The mainstreaming of David North

So I've been reading World Socialist Web Site, the publication of David North's "Socialist Equality Party", formerly known as the Workers League. For decades, the Northites were considered to be one of the crazier outfits on the far left, even a borderline cult. However, I noticed something strange when I browsed their web zine...

The SEP claims that Trump is "fascistic", the worst president in US history, that he is preparing to launch a civil war, and wants to end democracy. The COVID pandemic is painted in apocalyptic colors. The SEP supports the lockdowns. Climate change is another apocalypse. The Northites support the BLM protests (or Antifa riots). The Trump supporter in Kenosha who killed two criminal Antifas in self-defense is called a "murderer", while the anarchist in Portland who murdered a Trump supporter in cold blood is apparently a hero. 

Yes, you got it. *The Northites sound like any other leftist or liberal*. The hysterical cult has gone mainstream! 

OK, maybe not entirely. In contrast to other heroes of the color revolution, the SEP doesn't support Biden. They don't even support Sanders. Instead, they have their own presidential candidates. They are also opposed to "identity politics", the 1619 Project and toppling Lincoln's statues. In addition, they take a hysterical line internationally, as well. Apparently, Boris Johnson is "fascistic", while Justin Trudeau secretely cooperates with the far right?! 

Even so, I must say that the mainstreaming of the International Committee of the Fourth International and their traditional doom-mongering feels so 2020! 

The Russians are coming!

"Vladimir Putin och rysskräcken" is something as strange as a pro-Russian book written by a Swedish foreign correspondent, Vladislav Savic. He comes from a mixed Serbian-Polish family. The book was published in 2010, that is after the Russian invasion of Georgia but before Euromaidan and the Crimean crisis in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin had been president for 10 years.

While I'm not particularly "pro-Russian" (I serve neither Czar nor Commisar), Savic does make a number of salient points. I assume Swedish foreign correspondents are a secure bastion of globo-liberalism, so many of the author's points were probably seen as profoundly shocking when the book was published. It's no better today (hint: Orange Man Bad). Thus, Savic points out that "democracy" doesn't always work, that "nation-building" probably doesn't work either, that people couldn't care less about liberal talking points if there's no food on the table, and that everyone in the post-Communist nations is a rabid nationalist. Is there even a "good side" at all?

Savic describes, in some detail, the chaotic situation in Russia after the fall of Communism. The economy collapsed when the ideologically driven Yegor Gaidar was allowed to introduce free market capitalism overnight (ironically proving that ideological "experiments" are indeed to be avoided - regardless of political coloring). The party bureaucracy was replaced by powerful oligarchs and their criminal gangs, who soon controlled both the politics and the economy, while fighting each other. Meanwhile, ordinary Russians hardly got their wages or salaries in time, millions being reduced to poverty. Russia's democratic president Boris Yeltsin went from anti-Communist hero to corrupted alcoholic within just a few years, and he wasn't particularly "democratic" anyway. 

By contrast, Vladimir Putin (ironically enough promoted by Yeltsin to the Russian government) got the economy in order, restored the middle class and curbed the worst excesses of the oligarchs. He also made Russia great again on the international arena by aggressively pursuing Russian interests in the "near abroad".

In contrast to Swedish media in general, Savic has little sympathy for Chechens and Georgians. Dzhokhar Dudayev's Chechnya was a dumpster fire of corruption, crime and Islamism. Aslan Maskhadov's regime was unable to control the radicals, who threatened to destabilize the entire North Caucasus. I almost get the feeling that Savic (who visited Chechnya) somehow regards the Russian invasions as justified. His portrayal of Georgia isn't very flattering either. Savic met Georgian dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia before he became president, and quickly realized that he was really a Georgian nationalist, not the liberal democrat he claimed to be. (His portrait of the Lithuanian leader Vytautas Landsbergis is similarly unflattering.)

Somewhere here, the book goes astray and begins to sound like *Russian* nationalist propaganda. It seems the Russians are constantly besieged and attacked by unruly Muslims, swarms of Chinese, Baltic and Ukrainian fascists, and above all unreliable Poles who take the first opportunity to grab as much non-Polish territory as possible at poor Russia's expense. In the heat of the moment, Savic seems to forget that Ukraine and Belarus aren't ethnically Russian! The fact that 20 million Soviet citizens died during World War II is frequently repeated, but all of them weren't Russians either. And what about, you know, the Holodomor and the Hitler-Stalin pact? The author even comes close to justifying the Katyn massacre. Apparently, the Russians hated the Polish nobility and officer corps! No fuck?

Nor is it clear what the author wants the West or Sweden to actually *do* about all of the above, except to somehow improve relations with "the Russian". Well, I'm not for a new world war either, and I agree that it would be bad for international and regional stability if Russia would disintegrate into 57 warring regions run by petty oligarchs. However, Russia is the traditional oppressor nation in the region ever since Czar Peter the Great, so it's hardly surprising that its former victims took advantage of the fall of Communism to stage a great escape...

That being said, "Vladimir Putin och rysskräcken" is well-written and well worth reading (at least if you are a Nemets with Swedish as your first language), especially if you are the naive liberal type.

Prepare to be mugged by reality. The Russians are coming!

Lost in Ladakh

"Nicholas Roerich: konstnär - fredsaktivist - arkeolog - poet - mystiker" is an art book published in 2007 by the Swedish branch of the Theosophical Society Adyar. The bilingual text (Swedish and English) is rather short, and the paintings shown aren't really analyzed. The book is probably intended as a "teaser trailer". It was published 60 years after Roerich's death, probably no co-incidence.

Roerich, a Russian emigre who lived in the United States, was a very colorful character. The book "Red Shambhala" by Andrei Znamenski even claims that he was a double agent, secretely working on behalf of both Soviet and American intelligence services! Roerich had good relations with the Adyar branch of Theosophy, but also founded (together with his wife Helena Roerich) a new religious movement called Agni Yoga.

Roerich is said to have painted over 7,000 paintings, so selecting a representative sample for this book (only 120 pages long) must have been hard. Personally, I think there are too few religious paintings in this volume, and too many showing Tibetan castles or empty Himalayan hills, but YMMV. Roerich was clearly enamored of Ladakh, a remote region of India, and promoted Notovitch's "The Life of Saint Issa", supposedly a lost gospel kept by the Buddhist monks at a monastery in this area. 

The religious motifs are drawn from both Orthodox Christianity, Catholic ditto, Hinduism and Buddhism. There is also a painting of Mohammad meeting Gabriel. Even the Christian and Muslim motifs often look "Tibetan", suggesting either syncretism or that Roerich was completely smitten by the mighty Himalayas... 

Recommended, if you live in Sweden and know next to nothing about Nicholas Roerich and his art. 

I'm officially right wing now

Media: QAnon is a conspiracy theory or collective delusion. The world isn't run by a kabal of Satanist paedophiles!

Also media: Defends de facto child porn film "Cuties".

Got it in one.

PS. Apparently, it's "right wing" to think "Cuties" is child porn. Oh. I suppose I'm right wing, then. Although somehow I suspect this stuff is illegal in Cuba or Venezuela!

A very British genocide

Jag skulle vilja be Mellersta Österns folk om förlåtelse för att jag i omkring sex dagar för femton år sedan tog "the decent left" på allvar. Likaså Europas folk.

A most indecent genocide, more like it.

Revelation on the road to oblivion

Still no news from the Spartacist League. Are they mulling over whether to support Joe Biden with some grotesque justification? Or just fighting over Jim Robertson's inheritence? I mean the real estate, of course. The political inheritence was spent long ago...

Out of power, out of luck?

California has severe power outages right now. Supposedly the amount of electric power missing is roughly the same as the output from two nuclear power plants closed down by the state government.

I haven't bothered double-checking these claims, but let's assume they are true. Can you imagine what would happen if fossil fuels had been taken off line, too? If you think the working class will support the Green movement, you're kidding yourself. Neither will the middle class. Only the most affluent layers will do so - since only they will be able to afford an exotic solar-hybrid-fusion-whatever-whatever plant in their backyards. 

This is not an accusation against anyone. I'm just pointing out what we're really up against. That, and a global expansion of copper and rare earth mining. Perhaps in *your* backyard? 

Well, at least Kushner and Grenell ended the Kosovo conflict... 

Varken krig eller fred?

Kan Aftonbladet förklara varför Trump lyckats mäkla fred i Mellersta Östern och på Balkan, om nu USA "abdikerat sin roll som världspolis"? De föredrar visst att agera världsmedlare istället!

Trump har även utnämnt en ambassadör i Afghanistan som faktiskt vill avsluta kriget där. 

Och hur kommer det sig att så många generaler och säkerhetsexperter från tidigare administrationer löpt över till Biden? Det är nästan som om det inte gillar fredsavtal, or something.

Sedan undrar man ju varför Aftonbladet skiter ner sig varje gång Trump faktisk gör något aggressivt. Som att döda iranska generaler eller säga upp nedrustningsavtal...

De verkar ha lite problem med att få agendorna att gå ihop. Såvida inte AB tycker att Kushner och Grenell sluter fredsavtal med helt fel personer... De föredrar kanske fred i vår tid med radikala islamister?

Men okej. Elddopet kommer när Putte invaderar Belarus senare i år. Då kanske AB äntligen slipper alla dessa fredsavtal. Såvida de inte vill ha ett med just Putin. AB är ju trots allt inte DN... 

Min geopoliska önskelista:

Fred i Ukraina. Demokrati i Belarus. Båda länderna blir neutrala buffertstater. 

Fred i Libyen. Låt Haftar ta över. 

Fred i Syrien. Inget stöd till al-Qaida.

Fred i östra Medelhavet. Annars färgrevolution i Ankara.

USA lämnar över Afghanistan till någon annan stormakt, varsågoda!

Vi är hemma till jul.

The Age of Linnaeus

Sten Lindroth was a Swedish professor whose magnum opus was the unfinished four-volume work "Svensk Lärdomshistoria". It deals with Swedish intellectual history and science from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century. The three first volumes are complete, while the concluding fourth volume is much slimmer and was edited by an associate after Lindroth's death. Originally, this mastodont project was also supposed to have covered the 19th century. 

I recently skimmed the third volume, "Frihetstiden" (published in 1975). The Age of Freedom is the period from 1719 to 1772, that is from the death of the warrior-king Karl XII to the self-coup of Gustav III. During this period, Sweden lost its status as a great power in northern Europe. In return, the country got a parliamentary form of government. The intellectual life continued to be just as dynamic as during the Great Power period. As usual, Lindroth is very comprehensive and includes pretty much everyone in his overview, not just the "respectable" people or the "real" scientists.

Thus, Swedenborg in his capacity as spirit-seer is featured. His scientific endavors were dealt with already in volume two. There is a chapter on Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, who was both a chemist, prominent mineralogist, idiosyncratic hydrologist and alchemist. He was nicknamed "our Hermes Trismegistos". At one point, Wallerius claimed that Moses was the greatest among mineralogists and chemists! There was also Gustaf Bonde, a politician who wrote a heavily mythologized history of Sweden while immersing himself in the studies of alchemy, kabbala and Hermetism.

I admit that I like Lindroth's objective approach even to thinkers far removed from our present-day paradigms. However, there is one character from 18th century history of science towards which he is very negative. Ironically, that person is...Carolus Linnaeus!

I know next to nothing about the progress or otherwise of Linnean studies circa 1975, but my best guess is that Lindroth wrote at a time when the sheer genius and greatness of Linnaeus, often considered the greatest Swedish scientist who ever lived, had began to be questioned, hopefully in favor of a more realistic assesment. Or did the pendulum swing too much in the other direction? Lindroth describes "the father of biology" as a hysteric (today we would say bipolar) who read Agrippa, believed in numerology (5, 7 and 12 were especially important) and never made any scientific discoveries of a radical kind. Indeed, this deeply superstitious man and believer in Nemesis Divina had a cult-like following and may actually have impeded the advance of modern biology in Sweden. Lindroth even believes that one Petrus Artedi may have been just as important. 

The standard criticism of Carl von Linné, to use his Swedish name, is that he had a static, "creationist" view of nature. Genera and species are unchanging, created by God. For some weird reason, Linné believed that there could only be 5 776 genera! The rest of his system of classification (including the notorious "sexual system") was wholly artificial and frequently rather weird. Thus, Linnaeus classified the snail and its shell in two different classes! In general, he had a scholastic attitude and obssesively tried to order Nature even when no obvious order was to be found. 

Except sometimes. It seems that even this annoying character occasionally changed his mind. At some point, Linné realized that species could hybridize, but Lindroth believes that his explanation was crazy and based on sheer speculation rather than empirical evidence. It's also interesting to note that Linnaeus believed in the existence of wildmen, who could perhaps be seen as transitional forms between ape and man. Linné took a more dynamic approach to nature in his studies "Oeconomia naturae" and "Politia naturae", in which he discusses the fecundity of nature, food chains, ecological balance, and so on.

Not sure how to end this review, so I just end! 

I just realized something

I just had an interesting realization.

What if God exists, but doesn't care about us? Or doesn't care about us more than he cares about anything else?

What makes us think this shit was ever about us anyway?