Reading through the news in one of the two major Swedish dailies this morning, I find a somewhat exasperating op-ed by the prime minister (i.e. by one of their ghostwriters), a sad little piece which more or less amounts to enthusiastic fan fiction ahead of this week’s NATO summit in DC. Sweden will now for the first time participate as a full member, fighting to “defend democracy”. Not only in words, mind you, but in action!
And these glorified (and incredibly overpaid) mid-level managers in our government are obviously enraptured at finally at least having a seat at the children’s table, rubbing elbows with important people where “real decisions” are being made.
The undignified giddiness of the PM over the NATO accession’s tyrannical and unconstitutional surrender of Swedish sovereignty has even been remarked upon by several sources in mainstream media, so it’s something of a spectacle to behold.
Kristersson was so overjoyed that he himself began to applaud his own historic gesture. And then a photo session, where our prime minister smiled in a way I've never seen him smile before. A blissful glitter in the eyes, a smile that went more towards a grimace, the closest distance between the corners of the mouth was around the Prime Minister's neck if you understand. He was so indescribably happy where he stood.
Then Kristersson was invited to the congress to listen to Joe Biden's speech to the nation, and already early in the speech Biden alerted the audience that Kristersson was present and everyone applauded the prime minister and Kristersson stood up and there it was again, that insane smile, that wasn't a grown man standing there receiving the cheers, it was a child, a very happy child.
Schulman, A. “Jag såg Ulf Kristerssons vansinniga leende och jag skämdes.” DN.
It’s often observed how in the Roman Empire, after the fall of the Republic, the senate’s powers were so circumscribed that it had ceased to actually effectively represent the interests of the ruling elite, and of course much less so those of the people. For this reason, it morphed into little more than a vehicle for personal gain and status advancement, and a propaganda tool for the legitimacy of imperial power projection. Similar patterns are clearly evident today.
The contents of the PM:s op-ed were more or less the standard fare, while at the level of a mediocre high school essay. But there’s a certain tangible disharmony here, a slightly insane tenor, to the major points advanced. Ukraine will win the war. More money to Ukraine. Most parties are behind the Swedish NATO accession, so it’s legitimate. “The free world” is at stake on the Ukrainian front lines. Sweden is much more secure having ceded its territory and sovereignty for the purposes of US imperial interests. We must defeat Russia. Ukraine must join NATO. NATO must expand to protect Western interests in East Asia and around the world. And NATO:s purpose is of course to prevent war, which it successfully has done sine 1949, as opposed to what those evil Russians insinuate.
This is really raw and undigested propaganda. It’s a familiar set of themes, yet woven together in a bit of a Frankenstein way since the contradictions and inconsistencies are so tangible. I’m not going to bother addressing them one by one, but one may ask if it’s not just a little too late in the game to confidently call for a Ukrainian victory?
And for that matter, exactly how is Sweden more secure after being turned into a legitimate target of war for the major power next door, by not only letting itself become occupied by its enemy, but by entering into a hostile military alliance that by all accounts and measures are waging war against this neighbouring polity?
These are not serious people. They are children. They are at most placeholders for the legitimate administration of a sovereign state. Our ex-PM (and former top advisor for the IMF), also previous head of the Social Democrats, posted this most bizarre video clip around the news of Sweden’s long awaited NATO accession where she “addressed the nation” and sort of pretended she was still the PM, standing in the halls of parliament with stately Swedish flags behind her, proclaiming how “Sweden is now a safer country”, lambasting the great and incomprehensible evils of Russia, and topped everything off by footage of her signing some document. But she didn’t sign anything, of course. She’s not in any government and had no say whatsoever in the final process.
You get the sense that these people finally get to play at reenacting the well-established propaganda rituals and narratives from popular imperial fiction like Homeland, 24, Blacklist or a hundred similar TV shows and movies. Now, at last, they get to hang around the cool kids in the schoolyard. Now, alas, so belatedly, they are afforded a minor role in the imperial aristocracy, and are pulling out all possible stops to virtue-signal, to affirm the opinions popular throughout the hierarchy, and to prove themselves as useful sycophants so as to raise their own personal status and brand-value.
But it all gets a little bit unhinged. It’s all a bit too much, and goes a bit too fast for them, which is nowhere as poignantly expressed as in Kristersson’s almost adorable statement at the end of his sophomoric op-ed.
“WE ARE NATO”.
In the Borg sense, perhaps. The PM:s notion that we’re now “on the team”, taking part in shaping NATO for the good of freedom and democracy and justice and virgin puppies everywhere is borderline unhinged. He can’t possibly believe that this tiny little nation of ours will have any say whatsoever in determining the lumbering machine of imperial politics, where even powerful interest groups right in the US heartland will have to work meticulously over long periods of time in aligning their objectives with those of other stakeholders. Who cares about Sweden? Fuck the EU.
It’s like a drug dealer having joined a gang under one of Fredo’s lieutenants getting the idea that he now for some reason has clout in the Don’s council.
Yet in his desperate attempt to consolidate this new-found status, our PM in no uncertain terms welcomes the placement of nuclear weapons on Swedish territory, supported by the newly appointed supreme commander of the Swedish Armed Forces who emphasizes how NATO:s weapons of mass destruction makes Sweden so much safer. A supreme commander who in his office proudly exhibits a novelty roll of toilet paper, printed with the face of the Russian president, and the text “Putin, go fuck yourself”.
Like a proper elder statesman.
This childlike ignorance is not particular to Sweden. It is the whole Western class of the political medial complex.
Here in Germany we have the same type of people in the same offices. They like to jet around for nothing (while fighting climate changes), and attend every medial opportunity to show themselves with soldiers, tanks, in flak jackets.
In the West, we have generated an amorphous smear of faceless, ignorant bureaucrats who are glorified as if they are running the country. Worse of all, they really do.
How did it come to that?
“Late, and childish.”
Yeah but that’s understatement. Sweden arrives at the party, after the party’s over.
But that’s the lesser issue.
Childlike doesn’t fit.
Kids have high situational awareness.
Mentally stunted child is more apt.
No ‘big daddy’ is coming to your rescue after you throw your punch.
Daddy is a shadow of his former self, and even in his prime, that former self was mostly myth pumped up huffing its own gas.
This shadow has nothing to do with Biden, though when you look in the mirror of American decline you see Biden reflecting it.
You think this is the New American Century?
Think again.
Sweden should make smaller aims. Like last time, maybe hunt, to the west, for some scraps that may be left…
https://www.napoleon-series.org/military-info/organization/Sweden/Army/Organization/c_swedisharmy.html
It’s been a really neat run though.
What happened in 1997?
https://youtu.be/9AEJwQKEa9s?si=3Qz-EfYJpW9mgCr1