Tag: greed

Christmas has always been a time of make-belief. Never more so than now. Here in Oslo we have tried our best to pretend that all is normal, although there is no snow on the ground, although Trump has been threatening to occupy our neighbour Greenland and Venezuela, and although the genocide of Palestinians is continuing unabated.

I spent Christmas day with adult family – no tree, no red, green or gold baubles – what a relief! There was a fire burning in the hearth, though, which is consistent with our fantasies. And we had a delicious meal of baked trout.

For psychiatrists, police officers, mental health workers and MDs on duty over the Christmas holiday, there is nothing festive about those days and never has been. For a large number of people, the discrepancy between fact and fiction is vast. Consider the classical scene: In a block of flats, somebody starts screaming on the third floor, really screaming – man or woman – enraged, delirious. The entire neighbourhood tries to overhear the violently hurled threats, turning up the volume of the TV’s rendering of “Adeste fideles“.

There is nothing new about this.

What is new is that the screaming is heard not only from the third floor but from “our friends” in the EU, Santa Ursula and her lot. Meanwhile, our most prized “ally” with its 12 military bases on our soil was engaging in piracy in the Caribbean, so there is no reason to doubt it might make good on its promise to “take” Greenland too.

Even Norwegians, whose intake of real news is blocked in all mainstream media, get the uncanny impression that there is evil in the air, lacing the scents we have treasured for centuries: cinnamon on baked apples, cardamom in raisin bread, cloves on legs of ham, sage in turkey stuffing, or maybe rosemary for those who prefer lamb, not to mention the scent of a wood fire and of spruce. Christmas has always been a glorious festival of scents.

This year, we celebrated Christmas with an orgy of desperate consumption, as though fearing it would be our very last, and who knows: maybe it will be. If Mertz, Starmer and Santa Ursula have their way – certainly if they succeed in killing Putin – we will be embroiled in all-out-war with Russia within minutes. And that is what they want, because then the US will have to defend us, or so they hope. And then, they hope, Russia will be crucified.

Of course Mertz, Santa Ursula and Kaja Kallas won’t be sent to the front to fight. They will send us – European citizens, as they have sent Ukrainian citizens – to the meat grinder. WWI all over again. Have we not learnt?

Alas, “we”, European voters, are denied information and are hence unable to make “informed decisions”.

I have not seen “proof” that Norwegian media have explicitly been subjected to press censure . However, the very fact that there has been absolutely no discussion in the press about our military and economic support to the corrupt regime in Kiev is highly suspicious, to say the very least.

Dissent in Norway is suppressed not with criminalisation, not yet – true – but by other means, which I do not have the instruments to analyse, except that I note that social media are also used to discredit dissenting views. Those who attempt to question the official narrative in the press are instantly and viciously smeared. No arguments are offered, just defamation. Weird and definitely Orwellian.

Were those poor dead Ukrainians really fighting for Democracy? For liberty?

Some people say it’s all about ingrained ancient “Russophobia”. I do not entirely agree: I maintain it’s not least about money. The rich and powerful thought they could easily put Ukraine and the frozen Russian billions in their pockets by riding on the backs of the ultra-nationalist Western Ukrainians. They were mistaken and now they are desperately indebted.

The US is trying to extricate itself, while the EU leaders and Starmer are digging in, deeper and deeper. Desperate.

So desperate are they, that they are starting to clap sanctions on European journalists and writers. Without even being charged, let alone tried, even the eminent military analyst Jacques Baud has seen his bank accounts and sources of income frozen and is banned from travelling because he has dared publicly doubt the official narrative.

Russophobia is merely a tool used in the media by the powers-that-be to legitimise their awful campaigns, now as in the past.

Most wars are about money – greed, if you will – just as much so as the financial crisis in 2008. So is the Ukraine war. So is the rape of Venezuela. Greed and lust for power. Money is the conduit for power.

Moneys are running out and power is slipping, in Europe as in the USA. Basically, the US dollar is increasingly understood for what it is, a Ponzi scheme. This charming piece explains why. (If you prefer to skip the introductory charm, search in the text for the sentence: Watch how it plays out in real life.

Incidentally, the writer even explains the fallacy of “the growth mindset”. The more people understand this, the sooner the Ponzi scheme will collapse.

So the USA and the EU need new moneys. They need them bad, so bad that they are willing to break any rule and to expose themselves for what they are: unscrupulous totalitarian predators.

Today, we wake up to learn that the chief predator is on the kill in Venezuela. He wants Venezuela’s oil (money) so he can keep the Ponzi scheme going. My country’s press basically holds its breath and says nothing. The global south, however, notes once again: Yep, that’s Western “Democracy”.

Happy New Year, guys and girls.
This promises to be quite a ride on a dangerous carousel.

Painted by Thrandur Thorarinsson