Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Category: Outlook (Page 1 of 6)

Sociopathy – past, present and future

05.12.2024 /

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?

Entertainment – past and present – a combative take

21.11.2024 /

The Romans offered ghoulish entertainment to the populace in gigantic amphitheatres – Colosseum alone (from 80 AD) held, on the average, 65,000 people. Yes, that was on average, I repeat, the number of those who went out of their way to see people and/or animals being torn to pieces. These were not mere “games” as we understand them; combatants did not get up and shake hands at the end of a fight.

Why such a morbid interest in violent deaths? I ask myself.

Later, and over the course of hundreds of years, we see the same fascination during the public hangings, burnings at the stake, decapitations and what-not that were conducted for the greater glory of God and/or his royal servants and later, during the French revolution, to liberate the populace from religious and royal oppression. Suffice it to read Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, to get an idea of how the thrilled populace rejoiced at every bloodied head that rolled to the ground.

Are we to understand, then, that humans are, when all is said and done, basically vicious; creatures who just barely conceal fangs under a veneer of “civilisation”? That was certainly not the view Dickens’s wished to impart. He took great pains to explain how the greater part of the population of Paris, indeed that of all of France, had been so mistreated and for so long that they essentially had lost their moral compass. Indeed, we know, too, that Roman slaves were mostly treated like insects. I guess that’s what is meant by the word “dehumanising”.

However, I doubt that slaves made up the majority of spectators at the gory events held all over the mighty empire to celebrate victories (or to gloss over defeats) in the spectacularly beautiful structures they themselves – the slaves – had built. (Slaves are believed to have made up no more than 25-40 % of the population of Rome.)

Could it be that treating people as insects is as dehumanising as being treated as an insect? After Spartakus’s revolt in 73 BC, 6000 slaves were reportedly crucified. Six thousand! One single crucifiction has been haunting us for over 2000 years. How many people must you crucify before your stomach stops churning? And what sort of creature are you then?

If you are a Roman official, say a quaestor, or a senator, you have people above you and below you, not to mention beside you and of course, there is always the top dog. People are being assassinated left, right and centre, by slaves, by wives and above all by competitors. Even the top dog gets assassinated from time to time, so your primary concern is not with morality.

To this day, structures built by Roman slaves are among the most beautiful of all structures built by humans in Europe. We have learnt, I am told by historians, a great deal from the Romans. Hence we have tended to adulate them, something I strongly regret because they celebrated, above all, conquest and expansion at all cost (including genocide). I put to you that what followed the Romans when their fundamentally unsound society imploded, was several hundred years of “dark ages”, not because Rome was gone, but because Rome had left a tabula rasa: Everything before them had been eradicated; culture, traditions, religions, languages… and peoples. (Historians will disagree with me. Let them! Look at the mess we’re in and tell me if learning from the Romans has benefited us in the long run.)

Like the Romans, the Nazis celebrated conquest and expansion at all cost. I am not the first person to ask: How much did most Germans know of what was being done to Jews and other non-Arians by their compatriots? I suspect that most people living in towns or cities will at least have heard rumours, many will have seen the sacking of shops, arrests, beatings and worse. But they will have refused to “know”. Intoxicated with patriotism and full of hope that their government would at last offer them better a better life, they will have wanted to believe that what they heard or saw were exceptions. (True, the propaganda apparatus was running at full throttle: Those wonderful new radios…)

But the perpetrators, the soldiers, SS people, etc: What were they made of? They left normal homes, beloved girlfriends, parents and younger siblings and set about burying people alive, setting fire to churches where whole villages had run for sanctuary. The viciousness of NAZI hatred of Slavs, Jews and others perceived to be of a “foreign race” was unfathomable. How was it possible?

I have no answer.

How is it still possible? IDF is following in the footsteps of the Nazis, even trying to outdo them. How much of the IDF atrocities is the Israeli public aware of? How much is the US public aware of? As for the rest of us: Are we doing anything – anything at all – to stop the US from supplying weapons to Israel. Are we boycotting the US? Are we even boycotting Israel? (True, the propaganda apparatus is once again running at full throttle, those wonderful social media…)

Are our countries in the West any better than Nazi Germany and Israel?

Information warfare

14.11.2024 /

Too many of my friends are telling me “I can’t bear to listen to the news. It’s all so horrible!” Indeed it is. But the only force that can stop any of this horror is popular opposition. Which is why, I regret, we must try to share information.

I’m not going to tell you what’s going on in Ukraine. I’m not going to explain to you why Russia’s “invasion” wasn’t an invasion, far less an “unprovoked” one. Nor will I explain to you that most US “sanctions” are (a) illegal, (b) more often than not, crimes against humanity and (c) counter-productive. I certainly will not explain to you how the perfidious corporate media has prevented us from hearing the truth about the Middle East. Finally, neither I nor my faithful computer will live long enough to be able to compile a list of all US crimes against humanity.

There are others who can do all that and much more with far greater expertise and insight than I.

I merely propose a list of some – I must emphasise the word – outlets that dedicate their efforts to debunking the prevalent lies about US foreign policy which European statesmen are lapping up as Biblical truths.

There are many outlets I am not listing; more and more of them, fortunately, and they tend to refer to one another, thereby promoting each other in a joint effort to challenge the official narrative.

The ones I include in my list are the ones I personally use the most. Some I enjoy simply because I like their style. Others impress me with the breadth and width of the information they impart. Others again are specialists in some or other field.

***

Consortium News: This a hub, as it were, a haven for many outstanding journalists who after years of service with prestigious news outlets, have opted to preserve their journalistic integrity in these difficult times of Newspeak and Doublethink (cf. the novel 1984). They are joined from time to time by professionals from various fields. For a long time I knew of no other outlet that squarely contested what I knew to be lies and fabrications about US “defence of Democracy and freedom”. CN has a relatively long and noble history as a lone wolf among hyenas. It is the first outlet I turn to every morning over my coffee.

Craig Murray is having a spot of trouble right now in Beirut, but he writtes wonderfully poignant but often also humorous commentaries.

Chris Hedges knows more about the Middle East than most.

Declassified: Is the UK turning into a police state?

The Duran: mainly about Ukraine

Glenn Greenwald: 1st amendment issues, defence of freedom of information, press iniquities

Glenn Diesen, professor of geopolitical economy, analyses the causes of the current debacle in the West.

Greyzone: investigative journalism mostly about the Middle East now, but also for instance about Honduras, Bangladesh, …

Geopolitical Economy explains for instance the nefarious effect of sanctions, but also about information warfare

Larry Johnson: (one of the VIPS – Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) offers insight into military aspects of US militarism. He also hosts and joins interesting conversations with people from other fields of expertise, e.g. Pepe Escobar.

Nima Alkhorshid / “Dialogue Works” hosts some impressive guests on his videos. I don’t follow him because I try to avoid Youtube to the extent possible

Colonel Wilkerson doesn’t have his own outlet, but he appears on some of the above. His knowledge is impressive, updated and precise, for instance on military aspects of the potential war on Iran

Finally, the list of US crimes against humanity is longer than you want to know, whoever you are. Most Norwegians love the USA. Most Europeans likewise, not to mention US Americans. All over the world US “Soft power” is not just an expression, it’s dynamite. We’ve been adoring whatever idols dominated the sound waves and screens for generations.

What we’ve been (and still are) reluctant to bear in mind was that while Elvis and Debbie Reynolds were doing their stuff, the USA was killing, killing and killing. And they have been doing so ever since. Killing. The USA is a killing machine.

I don’t write books. If I did, you wouldn’t want to read them. But you might be willing to see a documentary, and I would start with Oliver Stone’s “Untold history”? You will find “chapter 1″ here.

And I would go on to the late John Pilger‘s documentaries.

Dealing with controversy

22.10.2024 /

How you and I handle disagreements depends on how much the issue at hand means to us and on our surroundings. Most of us are reluctant to offend, to stand alone in a school yard at the start of life, to be excluded from the graveyard at the end of it. Cowardice, perhaps, but on the other hand, is it not wise to avoid being too confrontational? I have just these past few days found myself in a situation where I have had to have a good, long think.

Some issues mean so much to us that we are willing to lose friends, maybe even break with family. We might be willing to risk being ostracised, fired from work or kicked out of college. If I found myself living in the equivalent of a KKK community, for instance, would I not have to try to induce change?

My political education started when, as a small child, I was traumatised by the film “How to Kill a Mockingbird”. I took consolation in the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” which I read and reread a great many times, before I went on to Les damnés de la terre by Franz Fanon and Venas abiertas by Eduardo Galeano. That did it! Racism became, and is still, truly anathema to me.

Before I continue I should remind you that there is no such as thing as race within the human species. Look it up if you doubt my words. There are, however, differences in skin colour, religion, customs, etc. And since time immemorial, I suppose, powerful tribes – and later, powerful nations – have oppressed less powerful tribes/nations using pretexts such as the skin colour, religion, customs, etc. of the oppressed. The word “racism” should be understood, then, roughly as “ethnic exclusivity”.

We’re still at it!

So, back to my situation of these past two days: Is Zionism racist? Interestingly, I find no brief definition of Zionism online. Britannica, for instance, cleverly evades the ticklish matter of ethnic exclusivity. The clearest and most poignant answer comes from Israel itself, from the human rights organisation Btselem. If anybody deserves donations, Btselem does, donations and medals for bravery. Take a look at the short video https://conquer-and-divide.btselem.org/, while you’re at it.

So yes, Zionism is racist in its very essence. Far from all Israelis are Zionists, however, and far from all Zionists are Jews.

I once spent three years in a wonderful school in New York. My former classmates still stay in touch, send each other hurricane condolences, comments and greetings of all kinds. We have, naturally, all been taught to deeply revere the memory of Holocaust. So deeply have we revered it that we never mention Palestine or, for that matter, Israel. It has been a non-topic.

Until now. The bubble broke three days ago.

Somebody wrote: “I can’t bear this! People are being burnt to death in their hospital beds.”

For 24 hours, this dramatic message was followed by silence.

Then came the first response: “I have seen how cheaply and without value the lives of people who look like me and my children and grandchildren are held by my adopted country. Our government is funding, arming and providing diplomatic cover for Israel while it breaks every Humanitarian Law and every International Law of War.”

Then came a trail of responses, amongst them my own. Some thanked the bubble breaker for her “moral courage”.

But one person declared he no longer wanted anything to do with any of us any more. After his message, there were others who urged us to leave the matter in the name of friendship.

Frankly, I don’t much care for that particular approach. Why? Well, just as we condemn the Nazis’ Holocaust, there is simply no way for me to not condemn the ongoing Holocaust. But how?!

I offer this analogy: What if my former classmates and I had graduated in, say 1933, in Germany, yes, Germany. I had gone back to Norway, but had stayed in touch with one very dear friend by mail. Then the war broke out and Norway was invaded. In 1943, in spite of the war, I might have sent an unhappy letter to my former classmate and dear friend in Germany: “I have heard that Germany is exterminating Jews…”

How would I have proceeded? How to raise such an issue with a German friend in Germany at a time (1943) when my country is occupied by Germans whom I suspect are treating people with a certain religion as vermin?

I have never given much thought to the concept “reality” and I never understood why so many philosophers even doubt its existence. From my perspective, the thing I see gliding across the blue sky is surely a seagull, unless it is too far away to discern properly, in which case it might be a plane. It has never occurred to me that somebody else might be equally certain that it is a winged reptile or perhaps a drone, and that the sky is anything but blue. (No kidding: about eight per cent of all men are colour blind, as I learnt quite recently after having babbled at length about the beauty of a maple tree in autumn.)

And how do we rate seagulls: I think they are beautiful. There are others who loathe them because they “scream” and litter beaches. I doubt there are many people who would want to exterminate them, though.

So “reality” is truly a strange thing. Some people find it magical, particularly if they are in love. For my part, at 90 seconds to midnight according to the “doomsday clock”, I almost wish I, too, could doubt its existence.

Holding our breath

27.08.2024 /

It is not easy to gauge the political temperature in my country these days. Not easy at all. Corporate news outlets persist in doing what they are paid to do, which is to keep us in the dark.

We were told, yes, that Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan had been sentenced to a good many years’ imprisonment, but we were not told that this was a US-orchestrated regime change operation. We were told that the PM Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh was forced to resign due to violent demonstrations. We were not told that this was another US-orchestrated regime change operation and that India is now squeezed between two US puppet states. The USA is protecting us, defending Democracy.

Democracy? Well yes, if you consider votes cast by a blindfolded electorate watertight evidence.

While Harris et al. are gushing all over our screens and newspapers – opening a paper is akin to eating a pound of cotton candy – some of us ask ourselves whether WWIII will start in the Middle East or in Europe. Harris is “tough”, though, and will make no concessions. Bring ’em on, she seems to say. The bipartisan magazine Responsible Statecraft is not impressed. Harris appears to share the Neocon view, writes Jack Hunter, that

diplomacy could prevent war, their primary goal, so better to avoid it. A tried and true method in preventing diplomacy is to accuse anyone who wants it of siding with America’s enemies.

In contrast, the magazine Foreign Affairs reassures its readers with the article “What Was the Biden Doctrine?”:

… it is clear that the past four years have witnessed remarkable achievements in foreign policy…the active pursuit of diplomacy… demonstrating a grasp of the traditional elements of statecraft…

How many Europeans read Foreign Affairs? How many Europeans read Responsible Statecraft? I have absolutely no idea. One thing is pretty sure though: Our own mainstream media is likely to parrot the former rather than the latter.

Last night I joined a few old friends for a drink down town. I know they still follow the mainstream news outlets, the news outlets they have been taught to trust as “objective”. For some mysterious reason, “objective” is seen to be synonymous with “neutral”, at least in this country. If the reporter claims to be – and convinces the reader that he or she is – “neutral”, i.e. neither left-wing nor right-wing, most Norwegians believe she will be more likely to “objectively” discern what is good (or correct) from what is bad (or disinformation), than if she is strongly opposed to mainstream policies.

You will have noticed that I did not provide any link to Foreign Affairs. I believe that the agenda of most Foreign Affairs contributors is continued US global supremacy at all costs, an agenda I strongly object to. So you are right to assume I am anything but “neutral”.

My friends knew that I have not been neutered (pun intended). They know I am angry. But I love my friends, so I have learnt to shut up, and since they love me, they allow me to keep my peace. We do not discuss foreign affairs. Period. As for domestic affairs, the so-called “objective” and “neutral” press is mostly interested in the Norwegian Royals’ domestic problems and my friends are as indifferent to the Royals as I am. So I wonder: What do my friends really make of the “news”, all told?

Last night, I informed them that Associated Press had reassured me that the cat Sam had been reunited with his mistress (name not given by AP) after 11 years’ painful separation. My friends raised ironical eyebrows and retorted that the Norwegian press, on the other hand, was currently devoting most of its attention to the circus of the upcoming US elections. I interpreted this as an expression of dissatisfaction with the Norwegian press.

And since most of us in this country are very distressed about the vicious extermination of all fellow human beings from Gaza, I thought it might be safe to comment that from the few surviving Palestinians’ perspective, at least, it did not matter who became president, since AIPAC gives generous “donations” to both candidates and will make sure that Netanyahu gets what he wants regardless. “No US president can ever refuse whatever the Israeli government asks for,” I declared and received blank stares in return.

What did those blank stares express? I don’t know, because I did not press the point.

I assume my interlocutors still firmly believe that Putin is a new “Hitler”. After all, that is what they’ve been told day after day, just as they’ve not been told about AIPAC and FARA.

On the other hand, many people have learnt to appreciate Aljazeera over the years as an addition to N.Y. Times. Many also know Palestinian refugees living here. Finally, a growing number believe that what has been going on in Gaza has surpassed, in sadism if not in scale, Holocaust itself. Finally, the USA has made no attempt to conceal that they have sent billions and billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and other military aid to Israel over the past year. Yes, team Biden says they want Israel to stop the mass killing of defenceless human beings, but words have decisively been contradicted by facts. And weapons and military support are definitive facts.

So do my friends believe that the USA is not complicit in the ongoing genocide? And if we insist on using the Hitler-analogy, who is then the modern-day Hitler?

We are being kept in the dark. Yet even in the dark, a person might see the red-hot metal of distant burning tanks and smell the distant human flesh. Even in the dark, we can hear sirens.

Overwhelmed and overpowered

19.07.2024 /

The “West”, meaning the USA and their coterie of client states are currently engaged in two wars, in Ukraine and in the Middle EAst.

Most of us who live in US client states in Europe were knocked out of our political lethargy when we learnt that Europe was at war again “for the first time since WWII” (forgetting that we – NATO – bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999, effectively destroying Yugoslavia).

We have also recently witnessed unimaginable horrors in the Middle East, starting on October 7, 2023. We were at first told that Israeli babies had been beheaded, after which we witnessed Israeli retaliation to a degree that nobody could deny was disproportionate. I know for a fact that many of us have often wept over the news on Aljazeera.

Now, we have gotten used to the idea that we might well be on our way into a new world war, in which “tactical” nuclear weapons will most likely be used. We have gotten used to the idea that a ferocious attempt is being made to exterminate the Palestinian people, and we see that those who rule the countries we live in are “aiding and abetting” Israel’s viscious crimes in a number of ways.

We recognise that there is absolutely nothing “we”, citizens of the client states, can do about either of these situations within the framework of “Democracy” as it has been defined for us. Voting for the “left” or the “right” makes no difference, demonstrations and protests lead nowhere but to a few arrests and business as usual. So we are for the most part silent.

Cynics may tell you that the reason we are silent is that the entertainment value of the two wars has flagged.

My view is different: Lethargy is not a sign of boredom but of impotence. I believe that “democracy” is no more than a buzzword used for propaganda purposes in “the West”, to emphasise the distance between “us” and “them”. It is not a reality. At least not in Europe or the USA.

For the umpteenth time, I urge you to read 1984 by George Orwell.

***

For me, the Eureka moment came in the wake of a very slow process. Anyone who has followed what I have written here since 2008 will see that I have come a long and disheartening way.

I have been a slow learner, alas. I was lazy in school, and had mediocre marks. I was sincerely polite to my teachers, some of whom I liked very much, and I never ever considered rebellion of any kind. As I grew older I became somewhat more academically competitive, though never to the point of wanting to break the sound barrier.

In 1986, when US bullies took it into their heads to bomb Libya – just like that – I was, however, outraged, shocked beyond words. I had somehow missed the part in our curriculum according to which the USA may bomb whoever / whatever / whenever it wants to. I was milking the cows, I remember, and I heard the news on the radio in the cow shed. There was no interrupting the routine with the cows and I had to go on milking them in spite of my rage, so I actually composed almost the only poem I ever made, and a melody too, which I hissed again and again until my chores were done.

At the time, I was a Newsweek subscriber, and I considered myself a well-informed person. But as I now know, the US press is the least recommended bulwark against ignorance. At any rate, studies, work, kids, etc. caught up with me, and then Clinton took over, “at last”.

Everybody knew, at the time, that the Republicans were the ones who wanted to ban trade unions, bomb communists to kingdom come, and kill blacks. So I knew that the Republicans were “bad”. Bear in mind that designating somebody as “bad” tends to mean there must be a “good guy”.

None of us were taught in school to fiercely distrust “bad guy / good guy” narratives. (They still don’t teach that, not in school and certainly not in the media.) Above all, we were none of us taught to be wary of media framing.

Only much, much later, not least thanks to a wonderful US documentary – Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job – did I realise that Clinton was much to blame for the terrible 2007-2008 financial crisis that rocked the world. Yes, the entire world suffered heavily. And Clinton was behind the bombing of Yugoslavia, too, in Europe, in 1999.

But Clinton played a decent trumpet! And he had a disarming smile. I am guilty as charged: I found him charming. I found Obama charming, too. Charm has been the Democratic party’s ticket to the White House. We blamed the Republican Party for all that was wrong in the USA. We? I! I was blind. I believed in good guys versus bad guys.

Mind you, already in 2014, I read Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, all of It! A very polite, quietly precise firebomb of a book. I even read the sequel Capital and Ideology (2020). I should have seen the full picture then. Still, the pieces to the puzzle didn’t quite fall into place until the conjunction of the Ukraine war and the Gaza war. What then became more than obvious was:

Rule of Law is b-s.!

Meanwhile, the 12-year political imprisonment of Assange (without a trial!) while the press tirelessly peddled US propaganda and suppressed dissident views, has demonstrated that

Freedom of the press in the West is b-s.

Democracy, however, is not b-s, but truly something worth fighting for. What we have here and now, though is not Democracy; it’s a fraud. Counting pieces of paper in a ballot box every four years is a fairly expensive way of masking that citizens of Western countries have no say whatsoever about what happens to their society.

We, the defrauded citizens want to believe we are being governed for our own good, with wisdom. Had I been a psychodynamic therapist, I would have posited that we – all human adults – long for the continued guidance of a loving parent. Alas, our “parents” do not have our interests at heart but their own. The continued guidance – be it Republican or “Dem”, be it Labour or Tory – serves the single purpose of perpetuating, one way or another, status quo, the rule and continued enrichment of the oligarchy.
























































Literature – letter to a king

04.07.2024 /

I am currently reading The Years, Virginia Woolf’s last novel, published in 1937. Actually, I bought the book accidentally, in French, mistaking it for Ernaud’s Les Années.

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse happen to be among the very few books I have read twice. Having dutifully read some 20 % of The Years in French, I therefore decided that even the French language cannot do justice to Virginia Woolf’s beautiful prose. So I bought the book in English, too.

I haven’t finished it. Superb literature is often like a box of chocolates – you don’t want to eat more than “two or three” at a time – but I already consider this novel superior to the two she is best known for, because it delves deeply into the nature of society itself. I will not go into detail, since this blog is not, after all, about literature.

Why do I speak of it then, The Years? Because in it, Woolf mentions a hero, Parnell, presumably Charles Parnell, reviled and adulated. I had to look him up .

At the time, I have just learnt, the press was very keen to trumpet certain aspects of his private life. But we now know that he was a formidable opponent of “landlordism” and “British misgovernment”.

…within two decades absentee landlords were almost unknown in Ireland. He created single-handedly in the Irish Party Britain’s first modern, disciplined, political-party machine. He held all the reins of Irish nationalism and also harnessed Irish-America to finance the cause. He played an important role in the rise and fall of British governments in the mid-1880s and in Gladstone’s conversion to Irish Home Rule.

Wikipedia as at 4 July 2024

Reading about him reminded me that often – very often – we don’t realise until after a person’s death how much we owe him or her. Parnell was only 45 when he died.

Assange might well have died just 10 years older, had he not been released in the nick of time. That does not mean that we can forget all about him, though. On the contrary, it is vitally important that we examine and understand what Wikileaks revealed. Only by knowing the world we live in can we change it for the better.

Of course you have heard of and probably even seen the video footage “colateral murder”. It it is merely the tip of an iceberg.

In 2019-2020, a series of 9 (or 10) articles attempted to summarise what Wikileaks had revealed. There is a shortcut to the story:
Marjorie Cohn’s recent analysis Here’s What He’s Given Us.

Or: If you wish to go to the sources, here’s from the horse’s mouth: Wikileaks .. the lot

As for Julian Assange’s own literary output, his letter to King Charles (dated 5 May 2023), may perhaps serve as an example.

The hero and the villain

30.06.2024 /

Team Biden eventually considered it expedient to offer Assange a filthy plea deal. Do I thank them? Certainly not, though like everyone else, I’m relieved that the barbaric mistreatment of Assange has come to an end. So are, I suspect, Biden’s few remaining supporters.

Please note that even Associated Press (AP) comments the public’s distrust of their rulers in the USA and the UK. As we have seen in the recent “European elections”, such distrust is widely shared throughout much of Europe. Why? Well, the media are full of confounding explanations – naturally – that’s what the media do for a living: confound us. I prefer the explanation given by the comedian George Carlin back in 2005. Some things never change.

I put to you that “a constitutional state” is one in which governmental power is firmly and consistently constrained by the law. The Assange case has patently demonstrated the subservience of the British judiciary (i.e. Law) to Government. This is all the more striking since the latter (Government) is that of a foreign country, the USA. In short, the case has effectively demonstrated that the US and the UK are not constitutional states, and the UK is hardly even an independent one.

That US presidents and their teams care naught for “rule of law”, except as a tool to subjugate other nations, should come as no surprise to anyone. That concepts such as “justice”, “fairness” and “due process” are secondary, in the USA, to personal ambitions was clearly demonstrated in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, which rewarded those who had made the crash happen with impunity and struck down the millions of victims in poverty and despair.

What is relatively new to some of us is the incestuous relationship between government and the corporate media. Even AP has noticed: “Nearly three-quarters of American adults blame the news media for dividing the nation.” Just so. Perhaps US citizens have grown wise to the collusion between e.g. the N.Y. Times and the currently ruling set. Will Times loyalties shift when a new master enters the White House?

In Norway, middle-aged people still subscribe to and read daily papers. The rising cost of living has not yet strangled their budgets or their confidence in the authorities. Younger people however, are wading in deeper water. Heavily indebted, they are so fearful of the future that they are reluctant to make babies. The suicide rate is rising.

My favourite news outlet was the Guardian. I repeat: was. I pretty abruptly stopped following the Guardian at about the time Assange was kidnapped by the British police. Why? Because the Guardian had been subtly vilifying Assange, suggesting this, that and the other. I ascribed the character assassination to shame: The Guardian had disclosed Cablegate encryption passwords and was thus the direct root of the US claim that Assange had jeopardised lives. So the paper had to imply that Assange was not worth any tears. That is what I thought back then.

Now, however, I see there may be another source of depravity in the above-mentioned incestuous relationship between governments (in plural) and the media: Keir Starmer. Yes, he is my villain for today: It is very likely that he plotted with the US authorities to destroy Assange’s life and his reputation.

We don’t know, of course, exactly what went on during the meetings between the Starmer delegations and their US counterparts during his visits to the USA in 2009–2013, because the relevant minutes – from all four trips – were allegedly destroyed, which in itself is pretty damning (admittedly circumstantial) evidence. But there is no doubt that Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) from 2008-13. And we do know that Starmer is not a “gentleman” when he feels like, for instance, getting rid of a political competitor. Moreover, Starmer was then, and is still, masquerading as a “Labour” politician.

So yes, I believe Starmer is a villain. And he will no doubt be the next PM of the UK. He will presumably treat the Guardian kindly for past and future services.

As for the hero, need I tell you?

I missed the jokes

29.06.2024 /

I am not and never have been in thrall to US entertainment, so I never heard the late comedian George Carlin. To be honest, I might not have appreciated him back then (he died at the age of 71 in 2008) because I was not partial to foul language. Now, of course, thanks to rap, the F-word, the P-word and S-word tend to occupy 40 % of many people’s polite conversation, so I’ve stopped noticing.

Thanks to Glenn Greenwald, I have just been introduced to a taste of Carlin’s acerbic humour. Not just a taste: I was instantly mesmerised and spent the better part of the afternoon digging up Youtube clips of his angry diatribes.

I case you haven’t heard George Carlin, and in case you don’t follow Glenn Greenwald on Rumble (in which case you are missing an extremely eloquent source of lots of well-referenced information) I am pasting, below, a Youtube clip of “You have no choice”. The sound clip has been embellished with animation. You may or may not approve. Moreover, it skips the previous part of Carlin’s talk, presumably because that part ridicules not only obesity but makes rather cruel fun of obese people. You will find it, however, searching for Carlin HBO 2005 Life is worth losing. And I must shamefully admit it is hilarious. But here is the part “You have no choice”.

The inscrutable ways of the brain

27.05.2024 /

Climate and ecology activists, e.g. in Extinction Rebellion, are often bitterly accused of moralising. The rest of us, all who do not follow their rigorous precepts, are made to feel we are an abomination to the planet.

I am certainly not innocent in this context. Although far from being an activist, I tend to consider all but basic consumption morally reprehensible, and you may have noticed how I refer to Norway’s former prime minister, Mr ProudRock and his ilk. After all, I’m only human, and if I feel that somebody has committed treason, I refuse to apologise for being very angry.

On the other hand, I know perfectly well that neither anger nor for that matter any other emotion helps solve the crisis at hand. Only a conscientious examination and a level-headed analysis of the situation will yield sensible solutions.

I happen to know somebody who has taken part in atrocities under Mr ProudRock’s command, committed war crimes, that is. Yes, that person is actually a very dear friend of my family. Notwithstanding his participation in war crimes, he is one of the most gentle-mannered people I know. His generosity verges on self-effacement and his willingness to care for the weak and disabled far outshines that of most people I know, certainly mine. How does he do it, I wonder?

The one-word answer to the question popped up at once in my mind: “Compartmentalisation”.
“Compart- what?” was the next thought. Is that a word?
Well, it must be, since I used it.
Does it mean what I feel it means?

I looked it up. Yep, compartmentalisation, on the dot. Exactly what I thought it meant … “to avoid cognitive dissonance”.

Now I am not going to pretend that I invented the term all over again. On the contrary, I must have heard or read the word so often that I actually stored it. I will even have come across a definition of sorts, probably on several occasions, and stored that too. I just didn’t know it, because neither the unwieldy word nor even the concept was of any use to me.

Until now, when all of a sudden, the word was eminently useful, pin-prick accurate, in fact.

Our dear friend has compartmentalised his life. And my friends, who almost all fervently clamour for more weapons to Ukraine, must believe that I am compartmentalising too. After all, what I defend with regard to Ukraine (inter alia a cease-fire in Ukraine and a negotiated long-term end to the war – be it cold or hot – between Russia and the USA/EU) is deemed morally reprehensible, though most people consider me relatively decent in other respects.

The ways of our brains are indeed inscrutable.

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