Author: elftorp

I’ve been watching the news on TV these last couple days, for some reason (normally I hardly ever watch TV). Two days in a row they were talking about people smuggling.

How horrible it is that some people make a profit on others’ misery. How good it is when these smugglers are caught. How horrible it is that so many (I think it was 90% of all Iraqis coming to Sweden last year) come to our country in this illegal manner.

I might agree that it is a bit dirty to make a profit on others’ misery. It also means that people who are too poor get stuck where they are. As usual. But…

At no point in these two reports was it mentioned that for a lot of people this is the only way to go anywhere, since the authorities (of Sweden as well as the rest of the EU) have made it so difficult to come here. And at no point is it questioned that the people who were smuggled here should be sent back home. Because they came here illegally.

So we are meant to feel sorry for these people who have paid so much to get here, the only way possible for them, but we shouldn’t feel sorry enough to think that they should be allowed to stay. Or even get the chance to go through the immigration system before they are thrown out.

They only tell us half the story, but maybe people watching will see the bigger picture. Maybe…

Once again, a union blockade seems to have been deemed illegal by the police.
Dagens Nyheter reports the anarchosyndicalist union, SAC Syndikalisterna, broke off a blockade against Systembolaget (the only chain of stores in Sweden allowed to sell alcohol) in Stockholm, to avoid a confrontation with the police.

They were still able to have some effect though, since they stopped deliveries for at least one day. And this is just before midsummer’s Eve, one of the holidays in Sweden that entails the most alcohol.

Hade you seen the film The Wicker Man (the one from 1973)? Midsummer’s Eve is kind of like that, except we don’t burn any wicker men, we just dance around a phallic pole stuck into the ground. And most(?) of us don’t even do that, we just get drunk.

I’m planning to avoid the poledancing and settle for some Drum n Bass. Maybe I’ll watch The Wicker Man too, just to get in the mood…

Several emplyees at Försvarets RadioAnstalt (FRA) have had their personal details put up on the internet by hackers, according to Dagens Nyheter, in response to the new law.

Bommi points out that the worst case of terrorism (which is ususally the justification for these things nowadays, as we all know) was performed by police and military in 1940 and was financed by the leader of one of the parties that are currently in the Swedish government.