Destruction of Reputation

Lo and behold how the mighty have fallen! Yes, we are quoting parts of the bible today. It is that epic. Who is then the mighty that has fallen? If you know anything about swedish politics at the moment you would know that it is the Social Democratic party. Once reigning supreme without question as the governmental party. Of the last 100 years 70 of them being at the helms, carefully navigating world war 2 between the powers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and continuing in the Cold War with the Warsaw Pact and NATO on all sides (except our eastern neighbor Finland) and lastly the economic crisis in the 90's and the terrorist in the first years of the new millennium. Producing men and women of power and respect across all parties. There was Hansson, Erlander, Sträng, Palme, Feldt, Carlsson, Persson, Sahlin and Lindh. They had visions, ideas and a way to realize those dreams. Today the party is a broken shadow of its former self. A party that once gathered a support of at least 40 % in election after election is now happy that they only achieved 27,7 % because it could have been much worse. This is not the sign of a healthy party.

It actually gets worse since the party in itself is caught in an internal civil war between the left and right fractions. The left at the moment having the higher ground, since they were able to push a more left-leaning candidate to the position as party leader, are now appearing to go for a purge of the unfaithful within the party. There is fifth columns, traitors, heretics and bought by the capitalistic forces of evil who are sniping from within the party to bring them down, or at least that's what they say. It wouldn't surprise me though. Those on the right side of the conflict... I don't know what they are saying. Most of them seems to feel despaired and even thinking of leaving the party due to the prosecutions from their antagonists. The War of the Roses is in full bloom. Is it on the verge of splitting the party or are they gonna cleanse the air to be able to gather themselves and go forth stronger than before?

Who is then responsible for this destructive force within the party? Is is the new leader Juholt? Juholt who appeared out of nowhere from the chambers of the parliaments defence committee, being there from 1994 without leaving any print of what he did and being overlooked by Persson as a viable minister for 10 years? A man who's rhetoric echoes back to the 1970, but without the class and expertise that Palme filled his speeches with? Juholt who makes promises and changes his stance multiple times on questions over the course of a week or even a day? No, he's just the symptom, a manifestation of the real disease. 

This is a party that needs a strong leader to point out the direction they are heading, a party that saw itself more as a temple for all ho shared the fundamental values, but didn't cast you out for your opinion on certain issues as long as the ultimate goal was in your heart, the social democratic society. That vision doesn't exist any more since it was realized in 1969 and no one has been able to form another political project as important as Folkhemmet in Sweden. The political issues that followed was mostly taken care of by a referendum. That is how they solved the question of nuclear power, European Union, EMU and some others. The special about the three I mentioned is that the party itself is still divided about those questions. Or at least the members, the congress decision is no, yes and yes. So it is a surprise that they have a leader who says yes/no to every question and then changes it? It doesn't help that we are leaving the ideological battle for the political issues of the day, meaning they must decide upon what they think in them all, probably alienating some. Will they succeed? Maybe, although from my own perspective they would probably have to shrink much more, gather the few who stayed and form straight answers in every question and follow it and from there gather support than the current situation in trying to appease all sides. An example, when they were quiet after 2006 only giving vague descriptions on what they are trying to accomplish, S had 45 % of the supporters behind them, but when they gave their budget proposal in May 2010 the support evaporated since people didn't agree on the proposals and it was hardly anything different than the ruling coalitions proposal. Conclusion, S is transparent in the wrong way since no one knows what they stand for and their leader can't point with his whole hand.   Doesn't help that the election of him was so un-transparent that itself become a joke.

The Fall From Heaven

Been a while since I wrote about Swedish politics, or politics overall. That's mostly due to the only thing that seems to be in the media is Juholt, the Social Democratic leader. Cleared from the original charges of taking out money from a second apartment from the taxpayer since there was no rules around it (which anyone working at a job outside of politics would probably been charged with fraud or something like that, and everyone knows this). Then we had the double car expenditures. What that amounted to I don't know. We have policies from the party left and right and they are withdrawn a couple days later and then put forward again. The party don't want to take a budget debate because they have to stand next to SD with the government parties together on the other side. It's a circus. It doesn't help that people he stepped on to get to that position clearly backstab him over and over. A great example would be their former prospected finance minister Thomas Östros. In an interview some couple of weeks ago he got the question if he had faith in their leader. What was his answer? He had faith in the committee that appointed him. That is one of the more subtler backstabs I've ever seen. And media is on it like rabid dogs. All high-up social democratic representatives gets this question and I think only one or two said yes clearly without pointing toward the committee. How he survived the first week of the scandal I don't know.

Still, it has continued since nothing else seems to be able to overshadow this person. Last Friday it was time again when he was being interviewed by the norwegian Skavlan on his talk show. I didn't watch it because, well I've almost stopped caring about Juholt and it was a long time ago since I watched Skavlan. Still, things we're able to pop up. Apparently he's so competitive that he couldn't continue to play against his sons since they began beating him and he also keep a black book of sorts were he puts the names of his enemies. I don't know if that the best things to say when someone got it rough, he don't like losing and he will write down every injustice against him. People prefer if you go out as a recovering alcoholic or something like that, a flaw people can take pity and so on. Competitiveness and rancorous is not any of them. It doesn't help that he apparently was shot-down really hard by one of the other guest (a swedish-norwegian if anyone cares, Linn Ullmann). He travelled around Sweden asking for forgiveness for the mistakes he made, but maybe in a slip of the tongue he admitted he always thought he did the right thing, Ullmann countered with that when she ask for forgiveness she knows she did the wrong thing. Some have analyzed this and maybe it's just a communication miss between the two, but it doesn't make things better if people can misinterpret it like that. If anyone wants to read from both sides read these articles, one accusing everyone else for bullying Juholt and the other more or less acknowledging the "knock-out" Ullmann gave him. The comments are a bit more harsher, but probably more informative (at some points).

So what does all these things sum up? I came to the realization that Juholt appears more and more like a swedish version of Richard Nixon. The "I'm not a crook"-speech pretty much sums up everything Juholt would say about his apartment problem. The social democrats more on the right are the "deep throats" that supplies the media with all the information since he pushed them back and now he gives us his "enemies list in a black book". If Juholt by some twist of fate wins the next election (or has to resign as a party leader) I wouldn't be surprised if he did the V-sign.

The End of Purgatory?

It's December and with it the feelings of Christmas is supposed to take hold on us and deliver us through our darkest hours in the year. Yeah, it probably is my darkest hour overall of my existence this year. First, I'm still unemployed and this is eating me from the inside. I might not be aware of this all the time, but when the darkness falls and my minds try to be put to rest, shadows of doubt clouds my thoughts. Depression hits and anxiety ravage me. What will happen to me? Am I good? Do I have a purpose? Have I chosen the right path? All question threatens to bring me down in a downward spiral of failure and insecurity. What keeps me going is the fact that this whole process intrigues me, to see the full extent of the decision made by politicians, yes, my political nerdiness is bringing me through this trial of fire at the moment. Although it gets worse.

The second thing that now looms over my head is that I need to find a new apartment since I've more than enough overstayed my welcome in a student apartment since I no longer is a student. Another woe, another cloud of darkness. How much longer do I have to sink deeper into the abyss of purgatory to once again be able to rise toward the skies? It's even worse that I for a very long time did a real cleaning of the place. I can actually see the whole floor now than simply the little path from my bed and computer toward the hallway/kitchen. Funny isn't. So, any good news you might ask?

Maybe not the best of news, but maybe a light in the darkness that can dispel the woes and distress that begin to shake me. Today the Swedish Public Employment Agency in Karlstad had a small work fair for unemployed youths that could visit certain employers who aspired to get an internship. So I actually had time to talk and present my CV to them in person, and I actually think I did pretty good at that (or it might be that I fool myself into believe that). Most interesting is that there was a couple of representatives from the municipality, one from the political branch (that is the administrative behind the parties, you know, right up my ally) that I just had to talk to. I think I pulled that of really well, pointing out my interest in politics (political science duh), my wide knowledge in different areas, a lot of different positions in organizations and I even got to mention my C/D-essays when he talked about the internship needing someone who could work alone and dig himself down in the task and present it so others understand (which pretty much sums up the essay process). Another of the municipality people got really interested in my studies in the European Union (university studies as well as the headliner for the high-school years). Another employer (the first one I talked) also was interesting to study, since someone had gone before me I actually saw her notes on him, taking up the space of 10 cm on a block of paper (making it a third of the paper), while she talked to me she filled the rest of the page (it's gotta be good right? Or am I looking into it to much?). Hopefully this will be the light that light my darkest hour and saves me from this purgatory.

Now beside all that, I finished Skyward Sword... again. This time on Hero Mode and getting 100 % (apparently missed a couple things like 2 chest, one containing a bottle without knowing it the first time). What this playthrough taught me was that the tortoise always wins. By taking your time with the bosses you can, with some skill and luck, beat them without losing any heart. The cheating bastard I wrote of before? Turns out that if you calm down and not tries to be to fast, he's actually very easy. Same goes for the scorpion boss which I was able to defeat without a sweat using my long distance sword thrust. I did not know that the first time, but when you do, boy, the sweet taste of victory when you defeat it with no damage taken is fantastic. Hardest part was the boss-rush to get the best shield when defeating 8 bosses without dyeing or using potions (and no random heart this time around). Another irritating thing was that the the normal mode made it possible to fight enemies to only fight bosses you only encountered previously in the game, Hero Mode puts all 12 of them there from the beginning meaning that only by luck can you get a good number of bosses. One time I got the the 7th battle and who do I face? A horde of enemies attacking me with everything they got, swords, bows, bombs. Epic when you do it in the game itself and you have potions with you cause there is no way to counter all of it, not so fun being killed right before the last boss. The good thing to is that Ghirahim in his last battle become easier the more I trained at it. Anyway, this time it only took around 30 hours to complete (probably mostly due to skipping ALL the cutscenes). Although I think I wont play it for some time since I got delayed onset muscle soreness (really? That's what you call it? We call it like, exercise pain) in my arms after all the waving (I finished it this Tuesday, that was two days ago and it still hurt a little). If I train to little? Probably.