Sweden

NorthReport wrote:

Nothing like having an educated population.

13% of which voted for fascists

BBC - Sweden to recognise state of Palestine

That is what I am afraid of with proportional representation. I think it splinters rather than unites. I don't see the automatic superiority of a few special interest parties banding together to form a government. I don't think it automatically leads to better more democratic government.

Magical Meat: 'Eating Halal Can Turn You Into a Muslim' Says Nationalist Swedish Party

http://rt.com/news/272368-sweden-halal-meat-muslims/

"A Swedish politician caused outrage by saying that halal meat has magical powers and can turn you into a Muslim. The nationalist Sweden Democrat, which has around 20 percent support amongst the population, also wants to ban halal meat in schools.

Michael Ohman, the head of the nationalist party's Heby wing, told the Sala Allehanda newspaper that 'You become a Muslim if you eat halal meat,' The Local cited him as saying.

When asked by a reporter if he meant to say that halal meat had magical powers, Ohman responded by saying, 'Yes, this is precisely what we have warned of. They sneak halal in everwhere..."

blonde guy?

Balderdash. You can cancel out the magic meat's power by having it with a beer or glass of wine.

Sweden has become very right wing. Not sure what happened but,what you gonna do?

Greta Thunberg: “No party in Sweden is taking the climate crisis seriously or has policies in line that are needed to keep us in line with the Paris Agreement, if we include all our emissions and look at the social justice aspect. This election campaign has, as always, been dominated by populism, party programs that are detached from reality, aggressive personal attacks and pure lies.”

This is a very good insight into the state of affairs in liberal democracies everywhere on the planet. Sweden is not bad compared to the US or India but even there the process is useless for change.

Sweden’s New Government Will Be Led by Far-Right Party Founded by Neo-Nazis

In Sweden, four right-wing parties have agreed to form a new coalition government after winning a narrow majority in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. The anti-immigrant far-right Sweden Democrats Party won 73 seats with more than 20% of the vote, becoming the second-largest party in Sweden’s parliament. The party emerged out of Sweden’s neo-Nazi movement in the late 1980s. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced her resignation after her government’s defeat.

Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson: “The election result also shows us that the Sweden Democrats, with a big margin, is Sweden’s second-biggest party, and I know that many Swedes are worried. Many have already met hatred and threats, and even more are worried about becoming a target and hesitate to express themselves in public. I see your concern, and I share it.”

Meanwhile, in Italy, polls show a coalition led by the far right is poised to win national elections on September 25. That has the leader of the neofascist Brothers of Italy party, Giorgia Meloni, positioned to become Italy’s first far-right leader since Benito Mussolini. 

The death of the Nordic Model should be properly considered by those who place their hopes on a new Keynesian Golden Age.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Greta Thunberg: “No party in Sweden is taking the climate crisis seriously or has policies in line that are needed to keep us in line with the Paris Agreement, if we include all our emissions and look at the social justice aspect. This election campaign has, as always, been dominated by populism, party programs that are detached from reality, aggressive personal attacks and pure lies.”

This is a very good insight into the state of affairs in liberal democracies everywhere on the planet. Sweden is not bad compared to the US or India but even there the process is useless for change.

The only countries in the world taking the climate crisis seriously enough are the South Pacific islands that see their home countries already disappearing under sea level rise created by climate change induced melting glaciers. They are the ones who pushed the hardest to get the Paris Agreement to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Of course none of the major emitters are even trying to achieve that goal. I would Pakistan now understands the full meaning of the climate crisis with one third of the nation under water even though they only contributed 0.8% of global emissions.

Swedish Democrats vote was not the economy, it was the one million immigrants

 ..while i don't disagree that immigrants played a part there is more going on. like denmark where social democrats formed a coalition gov with the right, a shift takes place over time..slowly. and i have, here on babble, been reporting on this shift for some years. not only with these 2 countries but the entire nordic model countries. 

epaulo13 wrote:

Swedish Democrats vote was not the economy, it was the one million immigrants

 ..while i don't disagree that immigrants played a part there is more going on. like denmark where social democrats formed a coalition gov with the right, a shift takes place over time..slowly. and i have, here on babble, been reporting on this shift for some years. not only with these 2 countries but the entire nordic model countries. 

The ultra-right Swedish Democrats vote which could not win a seat in Parliament for its first from 1988 to 2009 while never winning more than 2.9% of the vote, then in 2022 becoming the second largest party with 20.5% of the vote and 73 seats in the legislature, behind only the left wing Social Democrats who got 30.3% of the vote. "The Sweden Democrats originally had its roots in Swedish fascism[24][25][26] and white nationalism" so clearly the immigration question was central to their recent success. "The Sweden Democrats oppose current Swedish immigration and integration policies, instead supporting stronger restrictions on immigration. ... The Sweden Democrats have described themselves as supporters of the Swedish welfare state, labour rights and the public sector, but argue that welfare should be restricted to Swedish citizens and permanent residents." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats#Economy_and_welfare)
While economic issues obviously played a role in the election outcome, if voters wanted to protest simply against just economic issues there were several other established right wing parties with less strident immigration platforms they could have voted for.

epaulo13 wrote:

 ..what is being ignored is the power of capital. which has increased tremendously. we could have a look at the corbyn threads an see all the posts about the evil eu and it's relationship to capital. the idea that the nordic model was immune to capital is preposterous. we see it isn't re: the climate crisis and the advancement of nato...to give 2 examples. 

..again i don't deny that immigration has played a part..but it's not the whole story. to think that would be a mistake. a political mistake in the direction of where we must transition to. 

I think we agree that immigration and the economic system each played a role (as I also noted above), we just disagree on how much emphasis to give to each, so I will leave it that.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

JKR wrote:

I think the EU is in the process of replacing energy they get from Russia with environmentally friendly energy which is a very good development.

That is not what I have seen on various videos. Could you pleases cite your sources?

EU Parliament backs higher targets on renewables and energy savings; Reuters; September 14, 2022

BRUSSELS, Sept 14 (Reuters) - European Union lawmakers voted on Wednesday to raise the bloc's targets to expand renewable power and save energy, backing proposals that had been made more ambitious in a bid to quickly end Europe's reliance on Russian gas.

The vote happened as, separately, the European Commission proposed a package of emergency measures to pull down soaring energy prices this winter, including windfall profit levies on energy firms. read more

Those measures will apply for a few months but over the longer term, Brussels is betting on a massive rollout of wind and solar capacity to provide cheap, locally generated power - improving Europe's energy security and curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

 

The Parliament backed a target to get 45% of EU energy from renewable sources by 2030, compared with 22% in 2020.

The Commission, which drafts EU policies, had initially proposed 40% last summer, but hiked that to 45% in May to attempt to spur countries to quit Russian fuels faster after Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Lawmakers also backed rules that would reduce by 2030 the share of wood-fuelled energy counted towards the EU's renewable energy targets.

The EU ranks so-called "biomass" as low-carbon since CO2 emissions produced from wood-burning are partly balanced by CO2 absorbed by the trees as they grew. Environmental groups have criticised that accounting and say burning wood fuels climate change and damages Europe's forest ecosystems.

EU lawmakers also backed a proposal on Wednesday to raise the bloc's target for primary and final energy savings to 14.5% by 2030 compared with expected energy use, and set binding contributions for every country.

Hitting the targets will require countries to shrink the years-long permitting delays that currently hamper new wind and solar projects, and renovate millions of draughty buildings to waste less energy.

The two proposals are central to a package of EU policies currently being negotiated, which aims to deliver the bloc's climate change target to slash net emissions 55% by 2030, from 1990 levels.

The votes confirm Parliament's position for upcoming negotiations with EU countries on the final laws.
 

 

The two proposals are central to a package of EU policies currently being negotiated, which aims to deliver the bloc's climate change target to slash net emissions 55% by 2030, from 1990 levels.

I see the EU proposals that promise the moon and also see the  "short term" reopening of coal plants. I live in Canada so I don't think any government announcement of a proposal to reduce in the future is worth a nickel

laine lowe wrote:

I may be wrong, but it seems that for now the far right in Europe that is making frightening headways in forming government are not social conservatives - it really is their economic and immigration policies that have taken hold. It is not dissimilar to what happened to the UK with the BREXIT vote.

I don't believe it's the economy with the exception that immigrants are blamed for it.

This is 100% about immigration worldwide. 95% of Jan 6 rioters object to the projection of whites becoming a minority in what are currently majority white countries which are mostly historically Christian. Replacement "theory" may not have the causes right but telling them this isn't happening is silly because it obviously is happening.

Welfare states calibrated benefits on the assumption that all citizens have been through the same system therefore a limited number of citizens will require social supports.

In Quebec if there were zero immigrants in social housing there would be a great deal more available for Quebec born citizens. That is indisputable but also simplistic. Without immigrants Quebec's economy would suffer and we wouldn't have enough people to care for our young and old. Our population is not replacing itself. Quebec wasn't first on daycare because we're more socialist we were first because Quebec realized it needed more women in the workforce.

The left uses the wrong arguments all the time.

epaulo13 wrote:

 ..what is being ignored is the power of capital. which has increased tremendously. we could have a look at the corbyn threads an see all the posts about the evil eu and it's relationship to capital. the idea that the nordic model was immune to capital is preposterous. we see it isn't re: the climate crisis and the advancement of nato...to give 2 examples. 

..again i don't deny that immigration has played a part..but it's not the whole story. to think that would be a mistake. a political mistake in the direction of where we must transition to. 

But the success of the SDs in this election has nothing to do with Keynesianism.

Someone should inform the Nords that their model has died.

So does that mean Russia is being provoked to invade Sweden? Nazi+NATO?

The New, Reactionary Government of Sweden and How It Came Into Being

The latest Swedish elections have seen the rise of the far-right party, Swedish Democrats (which almost entirely focused on immigration and law and order) but also the fall of the left-wing government - says Erik Anderson, member of the Left Party of Sweden in an interview with Wojciech Łobodziński.

Wojciech Łobodziński: What is the context of the last Swedish elections? Are they really a political earthquake? What led to the results that shook European public opinion?

Erik Anderson: The background to this election result lies in the results of the last elections in 2018, which led to a very weak government of the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party, relying on acceptance from the Left Party, the Centre Party and the Liberals. The social democrats bent over backwards to appease the Centre Party and the Liberals, two different forms of right-wing parties. While the Centre Party has been vocal in its opposition to racism and the Swedish Democrats, it is a neoliberal party whose party leader is a big fan of Margaret Thatcher and Ayn Rand. When it comes to the Liberals, they have in the past few years been torn between a social liberal faction and another faction.

Was the war in Ukraine somehow a topic of this election? Was the question of joining NATO somehow contested or discussed? 

Not really. The social-democratic government made a very conscious (and mostly successful) effort at burying the issue in good time before the election. Although Erdogan has continued to make noises of protest and demanded Kurdish activists be handed over, the issue is largely seen as a foregone conclusion. There is also very broad parliamentary support for Swedish NATO membership, with only the Left Party and the Green Party being in opposition. People are aware that the Left Party especially is opposed to NATO membership, and it is not something that the party tries to hide, but has not been in the forefront. With time, the focus from the Left Party has more and more focused specifically on opposing extraditions of Kurdish activists.

What was the main force behind the campaign of Swedish Democrats?

During the last months of the impending energy crisis, the Swedish Democrats along with the rest of the right wing added energy populism to their repertoire. They tried to paint the left and environmentalists as a threat to ”ordinary hard working people who own a house and drive a car”. This was aimed at manual workers in the countryside, where most of citizens live in houses and many of them are car-dependent.

Have they somehow normalized their political image in the last years, like Meloni and in Italy, or Le Pen in France? 

Rather, the other right-wing parties moved closer and closer to the political line of the Swedish Democrats over the last couple of years. The big change came a few years before that when the Swedish Democrats met with the Swedish employers association and dropped a number of their less right-wing stances such as their former opposition to private profiteering within the welfare state.

On social and economic issues, they used to position themselves somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, employing a form of welfare populism, saying ”Why don’t we take care of our own first?”. Over time, this has shifted to a focus more and more dominated by law and order, painting the country as in the midst of collapse and civil war. 

I’d say at least ⅔ of the election campaign of the right-wing was based on this. It’s one of their few strong cards, because neoliberal policies are thoroughly discredited.....