Scandinavian observations and perspectives

[Aeneas]

When reading the last transcript, the situation in Scandinavia came to mind. Christians will likely soon be chased out of their home countries and a caliphate will take the place. This could even happen through the ballot box.

It appears to be coming closer to fruition as the following article shows:

Controversy-Addled Pro-Islam Party Sets Sights on Swedish Parliament

The Nuance Party founder, who was expelled from the Centre Party over alleged contacts with Turkish nationalists the Grey Wolves, admittedly wants to recruit several fellow Muslim outcasts, who had to resign in acrimony.

sputniknews.com

Controversy-Addled Pro-Islam Party Sets Sights on Swedish Parliament
© Sputnik/ Mikhail Voskresenski
EUROPE
10:13 13.09.2019Get short URL

The Nuance Party founder, who was expelled from the Centre Party over alleged contacts with Turkish nationalists the Grey Wolves, admittedly wants to recruit several fellow Muslim outcasts, who had to resign in acrimony.
The newly started Nuance Party (Partiet Nyans), which was established in order to promote Muslim interests in Sweden and will be formally launched on 22 September, hopes to gain ground locally and is pinning its hopes on the 2022 general election.

According to party founder Mikail Yüksel, who was expelled last year from the Centre Party over alleged contacts with the Turkish nationalists, Grey Wolves, a group labelled a “security threat” in Sweden, the party is likely to join the municipal council in Växjö, where up to a quarter of the population are immigrants.
Meanwhile, local divisions will be launched in Sweden's main cities, such as Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, and Örebro. The main goal is to enter parliament in 2022.
Among other things, the Nuance Party, which bills itself “the party for the country's suburbs”, seek to make Islamophobia a crime and designate Muslims as a special group with minority status in the Constitution.

However, Yüksel, who has described himself as “a practising Muslim, ethnic Turk, and proud Swede”, doesn't want to lead the party himself. Instead, he would like to concede the chair to former Housing Minister Turkish-born Mehmet Kaplan, a Green Party heavyweight and the first Muslim to become a cabinet minister in Sweden, who in 2016 was forced to resign over a dinner with the Grey Wolves.
“Mehmet Kaplan is perfectly cut out for the job as party leader for the Nuance Party. He has experience working in government and parliament”, Yüksel explained to the newspaper Lokaltidningen.

Yüksel would also like to employ another controversial Muslim politician, Yasri Khan, who is also an outcast from the Green Party. Khan, at that time seen as a rising star, quit all his assignments with the Greens after refusing to shake hands with a female journalist, citing his religious beliefs. Yüksel has described Khan as a “good person”.
Interestingly enough, Yüksel has denied having any Islamist connections himself. By his own account, it was the Grey Wolves who sought cooperation, which he rejected.

Earlier, Yüksel spelled out his standpoint in an opinion piece in the daily newspaper Aftonbladet.
Among other things, Yüksel blamed the establishment for “failing the multicultural society”. He also identified “populism” and “xenophobia” as the roots of evil in Swedish society.
“Growing populism with xenophobic rhetoric leads to all established parties approaching each other with a copy-paste policy from the xenophobic forces that are spreading in our society. Liberals are no longer liberals and socialists are not socialists”, he claimed, pledging to step aside from the established ideologies and rejecting that idea that Nuance was a Muslim-only party.

Owing to Sweden's liberal immigration policies of recent decades, the share of immigrants and their descendants has increased from virtually non-existent to about a quarter of the population of 10 million. The percentage of Muslims has been estimated at over 8 percent or 800,000.

---
Regarding the Grey Wolves from wikipedia:

The Grey Wolves are a Turkish far-right ultranationalist organization. They are commonly described as ultranationalist and/or neo-fascist.
[...]
Established by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş in the late 1960s, it rose to prominence during the late 1970s political violence in Turkey when its members engaged in urban guerrilla warfare with left-wing activists and militants. Scholars have described it as a death squad, responsible for most of the violence and killings in this period.

One can easily imagine that there will be certain outside forces, who would be happy to support such an organisation as the Grey Wolves and a political party affiliated with it, so as to create more chaos in Europe. The strategy of tensions comes to mind.

A strategy of tension (Italian: strategia della tensione) is a policy wherein violent struggle is encouraged rather than suppressed. It is usually associated when governments, or security apparatuses within a government, allow or even encourage extremist groups to perform attacks, bombings, murders, and the like. In extreme circumstances, it can even involve agent provocateurs and false flag operations where a terrorist threat is outright invented or created. The goal in such strategies is that such a struggle will rally support behind the military or police forces opposing the radicals, to radicalize opposing movements so that they can be better marginalized, or to permit loosely allied extremist groups to attack enemies of the government. As few organizations would openly say that they are pursuing a strategy of tension, accusations generally come from opponents that such a strategy is being pursued.

The wikipedia entry about the strategy of tension is not translated into the Scandinavian languages. Purely a coincidence?

 

[Ca.]

Sweden's Spread of Explosives Stuns US Police Boss

As one of Sweden's most-read daily newspapers noted, gangland violence has reached a level that “instills terror” across the country. Both the shooting and blast curves have been pointing upwards for some time now.

sputniknews.com

09:41 18.09.2019
As one of Sweden's most-read daily newspapers noted, gangland violence has reached a level that “instills terror” across the country. Both the shooting and blast curves have been pointing upwards for some time now.

To combat the growing number of deadly shootings and escalating gun violence, the Stockholm police has launched a collaboration effort with the New Jersey State Police Department in hopes of introducing new crime-tackling methods.

While Expressen, one of Sweden's most-read daily newspapers, noted that gangland violence has reached a level that “instills terror” across the country, former New Jersey State Police chief Rick Fuentes, and now an expert at Rutgers University, admitted that he is not accustomed to such a level of crime. Fuentes found the prevalence of explosive attacks particularly disturbing.

“I haven't seen a single grenade attack [in the US]. It has not happened. We have not seen the use of explosives when it comes to murders and injuring people, it has just not happened. It is a level of violence that we have not seen”, Fuents told Expressen.

Fuentes explained that it is much more difficult for the police to deal with violence involving explosives, stressing that gun violence is easier to handle. Nevertheless, he found the spike in serious gun violence in Sweden “worrying”.

In recent months, several major explosions have occurred in Sweden, most notably in Linköping in summer and in Lund this past weekend.

According to Fuentes, part of a simple and cost-effective solution is to speed up forensic analysis by conducting various investigations in a single place. Fuentes stressed that laboratories specialising in firearms have reduced processing time from ten months to a mere 48 hours. The data is promptly sent back to the investigators, which allows the perpetrators to be quickly identifed and removed from the streets.

“We saw a 30 percent reduction in shootings in some cities, especially Newark”, Fuentes said.

At present, a single arms investigation takes the Swedish National Forensic Centre up to 150 days. Waiting periods of this scope must be significantly shortened, according to Stockholm Police chief Ulf Johansson.

Deadly violence linked to gang conflicts has risen sharply in Sweden in recent years. So far this year, 214 shootings have occurred, killing 29. 2018 set a dismal record with 306 shootings and 45 dead. The year before, 43 were shot dead in a total of 324 shootings.

The number of blasts is also increasing. In the first half of 2019, 120 blasts occurred, compared with 83 last year. A total of 162 blasts were reported in 2018.

Not sure how accurate this tweet is statistically.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1173895660766224384

Miscellaneous:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1173355381361266688

https://twitter.com/x/status/1174247186046996480

https://twitter.com/x/status/1170916115410821120

 

[thorbiorn]

“I haven't seen a single grenade attack [in the US]. It has not happened. We have not seen the use of explosives when it comes to murders and injuring people, it has just not happened. It is a level of violence that we have not seen”, Fuents told Expressen.

The US is far away from the places, it has felt the need to bomb, and the US has the highest prison population in the world per 100,000 people, 655 according to figures from 2016, while in Canada it is just 107.

Maybe the Scandinavian countries should do like the US. The numbers of prisoners in Scandinavia ranges from 59-63 per 100,000 inhabitants or about 10 times less than in the US. Of these the amount of foreigners, is 22% in Sweden, 31 % in Norway and 29 % in Denmark, while in the US the amount of foreigners was 5 % in 2014, which in absolute numbers translates to 5 % of 655 vs 30 % of 60 or 33 vs 18.

In the case of Denmark more police would be needed to keep up with the trends, as they have clocked a huge amount of overtime. Also more people at the courts, but this they won't get, however the number of prosecutors will not be cut as planned, since there are now in late 2019 more than 47,000 cases that are more than six month old, (four times more than in 2016) and in these many cases it has not yet been decided if there is even going to be a court case or not. This situation with delays means that the people guilty do not get sentenced, because the cases become so old that the involved and especially accused parties can successfully argue that they do not remember details. At the same time the prisons are full to the brim and housing more than their capacity.

It is also clear from the above number of pending cases in Denmark, that if the rate of processing cases was better many more would be having sufficiently fresh evidence to deserve a sentence for their crime. By not allocating the funds needed to deal with the pending court cases, the Danish state saves money, the citizens ends up paying costs including the burden of fear and damages, while criminals are protected by the inefficiency.

Since people generally when moving from one place to another do not become much better, and since the descendants of immigrants frequently are more lost than the previous generation, although there is a group of notable exceptions that ambitiously work to get to the top in for instance medicine, law or finance, then what surprise can there be in Denmark or in Sweden? To get a perspective on the situation in Scandinavia, one can take a look at the prison population statistics in other countries while keeping in mind that in Scandinavia it is around 60 per 100,000 inhabitants.
In England and Wales there are 140 prisoners per 100,000 ,
Poland 196,
Finland 51 of which 17 % are foreigners
The Netherlands 61,
Germany 77,
Switzerland 81 of which 71,5 % are foreigners!!!
Estonia 187,
Latvia 195,
Lithuania 235
France 106 with 22 % being foreigners,
The Russian Federation 373,
Ukraine 157, but they apparently released a lot in 2014 if they would go and fight in Donbass, as in 2013 it was 324 per 100,000.
Belarus 343.
In Romania it is 107 but if the Romanians sitting in prison in other European countries were in prison in Romania, it would be higher I think.
Italy 101 of which 33 % are foreigners!
Outside of Europe:
Turkey 318
Morocco 234,
Israel 234,
Saudi Arabia 197,
Jordan 163.
Lebanon 126.
Iraq 126,
Iran 294,
Pakistan 43,
Afghanistan 88
Libya 99,

Reading these numbers gives an idea that within Europe there is a lot of variation and outside of Europe too. Many of the countries where people have come from have much higher prison populations per 100,000. Scandinavia has a low rate but in all countries foreigners, make up a disproportionate part of the prison population.

One wonders if the Scandinavian politicians really believe they can convert immigrants to their version of society. What if they asked for some local experts in the justice systems of the countries where the refugees and immigrants come from or neighbouring countries with high prison rates who have gone through a period of economic decline and social collapse in some sections of society.

 

[thorbiorn]

I commented on parts of the following quote in a previous post, but there is more, along with reflections on the frequency of explosions in Copenhagen and Sweden and in the middle a comment, rather long, about the inventor of dynamite and his remarkable pacifist acquaintance from Austria.
Why more explosives are used in Sweden?

While Expressen, one of Sweden's most-read daily newspapers, noted that gangland violence has reached a level that “instills terror” across the country, former New Jersey State Police chief Rick Fuentes, and now an expert at Rutgers University, admitted that he is not accustomed to such a level of crime. Fuentes found the prevalence of explosive attacks particularly disturbing.

“I haven't seen a single grenade attack [in the US]. It has not happened. We have not seen the use of explosives when it comes to murders and injuring people, it has just not happened. It is a level of violence that we have not seen”, Fuents told Expressen.

I looked it up, but it is true there does not seem to be many cases of explosives being used in criminal acts in the US. Perhaps one reason is that weapons are more easily available in the US. Maybe also in the US explosives are not considered efficient, or they are thought to get one into bigger troubles with the law. Another reason might be that homicide rates are higher in the US, around 5, than in Scandinavia, where it is around 1 per 100,000, thus potential trouble makers end up in prisons or dead before they make it to the stage of thinking of producing explosive devices. One last check of the law and potential prison sentences in the US shows that there are federal regulations that insures people get some serious time behind bars, if explosives are possess or used outside of what they are supposed to be used for. In Europe on the other hand, there are many people people who participated in the US promoted disturbances in the Middle East on the side of Islamic State etc. and in that environment some know how to work with explosives.

Intelligence analyst: Sweden is moving toward internal conflict
In a Swedish newspaper there was an article by a professor of intelligence analysis, who according to a review says that Sweden is on the path of Lebanon and the Balkans that were destroyed from the inside by internal conflict. In the part of the article that I can access and have translated with the help of a machine there is the following.

The shootings in Sweden - Agrell: We must act to save the country
It is the destructive dynamics of the internal armed conflict that we must pay attention to and fight against, writes Wilhelm Agrell.
Society's monopoly of violence, the very hallmark of a sovereign functioning state power, has been carved out bit by bit and no longer exists. Armed criminal violence has effects that are more and more similar to terrorism, writes senior professor Wilhelm Agrell.

Published 2019-09-13
Agrell: We must act to save the country
Serious social threats can either take the form of sudden and obvious events or emerge more gradually and creepily. The sudden progress can come as a surprise and more or less take society on the bed, but also the gradually emerging threats can have the same effect. Society here does not perceive what is going on, looks back instead of forward and seeks protection for too long behind a sense of continued normalcy. Too little and too late is the saying that describes the consequences. The trivialized, difficult to grasp or too unlikely threats will not be subject to safeguards until afterwards, as they may already be overplayed, as with the much too late measures against the flow of volunteers to IS.

Sweden has suffered from increasing and more serious criminal violence. This development is not new but was long considered a local order and security problem. The changing criminal violence can be described by statistics but is also reflected in increased concern among politicians, government officials and large civic groups.

From Sweden to Denmark and the source of explosives
Two Swedes have been arrested in connection with a bombing of the tax office in August, mentioned earlier. The surnames of the suspects reveal they are more like Swedish immigrants.

Ekstra Bladet's research shows that the 23-year-old - like the already arrested 22-year-old - lives in the Malmö area, where he worked for a car dealership.

He is formerly politically active on the left, where he has also set up a party.

He was convicted of violence a number of years ago, Ekstra Bladets research shows.

Both are covered with name bans.

Malmö is 45 km from Copenhagen.
One the Wiki about bombings in Sweden they say that:

According to police authorities, many of the hand grenades used are weapons which originate from the Yugoslav Wars.[5]

A few of the sites that have been attacked can be seen here. One source also said that for some explosions stolen industrial explosives are used. Stolen industrial explosives makes one think of dynamite, invented by Aldred Nobel, who could deserve a paragraph, also to enliven these posts with tales of misdoings with a historical perspective.

A note about Alfred Nobel and his friendship with the Austrian pacifist, Bertha Suttner
In and odd way the popularity of explosives in criminal circles in Sweden resonates with the fact that the inventor of dynamite was the Swedish inventor, chemist, engineer, industrialist and philantropist Alfred Nobel. The Wiki has:

Known for inventing dynamite, Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments.
[...]
During his life Nobel was issued 355 patents internationally and by his death his business had established more than 90 armaments factories, despite his apparently pacifist character.[4][12]

Alfred Nobel in his testament instituted the Nobel prize, including the Peace Prize. It has been said that this was in no small measure due to the persuasive influence of Bertha von Suttner that for a few weeks was his housekeeper and secretary in Paris in 1876 and with whom Nobel corresponded until the end of his life. Bertha von Suttner was a poor but well educated Austrian nobel lady who later became a leading force in the European movement for peace prior to world war one. One biographer writes and quotes from the will of Alfred Nobel:

The Peace Prize is to be given "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for the fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding of peace congresses." These are the very activities the Baroness has been sending Nobel information about in her reports on the peace societies. For the leading peace activists disarmament would be a consequence of peace rather than a road to peace, but Nobel may have been thinking of the title of her novel, "Lay Down Your Arms."

Since Nobel does not tell the Baroness about either of these two wills, she keeps on trying to convince him. Just two months before he signs the will which is to establish the peace prize, the Baroness writes to him expressing her hope that her letters will awaken an echo of sympathy not for the author, but for the work which is dear to her: throw all these little papers into the wastebasket, but keep in the depths of your heart a voice which says to you: here is a woman, who in spite of the indifference and opposition her ideas encounter, perseveres in her task, and a woman who has confidence in me.

Then, some news, still one more invitation to come and visit, and she concludes, "So, quick into the wastebasket!" (26/9/95). On 28 November she writes the last letter, which he would have received before he died on 10 December. She lists all her accomplishments which his financial support had made possible, saving the Rome Congress, establishing peace societies in Vienna, Berlin and Budapest, and getting the International Peace Bureau started.

Then, still knowing nothing about his final will, she implores him still again: Give a lever to Archimedes and give a million to our Bureau; it will lift up the world. Also, this is what I beg of you, my hands joined in supplication, never withdraw your support from us --- never, not even from beyond the grave, which awaits us all.

Nobel's last letter to her, written only a few weeks before his death, is witty and mocking as usual." I, who don't have a heart, metaphorically speaking, I do have such an organ, and I feel it." He says that he is delighted to see the progress which the peace movement is making, and he pays tribute to those, like herself, "who chase away prejudices and shadows." He signs in English, "Heartily yours" (21/11/96).

Perhaps if one wishes to understand Sweden, one might need to consider the influence of Alfred Nobel, that is remembered every Autumn when the Nobel Peace Prize is distributed, although it actually is decided in Norway, since Norway was in union with Sweden during the life of Alfred Nobel and until 1905, the same year Bertha Suttner received the Nobel Peace Prize. But still is it possible that the institution of the peace prize has meant something for the Swedish claim to military neutrality? And how they have dealt with the influx of refugees and immigrants. It maybe a remark from the sideline of history, but if one reads some pages of the book Lay Down Your Arms by Bertha Suttner, from 1889 then she was a fan of educated, civilized, rational people; she would disagree with the violent use of one of the many inventions of her Swedish friend Alfred Nobel. In the day of Bertha Suttner, there was the issue of Zionism, according to Suttner, she was was against anti-semitism but was not in favour of efforts to create a Zionist state, she believed in assimilation, but her husband became an Zionist. A biographer writes about the situation:

Arthur turned into a convinced Zionist. Bertha was far more lukewarm in her reaction to Herzlís Zionism, though she tried to help him when he sought an audience with the Russian Tsar. She recognised that Herzl was trying to create a better world. But she regarded nationalism as the arch-enemy of peace. Rather than encouraging the creation of a Jewish state, Bertha leaned towards assimilation as a solution to the Jewish question. This was also a reflection of her confidence that a new breed of Europeans, committed to liberal ideas and peace, were certain to emerge and triumph. She touched on these ideas in a couple of her later novels.

May one in the above bolded statement have her solution to the Swedish problem of today? But what would she think about the Zionist state had she lived long enough, or the calls and actions to establish a caliphate like administration in a country like Sweden? She would probably not have sympathy for these policies. In her last years she could feel the possibility of avoiding a war in Europe were decreasing, and in fact the final actions that led to WW 1 actually began within ten days of her passing. It reminds one of the statements of the previously mentioned Intelligence analyst that predicts the situation in Sweden (and one could mention others) at present favors a state of internal conflict that can not be easily resolved. It seems to me Bertha was too much of an idealist to come up with a solution as to how to solve a situation that has already gone violent, it is fine to say put down your weapons which she repeated as if a in delerium during the last hours of her life, maybe having glimpsed what was coming, but not everyone is going to do that. In the case of Sweden it is clear who has not put down their arms, and explosives we might add. Next is some data for 2019

Explosions in Malmö and Copenhagen in 2019
The Danish State Radio and TV network mentions that criminal elements with money hire lower level criminals to carry out the explosions.
So far this year, there have been 19 explosions in Malmö:

In Copenhagen, there have "only" been 11 explosions in the same period. Berlingske has a map:

Recently a temporary so-called visitation zone was established, as private gang members had begun to do armed patrols in their own area of control. The most recent explosion on 24th September 2019 was on Amager (nr 11 above), that is between the Copenhagen City Center and the airport. All the medias wrote about it and the police issued a description of the suspect, but the medias removed or left out the part saying "of Middle Eastern appearance". The last is of course interesting and increases the chances of not being found by 10 or 20 times, but is there a lawyer that tells the papers or state TV and Radio that correctly identifying a problem is discrimination or that no intellectual discrimination will create no problem or that problems can be solved without brains or by being ignored. The Swedish professor of intelligence analysis pointed out this is not the case and it bears repeating:

Society here does not perceive what is going on, looks back instead of forward and seeks protection for too long behind a sense of continued normalcy. Too little and too late is the saying that describes the consequences.

 

[thorbiorn]

A couple of challenges for the educational systems in some areas of Sweden and Denmark
There are challenges and they are not only academic. A teacher wrote an article about the situation in the schools around Stockholm as she has experienced the development since she began teaching in the 90'ies. And one from Denmark! The expressions of abuse are similar, but the one from Sweden is overall worse. Another school in Sweden looking for solutions to their problems tried out a method to handle the growing violence and social disturbances, but after half a year the students had taken even more control of the school, the method did not work as intended and teachers have become afraid of passing groups of students in the hallways. One wonders if some schools actually need a police officer, as has been common in the US.

Teachers are expected to be unprejudiced and inclusive. Indeed there is a lot to be inclusive about, accepting abuse, threats, violence, of course such behaviour is not encouraged, but that does not make it go away, and besides social skills among humans, an article from Sweden claimed:

The torture of animals is a widespread cultural custom in the Middle East based on ignorance and fear of animals. Therefore, it is important to educate and inform new arrivals about the Swedish view on animal welfare, says the debater Naima Bahnam Johansson.

Is part of the problem that too many avoid arguments? It seems traditional Scandinavian culture is prone to avoid arguments, at least if one is to believe a guide to culture, where they mentioned

Literally the basic premise of Scandinavian film culture is people repressing their emotions and sitting quietly by the fireplace – that’s how little Scandinavians love arguing. What an American, or a Southern European may consider a “lively debate”, a Scandi will probably consider “an awful fight” and think you’re not friends anymore. So cut them some slack and don’t force them to pick sides on a subject when they don’t feel comfortable doing so. [...]

Or is part of the problem for the teachers and the system that employ them that they are too trusting

October 16, 2009
A new study suggests that Norwegians are the most trusting, or naive, in Europe. Only 10 percent are considered to be in general “skeptical” of other people, after four out of five questioned said they think most can be relied upon.

The latest results from the European Social Survey, funded by the European Commission, placed 77.2 percent of Norwegians in the “naive” category. Next came the Danes, at 77.1 percent, followed by the Finns at 72.6 percent.

The three Scandinavian countries ranked in the top five of those considered most trusting (Sweden placed fourth at 66.5 percent), while those who are the least trusting of others came from Bulgaria (19.1 percent), Poland and Russia.

The survey questioned residents of 30 countries to measure levels of trust and skepticism.

 

[thorbiorn]

In Postmodern thinking of millennials Laura Knight-Jadczyk quotes from and comments on passages from Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes by Andrew M. Lobaczewski. These excerpts are meaningful when trying to understand what is happening in Scandinavia, mentioned in previous posts, including how political thinking partially influenced by postmodern thinking and millennialism helps to set up af system that is inadequate for handling the challenges at hand in a manner that can prevent the problems foreseen by analysts:

Society here does not perceive what is going on, looks back instead of forward and seeks protection for too long behind a sense of continued normalcy.

Too little and too late is the saying that describes the consequences. The trivialized, difficult to grasp or too unlikely threats will not be subject to safeguards until afterwards, as they may already be overplayed, as with the much too late measures against the flow of volunteers to IS.

Next the excerpt from the post

Following are a few snips from Ponerology on the topic:

Information selection and substitution

: Unconscious psychological processes outstrip conscious reasoning, both in time and in scope, which makes many psychological phenomena possible: including those generally described as conversive, such as subconscious blocking out of conclusions, the selection, and, also, substitution of seemingly uncomfortable premises.

We speak of blocking out conclusions if the inferential process was proper in principle and has almost arrived at a conclusion and final comprehension within the act of internal projection, but becomes stymied by a preceding directive from the subconscious, which considered it inexpedient or disturbing. This is primitive prevention of personality disintegration, which may seem advantageous; however, it also prevents all the advantages which could be derived from consciously elaborated conclusion and reintegration. A conclusion thus rejected remains in our subconscious and in a more unconscious way causes the next blocking and selection of this kind. This can be totally harmful, progressively enslaving a person to his own subconscious, and is often accompanied by a feeling of tension and bitterness.

We speak of selection of premises whenever the feedback goes deeper into the resulting reasoning and from its database thus deletes and represses into the subconscious just that piece of information which was responsible for arriving at the uncomfortable conclusion. Our subconscious then permits further logical reasoning, except that the outcome will be erroneous in direct proportion to the actual significance of the repressed data. An ever-greater number of such repressed information is collected in our subconscious memory. Finally, a kind of habit seems to take over: similar material is treated the same way even if reasoning would have reached an outcome quite advantageous to the person.

The most complex process of this type is substitution of premises thus eliminated by other data, ensuring an ostensibly more comfortable conclusion. Our associative ability rapidly elaborates a new item to replace the removed one, but it is one leading to a comfortable conclusion. This operation takes the most time, and it is unlikely to be exclusively subconscious. Such substitutions are often effected collectively, in certain groups of people, through the use of verbal communication. That is why they best qualify for the moralizing epithet “hypocrisy” than either of the above-mentioned processes.

The above examples of conversive phenomena do not exhaust a problem richly illustrated in psychoanalytical works. Our subconscious may carry the roots of human genius within, but its operation is not perfect; sometimes it is reminiscent of a blind computer, especially whenever we allow it to be cluttered with anxiously rejected material. This explains why conscious monitoring, even at the price of courageously accepting disintegrative states, is likewise necessary to our nature, not to mention our individual and social good.

Basically, it amounts to people creating narratives that make them feel good if reality isn't to their liking. It reminds me of a sort of joke that was passed around in the welfare agency where I used to work which had a department that dealt with people suffering mental issues: "Neurotics build castles in the air; Psychotics move into them."

It's one thing to neurotically avoid anything unpleasant, another to categorically deny the existence of what you don't like.

If a child is brought up from infancy being taught that their rights/ beliefs/ perspectives are perfect and wonderful, and they are entitled to them no matter what, they are basically being programmed to believe that their "personal reality" is more important and real than REALITY that exists independently of them. These are children who have never been told "NO", who have never been required to suffer the consequences of their behavior, who have been bailed out repeatedly by "helicopter parents" who can't bear the idea that little Bobby or Susie might ever be frustrated in the least.

During “good” times, the search for truth becomes uncomfortable because it reveals inconvenient factors. It is better to think about easier and more pleasant things. Unconscious elimination of data which are or appear to be inexpedient gradually turns to habit, then becomes a custom accepted by society at large. Any thought process based on such truncated information cannot possibly give rise to correct conclusions; it further leads to subconscious substitution of inconvenient premises by more convenient ones, thereby approaching the boundaries of phenomena which should be viewed as psychopathological.

Such contented periods, which are often rooted in some injustice to other people or nations, start to strangle the capacity for individual and societal consciousness; subconscious factors take over a decisive role in life. Such a society, already infected by the hysteroidal state, considers any perception of uncomfortable truth to be a sign of “ill-breeding”. J. G. Herder’s iceberg is drowned in a sea of falsified unconsciousness; only the tip of the iceberg is visible above the waves of life. Catastrophe waits in the wings. In such times, the capacity for logical and disciplined thought, born of necessity during difficult times, begins to fade. When communities lose the capacity for psychological reason and moral criticism, the processes of the generation of evil are intensified at every social scale, whether individual or macrosocial, until they revert to “bad” times.While visiting Upper Austria in 1978, I decided to drop in on the local parson, who was in his seventies by then. When I told him about myself, I suddenly realized he thought I was lying and inventing pretty stories. He subjected my statements to psychological analysis, based on this unassailable assumption and attempted to convince me that his morals were lofty. When I complained to a friend of mine about this, he was amused: “As a psychologist, you were extremely lucky to catch the survival of authentic Austrian talk (die oesterreichische Rede). We young ones have been incapable of demonstrating it to you even if we wanted to simulate it.”

In the European languages, “Austrian talk” has become the common descriptive term for paralogistic[1] discourse. Many people using this term nowadays are unaware of its origin. Within the context of maximum hysterical intensity in Europe at the time, the authentic article represented a typical product of conversive thinking[2]: subconscious selection and substitution of data lead to chronic avoidance of the crux of the matter. In the same manner, the reflex assumption that every speaker is lying is an indication of the hysterical anti-culture of mendacity, within which telling the truth becomes “immoral”.

[1] Paralogism: n. illogical or fallacious deduction. paralogical, paralogistic, a. paralogize, v.i. be illogical; draw unwarranted conclusions. paralogist, n. [Editor’s note.]

[2] Conversive thinking: using terms but giving them opposing or twisted meanings. Examples: peacefulness - appeasement; freedom - license; initiative - arbitrariness; traditional - backward; rally - mob; efficiency - small-mindedness. Example: the words “peacefulness” and “appeasement” denote the same thing--a striving to establish peace, but have entirely different connotations which indicate the speaker’s attitude toward this striving toward peace.

More on "Austrian talk" mentioned above in this post Postmodern thinking of millennials
In the following long article there is more on political ponerology Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes -- Sott.net

 

[thorbiorn]

If the VAT fraud case metioned below was about 800 million dkr or more than 100 million Euro, then the value must have been something like four times more. It is not know how much of this was destined for financing terrorism or IS equipment. In any case unknowingly Danish tax payers support Islamic State by financing those that support them and one could add more or less knowingly judging from other cases by not speaking up in those cases when the NATO military end up fighting the Syrian Government forces that fight IS. It seems nothing has changed.
Nyheder 24 timer i døgnet - seneste nyt - jp - jyllands-posten.dk has

Suspected fraud is part of a terrorist investigation about drones destined for the Islamic State.
PROFESSION - 01.10.2019 AT. 20: 30
An expert wonders why no one has been prosecuted for terrorist financing in the alleged VAT fraud cases.
JETTE AAGAARD, MATIAS SEIDELIN, NIELS SANDØE
A number of companies in an alleged VAT fraud network owed to the state up to 800 million. kr., is now directly linked to the purchase of material for the Terrorist Movement Islamic State.

This is happening in the so-called drone case, where three men have been charged with sending inter alia.a. drones to the Islamic State.

One of the companies in the network, an internet cafe in Frederiksberg, was according to the prosecution supplied the cameras, which should be forwarded to the terrorist movement. At that time, according to the tax authorities, the company had already been part of a Million-Dollar VAT merry-go-round. At the same time, it was linked to an alleged VAT fraudster who, according to police intelligence, is now most likely dead in Syria as an IS warrior.

In addition, one of the defendants in the drone case, according to the prosecution, ordered 250 gas mask filters for sarin gas. The money for the gas masks was paid from a bank account belonging to a known Syrian warrior who shared address with a director in four of the companies in the supposed VAT fraud chain.

The bank account was registered at the private address of the director in the northwest borough of Copenhagen.

This shows a map carried out by the Jutland business medium Finance and the information daily sheet compared to information provided by the public prosecutor's office at hearings this week.

The new information, terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp from the Forsvarshøjskolen in Stockholm to wonder why no-one has been prosecuted for terrorist financing in the supposed VAT tax fraud case.

"This is a lot of money. And it is money that the Danish taxpayers have paid, " he says.

Søren Engers Pedersen, VAT expert at Baker Tilly, accounting firm, believes that, in the light of the case, the authorities need to get up to speed to catch the alleged VAT fraudsters.

"You have to be highly organized to be able to commit VAT fraud on that scale. Those who are behind it, know how to build VAT fraud chain, and, unfortunately, go away with it, because the authorities do not intervene before the money is gone," he says.

The prosecutor in the case of Kristian Kirk has refused to comment on the case.

In the absence of a verdict, the names of the defendants have been anonymised. The defendants plead not guilty.

 

[Aeneas]

Today there is an op-ed in RT about how Sweden chooses to ignore the violence in their country and thinks more about their image.

No, Sweden, hand grenade attacks aren’t an ‘image’ problem

Stockholm was shaken by three explosions in one night last week. But the blasts didn’t even make headlines. With violence rising, the country’s government seems more concerned with downplaying the problem instead of tackling it.

www.rt.com

No, Sweden, hand grenade attacks aren’t an ‘image’ problem
27 Oct, 2019 06:23 / Updated 31 minutes ago
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Police and criminal technical investigators look at a burnt car near the area of a shooting in Ribersborg, August 2019 © Reuters / Johan NIlsson


Stockholm was shaken by three explosions in one night last week. But the blasts didn’t even make headlines. With violence rising, the country’s government seems more concerned with downplaying the problem instead of tackling it.

Three explosions in one night would be front page news in any first-world city. But when Stockholm reverberated to multiple blasts in one night last week, national broadcaster SVT’s nightly broadcast was silent, relegating the news to its web coverage instead. One of the targets, a Syrian Orthodox church, had already been bombed twice in the past year.

But in Sweden, explosions no longer make the news. In 2018 there were 162 bombings reported to police, and 93 reported in the first five months of this year, 30 more than during the same period in 2018. The level of attacks is “extreme in a country that is not at war,” Crime Commissioner Gunnar Appelgren told SVT last year.

The use of hand grenades is a purely Swedish phenomenon too, with no other country in Europe reporting their use on such a level, a police manager told Swedish Radio in 2016, a year after attacks first spiked.
The grenades used almost exclusively originate in the former Yugoslavia, and are sold in Sweden for around $100 per piece. But while only three hand grenades were thrown in Kosovo between 2013 and 2014, more than 20 have been used in Sweden every year since 2015.
More broadly, homicide has risen in Sweden, with more than 300 shootings reported last year, causing 45 deaths. Though homicide rates had been in decline since 2002, they again began trending upwards in 2015, as did rapes and sexual assaults, which more than tripled in the last four years.

FILE PHOTO: Goran Mansson, head of Malmo's bomb squad, displays unexploded grenades found in the city in 2015 © Reuters / Elias von Hildebrand

Of course, 2015 was also the year in which Sweden flung open its doors to more than 160,000 asylum seekers, more per capita than any other European country. The right have blamed these newcomers for the rising rates of homicide and sexual violence, and Denmark’s former Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Swedish television last year that he often uses “Sweden as a deterring example” of mass immigration gone wrong.

What would any country in the throes of a crime wave do? In Sweden’s case, the government and media have launched a concerted campaign to downplay the problem.

In February 2017, a month after a hand grenade was lobbed through the window of a police station in Katrineholm and days after another exploded in Södertälje, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs put out a press release debunking “simplistic and occasionally inaccurate information about migration, integration and crime in Sweden.” In it, gun crime was portrayed as a consequence of “criminal conflicts” and rising sexual violence attributed to a change in the definition of “rape” in Swedish law. The grenade attacks weren’t mentioned, and the claim that the government isn’t doing enough to stamp out crime was dismissed.

The publication rubbished the link between immigrants and crime. However, a recent study from the Swedish Defence University has warned that the Swedish justice system is ill-equipped to police the parallel societies developing in immigrant neighborhoods, and newspaper Dagens Nyheter pointed out that 90 percent of shooting perpetrators in Sweden are either first or second generation immigrants.

Swedish police have identified 50 neighborhoods it considers “vulnerable” – a term many have taken as a euphemism for “no-go zones.” In tackling crime within them, the government has come up with some novel solutions, like implementing a ‘grenade amnesty’ last year, and kindly asking residents of violence-plagued Malmo to “stop shooting” each other.
Neither measure seems to have worked.

Still, the government would seemingly rather Sweden be associated with IKEA and social cohesion than immigrant gangs and grenade attacks. After all, admitting to the crime wave would undermine the supposed success of the Nordic model, and suggesting that it may be connected with immigration would call into question Sweden’s self-righteous status as a “humanitarian superpower,” as former Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom described the country in 2015.

To that end, the government has not ordered a police crackdown in crime-stricken neighborhoods or held a national debate on integration. Instead it has launched a PR campaign to fix Sweden’s tarnished image abroad. The Swedish taxpayer funds the operation of the Swedish Institute to the tune of nearly $50 million per year. The institute is a sort of in-house PR agency that “promotes interest in Sweden around the world.”
Among its projects are English-language videos downplaying the country’s newfound reputation for crime, and the @sweden Twitter account, which spends its time literally telling critics “nothing has happened here in Sweden.”

https://twitter.com/x/status/833116704138022914

@sweden

✔@sweden
· Feb 19, 2017

Might as well do a stand along tweet about this... Since I'm being swamped with questions about Trump's speech.

@sweden

✔@sweden

No. Nothing has happened here in Sweden. There has not ben any terrorist attacks here. At all. The main news right now is about Melfest. ->

1,511
1:55 AM - Feb 19, 2017
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1,236 people are talking about this

https://twitter.com/x/status/835531636737462272

Sweden.se

✔@swedense
https://twitter.com/swedense/status/835531636737462272

You think that Swedish police have lost control? The ‘no-go zones’ are in fact ‘go-go zones’. #FactCheck



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5:47 PM - Feb 25, 2017
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More than 14,000 journalists, authors and politicians have been blocked by @sweden for asking difficult questions, among them Israel’s ambassador to the country. However, the account’s curators reversed course when some online media kicked up a stink.
“The truth is that we are a country that gives the rest of the democratic world hope,” Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lövin said last January, weeks after grenade attacks in Malmo, Stockholm and Gothenburg. In Stockholm, an elderly man died when he picked up an unexploded grenade near a metro station.

Meanwhile, with paramedics, firefighters and postmen refusing to serve high-crime immigrant neighborhoods, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven publicly denied the existence of ‘no-go zones’. Stockholm Police Chief Erik Åkerlund told Swedish Radio a year earlier that 50 neighborhoods identified by police as “vulnerable areas” were “more like ‘go-go zones.’”

Less than a week after Åkerlund’s interview was aired, a man was hospitalized when a grenade ripped the facade of a house apart in Lindängen, a suburb of Malmo added to the list of "go-go zones" that year.

Call them what you will, but zones characterized by bombings, shootings, and an atmosphere that forbids essential services from entering without police escorts are no-go zones. Endemic bombings are the hallmark of countries at war, not countries that give “the rest of the democratic world hope.” And “humanitarian superpowers” should at bare minimum ensure their own citizens – native and immigrant – are protected against hand grenade attacks.
Sweden does not have an image problem. Sweden has a crime problem.
By Graham Dockery, RT

 

[Aeneas]

Some Swedes see the potential problems ahead. Scania is a Swedish company and the former CEO speaks on what he sees:

Former Scania CEO Warns of Upcoming Civil War in Sweden

According to Leif Östling, former CEO of one of the world's leading truck manufacturers, immigration has spiralled out of control and has placed Sweden on the brink of “internal wars”, where military force may be needed to quell unrest in...

sputniknews.com

Former Scania CEO Warns of Upcoming Civil War in Sweden

According to Leif Östling, former CEO of one of the world's leading truck manufacturers, immigration has spiralled out of control and has placed Sweden on the brink of “internal wars”, where military force may be needed to quell unrest in migrant areas.
In a lengthy interview with SwebbTV, the former Scania CEO has claimed that the arrival of new migrants poses severe integration problems and may have drastic repercussions for the Swedish economy and society as a whole.

“Now this is a simple question there, and it's because we've taken in far too many people from outside. And we did. Those who come from the Middle East and Africa live in a society that we left almost a hundred years ago”, Östling said.

Leif Östling described Sweden as an “incredibly complicated society”, suggesting that a “knowledge transfer” is required, but will take at least a whole generation. Östling cited his own experience of dealing with non-Swedish immigrants during his time at Scania, when manufacturing processes were much simpler, as opposed to today.
“Today we have so much more sophisticated processes. And these are very difficult for these people to absorb and understand. We had a number of Somalis in Oskarshamn. It was close to a hundred. Not everyone managed. Partly because you had to arrive on time, and they weren't used to it. Partly due to team work, they were not used to it either. Of the hundred, only ten were able to stay. The rest went out into unemployment again”, Östling said.
Östling also stressed migrants' criminal proclivities, which he ascribed to stemming from completely different living conditions and norms.
According to Östling, more business executives share his views, but they are more cautious about expressing themselves publicly so as not to hurt the company. He stressed that orderliness is crucial for companies, as well as for societies in general.
“Those who fail to embrace order and to settle down over time will fall apart and collapse”, Östling said.
According to Östling, it is nevertheless possible to fix Sweden's problems within a decade.

“We must get it right. If this continues, we may end up in an uncontrolled situation where internal wars will erupt and we may be forced to deploy our military in these so-called vulnerable areas”, Östling said, alluding to dozens of heavily segregated no-go zones rife with crime and lawlessness. He also stressed that time is scarce to solve the problems.

74-year-old Leif Albert Östling led the Scania AB truck company for many years. In spring 2016, he was appointed chairman of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, a post he later left in November 2017, after it transpired that he had placed money abroad to avoid Swedish taxation. His comment “Here, you pay 20-30 million a year, what the hell do I get for the money?” went viral. Later, Östling said that the expletives were the only thing he actually regretted.

---------------

He mentions that it is possible to solve the crisis, but that time is scarce. Looking at how the Swedish leadership prefer to ignore the problem or outright deny that it exist, then the current trajectory is likely to continue.

If one looks at the how the Syrian situation unfolded, then the government was totally unprepared and also unprepared to use force to quell the foreign backed regime change; a regime change that exploited discontent in certain parts of the population. By the time the Syrian government took up arms, the opposition had already gotten well entrenched, which almost became detrimental for the government which suffered big losses. For those interested in creating chaos then Syria has been a test case. How many no-go zones and bombings will there have to be before Swedish authorities respond? The fact that Sweden sees itself as a humanitarian superpower infested by the postmodernist malaise and does not help.

 

[Aeneas]

Looking at how the Swedish leadership prefer to ignore the problem or outright deny that it exist, then the current trajectory is likely to continue.

Apart from thinking that no-go zones and bombings is purely an image problem, then Sweden actively encourages immigrants:

Civil war or bright future? Sweden beckons more migrants with ‘land of benefits’ website as ex-Scania CEO predicts grave conflict

Sweden is beckoning even more migrants with a government website advertising its generous benefits system, while the former CEO of automaker Scania warns that a glut of foreigners is pushing the country toward civil war.

www.rt.com

Sweden is beckoning even more migrants with a government website advertising its generous benefits system, while the former CEO of automaker Scania warns that a glut of foreigners is pushing the country toward civil war.

Sweden.se, a government-run website, entices migrants to make the journey north and details the benefits they can receive. Boasting the world's longest parental leave (though most new arrivals from the Middle East and Africa remain unemployed), Sweden also offers free health and dental care to immigrants, as well as sizable child allowances – which the website calculates for a family with six children.

The site, operated by the Swedish Institute (SI), is available in four languages – English, Chinese, Russian, and Arabic. While the English version offers the usual tourism-industry listicles on "10 Swedish myths uncovered" and "20 things to know before moving to Sweden," the Arabic version prominently features sections on benefits, acquiring work permits, and the rights of the child (including the right to education in their mother tongue).

Already, some 94 percent of migrants who came to Sweden in 2015 to seek asylum take state benefits, according to Swedish news outlet Aftonbladet, a situation which has nearly bankrupted municipalities like Bengtsfors and Filipstad. With almost 420,000 asylum seekers arriving in the country since 2011 - and a total of over 920,000 immigrants - the country, with less than 10 million inhabitants, is struggling to accommodate the new arrivals.

One can imagine that if nothing changes then in a few years, Sweden will find itself socially, politically, religiously, culturally and financially similar to the countries from where the immigrants originally escaped from.

 

[Voyageur]

“The truth is that we are a country that gives the rest of the democratic world hope,” Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lövin said last January, weeks after grenade attacks in Malmo, Stockholm and Gothenburg. In Stockholm, an elderly man died when he picked up an unexploded grenade near a metro station.

"a country that gives the rest of the democratic world hope," after reading the above article, jesus, this Deputy PM is smoking crack along side his meal of hope.

I also get that Sweden has some strong powerful families who are now investing heavily in AI - Wallenberg Foundation, for instance, and suspect not much happens in Sweden politically without a nod from these interest.

Whatever Sweden's future trajectory is, unless I'm missing a whole rose garden, and with this post whereby you brought up strategia della tensione aka the 'strategy of tension,' it is certainly not looking good.

I've some family friends from Sweden and you never hear a thing from them other than the wonderful social state news. It is all happy all the time.

 

[Ursus Minor]

Denmark Approves Russia's Nordstream 2 Project

Manfred Weber of the European People's Party (EPP) will try to block the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline if he becomes the next President of the European Commission, the German told Polska Times in an interview published on April 23, 2019.

“I am against this project. It’s not in the interest of the European Union,” he said. “As the head of the European Commission, I will use all available laws to block Nord Stream 2,” the German centre-right European People’s Party candidate told the paper.

His position goes against that of the German government, which has supported the construction of the pipeline project spearheaded by Russia’s state energy firm Gazprom, in part due to the economic benefits it can bring.

➡ Manfred Weber wants to block Nord Stream 2

What could be in the interest of the European Union? Maybe delivering natural gas?

Ukraine is strictly against the project but doesn't belong to the EU. Poland used to be (or still is) against Nord Stream 2, but has since decided to buy liquefied natural gas from the U.S. hoping for discounts on LNG's higher prices.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Danish counterpart, Jeppe Kofod, discussed the situation around Denmark's permit for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline’s construction in the country's territorial waters when they met in New York in September.

➡ Sputniknews


The US suffers a political loss here, along with Poland and Ukraine, who have been trying to kill the Nordstream 2 project despite its huge investment and having a consortium of EU company partners building and distributing the gas.

The US plan to have the EU buy more expensive LNG when the entire infrastructure distribution would take years to build and money that no one had a budget for, never made any economic sense to the EU.

The Nord Stream 2 project is about building a twin pipeline that could deliver around 55 billion cubic metres of gas directly to Germany and other European countries. The pipeline for carrying Russian natural gas to Europe is set to pass through the territories of Denmark, Finland, Germany, Russia, and Sweden.

Interestingly, Manfred Weber who was earmarked to become President of the European Commission didn't do well by resisting Nordstream 2, one of the favorite projects of Angela Merkel who has a history of ousting anybody that gets in her way.

There must have been quite a tug of war before the Danish Energy Agency permitted the construction of the pipeline to go on, with the Trump administration as well as Putin and Merkel probably having leaned heavily on the Danish authorities...

 

[HiThere]

I came across an interesting article about the climate catastrophe that happend in the year 536, that is the probable background for the story of "Fimbulvinter" that is mentioned in old Norse and Finnish manuscripts:

Fimbulvinteren er ikke en myte

Trolig døde halvparten av menneskene i Norge og Sverige. Forskere vet nå stadig mer om katastrofen året 536.

forskning.no

It's in Norwegian but maybe of interest for the Scandinavians on the forum.

Also this article concerning the same topic in English:

The Agrarian Life of the North 2000 BC–AD 1000

The 14 articles presented in this publication represent some of the latest and most relevant research on rural settlement and farming from the Late Neolithic through the Early Medieval Period in Norway. It deals with the impact of climate change, plague and the AD 536–7 volcanic event and some...

press.nordicopenaccess.no

 

[Aeneas]

I came across an interesting article about the climate catastrophe that happend in the year 536, that is the probable background for the story of "Fimbulvinter" that is mentioned in old Norse and Finnish manuscripts:

Yes, it is interesting and for various reasons. I remember reading it when it came out for almost 2 years ago and also thought it had been discussed here or on Sott, but I couldn't find anything about it. There are a few inconsistencies in the artikel which is written for the lay reader and it also shows a certain Nordic isolationism.

It is written a bit like a detective story how archaeologists in Norway and Sweden discovers that something happened in period around 536 and that it hit those two countries particularly hard etc. What the article points to as the culprit are volcanic eruptions and they point to that such eruptions could happen again.

One could have wished that all the Scandinavian archaeologists had looked a little further and seen how there has been written about the likely cometary impacts of the crisis of 6th century and massive impact in many places in the Northern hemisphere. The author at the end then says that these vulcanic eruptions will surely happen again, but not to worry as we are much better prepared in a global world where transport of food is easy etc. It sounded to me very much like a desire, conscious or not, to put people to sleep again, thinking all is well. Not mentioning asteroid impacts and pinning it on vulcanic eruptions also sounded to me as not having done much research of other theories. So the article remained very mainstream not wanting to alarm people.

The myth of the fimbulwinter could well be related to a much older event like the Younger Dryas event.

 

[HiThere]

Yes, it is interesting and for various reasons. I remember reading it when it came out for almost 2 years ago and also thought it had been discussed here or on Sott, but I couldn't find anything about it. There are a few inconsistencies in the artikel which is written for the lay reader and it also shows a certain Nordic isolationism.

It is written a bit like a detective story how archaeologists in Norway and Sweden discovers that something happened in period around 536 and that it hit those two countries particularly hard etc. What the article points to as the culprit are volcanic eruptions and they point to that such eruptions could happen again.

One could have wished that all the Scandinavian archaeologists had looked a little further and seen how there has been written about the likely cometary impacts of the crisis of 6th century and massive impact in many places in the Northern hemisphere. The author at the end then says that these vulcanic eruptions will surely happen again, but not to worry as we are much better prepared in a global world where transport of food is easy etc. It sounded to me very much like a desire, conscious or not, to put people to sleep again, thinking all is well. Not mentioning asteroid impacts and pinning it on vulcanic eruptions also sounded to me as not having done much research of other theories. So the article remained very mainstream not wanting to alarm people.

The myth of the fimbulwinter could well be related to a much older event like the Younger Dryas event.

It seems isolationistic to my eyes too. And soothing when it states that a similar event will be much easier to handle in the present age, which I find impossible to believe.