SUMMARY IN ENGLISH
CONTRA # 5 2002
The
Empires of Evil
1871-1991
Contra publisher Tommy Hansson has published a new book ”The Empires of Evil” (a 30 page summary in English is included in the book). The book analyzes the three ”temptations” of man during the period 1871–1991, namely ”Wilhelmism” (the authoritarian philosophy of Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany), fascism and communism. The analysis is made from a perspective of historical philosophy and the author discusses the road from these three temptations of evil to the three World Wars (the third being the Cold War).
The Swedish election system does not even manage
to count the votes
by C G Holm
Many commentators claimed that the September elections was a left-wing
landslide. But it was not. The Moderates (conservatives) lost 27 seats,
but the almost as right-wing People’s Party gained 31. The Social
Democrats gained 13 seats, which was exactly the number lost by the Leftist
Party (reform Communists). The overall swing was actually one single seat
in the Riksdag lost by the four centre-right parties combined to the Green
Party, which turned out to give continued support to the minority Social
Democratic Government. It is hard to imagine a smaller shift in the elctorate
during a four-year period.
The Central Election Authority used to count all the votes. But already
in the election of 1998 the official results were doctored. In some counties
all votes are counted, in some many are put into the category ”others”
or are even regarded as invalid votes. Still the Central Election Authority
publish figures on the number of votes for the entire country, in spite
of the fact that they added up votes in only two of 21 counties for one
party and only in a single county for another party. By contacting County
Councils Contra has been able to get the figure down from 10.861 unknown
votes to 7.020. But we have not been able to check the 82.218 invalid
votes, many of which were handwritten and should have been approved. One
of the small parties, the Libertarian ”Fria Listan” were denied
printing their candidate list in the design they wanted and got permission
only four days before the election, by appealing to a court. Of course
they were unable to distribute their candidate list and got most of their
votes in the City of Stockholm, the only constituency where the lists
reached the polling stations.
Religion important in the Dacke uprising
by Tommy Hansson
In the 1542–1543 Dacke uprising in southern Sweden peasants tried
to overthrow the authoritarian regime of king Gustavus I Vasa, in protest
against taxes and change in religious organization. The uprising was initially
succcesful and the rebels controlled the provinces of Småland and
Östergötland. Through an extremely violent campaign against
the rebels the King was able to defend his throne and the leader of the
uprising, Nils Dacke was shot and his head put on display on a pole in
the southern city of Kalmar.
Friedman’s theories saved the West
by
Tommy Hansson
Milton Friedman is at present 90 years old and still one of the most clever and ambitious advocates of the Western civilization. He showed that with great emphasis during the centenary celebration of the Nobel Prizes in Stockholm last year, when he mildly but efficiently dismissed Swedish TVs impolite attacks. In Sweden Prof. Friedman is more or less described as responsible for the 1973 coup in Chile, while his only activity in Chile was a five day lecture tour after the coup, visiting a number of private banks. At these lectures also representatives of the new regime took part and Prof Friedman’s economic ideas had a significant and positive effect on the Chilean economy, which rapidly recovered after the Allende disaster.
US Security and bin Laden terrorism
by Allan C. Brownfeld
Republican Representative Porter J. Goss of Florida, co-chairman of the
joint Congressional Committee on American Intelligence Agencies commented
on a study of six years of secret CIA information on Osama bin Laden:
”Should we have known? Yes, we should. Could we have known? Yes,
I think we could”
Five minutes before noon in Belarus
Kjell Albin Abrahamson, well-known Swedish journalist with many years of service in Eastern Europe started his presentation of the development in Belarus at five to noon on the first day of the Gothenburg Book Fair. A very symbolic time he said. The time is five minutes to noon in Belarus, seen from the point of view of human rights and freedom of the press. Article 367 in the penal code bans criticism of the country’s president, Alexander Lukahsenka. And the article is often used. One of those hit by the article was the journalist Nikolai Markevich, who was on the original agenda for the Gothenburg Book Fair. Instead he was serving time in a prison camp.
The dictatorship in Belarus was however not able to stop the presence
of Belarussian radio journalist Svetlana Kurs, from Radio Racyja in Minsk.
–The government does not have unlimited reources for controlling
people and I don’t expect any reprisals for my presence in Gothenburg
Ms Kurs stated in an interview with Contra. In addition people does not
believe the exaggerations of the propaganda of the government. This has
in fact made the propaganda department somewhat more balanced, I thus
am rather optimistic for the future development in my country, Ms Kurs
concluded.
Chomsky and the extreme left
The great attraction at the Gothenburg Book Fair was the Americna linguist, professor Noam Chomsky. The interest was so large that the organizers moved his lecture from the fair area to the nearby Ice Hockey Stadium, which however was only partly used at the Chomsky lecture. Prof. Chomsky was anti-American already in his criticism of the US engagement in Indochina, and this has made him some kind of local guru in Western Europe. In his native country, the United States, his bizarre conspiration theories are hardly discussed at all, but unfortunately here in Europe, he is given much attention by many leftist intellectuals.
