Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Category: ENGLISH (Page 1 of 36)

There a few posts written in English

Benign?

08.09.2026 /

For some reason – maybe I’ve been reading the wrong sort of literature – the only collocations I know for the word benign are “tumour” and “hegemon”.

“We were all relieved to learn that her tumour was benign.”

” USA was a benign hegemon.”

At present, USA is no longer a hegemon, and it certainly isn’t and never has been benign. Look at all the wars – the past, present and future wars.

***

But this post is not about my views, not even about the Ukraine or Iran wars. I would like to bring to your attention the work of a Swede living in Norway who has devoted his career to research.

Ola Tunander is “research professor emeritus” at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO, an institution that he has served since 1987). He is a heavyweight on research about inter alia the cold war and Nordic security issues.

However, he is not first and foremost a particularly good writer. The articles I wish to bring to your attention are not eloquent. They will not move you to tears. In fact they may even bore you because they are detached, painfully detailed and based on research over many years. Moreover they concern a topic that may not even interest you: the assassination of the Swedish prime minister, Olav Palme, in 1986. The police investigation was reminiscent of that following the killing of a US president in 1963: It was farcical.

The reason I recommend the four articles is that they demonstrate that USA’s intentions never were, in any sense or anywhere, “benign”, not before the fall of the Soviet Union nor after. Not in Europe nor anywhere else. Not even in Sweden and certainly not for the majority of US citizens. Also, they demonstrate that no matter how honest a cop you are, or police prosecutor, or forensic scientist, or witness, you will do as you’re told if you smell sulphur. Else: you will at best lose your job. And people do get killed, you know.

The four articles focus on and examine the reliability of various sources. If you find you haven’t the patience for such scrutiny, I advise you to read as much of Part I as you can manage and then skip to Part IV.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

The bottom line — whether or not you do actually read those four articles, is that the US billionaires running USA will stop at nothing in order to get rid of anyone standing in their way. The most recent case in point is the rape of Venezuela, which they have been planning for decades in both parties, with repeated unsuccessful coup attempts and regime change operations and by demonising its leaders,. Trump finally did it! Yup, he’s a degenerate, but his foreign policy differs from that of past administrations only in that it makes no attempt to pretend to be benign.

Witness

27.08.2026 /

Look at them.

Look at them again. Each one alone in his own world. When you walk like that, trudging for miles through snow from one scene of death and destruction to another, memory becomes a mosaic of fragments. God only knows what these German soldiers had been thinking as they committed their crimes against humanity, particularly on the Russian front, and what may or may not have been revisiting them in this picture. Here, silently crossing an endless plain, they were exhausted, probably hungry, and deeply disturbed.

Am I defending them. Certainly not! But I put to you that they were victims, just as whole populations have been victims, again and again and again throughout history. So were the peoples governed by Churchill and Stalin, but it just so happened that Hitler crossed a red line, from our perspective, that of considering certain “races” of the human species “untermenschen”. He was not the only one, of course: The British, the French, and the US Americans, to name but the most powerful, refused to accept the Jewish refugees on the St. Louis in 1939. And to this day, they consider African and Latin American lives, not to mention Palestinians and Iranians dispensable.

We were not informed, I repeat, just as we are not being informed now. We are only useful for the high and mightily insofar as we are ignorant of their misdeeds.

To this day, people like you and me are unwittingly committing heinous deeds on behalf of the rich and powerful (currently the US government) in the Middle East, in Latin America and wherever they can get a foothold (Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Equador, Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala…).

Imagine a feature film called “The American Way”. We follow the protagonists, Marco Rubio and the ghosts of the Dulles Brothers, as they loot Latin America’s resources and arrange for political opponents to be assassinated. Unlike them, most of their soldiers have “hearts” – in the sense that killing (e.g. by starvation) innocent people goes against the grain (most ordinary people have moral fibre). The brave and decent US soldiers refuse to do the bidding of Rubio and the Dulles brothers, so wave after wave of collective suicides hamper the extractivist operations.

In the real world, cries of anguish ae now being heard from US aircraft carriers. Larry Johnson on Sonar 21 has published a heartbreaking letter from a grieving father:

He was deployed to Abu Dhabi for about 10 months. He was supposed to return on March 2nd, but the events on Feb 28th (which was also his BIRTHDAY) changed that abruptly, extending his deployment almost six months. He returned about a month ago.

… He immediately checked himself into the hospital for PTSD …[and was] released after a week or so, despite his own protestations,

…Operational security prevented us from speaking as regularly as we did prior to the war starting, but I do know he was deeply affected by the double tap Tomahawk missile strike in Minab, and was sickened by the genocide in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. Nobody, he said, believes in the mission.


We who live in Europe have difficulty understanding the cost of war. I actually believe that US Americans know more about it, because relatives and friends of the 58,281 US Americans who lost their lives in Vietnam and many permanently traumatised US veterans are still alive. But do they see the Vietnam war from the Vietnamese perspective?

In Europe we are being goaded into a war that we will definitely not win. I’m not saying that Russia will win the war Europe is so gung-ho to wage, but Europe will certainly not. The war the EU is hankering for will be a net disaster for all of us.

There are too many boys and girls playing war games on their computers!!!
There are too many bored boys and girls who hanker for a bit of action. What do they know of the consequences of “action”?

And too many of us – including myself — did not notice a crime against humanity committed by the USA and the UK in the mid 1970s and ever since. (One of the many, it is true, but this one had a troublesome witness: John PiIger.

John Pilger was a witness of many US/UK crimes. The UK and USA are surely glad he is dead, but his voice is not. See Pilger films.

According to AP News, the USA has used the Diego Garcia Base as “an all but indispensable platform” for “security operations” in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa”. Dirty business, to say the least. Here is John PIlger’s documentary about Chagos/Diego Garcia.

Kto vinovat?

25.08.2026 /

Kto vinovat is the title of a novel published in 1846. It was written by the Russian socialist Alexander Herzen. I was taken in by it when I was a student, but I remember next to nothing of it now, though I am sure I much prefer the Russian title to the English translation: Who is to blame? The Russian question sounds more peremptory, does it not? And with good reason: The fabulously rich landowners that governed Russia were an utterly futile gang of parasites living off the labour of the serfs. In practical terms the serfs were slaves. They really were the property of the landowners. Russian landowners were thus worse, even, than the British landowning rentiers so disparaged by Adam Smith.

In 1861, the serfs were “emancipated” de jure if not de facto, in the sense that they owned nothing but the rags they wore. At the end of the century, abject poverty was still endemic in the countryside as described in several of Anton Chekhov’s short stories. At any rate, Alexander Herzen was credited with having brought the plight of the serfs to the attention of the educated public with his writing.

Fortunately, some of the Russian landowners had sons – yes, mostly sons, since women were valued at best as decorative household assets or in some cases as wealthy heiresses – sons, then, who felt terrible about the injustice of it all. Tolstoy is the most famous of them, but there were very many others – including a large number of wonderfully gifted composers and writers, one of them being Alexander Herzen.

I remember that his novel Kto vinovat painted a picture of how education and self-respect would eventually enable the suppressed and suffering masses to earn a living and have dignity, The expression “suppressed and suffering masses” is no joke, believe me, though it sounds like Soviet propaganda, I know. It is none the less a reality many places even today, not least in Latin America, where Trump’s cronies are destroying what little was left after the end of the brutal Kissinger-aided dictatorships.

In Russia’s case, what Herzen started ended with a revolution – the jury is still out about the merits of that revolution. You will know my opinion about it when I tell you that in Spain, where there was no revolution, “education, literacy campaigns and self-respect” were drowned in bloodbaths in the 1930s to be followed by nearly 50 years of religious and political state terror.

What I do remember of the book was the exquisite courtesy and mutual respect between the two protagonists, a man and a woman living together. They loved each other, but they were to have separate rooms, to dress for dinner, and to knock on each other’s door to request admittance. Back then, I gave much thought to this approach to “equality between the sexes”. It seemed very outlandish, but it also made sense. After all, cohabitation tends to wear down what might initially have been “true love”. There is daily friction, repetition, boredom…You know, I am sure.

But in the end, things do not work out for Herzen’s protagonist couple. Kto vinovat?

***

Norwegians tend to be averse to conflicts. I believe “conflict avoidance” is a technical term.

If a Norwegian knows of a couple who are engaged in particularly acrimonious divorce proceedings, he or she will say “it takes two to tango”, meaning: let’s divide the blame equally.

Even about Palestinians and Israel, they would actually say, “Well, you know the issue is very complicated.” I would say: “It is not! Israel is an apartheid state.” Then they would try to appease me: Israel has made mistakes, but so have the Palestinians.” Meaning, again: Let’s divide the blame in two equal parts.

Why, then, are Norwegians so adamant with regard to the Ukraine war? As I have previously stressed: Norwegian journalists and Norwegian foreign service officials are very well educated. They are the crème de la crème in terms of university results. So why are they pretending to be blind, deaf and suffering from learning disabilities? Russia, you see, is to blame for absolutely everything.

The Palestinians have certainly made mistakes. Who hasn’t? But Israel is now finally being recognised by most, not least by Norwegians, as a genocidal state. The dividing line today is between those who recognise genocide as legitimate (e.g. most of the US Congress) and those who don’t. That is the extent of our moral decay!

At least Russia is not being blamed for genocide. Not yet. But mark my words: Once the political West finally admits that Ukraine has lost the war, they will accuse Russia of genocide.

My question tonight is: Why is there no discussion in the Norwegian media about ultra-nationalism, the use of Nazi insignia, and – not least – brutal political, linguistic, cultural and religious suppression in Ukraine? Why do the Norwegian media not demand accountability for the vast sums of money we send to that most hideously corrupt of countries?

And who, in the end, is to blame for the total destruction – soon almost to the last Ukrainian – of Ukraine? Kto vinovat? Russia? Ukraine? or the NATO countries?

Narrative warfare

05.08.2026 /

Reading Richard Sakwa’s book The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War (2024), I was struck by the following words:

…the ‘securitisation’ of new policy areas, both in Russia and the West. According to the Copenhagen School, securitisation is the way that ‘normal’ politics is subsumed into national security discourses, which then shape policy.

Just what does that mean? I wondered. Could those words, whatever their meaning, somehow explain why corporate and state media in my country give an incorrect picture of the causes and consequences of the Ukraine war and of how it is being handled by the political West?

I pasted the quote into an AI powered search engine and asked what it meant (Yes, I know that is cheating, but I was “securitising” as I don’t have time to enrol in a course of Security Studies):

What Securitisation Theory Says:
The Copenhagen School argues that “security” is not an objective fact, but a discursive construction. Something becomes a “security issue” not because it inherently threatens survival, but because political actors successfully frame it that way.

[In] normal politics: Issues are debated through ordinary political channels—with compromise, trade-offs, and democratic deliberation.

A securitising move: A political actor (leader, institution, media) declares an issue an existential threat requiring emergency measures—”this isn’t just policy, it’s about our survival.”

[Source: AI-response]

Aha! So there is such a thing as securitisation theory! Bingo. Now I know what to look for.
AI continues:

[When a] security discourse takes over:
Once accepted, the issue moves from normal politics into the realm of security, where:

  • Emergency powers are justified
  • Scrutiny is reduced (“we must act quickly!”)
  • Opposition can be framed as disloyal or dangerous
  • Policy priorities shift dramatically

So much for AI.
Here, then, is an article explaining the Copenhagen School’s securitisation theory and here. There are lots of papers about the topic. Next, I looked for articles about “securitisation theory” and Europe, but most of the hits concerned migration or “market competition”.

One article, however, in the Eurasian Review deals with the issue I am looking for: Securitization And Militarization Of European Politics:

EU leaders have consistently securitised the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war (now in its fifth year) as an “existential threat” to Europe’s security, democracy, and sovereignty.

For the 2026 Iran war, triggered by US-Israeli strikes, leaders portray Iran’s nuclear/missile capabilities as a “huge threat” to Europe. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called Iran an “existential threat” to Israel and a regional peril spilling into Europe via energy crises, migration, and potential terror.

The article goes on to refer to the Copenhagen School, explaining that the very concept of securitisation in international relations “represents a paradigm shift in security studies”. The article outlines some of the Copenhagen School’s key concepts, such as the “speech act”:

When a securitising actor successfully presents an issue as an existential threat to a referent object—whether state, society, or other entity— and this claim is accepted by a relevant audience, the issue becomes securitised. This process legitimises the adoption of emergency measures that would be unacceptable under normal political circumstances. [emphasis by Pelshval]

That securitisation may lead to militarisation is implied rather than stated – after all, the name of the article is, I repeat, Securitization And Militarization Of European Politics, and the section headed “Militarisation phenomenon” starts with what I interpret as a warning:

The militarisation of politics in international relations refers to the increasing influence of military institutions, values, and personnel in political decision-making processes and the normalisation of military solutions to political problems.

Under the heading “Militarisation of European Politics”, the article continues:

Security Action for Europe (SAFE), adopted by the EU Council in May 2025, is a €150 billion loan program designed to bolster European security amid ongoing threats, … and strengthen the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB)

… As part of the Readiness 2030 agenda, it has disbursed billions to nations like Poland (€43.7 billion) for procurements, integrating non-EU allies like Canada while excluding others.

…

SAFE integrates Ukraine’s defence industry on equal terms with EU states, allowing Kyiv to participate in projects and access funding indirectly through member states. (By 2026, 19 national plans had been submitted, with 15 including support for Ukraine worth billions, fostering interoperability and industrial ties.)

…

Politically, SAFE advances federalisation by centralising defence decisions, bypassing unanimity through “coalitions of the willing” and joint borrowing. EU spending rose 30% to €326 billion by 2024, with SAFE enabling deviations from fiscal rules for defence. Leaders like Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz push for European-led forces in Ukraine post-ceasefire, while Andrius Kubilius highlights SAFE’s role in binding Ukraine to EU structures.

[emphasis by Pelshval]

Phew! Pretty hot stuff, that.

… Critics argue this erodes national sovereignty, risking over-militarisation and internal divisions. (ibid)

No wonder!

But how do do European leaders convince their populations that all this defence spending is necessary? For instance by frightening them:

In Sweden, Lithuania, and Poland, governments distribute booklets like “If Crisis or War Comes,” instructing citizens to stockpile essentials and locate shelters, reviving Cold War-era resilience efforts. Allegedly, the Netherlands mailed emergency guides to all households, stressing survival for 72 hours without utilities. France introduces voluntary national service for teens, integrating defence education, while Poland mandates security courses in schools, including firearm training for youth. (ibid)

Going forward:

Institutionally, the EU’s Readiness 2030 plan, endorsed by leaders, … €800 billion in initiatives like SAFE for joint procurement and infrastructure upgrades. This includes boosting military spending by 30% since 2022 and fostering irreversible integration to counter political volatility…. (ibid)

[emphasis by Pelshval]

Voila!: “irreversible integration to counter political volatility”. That is the key and the only phrase in the entire article that is veiled. Even the Eurasian Review needs to keep its head down.

So lets dig a little more.

Didier Bigo, Professor of International Relations at King’s College London is considered a leading figure in the so-called Paris School of security studies. He is quoted in a paper about Security professionals and public opinion: Legitimacy, publicity and brand identity which, by the way, introduces me to a rather cute word, securocrates:

… the crucial role and importance of non-elected security officials to how security is designed, administered and experienced. One concern is whether such officials lack public accountability and whether their performance of such roles and functions lies in tension with democratic norms. As Bigo (2002): argues ‘They [security professionals] benefit from the belief that they know what ‘we’ (non-professionals, amateurs) do not know and that they have specific modes of action of a technical nature that we are not supposed to know about’. Further, this ‘field’ of security is able to use this expert knowledge to define key questions of (in)security, over and above those of other actors, such as public voices and thus ‘exclude[s] other actors. . . by disqualifying their points of view on the definition of threats and on the public policies aiming to prevent the threats’


Professor Didier Bigo has written several articles and papers, some of which can be downloaded, discussing EU/Schengen security arrangements. His writing is conspicuously academic. Being French, he also has a penchant for convoluted sentences, and I see that he, too, keeps his head down. He frames criticism of the system as recommendations to the authorities rather than as flak. All in all, it is difficult to distil key points of his critique.

On the other hand, for the CGT, the largest trade union in France, the situation is quite clear. On the streets, no less: No longer does the Law limit power; power redefines the Law. I believe many US Americans will recognise the veracity of that statement. The following is from a CGT flyer.

Security vs Justice:
Signals intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (electronic intelligence—abbreviated to ELINT). As classified and sensitive information is usually encrypted, signals intelligence may necessarily involve cryptanalysis (to decipher the messages). Traffic analysis—the study of who is signaling to whom and in what quantity—is also used to integrate information, and it may complement cryptanalysisSignals intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (electronic intelligence—abbreviated to ELINT). As classified and sensitive information is usually encrypted, signals intelligence may necessarily involve cryptanalysis (to decipher the messages). Traffic analysis—the study of who is signaling to whom and in what quantity—is also used to integrate information, and it may complement cryptanalysisThis obsession with security is a sign of a democratic and social system that has ground to a halt; Loïc Wacquant was already highlighting this situation back in 2004: ‘The penal state develops where the welfare state withdraws’. It is a veritable headlong rush, coupled with the art of making people believe that action is being taken; it does not protect, but rather numbs and obscures the real solutions: prevention, education and social justice. …social movements are no longer treated as legitimate political expressions, but as threats to be contained, disturbances to be suppressed, risks to be eliminated. A succession of police custody and summary court appearances, preventive detention, bans on demonstrations, administrative dissolutions of organisations, severe criminal charges, and the use of anti-terrorism legislation against activists: … Social conflicts are being redefined: they are no longer political disagreements, but are presented as public order issues….

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

We are not there, yet, in Norway, mainly because there is virtually no dissent. Our authorities wisely allowed us to voice our outrage about the treatment of Palestinians, they even agreed with us! They declared they recognised the State of Palestine! (Look to Norway, Starmer!).

But they have convinced us so completely that Russia has evil designs that even I am silent except in writing, here, under the name of Pelshval.

Journalism is a popular field of study. Only the best students are admitted, and requirements are stringent. What I am trying to say is that Norwegian journalists are neither stupid nor ignorant. But what they are telling us about the Ukraine war is hogwash.

Whereas I have absolutely no proof of censorship, I believe there can be no doubt about it. How that censorship has been put in place remains to be discovered.

By the way, SIGINT, which is an important tool for the secret services, means Signals intelligence-gathering, which can include communication between people (COMINT) and “traffic analysis” the study of who is signaling to whom and in what quantity. Journalists are very aware of the use of SIGINT.

One to rule them all

01.08.2026 /

Actually, the line runs, “one Ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them, one Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,” and is taken from Lord of the Rings.

I asked my favourite AI service how many people have seen the Lord of the Rings films or read the book, and I am glad to report that AI was flummoxed by my question. It had no idea how many people had read the book. True, it could report that “The films have been seen by roughly 300 million+ people in theaters alone”, but of course it had no idea, either, of how many people had streamed the films at home.

I feel a need to add, that much as they are made to appear human, AI services don’t have “ideas”, and that I, being human and therefore easily deluded, fell into the trap of imagining for a moment that my interlocutor was sentient.

We are all, like it or not, susceptible to information warfare. And information warfare is being waged. We don’t see much about it in the news, but it is even more important than the news items we do see – strikes here, strikes there – missiles, drones and whatnot. President Lyndon B. Johnson allegedly said, referring to Vietnam: “the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there”. I add, though nobody has asked me, that the ultimate victory will depend on our hearts and minds.

Lord of the Rings is basically about good versus evil. Most of us, according to the saga, ascribe to the good side, though we may indulge in our little sins. The bad side, however, is the ruler of Mordor, the unbelievably cruel Sauron whose subjects fear him and do his bidding out of terror, and whose armies – the Orcs – are without soul.

It goes without saying that Sauron’s mission was not to serve his people, which is allegedly the mission of presidents and prime ministers in the political west. Obviously, even warmongers such as Dick Cheney, Lindsey Graham, Starmer, Merz, Stoltenerg and Rutte cannot be compared to a Sauron. Not even Netanyahu is a Sauron, (though he certainly is the most sinister character I have heard about, excepting perhaps Hitler). They all claim to “serve” the good cause. At worst they might be compared to the self-aggrandising figure of Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert just before WWI, who also claimed to serve the good cause.

Lord of the Rings shares a template with much of Hollywood’s film production. And Hollywood, as we should know by now, together with popular music, serves as the basis for the US grip on hearts and minds all over the world.

Now that grip is slipping a little. Here in Norway, people are saying that President Trump is “just simply too much”. They hadn’t noticed the Dick Cheyneys and the Lindsey Grahams, and most of them hadn’t even noticed the continuous string of wars waged by the USA even since before they were born. Most people are busy just getting along, passing exams, earning a living, feeding their kids and enjoying maybe an hour’s rest before bed, in front of their television screens, ref. panem et circenses.

Night after night – year in year out – in front of the screen, watching the good guys triumphing over the bad guys… Listen to the Raiders March (composed by John Williams). It epitomises US self-satisfaction and confidence – hubris, as some would say. We hear the determined beat of boots bravely going off to defend a good cause. Since the cause is good, they are joined, of course by others – it’s the American way, don’t you know – as more and more boots march on, until thousands and thousands are surging ahead on their way to the battlefield. We don’t hear much of the battle itself – a dreamlike sequence – but eventually, the original theme emerges once again, victorious: crowds are cheering, flags are waving, brilliant sunlight is reflected off gleaming trumpets, etc.

Year in year out. This sort of treatment cannot fail to have an effect, not only on US citizens, but on all the political West. We are all brothers and sisters, we are all on the good side, the side of Democracy, liberty, justice. Almost all: Netanyahu, also in the “American camp”, is merely an aberration, a mutant so to speak, whom we never really noticed until now, though he has been there, biding his time all along.

Only now that BRICS is threatening the position of the reserve currency, only now has Netanyahu’s moment finally come. Why? Because the US is losing its grip, and with the US, the entire political West has, as Alex Krainer puts it, hit the iceberg. Desperate manoeuvres are required. The people in charge are starting to panic, while most of the passengers are obliviously sleeping or being served by well-behaved waiters as the orchestra plays popular tunes such as Raiders’ March.

Many analysts and commentators expect a serious depression, but nowhere have I seen an explanation of how and why that depression will occur until I heard Alex Krainer’s eminently comprehensible account. He also explains how the political West’s defence of “the good cause” is as fictitious as Lord of the Rings. We can of course hope that he is wrong. On the other hand, he might just be right.

EU fantasies

26.07.2026 /

What is Wonder-lion doing just now, I wonder? And her unbelievably ignorant “foreign minister”, also unelected. No, I really am curious. Because, whatever they are doing at the moment, Europe is in a sea of trouble – alas, not of the aquatic kind. And I seriously doubt Wonder-lion and her court are paying much attention.

In fact, the entire world is in a sea of trouble.

It also appears to be heading for a dramatic economic crisis ostensibly triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran. In reality, there has long been the underlying issue of exponential US debt and the looming perspective of the collapse of the US dollar. Since the USD is still the world’s reserve currency, its collapse would cripple most countries’ economies.

I recommend the beautifully illustrated website of the economist Michael Hudson who is old enough not to risk losing his job for explaining, basically, how and why the economy does not work the way mainstream economists claim it does.

I recommend also the young and bright market analyst Sean Foo from Singapore. On his youtube channel he posts brief daily commentaries about the effects of ongoing events on the global economy. See also his conversation of 20 July with Glenn Diesen, during which he sums up the geoeconomic situation in general.

So back to the unelected leaders of Europe: What exactly are they up to now that Spain is burning; now that France is burning?

90 thousand – evacuees in Spain and counting, 35 thousand hectares incinerated.

197 thousand evacuees in France and counting, 98 thousand hectares incinerated this year.

(One hectare= 10,000 square metres, or 2.471 acres.)

Even Norway has just seen the most “devastating fire in modern times” to quote our PM, due to a heat wave and strong winds. Nothing like Spain and France, it is true, but about 100 dwellings were burnt to the ground in a few hours in a densely populated town.

These people are not just numbers, not just statistics. They are live people who live and work somewhere and who may well lose all they own while still paying mortgages. And there will be more, far, far more. Maybe next year it will be my turn, or yours.

Alas, Wonder-lion and her court have other worries. They are waging war on Russia, on behalf of the US, using Ukrainians as expendables. Their main concern these days is how to satisfy the corrupt Ukrainian regime’s insatiable need for moneys that will never be repaid.

In the media, they need to frame the sinking ship that is the Ukrainian regime – “the beacon of Democracy”, to quote an ironic commentator – as a potential heroic winner of the war.

The US/EU war on Russia undoubtedly harms Russia. But it harms the EU states far more. Most of all, it is completely destroying Ukraine.

Time to sit down and talk about what is real. The fires are real. Ukrainian democracy is not.

As Jason Hickel writes on X

Why did our ruling class not invest in decarbonising faster to avoid this acceleration in deadly heat waves that scientists warned would come? Because of the capitalist law of value.

Capital invests in what is most profitable to capital, rather than what is most necessary for humanity, so our ruling class keeps ploughing investment into fossil fuels and SUVs, while we get far too little in renewables and public transit, even while the world burns around us.

We have more than enough capacity (labour, factories, technology) to address the climate crisis, but as long as capital controls investment and production we are prevented from doing it.

We are trapped by the capitalist law of value, living in a miserable shadow of the world we could have.

The EU Green Deal is green-washing, i.e. a sham. Chinese carbon emission reduction, however, is real.

Erosion

20.07.2026 /

According to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (8th edition) a conspiracy is “a secret plan by a group of people to do sth harmful or illegal”, eg.

a conspiracy of silence (= an agreement not to talk publicly about sth which should be made public)

According to the same source: a conspiracy theory is “the belief that a secret conspiracy is responsible for a particular event”.

I put to you that the Bilderberg group, the Trilateral Commission, the Mont Pelerin Society are all, and have long been, in a sense, conspiracies. In a sense, only, because we know they exist. But we don’t know exactly what they are up to. We suspect this, that and the other, and we are sure they are not just playing bridge.

That we are seeing a shift of power from elected to non-elected representatives, as in the EU, is not a conspiracy theory. It is a fact. What some people will want to call a conspiracy theory, however, is the hypothesis that power is increasingly being shifted to powerful corporations (mainly in the financial sector), the security state and the military industrial complex.

Branding a hypothesis, calling it “a conspiracy theory”, does not mean the hypothesis is wrong. It just means that there are those who dislike it.

The problem with hypotheses is that rather than meticulously testing them, some of us tend to believe them, to root for them. Belief, “faith”, is anathema to scientific method, it is true.

Nevertheless those of us who are not scientists in the empirical sense, have to make do with the tools we have: imagination, logic, observation and the facts that are available to us. Naturally, we will enthusiastically draw all sorts of erroneous conclusions, but some of our conclusions may well be spot on, in which case they risk being the sort of conclusions that will be disliked by the powers that be and that will be labelled conspiracy theories.

I would like to bring to your attention some interesting “notes” written by Nel Bonilla about what she calls the “Bunker State“. She defines the Bunker State as a regime that, facing systemic crisis, hunkers down defensively, militarising borders, suppressing dissent, controlling information, and — not least — warning about external threats in order to justify internal repression. Note, in particular, the section The Human Domain: “Security” applies not only to “enemy states” but also to unwelcome cognitive developments within the system.

You will no doubt be familiar with regulations pertaining to FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation & Interference), defined as

a multidimensional threat that lies at the intersection of national security, information integrity, democratic governance, and hybrid warfare.

War, in short, information war, not – I repeat NOT – against US disinformation or South Korean, Australian or German disinformation. Mind you, FIMI is not born of my imagination, or of that of Nel Bonilla, it is all there on your screen if you go and look.

Now if you happen to believe that FIMI aims to protect us from bad thoughts, ideas and “disinformation” for our own good, I put to you that much has been done “for our own good” in the course of the past decades that turned out to be anything but.

Take the statement “Water privatisation is a con.” Is that a conspiracy theory? Is it a hypothesis? Or is it a fact? And was water privatisation for our own good?

England (and Wales, but not Scotland) and Chile are the only countries in the world that have privatised water.
Now, finally, they know — the English people know — they’ve been had.

Better late than never? The damage has been done, it is true, but a lesson can be learnt.

FIMI regulations, however, or the equivalent are in place to prevent us from learning.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

17.07.2026 /

Mummy and Martha, 12 years old, are having a conversation.

­’Mummy, why are the Israelis killing people in Lebanon and Palestine?

‘Hm?’

‘Why are—’

‘I heard you.’

‘And?’

‘Well, you know, bad things happen.’

‘Not that bad. Not so many people.’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Nasreen started crying in class today. She said they’re killing everybody.’

‘Oh.’

‘So? Why!’

‘hm…’

‘WHY?’

‘Because they’re bad.’

‘But you said that very few people are really bad. You said that Dragan wasn’t really bad; he had just had a bad start.’

Mummy is asking herself why she has to deal with this kind of interrogation. When she was a kid, her parents would simply have told her she was “too young to understand”. She decides she should talk to the children’s teacher and ask what she recommends.

‘I’ll think about your question and reply tomorrow.’

Martha has learnt from her parents, that a wise person thinks matters over rather than making hasty decisions, so she respects her mother’s reply.

***

‘Mummy, have you now decided how to answer my question?’

‘What question?’

‘MUMMY, you’re being evasive!’

‘Now that’s a really nice word you just used. Very good!’

‘And now you’re tergiversating.’

‘Goodness gracious, who taught you that word?’

‘Freddy. He has this book “Difficult words”.’

Mummy is sincerely impressed. And she is indeed “tergiversating” because the children’s teacher had simply told her that what she told the children was that the conflict was complicated, that the Israelis were defending themselves, that bad things happen in wartime.

But Mummy cannot make herself repeat that litany to her smart daughter. Israel is committing genocide and her daughter will sooner or later know she is lying if she does.

‘MUMMY!’

‘Ok. Some people are really, really bad. There aren’t many of them, but those who are really, really bad tend to want to control as many other people as possible. The worst of them even make the people they control think bad thoughts and do bad things.’

‘But aren’t they afraid they’ll be punished?’

‘They are indeed. That’s just it!’

Mummy now sees a way out. She can, without lying, divert the issue to ground that is totally unfamiliar to her daughter:

‘You see, after WWII, the perpetrators of the truly heinous crime of genocide were tried in the so-called “Nürnberg tribunal”. If the Israeli leaders are tried in similar fashion, they will face death penalties and—’

Martha is no longer listening. But she is not defeated.

‘So why are the European leaders and Trump supporting Israel?’

Mummy is nonplussed. These kids, she reasons, know next to nothing about the two World Wars our parents and grandparent had to suffer, but they hear things. She decides to take the easy way out:

‘They are also afraid of another set of Nürnberg trials.’

Martha has been silenced. For now.

But Mummy knows there will never be another Nürnberg trial. She knows that the US is actually encapsulating evil into its very core. With the expected passing of the “Israel NDAA Provision Section 219” by Congress — effectively an act of treason by said Congress — the “really really bad people” will have won, once and for all. She knows what she cannot tell her daughter: There is no such thing as “justice”, at least not in the US of A.

Max Blumenthal and Dennis Kucinich explain section 219:

US-ISRAELI MILITARY MERGER

The Ukrainian tragedy

11.07.2026 /

In a recent post, written in Norwegian, I suggested that the roots of the ghastly war that is dismantling Ukraine stretch back to World War I, when they were to a large extent the result of external interference. That should not be a surprise to anyone. After all, then as now, major powers attempted to steer the geopolitical course of events in order to diminish the influence of competitors and hoping to be able to help themselves to new resources.

I should add that now as then, the powers-that-be are willing and able to constantly lie through their teeth. Being a competent liar is top of the list of “job requirements” for presidents/prime ministers and their henchmen. Remember Bill Clinton’s limpid blue eyes, “I never had…”?

As an aside, I believe that the general public’s inability to get our heads around the mendacity of our leaders is part of our problem here in Europe. We have almost all been inculcated with the commandment “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour” and/or that the Prophet Muhammad warned that giving false witness is one of the greatest sins. So we are helplessly discombobulated by the never-ending whirlwind of lies.

The Central Powers lied to their hapless Ruthenian subjects back then, and European leaders are lying to us now. We are defenceless, because we simply cannot fathom that “civilised people” can be so devastatingly cynical.

Some lies about the Ukraine war do admittedly get exposed. For example, Ivan Katchanovski has demonstrated beyond all possible doubt that the “Maidan massacre” was committed not by the “regime” but by coup plotters. The problem is that we are not only unable but also unwilling to believe we have been hoodwinked.

While exposing lies about the present requires endurance, exposing lies about the past requires the painstaking work of plodding though archives.

Since I wrote my previous post, a well-referenced article has come to my attention that does in fact reveal a great deal more than what I suggested. It is written by someone who is unabashedly Russian.

Born and raised in the USSR/Russia, I offer a Russian perspective grounded in archives, statistics, and objectivity—untangling Cold War propaganda and beyond.

The Root of the Ukrainian Conflict Or Did Lenin Really Create Ukraine?

The article is long (42 pages), but I found that every page was well worth the time I spent reading it.

Sinister experiments

07.07.2026 /

Yes, I had heard about experiments carried out on people. Mengele, of course. But also, alas, the CIA. I had sort of forgotten all about those CIA experiments; they were, surely, merely a brief aberration. I thought, maybe even “a conspiracy theory”.

I suspect that most people who have heard about them thought likewise. Actually, in Norway, we didn’t even hear about them at all. In general, US crimes against humanity have been cushioned by Norwegian media for as long as I have lived. For years, my only alternative source was Le Monde Diplo.

But I did hear about them, from William Blum. I just didn’t really believe them, not even from him.

But now we have seen to what extent the US constitution can be side-stepped not only as regards foreign policy, but even domestically. Maybe that is why this ghastly old issue has resurfaced. US citizens have lost faith in the US. And the creepy crawlies are coming out of the woodwork.

Few US Americans now implicitly trust the US judicial system, the US federal police, not to mention the United States Congress. The USA is suffering from acute osteoporosis; internal erosion of “trust”, i.e. of the entire structure.

Did Tyler Robinson kill Charlie Kirk? There are many reasons to doubt it. Who, then, killed Charlie Kirk and why? The very idea that the FBI might be framing a man is pretty extreme, no? Or have US Americans long since gotten used to such practices? Did Epstein kill himself? If not, the FBI would have been involved in the cover-up. Who fired the shots at Trump? Disastrous as Trump’s policies are, the idea that the FBI could somehow be involved in his attempted murder is blood-curdling. What about suspected gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan and Ukraine? And why does Netanyahu have a stranglehold on Trump?

In short, the USA seems to be descending into anarchy.

So it may not be a coincidence that now was the time that the House Committee on Oversight decided to set up a “task force” to re-examine MKULTRA. Not that I for a moment imagine that this will lead to any prosecutions or new revelations.

You can watch the video recording of the entire session: Committee on Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets: MKULTRA (starting at 16 minutes and 15 seconds).

Or, you could just read the 7-page written document submitted to the Task Force by the witness Tom O’Neill. I think it is well worth your time.

***

Who has greater control over a population? A King or a High Priest?
Take Thomas Becket and King Henry II: I put to you that Becket won in the long run.

Psychology is a very powerful instrument if used intelligently.

Pychiatry = psychology plus drugs = potential threat to personal integrity

The witnesses about MKULTRA admitted they could provide no evidence about the continuation of the programme. But they both very much doubted it had been discontinued.

After all, why on earth should we believe what powerful people tell us.

« Older posts

© 2026 Pelshval

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑