Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Author: pelshvalen (Page 4 of 48)

Recognition?

08.08.2025 /

One by one, countries are “recognising” Palestine as a state. I ask myself: What does that effectively mean? Will those countries stop importing Israeli goods? Will they withdraw funds invested in Israel? Will they instantly halt all trade with and financial services to Israel?
Of course not; money talks louder than justice.

Will they send UN troops to throw the illegal settlers out of the illegally occupied West Bank? Will they boycott the US that blocks all Security Council resolutions aimed at defending the Palestinians? Will the ICC condemn the country that is arming and financing Israel and protecting it militarily?
Of course not; the top dog calls the shots.

I put to you that all this “recognition” talk of Palestine is just lip-service, just a cover-up. We – the general public in most “Western” countries – are seeing some of what is going on in Gaza, partly thanks to the testimony of the brave and heartbroken US Lt Colonel Tony Aguilar, but above all because numerous journalists have volunteered their lives in Gaza, knowing that the IDF systematically kill journalists and health workers.

We – the general public in most “Western” countries – are shocked and increasingly angry. We are casting about us for our pitchforks. One by one, then, governments have to pretend to be doing the decent thing before the old pitchforks in ramshackle tool sheds have been located.

Yes, recognising the state of Palestine is a step in the right direction, but it will not stop the genocide; it will not deter Israel’s imperialist ambitions in the Middle East. It will not in any way prevent Israel from exterminating Palestinian “untermenschen”, and also the “untermenschen” of neighbouring countries, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, to begin with.

The Israelis need “lebensraum”, you see.” They are taking their cues from the wrong teachers. (And I don’t think the Christian Zionists should count on going to heaven either.)

And we, “nous autres”, we are under the US heel, as Santa Ursula has just demonstrated so very eloquently. “Master, tell us how we can serve you.”

Nevertheless, recognition of the state of Palestine is important. Vital.

A state has the right to defend itself.

Did you know – I didn’t till George Galloway, not the mainstream media, informed me – that the captain of the Palestinian football team was murdered waiting in line for food? The mainstream is absolutely useless!

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.

Something else

29.06.2025 /

Let me start with a digression.
—What do you mean, digression! Digression from what?

So, ok, maybe the correct term isn’t “digression”, but I want to start by pointing out something that has nothing do with today’s topic.

I live in the northern hemisphere. We use thick winter clothing six months a year. You may, or may not, know what “thick winter clothing” means. I’d better spell it out: woollen sweaters, wind breakers, thermals, puffer jackets and coats, knitted hats, boots… and scarves. Lots and lots of scarves, not because we need to wear many at the same time, but because they serve as accessories in addition to providing warmth and bursts of colour, which we badly need, because there is hardly any natural light in winter, hence no colour. Forget about the fairytale landscapes of Christmas cards: Winters are dull. Period.

So most of us living here prefer summer to winter. So did I until recently. However, only in winter can I wear my large, very warm, red and white Palestinian scarf. That scarf is a scream, a silent protest, a reminder to those who are as aware as I am of what is going on, but who “cannot bear to think about it”.

Mind you, I do – I really do – understand that they cannot bear to think about it. It is so very much worse than all the evils we have read about in fairytales or seen even in Hollywood films. “We are powerless,” they say. And of course, they are right because Norway is, to all intents and purposes, an occupied country. Norwegians don’t like it when I say that, but we are only 5 million people here, and the USA has 12 military bases on our soil. Could we militarily defend Gaza? We have no independent armed forces. None. We are just part of NATO, and NATO is USA’s European arm, to deploy as it sees fit, against Russia, Afghanistan, Libya., … AND PALESTINE: What would we do. for example, if the US were to invade Greenland?

I am actually looking forward to winter, when I shall once more don my large, very warm, red and white Palestinian scarf. That scarf, that blessed scarf – just thinking about it evokes the very real memory of its softness against my skin – is not only a scream; it is my pitchfork!

I have, I admit, a pitchfork, a real one, that is. It hangs from a dedicated hook in my tool shed. A lot of Norwegians have pitchforks in their tool sheds. Let me tell you, in case you didn’t know: Pitchforks are murder weapons. However, unlike the murder weapon, HUNGER, employed by Israel (USA’s “aircraft carrier ” in the Middle East), pitchforks kill only one person at a time. Norwegians are not, unlike most US congressmen and most Israelis, a murderous tribe.

Nor am I a murderous person. But I want to hurt USA’s aircraft carrier Israel. I want to hurt USA. I promise I shall never again, ever, EVER buy anything I know has been produced by Israel or the USA. But I shall not murder.

I shall just wear my large, very warm, red and white Palestinian scarf and imagine that it is a pitchfork against the USA and its 800 military bases all over the world and its crippling sanctions, and its bigotry and hypocrisy and… and…

Now, for today’s topic:

Look up the Koran, 2.62. Neither the Iranians nor the Palestinians are “antisemitic”! If I were to write a book of doctrine, it might consist of only one sentence:

Thou shalt judge men and women by their deeds,
not by their religion or the colour of their skin.

Then what?

25.06.2025 /

So the US finally attacked Iran, as most of us knew it would, sooner or later; the attack was inevitable. Not only due to pressure from the Israel lobby and the military-industrial complex, but also because the US has every reason to fear that BRICS will undercut US supremacy.

I woke up with a start in the middle of the night 21-22 June, and knew at once that now, just now, it had happened: the US had bombed Iran (even though Trump had stated, just two days earlier, that he would give Iran two weeks to mull their fragile position).

I will not dwell upon the consequences for the USA. I will not speculate about who will be the “winner”.

What is certain, though, is that the winner will not be the US – if for no other reason because the USA hasn’t won a single war since I was born. (Actually, that is not quite true: I urge you to listen to the historian David Gibbs explain how the US “won” the Kosovo War in 1999.)

Israel will not be the winner either. Israelis are roughly 8 million. As we have learnt from Tucker Carlson, Iran has a population of 92 million, lots and lots of mountains and tremendous pride. In fact, Israel has already suffered considerable damage.

We do not know how Israel’s neighbouring states will react, and to what extent authoritarian US-backed regimes will be able to restrain angry pro-Palestinian populations. After all, the Shiite Iranians supported the Sunni Palestinians, which the US-backed Sunni regimes did not. A lot of people must be very angry.

Iran will, of course, suffer more than bears thinking about. Iran has now been subjected to unprovoked attacks by two nuclear powers. Iran is not a nuclear power. I repeat: Iran is not a nuclear power! But pulverising countries is one of the things the US and Israel seem to find particularly enjoyable.

Moreover, World of Warcraft is not the only US forte. Geopolitical analysts tend to forget the tremendous soft power wielded by the US. Decades of Hollywood, jazz, popular music, Microsoft, Google Search, Netflix and HBO, etc., etc. and etc. dampen the sense of outrage that should have brought citizens of the world to the very doorsteps of their presidents’, kings’ and prime ministers’ dwellings. Citizens of the world should be loudly clamouring against the madness of launching the preliminaries of a new world war. We have been drugged into a state of numbness, and are blind and deaf to the mendacity of US narratives. Here, there and almost everywhere, we are under the sticky thumb of the US entertainment industry.

Iran has been coveted by the USA for a very long time. See the brief clip of General Wesley Clark (interviewed on Democracy Now in 2007). Wesley Clark is an extremely charming man, it seems, and he was considering running for president again when this interview took place. You might also listen to his amusing account, from 22 to 25 minutes into the full interview about plans for the invasion of Haiti. An exceptionally charming, I repeat, and dangerous man, with a wonderful sense of humour.

There are those who maintain that Israel is running the USA. There are others who maintain that “defence” of Israel is merely a pretext.

As the economist Michael Hudson puts it:

The motivation for the attack on Iran has nothing to do with any attempt by Iran to protect its national sovereignty by developing an atom bomb. The basic problem is that the United States has taken the initiative in trying to pre-empt Iran and other countries from breaking away from dollar hegemony and U.S. unipolar control.

So if you think that the cessation of hostilities between USA/Israel and Iran is anything but temporary, think again. Israel agreed to the ceasefire only to catch its breath. The war has just barely begun.

Meanwhile, back at base camp, what the EU will do is anybody’s guess. Europe has for some time seemed suicidal. European leaders are determined to engage in military Keynesianism. Nobody quite understands why. True, Chancellor Merz appears to be a perfect idiot. P.M. Starmer also appears to be a perfect idiot. But surely they are surrounded by teams of advisers, highly educated specialists?

I find David Gibbs’ take on the matter very interesting. The EU and Europe, he explains in the conversation referred to above, lost their independence during the Kosovo war of 1989-1990. It is not news to me to learn that most European states, including my own country, are US vassals. And it should not be news to me to learn that in a vassal state, even historians, political (and other) scientists, and journalists must spend much of their professional life genuflecting in the emperor’s anteroom. Confer the recent White House pressure on even the most prestigious US universities. In Debate on the CIA and Academe, David Gibbs offers valuable insight into how and why academia refrains from pointing out cracks in foreign policy narratives, about which there is a wealth of available information for those who have access to the sources.

I decided to check David Gibbs’s sources on the Kosovo War, and have taken a long look at his 2009 book “First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia”, which I recommend. I find his documentation compelling.

I know my compatriots, and maybe your compatriots, too, want to believe that we are on the right side in a battle between good and evil and that NATO is defending us in that battle. I have long suspected that we are being misled and that US foreign policy is not, and has never been about good versus evil.

Blessings of ridicule

19.06.2025 /

I wonder when I last listened to a comedian. It’s been years, I think. Maybe I haven’t heard of the right comedians, the comedians for me, that is. George Carlin is no longer, and I know of no one who has taken his place.

Most comedians I stumble across on the rare occasions when I turn on my TV are just “silly”; to my mind at least. Not that I don’t appreciate silliness. I have a silly dog, and she makes me laugh out loud even in public places. I don’t need silly comedians who are unable to make me laugh even alone in the shower.

But today I happened, by pure accident, to listen to … No, let me explain. I was reading Jeffrey Sachs, “Stop Netanyahu Before He Gets Us All Killed” and suddenly the scene shifted – I must have done something – at any rate, suddenly, I was faced with John Steward, and John Steward was screaming. That definitely caught my attention.

So I listened to him for a while. And I was able to laugh! Yes! Because he was screaming and targeting what I abhor, warmongering.. In my mind, I thanked him.

I leave it there, for now, not because I believe John Steward deserves the last word – I really know nothing about him – but because ridicule is so powerful a weapon. In geopolitics, the weapon of ridicule has been all but forgotten.

Peter Pan-syndromet

14.06.2025 /

Natt til i går ble Iran utsatt for et stort israelsk bombeangrep.

Verdens ledere ba “partene besinne seg”. Det betyr i klartekst at den ene parten (Iran) bes ydmykt akseptere at den andre parten har tatt seg til rette. Det tror jeg faktisk ikke Iran vil gå med på. Israel har jo lenge ønsket å føre Iran tilbake til stenalderen, og vil fortsette å gå inn for det uansett hva Iran gjør eller ikke gjør.

Når Iran går til motangrep, vil USA komme Israel til unnsetning, dvs. aktivt delta i videre angrep mot Iran. Slik er det, og slik har det alltid vært, til tross for at USAs støtte til Israel skader USAs omdømme og interesser. En krig med Iran er derfor noe Trump ikke ønsker.

Jeg tror at vi her i Norge har overvurdert USAnske presidenters makt. Jo, de oppfører seg som allmektige keisere, men det viser seg at de må samarbeide, enten de vil eller ei, med stadig mektigere interessegrupper. I utenrikspolitikken er det særlig den såkalte “Israel-lobbyen” og apparatet rundt våpenprodusentene (“military-industrial complex”) som gjør seg gjeldende. Våpenprodusentene trenger kriger (“forever wars”) for å få avsetning for sine kampfly, ballistiske missiler, osv.

Israel-lobbyen, på sin side, er riktignok sammensatt av hummer og kanari, men later til å ha total kontroll over begge partiene i kongressen. Kongressen er rett og slett blitt et sionistisk organ.

Hva er sionisme? I USAs kongress innebærer sionisme nå uforbeholden støtte til alt Israel og Netanyahu måtte finne på for å utrydde palestinere, okkupere nye landområder, fastholde middelaldersk rasediskriminering, angripe naboland og gjennomføre attentater mot personer i fjerne land. Også i USAs statsapparat står sionismen sterkt. Jeg antar at sionisme har sterkere kort på hånden nå enn noensinne før, til tross for – ja, jeg må gjenta det – til tross for at Trump faktisk ikke ønsker krig mot Iran.

Tenk om norske stortingsmenn og -kvinner skulle få betalt for å stemme for Norges deltakelse i militære operasjoner mot Iran. Tenk om ledelsen i våre etterretningsorganer var sionister. Er det utenkelig, sier du? Kanskje det, men slik er det altså i USA.

Palantir er et privat firma som driver med etterretning. Palantir er overalt. Det produserer og selger AI-baserte overvåkings- og etterretnings-løsninger til høystbydende, også til norsk politi, som visstnok avbrøt avtalen etter noen år. USA har privatisert (“outsourced”) stadig mer av sitt etterretningsarbeid, og Palantir, har nå adgang til de aller fleste personopplysningsregistre i landet. Det kreves ikke mye fantasi for å forstå at Palantir kan være et uhyre effektivt våpen mot dissidenter.

Palantir ble skapt av Peter Thiel, som er sionist på sin hals, og Alex Karp, selskapets toppsjef. Sistnevnte har for øvrig et menneskesyn som får det til å gå kaldt nedover ryggen på meg.

Karp er overbevist om at USA er berettiget i å bruke absolutt alle midler for å bevare sitt globale overherredømme. Vi i vesten er nemlig bedre enn de andre. “The West is obviously superior“. Personlig lurer jeg på om mannen er en smule gal.

Palantir er som sagt et aksjeselskap. I likhet med andre aksjeselskap trenger det kunder, oppdrag. De næringsmedia som Palantir vokser seg stor og sterk på, er krig og sosiale konflikter. I likhet med den private militære organisiasjonen (“contractor”) Blackwater, nå omdøpt til Constellis, som arbeider på oppdrag for CIA, er Palantir ikke interessert i å dempe konfliktnivåer. Tvert i mot. Om konflikter på hjemmebane er konfekt for bedriften, som i stor stil har bidratt til utvisninger fra universiteter og massedeportasjoner fra landet, så er konflikten i Midtøsten et 6-retters luksusmåltid. Drapslister (“hit lists”) er noe selskapet visstnok er særlig gode på. Medvirket Palantir også i drapet på flere militære ledere og vitenskapsmenn i Iran i går natt?

Hva blir så Norges rolle i den kommende krigen? Ja. jeg hørte Bart Eide oppfordre til fortsatte forhandlinger. Men nei, jeg tror ikke Iran kan gå med på USAs krav. De er så urimelige at ikke noe land med respekt for seg selv ville kunne bøye seg for dem. Dette vet Bart Eide utmerket godt.

Bart Eides jobb er å la Ola og Kari forbli i drømmelandet enda en stund til, ja, så lenge som mulig. Det eneste vi trenger å vite, fra Bart Eides ståsted, er at USA vil passe på oss når russerne kommer. Bart Eides jobb er å late som om Norge enda er et selvstendig land med en selvstendig utenrikspolitikk. Når Israel med USAs hjelp bomber Iran tilbake til stenalderen, slik de pleier å gjøre med land de ikke liker, må Bart Eide ta oss inn i eventyrkroken og fortelle om tusser og troll, og om snille kloke Askeladden.

Vårt bilde av USA, det snille gode landet som beskytter oss mot trollene, er skapt av Hollywood, godt hjulpet av norske utenriksministre og norsk presse. Vi befinner oss altså i Peter Pan landet for dem som ikke vil bli voksne; for dem som ikke orker å se at det – for eksempel – faktisk er USA som finansierer og bevæpner og altså muliggjør det uhyrlige folkemordet av det palestinske folket og den kommende krigen mot Iran.

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