plague and cholera

It´s election time in Norway soon, and I am entitled to participate. Norway has a multi-party system, so there´s seven or eight major parties and some small ones.

Only problem is, they´re all alike. And the only expected changes is minor adjustments as far as who exactly gets exactly how much. On the left side they want to leave NATO, but the USA has pretty much turned NATO into a joke so that´s ok. Also, we became a member of NATO for protection, but now being a member is a stigma, so in a sense, we´re safer if we leave.

The right wants to keep kissing USA butt(business as usual bla-bla).

The left wants us leave the EU, we´re not a full member though. We participate in the economic thing and pass some of their laws. It´s part good, part bad. I couldn´t care less.

Well, that was about it as far as foreign policy is concerned.

Domestic policies more or less comes down to the issue of what we call "oljefondet" -a fund run by stock-brokers which takes some $7 billion out of the budget annually. I think we should just spend it. It would buy us top notch schools, the best health service, high quality roads, lower the tax on cars so as to make initial purchase cheaper(lots of *old*, unsafe, polluting cars in Norway) and outstanding public transport. It´s a small country.

The right wants to keep stealing the money, and I don´t know what left wants. In order to disguise this rather enormous anual theft(sort of like Robin Hood in revers, take the money from the people and give it to rich assholes) some people have launched "economic theories" about how it is nesscessary to take this money out of the budget, or the economy will crash or something awful like that. Well, lies. It´s just stealing on a *very* large scale. Amazing really, how easliy the people bought it, never figured out why, the "theory" they bandy around is about as sound as the "science" of creationism.

You see, if this money was in the system all the things they argue about in their election campaign right now would be null and void. There would be enough to pay for all of it.

So, I suppose that if I´m going to vote, I would vote for someone who wants to spend this money, no matter on what, better than just losing it forever.

Hmmmm, must make a quick search...

And the results are:

The only two parties to even mention the existence(google search "oljefondet, valgprogram") of this fund which now is worth some $150 billions, is Troms-lista and RV.

The first is tiny regional thing from far up in the north(where they feel the pressure more) and the other is the communist party. Go figure.

So it appears I will have to vote for the communist party. Their program actually makes sense. Problem is, they usually get about 1% of the vote, and as such, usually doesn´t even get a seat on Stortinget. Part of the reason for this is that they have more support in the cities than in rural areas. And the votes of people in rural areas actually counts more than the votes of people in cities. I heard some professor explain it on the radio once, or I wouldn´t have known. I cannot understand this ofcourse. It makes no sense in democracy to say that this mans vote is worth more than this mans vote -based on geography of all things. That isn´t democratic. And the result of this is that Stortinget is full of people from the countryside, whilst the majority of the people live in cities. And believe me, communication broke down a long time ago.

anyways...

b