Oh goodness, who knew what a turn this would take! I just thought it was funny
to see myself and Margaret Stephens being quoted on the blog I linked to, based
on our postings on BOO.
But on the topics of socialism and Scandinavia:
First, our friend Jeff has gone the usual and predictable route, choosing to
highlight extreme cases of Communist/dynastic systems like North Korea and
Cuba, or Venezuela which is a different story. But does he mean Venezuela under
Hugo Chavez, or Venezuela under the current authoritarian hack, Nicolas Maduro?
Perhaps Jeff would like to explain to us what role U.S. sanctions have played
in causing economic problems in Venezuela.
Beyond that, why do the so-called "Northern Triangle" countries of El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Honduras generate most of the refugees to our southern border,
while "socialist" Nicaragua seems to be a thousand times more functional ? News
on OPB yesterday was that a recent emigre from Guatemala died of heat stroke
working here in Oregon, over the weekend. From the frying pan into the fire,
you could say.
Lars likes to talk about Scandinavia; I gather he has some ancestral roots
there. But I've actually lived in Sweden, I travel there more than annually,
and my oldest son lives there now as a permanent resident. I speak Swedish
reasonably well and I can read Norwegian and Danish easily enough. But Lars
leaves out that other Nordic (not Scandinavian) county of Finland, which has
basically abolished homelessness. And he's cherry-picking statistics to make
the reality look worse than it is.
Comparing murder rates in one Swedish city (Malmö) to other European countries
-- which for the most part also have governments that would be labeled as
"socialist" here in the USA? Give me a break!!! What's the comparison to murder
rates in U.S. cities of comparable size? Lars surely also should know that
rapes get reported at much higher rates in the Nordic countries because there
are fewer barriers to reporting, and also the definition of rape is broader
(e.g. the Julian Assange case, where the issue was that allegedly he refused to
wear a condom during otherwise consensual sex). How many rape kits here in
Oregon have just been sitting in storage and were never even tested, let alone
used for prosecution, as we learned a couple of years ago?
I had to laugh out loud, a couple of years ago, when our pathetic former
president tried to claim how crime-ridden Sweden was, calling out the Stockholm
suburb of Rinkeby as supposedly a "violent" place. For years I've seen that as
the best place to park when I've rented a car in order to stay outside of
Stockholm on work-related trips, then catch the metro (subway) for meetings in
other parts of Stockholm. As a bonus, I can pick up groceries (especially fresh
produce) that's hard to find elsewhere in the city, since it's a very
multicultural suburb.
I'd suggest visiting the Nordic countries for yourself, before you take Lars'
word, or my word for that matter. I hear that Sweden has just re-opened for
American travelers. Perhaps it's worth pondering why travelers from our great
nation were being blocked at the border -- a situation that friends from "3rd
World" countries have long been far more familiar with.
And on that topic, while my heart certainly goes out to the victims of the
recent building collapse in Florida, that is also a situation that we have long
associated with "3rd World" countries. In Sweden it's front-page news if
there's a fatal traffic accident on the main freeway between Stockholm and
Oslo. Here we take it for granted that there will be traffic fatalities almost
daily, even in a small-population state like Oregon. And it seems that now
we're accepting that residential buildings can just fail if the owners feel it
cuts into their profits too much, to do routine maintenance and inspection.
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
