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.