Yesterday I had the privilege of exchanging a few words with a political scientist whom I greatly admire, and whom I have often mentioned here in the past, Professor Glenn Diesen. He has written a number of books, most recently:
Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia: Geoeconomic Regions in a Multipolar World. Rowman & Littlefield. 2021.
Great Power Politics in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Geoeconomics of Technological Sovereignty. Bloomsbury. 2021.
Russophobia: Propaganda in International Politics. Springer. 2022.
The Think Tank Racket: Managing the Information War with Russia. Clarity Press. 2023.
The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order. Clarity Press. 2024.
In The Think Tank Racket he explored the sinister part played by fake NGOs, think tanks, media outlets and the like (financed, as it now turns out, not least by USAID) with the explicit aim of promoting a “rules-based order” (our rules, stupid). Some of these fake institutions also receive generous funding from the Norwegian government.
Such artificial institutions are working hard, as we speak, to implement regime change operations and, if required, civil wars wherever the financial and strategic interests of the US elite are not sufficiently heeded. In Ukraine they have worked hard – very hard indeed – to suppress dissent against the Zelensky regime, which now appears to have been a dictatorship.
They also work hard to ensure that citizens in “Western” countries are prepared for and able to support certain regime change operations in non-Western countries.
The manufacture of consent has been particularly successful here in Norway, where confidence in the system has not yet been eroded by the dramatic fall in living standards that has plagued other European countries, and where people are ludicrously proud of Jens Stoltenberg. That he is a neoliberal warmonger has somehow not been brought home on them. Almost all Norwegians are now warmongers. Hearing little old ladies speak, you’d think they were raring to go fight the Russians.
With great clarity and, I would add, humility, Glenn Diesen has above all analysed the tortuous demise of the unipolar system and the unfortunate reluctance of the EU and my own country to understand the need for a new “security architecture”, as he calls it.
Unfortunately empires don’t collapse over night nor do they go quietly. They go crashing through the landscape, smashing everything and everybody on their way out.
I had never previously met Glenn Diesen whose work I have followed studiously for nearly three years. What I was very glad I could thank him for yesterday, is his remarkable courage and stamina! The malevolent and absurdly unscientific persecution he has been subjected to in the Norwegian press, day in and day out, reminds me of fascism, quite simply. You see, in this country, if you don’t like US expansionism and the methods used by the US to retain its hegemony, you’re worse than an infidel.
They don’t burn infidels, it is true, yet, but they smear you, ruin your reputation, finish you off one way or another. They? Who are they? Why, the NGOs that defend “justice” and “democracy” of course! They are trying to light a pyre under Glenn Diesen and others who seriously challenge business as usual. That they devote so much venom on him, is merely an indication, you might say, of how very impressive his work is. It is also an indicatori of Norway’s groveling suberviance to USA.
Well, it turns out that Glenn Diesen has had enough. True, there are other Norwegians who know that the USA is anything but committed to “democracy”, “justice”, and “freedom”. But they dare not speak. That’s how bad it is. So Glenn Diesen is leaving the country. The police have warned him he is not safe here. He has applied for citizenship elsewhere. A scientific refugee FROM Norway. This is not the first time science is targeted, and it surely won’t be the last.
But the smell of burning science is definitely foul.
Oslo 8. februar: Jeg var i demonstrasjon utenfor Stortinget i dag. Mot folkemordet. Ja, for selv om det er våpenhvile, så pågår det enda et folkemord. Folkemord med stor forbokstav, vil jeg si. Det er bare pause i den industrielle nedslaktingen.
Det var forbannet kaldt. Jeg hater å stå stille. Jeg mistet kontakten med føttene som etterhvert kjentes som fremmedlegemer – som proteser. Men jeg var bestemt på å holde ut timen det skulle vare, og det er jeg glad jeg klarte.
Siste taler var nemlig veldig sterk, en jøde, en israeler – intet mindre – som begynte med å si det jeg siterer svært løselig: “Her, ute i den norske vinteren, fryser vi. Men i Gaza, hvor folket har vendt tilbake til ruinene, der er det også vinter, og kaldt. For der er det ikke varme hjem å vende tilbake til.” Med tanke på hvordan jeg frøs en gang jeg etter et samlivsbrudd tilbrakte jula alene i Fuengirola, kan jeg levende forestille meg at kulde kan ta rotta på folk.
Taleren er sønn av Auschwitz-overlevende og vokste opp i Israel. Han er nå professor i London, hvor han for et par uker siden ble arrestert og siktet for brudd på terrorloven etter en tale han holdt til støtte for Gaza. Det koster å være Palestina-venn både i USA og i UK, men det vet dere antakelig? I kveld sa han bl.a. (grovt gjengitt): “I Storbritannia ville en demonstrasjon som denne vært omringet av mange flere politifolk enn alle dere som nå er samlet her.”
Det var rart å gå derfra, fordi føttene var døde. På T-banestasjonen var det ganske mye folk, men jeg så det var sitteplass ved siden av en dame på min alder. Hun smilte svakt til meg i det jeg satte kurs mot plassen, og da jeg hadde satt meg, sa hun, uten å se på meg. “Så det var flere som holdt ut helt til slutten?” Overrasket så jeg på henne, og hun trakk opp et grønt palestinaskjerf fra kåpen. (Mitt eget var synlig rødt utenpå kåpen).
“Jøss, grønt!” utbrøt jeg. “Du kombinerer med klimakamp.” “Ja, det er også nødvendig.” Vi sa ikke mer til hverandre, men satt der – jeg med min glede over at det enda er folk på min alder som går i demonstrasjon mot Israel og USA, og hun med en bok – nemlig ikke mobil!
Så nikket vi smilende til hverandre da vi skiltes.
Det var nok ikke stort flere enn 300 mennesker samlet foran stortinget i kveld, er jeg redd, selv om det i det norske folk er mye sympati for konseptet Palestina. Mange av oss var gråhårede, ja, sågar hvithårede. Mange var også i 30-40-50-årene. Få var vesentlig yngre. Men problemet for “det norske folk”, er USA:
I have been silent for a long time. What can you say, when people are being slaughtered on an industrial scale? You can protest, you can scream, you can imagine in your dreams that the words you direct at the criminals are daggers, but in the end, …
In years to come my grandchildren might ask, “And then what happened?”
To be honest, what happened next was that most of us became numb. Yes, numb, alas. How else could we go on?
However, I have now been fortunate enough to see an interview with a 22-year-old Gazan, who was (at the time) alive. Hopefully, he still is. What he said was truly an inspiration.
I have sometimes felt enough generosity to wonder how US and UK sympathisers of the Palestinian cause must feel. Their governments are complicit in a big way. How would I feel if I were a citizen of a genocidal government?
That must hurt terribly, Yet, how much generosity do I truly feel? After all, the US has a long record of running torture camps and murderous puppet regimes on all continents except, as far as I know, Oceania and Europe. US citizens should be inured by now to the knowledge that their government routinely stamps out democracy, justice, and freedom wherever the US elite’s strategic or economic interests are at risk.
But of course, I remind myself, US citizens are not inured, because they have no idea of their country’s sinister record.
Today, everything changed for me, and my sympathy for the hapless US and UK citizens who have no idea of the ghastly mischief their government has been up to, has risen. Today, you see, I got a taste of the medicine they have had to get used to. Yep.
The man who was the driving force in sending Ukrainians to the meat grinder, the man who peddled fantasy, when everybody should have known – and many certainly did know – that Ukraine could never win against such a formidable opponent – yes, that man, that blot on Norway’s history – has now become Norway’s finance minister.
The number of people killed in action vary, of course, depending on your source. Here in Norway, we have been so gung-ho about the Ukrainian war effort, that the Norwegian press tend to quote the US authorities in this, and for that matter most other, matters related to “national security” (i.e. US “national security” which apparently is ours as well).
However, I have more faith in members of the VIPS and other US critics of US efforts to cling to global hegemony, and most of them put the number of Ukrainian dead at around 700 000, at the very least. And the war is quite obviously lost. L-O-S-T. Yet, Ukrainians are still being sent to the meat grinder to die. I just listened to one of the VIPS, Col. Douglas Macgregor, whose outlook about the Ukraine war (from 13 minutes on) was – to put it very mildly – bleak.
Here I need to remind you, in case you have not visited my site before, that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not – repeat – NOT unprovoked, as Professor Jeffrey Sachs has repeatedly explained so succinctly that he is effectively black-listed by some search engines, which is why I refer you to jeffsachs.org, where you will find some of his articles and talks,
The medicine, then, that I must swallow though it makes me sick, is that Stoltenberg has relinquished his post as co-head of the Bildenberg group, a title he had just assumed in November 2024, to return to Norway as Finance Minister. As an aside, I put to you that the Bildenberg group is about as disreputable as any other virtually secret society of the super rich, the aim of which is to promote the interests of oligarchs. Mind you: Stoltenberg is a “Labour Party” wolf in sheepskin, like Starmer, but unlike Starmer, he is a dangerous one.
Everybody here was thrilled that Stoltenberg, a war criminal as I see it (the Libya debacle in 2011 here in Norwegian, and here about UK participation in English), should be so greatly honoured, so proud of him: our boy: “NATO Secretary General”, “our Jens” heading the elite Bildenberger group. And they are no less thrilled now that he has relinquished this tremendous honour in favour of “us”. Ugh.
Are the Ukrainians pleased? Having lost the better part of their male population, over 20 per cent of their territory and God knows what else…, are they grateful to Jens Stoltenberg, to NATO, to Bilderberg, to Europe for fooling them into taking on Russia ahead of the war US hawks hanker for with China? Are they pleased when they see Stoltenberg’s smiling unabashedly unashamed face in the media?
Are the Norwegian mainstream press proud of having cheered Stoltenberg on, throughout? So it seems. Why didn’t they see, I ask, what so very many independent political scientists, independent investigative journalists, and independent academics saw from the very start: Ukraine could not win? Why? Well, the answer to that question is simple: They turned to US think tanks that to a large extent are funded by the US military industry, which of course thrives on wars. That’s why.
And now the Norwegian “darling” will be finance minister. He will be de facto leader of this country (because the prime minister is politically impotent). I could have screamed, but I don’t want to wake the neighbours.
***
I would like to give you an example of how VIPS members deal with unfolding geopolitical events and how they deal with diasagreement. Trump has just stated that he wants to take over Gaza: Discussion.
Noen analytikere humrer over at EU fører en suicidal kurs. Europeere, derimot, viser ofte til et demokratisk underskudd.
Selv har jeg aldri orket å forstå EU apparatet – det er for stort, for komplekst og for byråkratisk for min forstand. Inntil nylig har jeg ikke villet uttale meg om EU/EØS spørsmålet. Følgende skisse er kopiert fra Nei til EU.
Det var først for et par år siden, da EU-sjef Santa Ursula hyllet Israel som et demokratisk fyrtårn, at det slo meg at EU som institusjon umulig kunne påberope seg å representere folk i medlemslandene.
Jeg vet riktignok ikke stort om hva EU-borgere generelt mener, men jeg sjekker i det minste spanske nyhetskilder jevnlig. Der er EU ikke tema. Det er heller et påfallende ikke-tema. Jeg tipper at det også i andre land heies eller pipes på egne folkevalgte, ikke på EU-parlamentarikere. Man aner jo ikke hva EU-parlamentet driver med.
Jeg trenger ikke Nei til EU, for å fortelle meg at oppslutning ved EU-valg normalt er svært lav. Men siden jeg vet så lite om EU tyr jeg nå til nettsiden deres, som etter det jeg kan skjønne tilbyr saklig informasjon. (Uthevningene i sitatene nedenfor er mine.)
I EU skal de fleste lovene vedtas av både ministerrådet og EU-parlamentet. Ministerrådet er ikke et folkevalgt organ, men består av en statsråd fra hvert medlemsland. Rådet står ikke ansvarlig overfor noe folkevalgt organ, verken i EU eller medlemsstatene. Det kan heller ikke stilles til ansvar eller kastes av velgerne i EU.
EU-parlamentet kan ikke fremme lovforslag. Det er det bare EU-kommisjonen som kan, ifølge den alminnelige beslutningsprosedyren i Lisboatraktaten. Parlamentet får heller ikke vedta lover alene, kommisjonens forslag må godkjennes også av ministrene i rådet.
Jeg tilføyer for egen del at EU-kommisjonen, som er EUs utøvende makt, og har 32 tusen ansatte, ifølge Wikipedia av idag, heller ikke er et folkevalgt organ.
EU vedtar direktiver og forordninger i hytt og pine, over borgernes hode.
Mange argumenterer for at siden vi har så liten innflytelse i EU, burde vi heller blitt medlem. Dette synspunktet er fullt ut forståelig. Men også EU-borgere har liten innflytelse, og hvis informasjonen på Nei til EU er til å stole på, ville Norge som medlem trolig få 13 av 705 representanter i EU-parlamentet, altså bare 1,8 prosent. Og i Ministerrådet, eller som det nå heter, “Rådet for Den europeiske union” ville vi få 1 representant av 27.
Verre er det at CFSP pålegger medlemsland å støtte opp om EUs utenriks og sikkerhetspolitikk “aktivt og betingelsesløst”. Det medfører, som vi nylig har sett, betingelsesløs underkastelse under USA og dets militære tentakel NATO, (jamfør EUs bifalling av krigsforbrytelser i Israel).
Som EØS-medlem har også vi lagt oss flat for USAs ønsker og behov. Vi bidrar altså i år i Indo-Stillehavet og Midtøsten (!) og deltar med luftstyrker i øvelser i Australia; alt dette med utgangspunkt i en USAnsk agenda, som norsk media har valgt å ikke stille spørsmålstegn ved. I indo-Stillehavet patruljerer en fregatt, KNM Maud, i en hangarskipsgruppe. Dette synes jeg er mystisk ettersom vi i 2023 ikke lenger hadde en eneste fregatt ifølge Wikipedia, som tilføyer:
I Regjeringens langtidsplan for forsvarssektoren fra april 2024 er det foreslått å erstatte klassen med fem nye fregatter + 1 i opsjon med samme fokus (antiubåtkrigføring) som Nansen-klassen.
Regjeringen uttalte at de fremtidige fregattene skal anskaffes, driftes og vedlikeholdes i et strategisk partnerskap med en nær alliert som har sammenfallende strategiske interesser i Norges nærområde (min utheving)
Skipet er det største skipet noensinne i Sjøforsvaret og er blant annet dobbelt så stort som fregattene i Fridtjof Nansen-klassen. (min utheving).
Så vi bidrar, altså med Sjøforforsvarets største skip. I området rundt Kina. Hm. Er Kina vår fiende?
CFSP-rapporten for 2023 forklarer innledningsvis at CFSP bidrar til å ivareta følgende EU-mål: å sikre fred, styrke internasjonal sikkerhet, fremme internasjonalt samarbeid og å utvikle og styrke demokrati, “rule of law”, respekt for menneskerettigheter og grunnleggende friheter.
Jeg vil muligens i en senere post se nærmere på denne påstanden, men foreløpig vil jeg nøye meg med å påstå at CFSP i senere tid har levert tvilsomme resultater ang. målene.
å sikre fred – EU er i krig
styrke internasjonal sikkerhet – sikkerheten vår har aldri vært så truet
fremme internasjonalt samarbeid – EU har ikke søkt fredelige løsninger
styrke respekt for menneskerettigheter – EUs respekt for palestinernes rettigheter må jo virkelig betviles.
Hva gjelder “rule of law” viser jeg til definisjonen i Encyclopedia Britannica,som begynner slik (mine uthevinger):
the mechanism, process, institution, practice, or norm that supports the equality of all citizens before the law, secures a nonarbitrary form of government, and more generally prevents the arbitrary use of power. …
Grovt sett kan uttrykket altså oversettes som rettssikkerhet. EU har valgt å implementere det i utenrikspolitikken i overensstemmelse med USAs tolkning, en tolkning som slett ikke sammenfaller med “rettssikkerhet” og enda mindre med folkerett, Rule of law er nemlig ikke et synonym for “rules-based order –our rules, of course“.
Endelig vil jeg bare kort vise til et av de aller største stridsemnene: Hvem tilhører klodens ressurser? EU og for den del også Norge, har siden 1970-tallet slått inn på en såkalt neoliberal kurs. For så vidt også Norge, men her holdes det fortsatt igjen. Vi har ikke minst enda den såkalte norske modellen.
EU, derimot – er langt på vei grunnlagt på neoliberale prinsipper. Nedenfor et klipp fra Wikipedia av i dag. Der står det riktignok at EU overlater velferdspolitikken til den enkelte stat. Enn så lenge, ja. Jeg anbefaler en analyse av konsekvensene av neoliberalisme for arbeidstakere: “Neoliberalism in the European Union“. Det var ikke greit i 2007 da utredningen ble skrevet, og det er i alle fall ikke blitt bedre nå.
Hvorfor EØS
Her blir det straks vanskeligere.
Uten EØS-medlemskap vil ikke våre telefoner kunne roame i Europa.
Vi vil ikke lenger ha krav på gratis medisinsk behandling og ev. sykehusinnleggelse i EU-land.
Reiseforsikring til EU vil bli dyrere.
På den annen side: Vi vil ikke lenger bli nødt til å følge EUs endeløse direktiver og forordninger.
Et uttrykk for noe vi er blitt pålagt som følge av vårt EØS-medlemskap er anskaffelsesloven. Ifølge den må alle oppgaver og anskaffelser over en viss verdi som skal betales av det offentlige legges ut på anbud til hele EU.
Jeg har indirekte vært med på en slik prosess og konstaterer at den er tidkrevende og innviklet – altså kostbar. Man må bl.a. designe et nøyaktig anbudsgrunnlag: Jeg tipper det må være en utfordring å vite hvordan man skal vekte arbeidsvilkår, luftkvalitet, punktlighet, sikkerhet, osv for jernbaneruter. Glemmer man å kreve allergivennlige tekstiler, så kan man ikke klage i etterkant.
Det er enda mer kostbart å legge inn anbud. Det kan bare de svært store firmaer og de er oftest ikke norske, vil jeg tro. I tillegg til omfattende preliminær skriftlig dokumentasjon og reisevirksomhet, må det presenteres, inspiseres, akkederes ad infinitum. Er det rart at togreiser er blitt dyre? Det er et mirakel at togene overhode går når selskapene som driver dem må bruke så mye ressurser på å late som om de er “best”.
Men rett skal være rett: Næringslivet skal ikke bli min elefant i rommet. Opprinnelig var jo EU, bare en slags klubb som skulle føre en felles handelspolitikk med opprettingen av en tollunion, EEC, som det den gang het. Tariffer og importkvoter mellom medlemslandene ble fjernet. Norge ble senere med i EØS for at norske produsenter skulle kunne eksportere f.eks. laks til f.eks. Frankrike uten at laksen ble dyrere for franskmenn enn fransk laks.
For å kunne gjøre det lett for norske eksportører har vi siden måttet tåle en stadig dusj av direktiver og forordninger. Vi har måttet ansette masse folk for fortløpende å tolke og oversette og implementere direktivene og forordningene.
Bortsett fra olje, gass og elektrisitet utgjør norsk eksport til Europa ca. 8 % av vår BNP. Norge er Europas viktigste kilde til gass, som Europa nå har et desperat behov for. Jeg mener vi bør kunne få en gunstig handelsavtale med EU uten EØS-medlemskap. Hvis Sveits kan få det til….
Se på en globus: Europa er en knøttliten del av verden. Algerie ligger forresten i en slags handelskrig med EU og vil oppheve en avtale som landets myndigheter mener har vært gunstig for EU, men skadelig for Algerie. Kanskje vi kunne øke utveksling med dem?
Slik jeg ser det, er de to største problemene med EØS-medlemskap følgende:
EU er med tiden blitt stadig mer overnasjonal og udemokratisk. Det rammer medlemsland, og det rammer oss i EØS.
Militært har EU (og Norge) satset alt på NATO, som var USAs vakthund i Europa mot Sovjetunionen, men som nå bruker Europa i sin kamp for å beholde sitt overtak over mesteparten av verden.. Jeg skal ikke her og nå gå nærmere inn på USAs farlige utenrikspolitiske kurs de siste årene. Jeg vil nøye meg med å påpeke at Norge og Støre og norsk presse har lagt seg på ryggen og spiller død.
Fremtidsfrykt er farlig for barn, ungdom og voksne, lærer jeg når jeg googler begrepet. I Psykologitidsskriftet var fenomenet sågar viet en hel artikkel i 2008.
Flere og flere bankansatte oppsøker psykolog i den vanskelige tiden amerikanske banker nå er inne i, melder nyhetsbyrået Reuters. Forrige uke kom den sjette og syvende bankkollapsen i USA hittil i år, og amerikanske bankansatte er ikke lenger bare redde for å gå glipp av bonuser, de frykter mest av alt for jobbene sine.
Er det for patologi å regne å frykte fremtiden? Var det patologisk å være engstelig i det globale krakket i 2008, når lånekunder mistet gård og grunn, og arbeidere mistet jobbene? Det som etter min mening var patologisk, var heller at man prøvde å løse problemene ved å ty til psykologer, ikke ved organisert folkelig motstand mot blant annet finansialisering av vestlige lands økonomier.
Vi har lagt det bak oss nå. Vi tenker ikke lenger på det NRK kaller finanskrisen (som om det bare har vært én), på at mange land ble rammet som dominobrikker da USAnske finansinstitusjoner ble insolvente i 2007-08. Vi har ikke en gang lagt merke til at regulering av finansakrobatikk i USA bare nominelt er økt siden den gang. Ifølge det innledende avsnittet i Wikipedia-artikkelen om finanskriser (dessverre ikke oversatt til norsk) strides de lærde om årsakene til finanskrisene, men enes om at man ikke har lært å forutsi og unngå dem.
I Norge går det så bra så, får vi vite; fremover faktisk. De norske myndighetene, NHO, bankene og SSB forsikrer nesten daglig at 2025 blir et godt år, med økt kjøpekraft, nemlig. Optimisme er viktig for næringslivet. Derfor snakkes det mindre om at kommunale avgifter, nettleie, forsikringer og lign. stiger og vil måtte fortsette å stige pga. av tiltak i forhold til kildesortering, vann og avløp, flomvern, rassikring, osv. Alt det vi importerer med en svekket krone, fortsetter å bli merkbart dyrere, men det skal vi ikke tenke på. Nei, for fremtidsfrykt vil vi helst ikke ha noe av. Fremtidsfrykt er skadelig for økonomien vår. Den hemmer forbruk, demper investeringsiver og stimulerer politisk sinne.
Bør forbruk stimuleres? Er investering noe vi blindt hilser velkommen? Jeg har ingen BI utdannelse, så vi får ta den diskusjonen en annen dag. Men her og nå vil jeg slå et slag for politisk sinne.
Her til lands fortsetter vi nemlig å kjøre “lett underholdning” og Maskorama som om livene våre avhang av sorgløshet. Jeg benyttet meg igjen i dag av et flott tilbud til dem som kan logge seg inn på Oslos kommunale bibliotek, Deichman. Gjennom biblioteket kan vi nemlig få adgang hjemmefra til svært mange norske og utenlandske aviser og blader. Utvalget er overveldende, så jeg klikket på “Kategorier” i håp om å få oversikt. Her er de:
Som sagt, lett underholdning.
Jeg vil dog understreke – og takk til Deichman – at om vi blåser i kategoriene og i stedet blar tålmodig, så finner vi Aftenposten, om ikke Klassekampen.
Det er nok likevel ikke på bibliotekene de fleste søker lett underholdning, men heller på kabel-TV.
På TV er “thrillere” tingen for mange. Det er ikke nytt. Jeg har aldri forstått hvorfor, men jeg prøver meg her med noe som kunne ha vært innledningen til en hypotese om en fiktiv Eirik:
Eirik er aldri jublende glad, aldri beruset av kjærlighet for damene han til enhver tid er sammen med. Men når han ser på en thriller, så er det noe som beveger seg inni ham. Han lever. Etter å ha sett filmen er han faktisk litt begeistret.
Når jeg spør: Men blir du ikke redd? ler han avvæpnende og svarer, “Det er jo bare fiksjon, ikke virkelighet”.
Når jeg sender ham link til en dokumentar om hva som har foregått i Gaza de siste 16 månedene, svarer han: “Too much. Orker ikke.”
Danskene har produsert miniserien “Familier som våre” (vises for tiden på NRK), som slett ikke er en thriller, i alle fall ikke til å begynne med: Hvordan håndterer de danske myndighetene at landet i umiddelbar fremtid ikke lenger vil kunne driftes pga klimaendringer? Filmens premisser er at de a) velger å holde kjeft om problemene til det er for sent å redde landet, b) lover å bruke landets siste ressurser på å gjøre det mulig for landets borgere å starte opp som flyktninger annetsteds
Jeg kjenner godt igjen filmens premiss (a). De gjør akkurat det samme her. Premiss (b) bør i teorien være kjent for oss alle, i den forstand at politikere i et demokrati i prinsippet skal tjene dem de representerer. Allerede i første episode blir det imidlertid klart at de som tilhører den enge, informerte krets – de som er innafor – sørger for sikkerheten og en fet valutapakke til deres nærmeste. Resten av befolkningen vil måtte ta til takke med det som måtte være til overs.
Jeg har bare sett to episoder, men jeg synes de alene kunne være en egen film: Dette burde vekke, tenker jeg. Vi er vant til å tenke at flyktninger er et problem som kommer til oss; at vi enten må være steile og nekte dem adgang eller humane og slippe dem inn. Men sett nå at det er vi som er flyktninger?
Det skal ikke mye fantasi til for å forestille seg at Danmark ganske snart kan bli offer for det stigende havet. Mener jeg.
Men nei, min hypotetiske Eirik sier: “Det er helt urealistisk at dansker skal måtte “flykte” pga av klimaendringer. Serien mangler relevanse og er uinteressant.
***
Norsk presse forteller oss ikke at det står dårlig til i EU, økonomisk altså, svært dårlig, og også politisk. Vi får heller ikke høre at stadig flere velgere i EU-land er EU-skeptikere. Vi får bare vite at de er “høyre-ekstreme.” Verre er det at en del av det pressen forteller oss er direkte usant eller i det minste misvisende. Jeg anbefaler f.eks. følgende søkestreng i Google: “congress 1.6 billion China”. (Det dreier seg ikke om midler til Kina, men midler til propaganda mot Kina på Bidens, ikke Trump’s, vakt.) Det dreier seg altså om 1, 6 milliarder USD!
Det er dessverre svært mange grunner til fremtidsfrykt. Klimaendringene, som aktivister og vitenskapsfolk har mast om i mange tiår, er nå blitt ganske så merkbare. Ikke bare på Svalbard og i Afrika. Skremmende, faktisk. Men har vi tatt det innover oss?
I oktober i fjor opplevde fylket Valencia i Spania en fryktelig flomkatastrofe. Jeg var da i fylket Cadiz – langt fra Valencia – og fulgte begivenhetene på spansk TV, som avbrøt andre sendinger og rapporterte om helvetet minutt for minutt, døgnet rundt i 3 døgn.) Bildene og de korte videosnuttene vitner lastet opp var grufulle, GRU-FULLE. Det meste er borte fra nettet nå; støvsugd. Vi skal ikke behøve å tenke for mye på klimakrisen. Nei, vi skal fokusere på “bærekraftig vekst”.
“Bærekraftig vekst”! Hvor lenge skal denne barnetimen få fortsette? Hvor mye verre skal klimaet måtte bli før vi skjønner at fortsatt vekst ikke kan være bærekraftig? Hvor mange flere mennesker må dø i branner og flommer eller miste hjemmene sine i klimakatastrofer og uunngåelige finanskriser før vi skjønner at vi spiller russisk rulett? For det blir ikke vi som dør først, blir det vel.
Mens jeg satt foran skjermen og fulgte med de husløse ti-tusener i Valencia, tenkte jeg også på Gaza, hvor folk har hatt det sånn, og verre, i mange mange måneder, ikke pga. klima, men pga av Israels ønske om å utrydde dem.
Det er ikke til å fatte, i 2024-25, at det finnes mennesker som er villige til å torturere og/eller utrydde andre for å kunne overta deres eiendom. Det er ikke til å fatte at slike mennesker er statsledere.
Vi nordmenn anser oss som et humant folkeferd, opptatt av menneskerettigheter. Allikevel avgir vi territorium (militærbaser) til en supermakt som medvirker til et fryktelig folkemord, til menneskeofring.
For tiden “ofrer” også vi menneskene i Ukraina. Dette gjør vi angivelig i “demokratiets” navn. Norsk presse vil selvfølgelig ikke se det slik, men Zelensky ble valgt av 73,23 % av stemmene fordi han lovet fred med Russland. Velgerne ville absolutt ikke inn i NATO. De ble lurt. Ukraina går til grunne fordi Vesten ikke ville tillate noe forlik med Russland i 2022. Jeg spør ikke, men påstår: “Ukraina-støtte” er regelrett menneskeofring.
Jeg snakket i går med en god venn som var sterkt uenig med meg. “Jeg har gode venner – flyktninger – fra Ukraina. Jeg synes at det Russland gjorde mot landet deres er helt forferdelig!”
Jeg prøvde å forklare at Ukraina er blitt brukt av USA og NATO for å svekke Russland. Min gode venn lyttet virkelig, men det jeg sa trengte på et vis ikke gjennom, delvis fordi min tirade var for kompakt, men delvis også av en annen grunn: Uavhengig av stormaktsspill, mente han, og selv om krigen går dårlig for Ukraina, så kan man ikke bare akseptere at en stormakt angriper en liten nabo.
Han minnet meg på – støttet av Eirik – at jeg jo sier akkurat det samme som ham i en annen sak, nemlig om Palestinerne. Vi må søtte dem, selv om det er helt klart at uansett hvor mye vi raser mot Israel, så vil palestinere fortsette å bli drept.
2-0 til dere to.
Og jeg skal gi dere et gratispoeng: Jeg sier nemlig også det samme om Norge. Vi burde ikke ha gitt oss for USAnsk press og gitt dem de 12 basene på norsk jord, selv om USA er verdens sterkeste og farligste land. Vi burde ha nektet. De kunne selvfølgelig ha utsatt oss for økonomiske sanksjoner, som de gjør med alle land som ikke adlyder dem. Da ville vi ha fått oss en økonomisk dukkert, men kanskje unngått en mye verre dukkert senere. Sett nå, for eksempel, at Trump kommer på at vi her til lands har olja. Sett at han bestemmer seg for å “ta” Norge, slik han akter å “ta” Grønland. Nei, ikke “nå”, men på sikt; ville vi med 12 USAnske militærbaser på vår jord ha den aller minste sjansen til å forsvare oss? Vi ville nok ikke fått hjelp av russerne.
Eirik og min anonyme gode venn må dog innrømme at det er forskjell mellom på den ene siden å medvirke til utryddelse av flest mulig mennesker i Palestina – og på den andre å nekte et naboland å bli medlem i en aggressive militærallianse.
Uansett hevder jeg at etterhvert som klima- og finanskrisene topper seg, vil stadig flere bli utsatt for menneskeofring på en eller annen måte. I mange tiår har vi sett sultende afrikanere dø – ofret – fordi vi ikke gjorde noe, eller ikke gjorde mer for å hindre tragediene på deres kontinent. Hver og en av oss tenker tross alt først på seg selv, ev. på familien. Slik er arten vi tilhører. Inntil slutten av middelalderen, var også klanen overmåte viktig, men etter en periode med nasjonsbygging, fulgt av flere hundre år med borgerkriger skjønte Europeerne til slutt at det var nesten like viktig å indoktrinere fedrelandskjærlighet som gudstro. Så en nordmann tenker først på seg og ev. familien, dernest på fedrelandet. Dessverre. Spør bare FrP.
Og vi tenker kort. Det er faktisk empirisk, intet mindre, bevist: Vi tenker kort. Vi i Norge bidrar derfor i all uskyldighet (altså svært indirekte) til fremtidig menneskeofring.
Ville ikke en smule fremtidsfrykt med tilhørende “fight-or-flight” respons være på sin plass i stedet?
I try not to think about the people in Gaza and on the West Bank, but I find it difficult. After all, we have been taught in school about the Holocaust, we have seen more films about WWII and its racism and victims of racism than about any other single historical topic. Films are a powerful medium. I used to be fairly thick-skinned, but in recent years, I can no longer endure scenes of torture at the cinema: I can smell it! It’s true. I can smell it! Smell the blood, the faeces, the urine. I can hear the screams, see the jugulars of the sadists, and I long to …
I will not tell you what I long to …
My friends laugh at me when I need to leave the television on the pretext of getting a cup of coffee – or at least, they used to; I don’t think they are laughing now. They said: “For Pete’s sake, it’s just fiction!” But I always knew it wasn’t fiction. Now I think they know, too. But they will forget. As soon as Palestine is obliterated and Gaza has become a fashionable Israeli tourist destination, the corporate media will help us all forget about all the Palestinian blood in the soil of Gaza’s tourist resorts. Is Gaza’s soil red, I wonder? I shouldn’t be surprised.
But again, as I say, I try not to think about Gaza. I turn to Isabel Allende, to distracting, relatively intelligent light entertainment.
Now I don’t know what you think about Isabel Allende. She is no doubt smart, probably a good business woman, and with great acumen for what her mostly female readers want. She tells a good yarn, full of unexpected twists and turns and acrobatic leaps. She’s very good at describing sexual bliss. So I was not expecting what I got in “La isla bajo el mar”.
For one thing, the book is painfully long! She is not trying to sell us something light and easy. She is furious, and she goes on and on about it, and believe me, I am hanging on to what she writes, sentence by painful sentence.
In brief, it’s about slavery. Not only slavery: racism. And she is not going about her story in an easy way. She is really trying to understand racism! And that is, to my mind, the greatest merit of this very long and painful book about the remarkable and heroic slave rebellion in Haiti against the French army, no less. A remarkable story, but she tells it as though she was there, and that must have cost her no small amount of research.
How can a reasonably decent man actually believe that people of dark skin are so different from us that they can and should be treated badly, she seems to be asking, because surely, not all slave owners were morally inferior? And I find that she does an impressive job of portraying a slave owner in Haiti and explaining why he behaves in such an appalling manner and how plantation ownership gradually turns what initially is a “reasonably decent man” into a cowardly scoundrel.
Mind you, her slaves are not angels either! Far from it. Once they escape, they seek vengeance and are as cruel as their former owners. In view of how slaves were murdered, tortured to death in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, their vindictiveness is fully understandable, but the reader finds it more painful to learn that they also betray each other. The ghastly tendency of some people to seek power over others – even global hegemony – is not limited to those of white skin.
I had picked up the book thinking I would enjoy light entertainment, a distraction from the ghastly realities being so eagerly aided and abetted by genocide Joe and his ilk. Instead, what I was reading seemed to indicate that this planet would be better off without humans.
But it certainly would be better without the kind of humans that can blithely write and even publish without shame Which Path to Iran (June, 2009). Those are the humans advising the White House.
Look at page 12, for instance, the table of contents that lists, among other things, the options:
Disarming Tehran: The Military Option
Chapter 3: Going All the Way: Invasion
Chapter 4: The Osiraq Option: Airstrikes
Chapter 5: Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike [my emphasis]
Toppling Tehran: Regime Change
Chapter 6: The Velvet Revolution: Supporting a Popular Uprising
Chapter 7: Inspiring an Insurgency: Supporting Iranian Minority And Opposition Groups
Chapter 8: The Coup: Supporting a Military Move Against the Regime
Next, read page 14 in its entirety, under the heading The Trouble with Tehran. Please note, that this is not about women’s rights, not even about justice and democracy. It’s about US interests. Please also note that this was nearly 15 years before 7 October.
Was 7 October the very badly needed excuse Bibi has been waiting for?
Believe me, every time I hear about US interests, I start itching. All over. Abolition of slavery ran contrary to the interests of plantation owners. US interests run contrary to the interests of the vast majority of all humans.
I am not going to write about Syria. I have never been to Syria and know very little about the country.
I do, however, remember that I learnt and knew – with absolute certainty when it happened – that the USA (starting with NED) played a dirty game in Syria’s civil war. The US was heavily engaged there from the very start. Or before.
Like Libya and Iraq, Syria was once a country with very respectable living standards, relatively high levels of education and health services, but no free press. In 2011 people started clamouring for a free press. Protesters were imprisoned and viciously tortured.
The Syrian government claimed they were cracking down on terrorists. Of course, most of the protesters were not terrorists.
But there were terrorists, and they were being trained and financed by the USA which could not countenance that Assad was under Russian influence.
Did I already mention that Syria was once a country with very respectable living standards, relatively high levels of education and health services?
I might even mention it a third time, since the USA is not a country with very respectable living standards, availability of higher education and decent health services. Much good the free press and the circus of democratic elections have done the majority of US citizens.
Anyway, the US has since imposed “sanctions” on Syria, has stolen Syria’s oil and has occupied its most valuable and productive agricultural land. In short, the USA has done what it regularly does to countries that offer citizens outside Europe respectable living standards, relatively high levels of education and health services: It has tried to starve the country to death.
This I did not know. Not until now, when I have spent quite a lot of time and effort trying to understand why Assad’s troops simply caved in, why Turkey is playing its strange game, why Russia walked away, and why Israel is applauding a Jihadist occupation of Syria. Very confusing indeed unless you understand the background, which the corporate press painstakingly declines to do.
So rather than tell you all about Syria, I leave you with Chris Hedges, or rather with Alastair Crooke [yes, that is how the name is spelt] to whom he addresses a few questions. I must warn you: The former MI6 officer and diplomat has a weak voice but a most extraordinarily nimble mind.
The title to this post was the humble search string I entered in DuckDuckGo a couple of days ago. It returned less than a dozen results, some of them about the UK.
“North South exploitation” yielded more results, it is true, but if you are a student with an open mind preparing a paper about the issue based on what you find by means of search engines, I’m afraid you will be very misguided. For example no. 3 on the result list I got is an article from thegeographyteacher.com: “The North South Divide made SIMPLE”. Simple it is. Obviously many a student will go for it, and boy-or-boy how misinformed they will be. For one thing there will be no mention of modern exploitation. The exploitation referred to will be from colonial times.
Most of what you will read in the corporate media will give you the impression that Africa, poor dear, is struggling as a result of past colonialism, and current corruption, and that we, the enlightened and mostly “liberal”, not to mention “humane”, West are doing our darnedest to drag Africa out of the rut. (The corporate media is – I repeat for the umpteenth time – a slut serving the powers that be.) Google and DuckDuckG, I am sorry to say, are part of the corporate media.
True, DuckDuckGo lists a whole bunch of highly academic research papers discussing minute aspects of North South exploitation, but they tend to be arcane. Nevertheless, their existence demonstrates that the issue is known, at least to researchers.
You will find no clear and comprehensible explanation of the basically simple mechanisms of what is often referred to as neo-colonialism. It is not taught in school; it is not highlighted on the internet; and if you google “neo-colonialism”, you will get definitions galore, and a few so-called examples, but little understanding of how it works.
DuckDuckGo will not flag that what we, the enlightened-mostly-liberal-humane West, have done to Africa is to subject the continent to IMF’s neo-liberal dictates and interest rates – usury – so that the countries’ annual incomes are spent mainly on servicing cumulative debts, to be paid in USD, the reserve currency. To obtain USD the countries have to produce what the West demands of them, to be sold to the West at prices determined by the West. And if a country’s government fails to do as ordered by the West, the US will clap sanctions on it and/or organise a regime change operation, as was the case recently in Pakistan (with the coup against Imran Kahn), later in Bangladesh, and most recently in Syria (after more than a decade of crippling sanctions against the near starving Syrian population). You won’t find this stated, far less explained, merely by googling.
We are not supposed to be aware of what’s going on; that’s the point. We, Western consumers don’t want to feel we are cheating workers who cannot afford to send their children to school in far-off countries. We want to feel we are “good people”. Awareness of injustice tends to kindle tensions or, as they say, disrupt “social cohesion”. We feel bad when our governments, voted on by us, actively support a genocide. Distrust grows. And threatens status quo. An example of smouldering tension is the extraordinary reaction to a recent murder in the USA.
In the USA, more and more people feel that they are being cheated. Their jobs have been outsourced. Indebted farmers have had to sell their land for next to nothing to agroindustry. Trump voters, in particular, are angry. They blame China and migration. Nobody is telling them about Bangladesh. Remember the garment factory in Bangladesh that collapsed killing 1134 people injuring 2500? I don’t know about where you live, but where I live it’s very hard, still, to find garments that are not produced, in part or altogether, in Bangladesh. “Bangladesh is today one of the world’s largest garment exporters,” this article jubilantly reported in 2021. Amnesty tells another story.
What has triggered the inordinate immigration to the US and to Europe? There are causes, multiple causes. I put to you that those causes are almost all related to the issue “North–South Divide”.
No matter how many malaria vaccines a charitable organisation sends to Africa, we are e-x-p-l-o-i-t-i-n-g – repeat EXPLOITING not only Africa, but the entire global south in a monumental way. This fact is illustrated by a paper that is not easy reading but all the more shocking.
In general, I find that most people in the West still imagine, on the basis of what they have read and heard from the corporate media, that Africans have themselves to blame for their poverty, China and migration can be blamed for poverty in the USA, whereas our governments in the West are doing the best they can, be they “centre-right” or “centre-left” to defend themselves against forces of evil.
Are they doing the best they can? Behold how, as we speak, Santa Ursula and the EU political elite are cynically celebrating an agreement that will turn European farmers into paupers and benefit a small European elite.
Google and DuckDuckGo are not innocent parties. DuckDuckGo inc. is an independent company. It has stakes, as have all companies. It protects, first of all, its own interests, and so it should. But should we trust it to satify all our needs to know; yours and mine and those of the people in, for instance, Bangladesh? I put to you that we should not. I use DuckDuckGo every day, many times a day, but I know its limitations. So I put to you that we must also seek information about the state of the world actively, not from the corporate media, not using the corporate media’s search engines.
And one of the first things we need to understand are the causes and mechanisms of the North–South Divide. Why must we understand them? I’m afraid the answer to that question is a logical loop. We must understand them in order to understand how important it is to understand them.
I suggest starting with an introduction to third world debt, provided by two economists who are generous enough to devote some of their valuable time to explaining the matter to us – non-economists – in plain English. I listened to the linked “lecture” – for that was what it was – several months ago, but today, I printed the transcript and have been pouring over it for a couple of hours with a marker pen. I also downloaded the UNCTAD report commented on by one of them. I honestly think we owe it to ourselves and not least to the planet and future generations to seek to understand how imbalance of power is beeing abused destructively. I am sure somebody, though I cannot for the life of me remember who, once declared that “knowledge is power”.
Most people I speak to nowadays are worried about the future. Not that I speak to many, but those I do speak to have varying political viewpoints, and are of widely different ages and levels of education. Most of them disagree with very many of my views. But they are all worried; frightened even. One person told me today: “I am almost always angry now, rancorous even. It’s very uncomfortable, a corrosive state of mind.”
I told her: “As time passes, you will feel more sad than angry. We know there are scum-bags out there, particularly among those in power and those wanting to be in power. That’s how it’s always been and how it will always be.”
I happen to be reading the book “Una historia de España” by Perez-Reverte, which angrily summarises Spain’s inglorious past. I have read it before, but feel a need to read it again, because it mirrors what some of us in the West feel today in the face of our own very inglorious present. I have come to that very point in Spain’s past, as described by him, that seems almost to be about us now. Here is my interpretation of Perez-Reverte’s take:
In the second half of the nineteenth century, there were basically two political parties: the self-serving, often decadent liberals, and the conservatives (headed by a Church fanatically opposed to enlightenment) both equally intent on exploiting and suppressing peasants and the nascent class of industrial workers. (Spain had been a supremely backward country and had had virtually no industry until well into the nineteenth century). Both parties were supported by powerful military factions.
BUT at that very time, books were being written, spread and read, in spite of rigid censorship, by offspring of the burgeoning bourgeoisie. A number of “brave men and women” organised clandestine literacy classes. There were even a couple of revolutions, one in 1854, that were promptly suffocated with mass executions. For the majority, life was bleak, to say the least, suppression was more systematic than it had ever been. But looking back, the author seems to be saying, we see that seeds had been sown that would come to fruition a century later, at the death of Franco.
I think there is no doubt that US supremacy is coming to an end, just as the supremacy of the medieval Spanish oligarchy eventually came to an end. But will the process take another century? Will the Middle East have to wait for a century before it can know peace? Will USA’s distant vassals in Europe have to send their children to fight against Russia and die in the hundreds of thousands to protect the USD?
And what happens after that? Will the climate a hundred years hence accommodate life on this planet? Will the Chinese truly abide by their much vaunted Confucianism? Are there not scum-bags in China as elsewhere. Are we as defenceless against scum-bags as against climate change?
When we read about a serious crime, we tend to look for a financial motive – “follow the money”. Forcing Ukraine to fight “to the last Ukrainian” is, from an ethical point of view an execrable crime. Is it merely a crime of passion – “russophobia” – as some critics have suggested?
While the blindfolded Norwegian population undoubtedly suffers from acute Russophobia, the Norwegian and other European governments may have more rational reasons for sacrificing Ukraine. After all, they know perfectly well that this war was provoked by NATO, prolonged by NATO and exacerbated by NATO.
I put to you that there may be important financial motives. Apart from Ukraine’s natural resources which US and Western European vultures are eager to get their hands on, there is the matter of the US dollar, the “reserve currency” (the stuff that central banks theoretically have stashed away in case all the country’s bank customers simultaneously demand their savings). It used to be gold, now it’s USD, the currency that has underpinned most business transactions all over the world for decades.
The Reserve Currency is being challenged by the BRICS de-dollarization movement in which Russia plays a prominent part.
We are already seeing that the price of gold has more than quadrupled since 2002. (Gold cannot be produced and exists only in very limited quantities. It is therefore considered a safe investment.) The price has risen because demand has risen. We have also seen, as you surely know, a spectacular rise in the price of Bitcoins. This tendency reflects a “loss in confidence in America’s management of the global order” and hence a perceived need to “diversify” reserves.
Meanwhile, US debt is now at 34trillion USD. That is 120 % of the country’s GDP. Of all taxes, tariffs and fees collected by the US, 23 % goes to paying interest on debt. The US runs an increase in deficits every single year, not least to invest in wars, and every year, it finances the new deficit with new loans. How long can it keep the ball rolling?
What happens if people/countries stop investing in loans to the US? Well, the US would have to raise the price it is willing to pay for the loan (interest rate). US citizens are still buying treasury bonds, but the share of US treasury securities held by foreign investors has fallen from 34 % in 2015 to 24% in 2024 although Europe and other allies are still bravely buying them. (China holds $800 billion of US debt, down from $1.3 trillion in 2014.)
This is not good news for the USA. Even Investopedia admits that
the U.S. has long depended on the dollar’s role as a reserve currency to support running large deficits on government spending and international trade. If central banks around the world no longer felt the need to stuff their coffers with dollars, then the U.S. would likely lose this flexibility.
So back to Europe’s suicidal war against Russia: To be frank, I’m not into the mechanisms of Europe’s economic reliance on the dollar, but I believe they are linked to the growing financialisation (what we used to call “speculation”) of our economies. At any rate they say that “When America sneezes, Europe dies of Covid.” Or something to that effect.
Europe is joined at the hip with the USA and is very shaky now, with zero growth and huge debts. Meanwhile, the EUROzone suffers from “serious structural weaknesses”, whatever that means, and even Deutsche Bank has had liquidity problems. In short, the Euro might look defiant, but it is and has long been on life support.
There are many obstacles to de-dollarization. Nevertheless, as you can hear in this long but extremely interesting conversation between three economists, it is already well under-way, and BRICS and non-aligned countries are enthusiastically working out ways and means to overcome them.
I believe, in short, that Europe (and the US) fears that BRICS (rather than Russia) represents a financial (rather than military) threat. European leaders are prolonging and exacerbating this war not to defend Ukraine but in the hope of weakening Russia and slowing down de-dollarization.
