Defence definitions

When I grew up, I learned that the Norwegian military was a defence organization, whose purpose was to defend Norway from enemies invading the country. Defending Norwegian citizens in Norway. Turns out that I was taught a fairytale that has become the common idea among citizens.

The typical examples was Germany under WWII and the possibility of an attack from the Sovjet Union during the cold war, not to mention the centuries of surveilling "the Finnish Danger" i.e. Sámis who migh side with Finland in a Norwegain-Finnish war. And Sweden? We have been fighting against Sweden before. And Denmark. That's what the military was about. Keep Norway Norway.

So while I was checking the Mistry of Defence's web page in search for more information about current missions in Afghanistan and, consequently, how that could possibly be part of defending Norway, I accidentally found that their official policy statement (which is roughly a mission statement) was last updated in 2011.

Translated, the statement now reads:

The Defence shall be developed into a modern, flexible, alliance adapted instrument, where is seeks a balance between the Defence's tasks, structure and access to resources. The organization shall be based on a close cooperation with relevant civil authorities and compulsary drafts practices in line with the Defence's needs. Focus shall be to secure and promote/develop Norwegian interests through the handling of a wide spectrum of challenges nationally and internationally.

Do what? By the sound of it, this is no longer about defending Norwegian territory, but may very well be interpreted as - promoting Norwegian music labels by bombing British music labels. Of course, we know we're not talking about music labels, but it would include taking part of invading other countries if that secures good terms with allies. Remember "The coalition of the willing"?

The give-away is already in the first sentence: The Defence is not to be developed into something that keeps Norway safe - it is an instrument. It is a very peculiar choice of words.

One would think that the mission was narrowed down by going to the Ministry of Defence, the people in charge of this "instrument". But no. The MoD clearly defines themselves as "An office of government responsible for defining and executing security- and defence policies" which basically leaves them open to define defence any way they like.

I wonder if I could persuade them to fund my "soft power" project. That is, conquer evil with good. There just is no better defence than promoting good.

TMG: Statistical comparisons

TMG: This Morning in Gardistan

This time of year, the government releases the annual personal tax information of everyone who lives in Norway. And as usual, the press is having a ball. The Norwegian national broadcasting station NRK is no different and has put up the "very important" new about our new government: Those who now leave office are worth 16 times more than those who enter.

NRK has been criticized by the (winning) right wing for being left-center-friendly. Perhaps this is an attempt to befriend the new right wing government - after all, NRK's license income is based on government decisions.

While the comparison is only made in the headline, and although it is factual, the comparison is not really fair. It has been made a small attempt to rectify this with small letters in the sidebar, telling that this raw tax data is not the full story. Some objects are not taxable. We don't know how large the exempts are. There might be plenty of hidden wealth.

But the most obvious reason why the comparison is not fair has not been mentioned: Eight years in government.

The intersting comparisons are:

1) The wealth of the previous government at the moment they stepped in eight years ago, compared to the wealth of the new government, and

2) How much did the personal wealth of the previous government increase in their first four years compared to how much the current government will increase its personal wealth in their first four years.

Of course, the second comparison will be available only in four years from now.

Letting democracy win

What if we could make democratic elections ... well ... democratic and meaningful?

Every four year, Norwegian citizens elect a new Norwegian government, although we statistically end up electing the same more often than we elect a new one. Every time, there are massive election campaigns, similar to the campaigns we see in other democracies around the world, with parties touring the country and bashing other parties, debating each other and occasionally trying to bribe voters. So are elections truly a representation of the people, or is the government hijacked by PR agencies?

Political engagement

In an actual democracy, people should at least be aware of what they think about an issue for the entirety of the four years the government sits. If a new political issue comes up now, right after the election, you have an entire four years to get your facts straight. Use that chance, or your vote will be hijacked by people who will not give you time to even think if their argument hold or not.

In addition to having a well thought out opinion, you also have the possibility and right to influence politicians directly by writing them. If you found a documentable flaw in an argument, make sure it gets documented and well known.

Campaign rules

It gets ugly. My first idea was to start up an NGO that keeps track of party karma. Every time a party presents something negative about another party, karma goes down. If they advertise their own programme, karma goes up. If they lie, karma goes down.

Better yet, this should go into legislation. To protect democracy, parties should not be allowed to slander each other. Three strikes and you're out of politics. Three out of the party, and the party is out of the election. Campaign about your own platform, not about how ridiculous you think other people's platforms are.

Fact check

One of the parties in the winning coalition of last week's election in Norway defended their platform with arguments that didn't hold up to fact checks or even logic check. Somehow, they were exempted from media scrutiny. I want to bring forth an abstraction of at least two issues known to me:

1) Moving the threshold the wrong way
A group of people A get divided into group B and group C. As it turns out, a very unpopular group D is made up ONLY of people from group B and E. Group C, on the other hand, are just fine. So to reduce the number of people in group D, they want to move the division threshold, so that more people from group A go into group B and fewer into group C, thus increasing the number of people who will end up in group D.

2) Restricting the wrong group
Two groups of people are under different legislation. There are great restrictions on who can apply to be part of group A, and you have no rights to benefit C. Due to international agreements, it is very easy to get into group B, where you do get and abuse benefit C. In order to reduce the abuse of benefit C, they wish to put heavier restrictions on people who want to join group A. To be able to hide that this is a flawed argument, they lied about group A's rights to benefit C. A fact check would have revealed this.

Even in a political climate where parties DO criticize each other, there was never a protest against this flawed logic. Even the state run "politically neutral" national TV station NRK did not confront or reveal the party about their lie in example 2.

New rule about politics: Three lies and you're out!

Winning

...and every year, we hear some parties saying that they "lost" and will look into what they did wrong in this campaign, while other parties cheer and celebrate that they won over the other parties. However, parties are not supposed to win a democratic election. The people are. And the people win the election only if the parliament accurately represents the diverse opinions of the people.

I am looking forward to the day when all elected representatives celebrate that "yes, we have put together a good representation of the population, and are happy to work with each other."

Ministers

After the election is over and coalitions are formed, parties negotiate about core issues and ministers. Since ministers carry the power to implement politics, the resulting politics will come from these negotiations. This means that if everyone who elected party A did so because of issue B, are at risk of getting party C take that post, and party A gets post D instead, even though that's the one topic where the voters disagreed with party A.

Therefore, it would be more appropriate if we could elect which party each minister should come from. During the election, I could elect one party for minister of environmental protection, and another party for minister of education, because that would more accurately represent what I think in a holistic manner.

Summary

So here's the action plan:

• Make use of all four years to find out what you mean in every political issue. Do it systematically.
• Write to politicians about your findings. Get heard.
• Document and publicize lies and flaws of logic.
• Fact check the arguments.
• During elections, parties should advertise their programmes, not what they think of other parties' programmes.
• Campaign rule: Trash opposing party three times, and you're out of politics. A party losing three candidates this way, and the party is out of the election.
• At any time: Three lies and you're out of politics.
• Celebrate everyone who got elected, not just your own coalition. You are all there to represent the people.
• Allow people vote on which party should take which ministry post for "holistic voting"

Think tank

So who wants to fund my politically independent political think tank?

Interesting links week 2013.32

So you want to pick someone's brains? Do it right!
While one would think that these rules should be obvious, it has become obvious that it is not obvious to a lot of people. And even if it is obvious, it is nice to have a checklist.

5 ways to lead no matter your title
Again, obvious things for leadership attributes. And with a five point checklist, you can make a daily reminder producing a week long cycle.

Songcycles
My good friend Ken McCracken found a tape with the Stuffy Rabbit song. Songcycles are coming back online. I hereby pledge that next time I'm in Toronto, I'll join them for a song or ten.

Adyghe Habze
The Adyghe People had a Pagan ethnic religion, philosophy and world view known as Habze. Combined with megalithic culture makes for a very interesting study, which I hereby have put in my list of future deeper dive studies.

Gabriele D'Annunzio
Before fascism, there was a poet from Pescara known by the name Gabriele. While he is thought to be the precursor to fascism and a source of inspiration for Mussolini, he was also a poet and writer. His books supposedly have nothing to do with fascism, and are considered to be unparallelled works of art.

And finally... for something completely different from Abruzzo

Bullying: The village animal

The term "Bygdedyret" - the Village Animal - was coined by Norwegian author Tor Jonsson (1916-1951) as a common denominator for the negative sides of living in rural areas. It has since become a common term, particularly referring to how the culture of small town and villages enforce the Law of Jante.

Since the Village Animal operates at village level, and with individual and societal consequences, I see the animal as a combination of several elements that combined, and in a specific configuration, generate a hostile environment. These elements are:

1. Personal insecurity in the affected (mechanics of bullying).
2. Personal insecurity by those who propagates the Village Animal (mechanics of bullying).
3. Circular self feeding and/or external feeding of a splitting mindset (generating bullying environment).
4. Jealousy fed by personal insecurity and/or economic contrast (mechanics and/or environment).

Smaller communities are particularly vulnerable to these elements: It doesn't take many people to make up a large percentage of the community, and the short distance to local government also create a short distance to circular self feeding. External sources, such as media, national politics and the school system, also add to the signals and thought patterns that encourage an environment where bullies and victims are grown.

By smaller communities, we do not necessarily have to look only at villages and towns, we could also be looking at clubs and companies. Basically anywhere a community may occur.

On the bright side, this also means that small communities should also be quicker to change. It shouldn't require too much to do, though I do not currently see government as a player in this:

Top-down government policies against bullying have limited effect for numerous reasons, the main problem being the lack of a universal vision: They apply only for bullying at schools, whereas bullying occurs everywhere and in all age groups.

For this reason, the actual programmes that have been developed are not easily obtainable by the common man. Mostly, you have to apply to take part, you should be a school, etc. While they do see some effects, it does nothing to work on the root causes within society itself. Maybe there is a political reason for this. After all, top politicians love to trash each other on TV, thereby teaching everyone that it is acceptable to do so.

Looking for government intervention is actually to repeat the same problem that allows bullying, now on a larger scale: Outsourcing inner strength. So while one might find inspiration from the outside world, the real work can only start with yourself and with the community coming together to work for a common goal: To accept everyone in the community for who they are, and to help each other thrive.

Dealing with the village animal, therefore, I see as part of the same work as dealing with bullying. The solution is basically a two factor approach: First build your own core self, and second inspire everyone you meet to do the same. Realize that the two tasks are mutual catalysts.