend to do in Ukraine, to name just a few examples.

He is doing blatantly what other US presidents have been doing for decades under the pretext of promoting Democracy and “free trade” (a euphemism for something that is anything but “free”).

The US “Democracy promotion” cover was finally blown under Biden, thanks to his and his party’s passionate support for the Israeli genocide. Genocide support can hardly be considered “promotion of Democracy”, can it. So in spite of the efforts of corporate media (owned by the oligarchy) there has been considerable scepticism among the US general public about the Iran campaign. (e.g., Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson).

The fact that none of the long list of US war presidents have been prevented from committing crimes against humanity is proof of the fact that USA is a rogue state. Can we now hope that at last people in all continents will start recognising the United States of America for what it is?

And as for the rhino’s homicidal handler we really don’t want to talk about him, but may he eternally …

I say no more.

Easter digression

04.04.2026 /

What is morally good? I know, I know – don’t worry – that time and time again, as far back in time as we have written evidence, far wiser persons than myself have tried to answer this question. Moreover, written evidence tells us that concepts of morality are mutable. Very much so.

For instance, a conundrum that still vexes philosophers is referred to today as the “trolley problem”: Can we justify sacrificing one person in order to save many? I believe the Utilitarians, for instance, assessed the moral worth of actions in terms of the sum total of their consequences. Emanuel Kant did not. But I am not going to chew that bone.

I periodically live in a village where most people are relatively poor, and none are filthy-rich. But nobody starves here. Here, nobody has to sleep on the street, and the terminally ill are cared for.

Here, far from tourist traps, they celebrate Semana Santa every year just as earnestly as they have done for centuries. I have been here for many years, and there is no change with regard to Semana Santa. We almost all turn up and wait patiently at our respective corners and all along the route of the famous processions. We fall silent as they pass. Some spectators are dressed in finery to show respect, others show respect by waiting for hours in their everyday sweaters, because at this time of year, the weather is still cool.

From my bed, I heard a procession pass my house in the night. I knew it was that of el Nazareno, the most beloved of them all. I used to get up, but now the night was cold, so I didn’t. They had started their long walk at 3 AM with a very arduous uphill climb.

This morning I felt guilty and went out early to look for them. They had been walking all night to the farthest corners of our village. They must have been exhausted!

I found them relaxing around and on the steps up to a rather grand church, which had opened its doors to them. There they chatted happily and munched sandwiches as sunbeams started to trickle down to us all. So there, on the raised church square, they were happily mingling with the beautiful effigies they had been carrying and with us spectators.

I left them to go down to look for a good place from which I would be able to film them once they set off again, and found a doorstep blessed by the sun on which I could wait.

Do you see what is happening to my language? I am not a Catholic, not even a believer, yet I write “blessed by the sun”. That is what happens to us, you see, in a village where people believe in being “good”, and where Semana Santa and the solemn (and very beautiful) processions remind us not to forget how much we depend upon one another.

I have nothing to contribute to the solution of the trolley problem. I was once taught the Catechism and the Lord’s prayer. All that I retain of the two is that I must not want what is not mine, must not tell lies and must not deliberately hurt anybody. Simple as that. Does it really have to be more complicated?

Yes, I’m afraid it does. For example:

Regarding not wanting what is not mine: If I want to live with the person I love and have a child, I will want a flat. And I will never be able to afford a flat, no matter how hard I work. So I will not be able to live with the person I love and will not be able to have a child.

Regarding not telling lies: If the tax man demands that I declare all my work so that he can tax me, that would be fine if I were able to pay both my bills and the tax. So I must lie and do some undeclared work.

Regarding not hurting anybody: Yes, there are some people in this world I wish would die a horrible death. Fortunately, I will never have the chance to hurt them. But if thoughts could kill, some people would be dead.

So much for being morally good.

Iranian wisdom

02.04.2026 /

I urge you to read the letter from the Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian to the “people of the United States of America”. Even if you are not a US citizen, you should read it, because we will all – every one of us – suffer one way or another in the months and years to come as a result of this latest US war of aggression, often referred to as a “war of choice”.

The potential consequences of an attack against Iran were known also to intelligence agencies and military experts all over the world, also in the USA. Many have wondered how President Trump could embark on such a foolhardy enterprise; many even question his sanity.

However, from the perspective of the 1%, there were very sane reasons to start this war:

  • There is reason to suspect it is a last-ditch attempt to reassert US global hegemony (and maintain the dollar as the global reserve currency) in order to prevent the collapse of the ponzi scheme that is the exponentially growing US debt.
  • US hegemony is definitely not something US warmongers and multi-billionaires in both parties are ready to relinquish, even if they fail to recognise the dire state of the US dollar. In the showdown they long for with China, Iran would be a serious obstacle. This war should not come as a surprise to anybody who has been following the egregious foreign policy of the USA ever since the heyday of the Dulles brothers, cf. General Wesley Clark quoting an unnamed general in 2007, “we’re going to conquer seven countries in five years, culminating with Iran“.
  • And yes, there is also the iniquitous Zionist perspective referred to in the Iranian president’s letter.

You won’t find the letter in the N.Y. Times, which only has a condescending article about it. The Associated Press News hadn’t even mentioned it this morning, as far as I could see. The “free press” in the USA is not delivering a letter to the intended recipient, the “people of the United States of America”. SHAME.

You will find it in the Indian press, however, and in the that of Singapore, which is the source I am referring you to.

Letter from Masoud Pezeshkian to the “people of the United States of America”.

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