New Green Perspectives

“Despite knowing that life is so much more than money and gold
I fall in line like a good boy, and close my eyes to my guilt and others’
My heart is heavy and my head is bent, my steps echo grey and empty
The snow lies black and toxic on the roofs
I turn on my TV and sleep it off

And when the acid rain falls, I put up my umbrella…”

http://dfg.rosnix.net/musik/det_sura_regnet/

A freely translated song by The Lost Generation that I fell in love with when first I heard it. It’s so heavy and melancholic! It captured so well the feeling I had...

I have later realized that this is the lefties’ idea of how rich people are, or the greenies’ idea of how “normal people” are… and that they’re wrong. The rich or normal are not closing their eyes to any guilt. They’re not FEELING any guilt!... It is these “progressive” people’s idea that they SHOULD be feeling guilt, and so they wrongly assume that they do. The progressives also feel this guilt, themselves, and so naturally – but wrongly – expand their feeling to all of human kind.

Our hearts were heavy and our heads bent… not theirs. And I truly, genuinely believed that this depended on them closing their eyes to reality!... Because I felt that this was how it had happened for me… That one day, I opened my eyes to all the misery in the world, and all the pain came gushing in… and ever since that day, I was carrying all the grief of the world. Those who didn’t hadn’t yet opened their eyes.

But you know what, it doesn’t have to be that way! Because I still have my eyes open to all the misery in the world… but my heart is not heavy and my head not bent! It is a fantastic world we’re living in! And an absolutely fantastic time!... Sure, there’s lots of misery in the world, but it’s only a tiny, tiny part of it. And most of it is actually part of life, part of nature, part of what makes life so fantastic! Death, for instance. Suffering, dangers and death are parts of nature, and included in the things that make life fantastic. But just look at how much we have actually reduced these, over the last few hundred years!... We humans defy nature by having a survival-rate to adult age of more than 50%!... This is unmatched. In Sweden, this rate is over 99%... which is insane. And fantastic!

And if you look at it that way, there is of course no reason at all to grieve. On the contrary, these are times for celebration.

The funny thing is that you seem to have surpassed me in grieving, now!... This was NOT a development I saw coming 10 years ago, that I can tell you! But now, you “normal people” are walking around feeling guilt over the climate and are all worked up over Covid-19!... You think it’s a tragedy that 200,000 Americans – most of them already near their deaths – have died in Covid-19, and you think I’m cold and lacking of empathy because I don’t. But how could I, when I’ve already been aware for over a decade that 20,000 children die every day from poverty, and I’ve found peace with that knowledge? That’s 7 million dead children every year, and pretty much ALL those deaths could have been prevented if resources had been there… I used to feel THAT was a tragedy… but I’ve gotten over it! I’ve realized that 20,000 per day, in a population of 8 billion, is after all extremely little. No other organisms have a youngling mortality that low! People never had it before. 200 years ago, more than half of all children died before they were 5 years old.

Also, I’ve lived for several years now in a country where the child mortality is skyrocketing compared to Sweden, and I can see that it doesn’t mean that people are walking around suffering. Quite the opposite! They have much more peace and happiness in their everyday life than the Swedes have. I would have gladly lived here the rest of my life, if they only hadn’t harassed me so much for my white skin.

And so it appears to me that the great tragedy is not death, but the modern Westerners’ attitude to death. Which probably springs from the fact that we have too little death in our lives, rather than too much. Had we had more of it, we would be wise enough not to grieve so much, but instead to celebrate every day that we are alive.

I’ve become like the guy in the song, who puts up his umbrella when the acid rain falls. But I don’t close my eyes, I don’t bend my head and I don’t grieve!... My eyes are completely open,
as I’m singing
and dancing
in the rain.

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Read also:

How I've changed in my foundation over the last few years, July 30, 2018

The terrorism in France and me, Nov 17, 2015

Karolina and the Climate, July 20, 2015

A small bubble of peace and harmony, Oct 31, 2015

Ship to Gaza - A strategy talk

I wrote this text for my Swedish blog on July 6, 2011.

Recent deaths by cops have sparked me into translating it. But this is not written for the cops!... This is for you and me.

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I also want to go with Ship to Gaza! But… I guess that’ll have to be some other time, when I don’t have small children to try and stay alive for…



If I were to go with Ship to Gaza, I believe I could contribute some to the strategy, at least compared with the last time. I am fully aware that the Israeli army committed cold-blooded murder, and that whatever resistance the activists put up, from a legal point of view, is to be regarded as self defense. I also know that the Israelis confiscated several hours of video material of which they have only released around 4 min, well chosen to make it look as if it were the activists who were the violent ones, and the soldiers who acted in self defense (after having illegally boarded the ships in international waters, of course).

But still! Why give them even those 4 min?


Scenario: You are attacked by a person with a machine gun. You have a broom stick. What, in your mind, gives you the greatest chances of survival?

a) You use the broom stick to violently defend yourself against the machine gun attack?

b) You ignore the broom stick entirely, throw yourself face down on the floor, show your hands in capitulation and shout “Have mercy! Please, don’t shoot!”?

Most likely b), right?

Now, what do you think will give the worst publicity for your opponent, in the battle of the media that will inevitably follow?...


In our unenlightened world (hm… many would probably disagree, but), most people have forgotten that non-violence is actually a fighting technique. It’s not about forgiveness, it’s not about surrendering, it’s not even about being nice, really. It’s about defeating your opponent in the most effective way. It’s about “turning the other cheek”, which isn’t about forgiveness either. Instead, the bible describes it exactly as that; As a fighting technique. As the best way to seize back the power from your oppressor, or aggressor. There’s not a word about forgiveness actually, not in that context.

“If somebody orders you to walk a mile with him, walk two miles with him. The first, because he has forced you, and the second because you want to” (free transcription from memory).

Aha! You want to walk the second mile! This means that the first mile was nothing, to you.

“If somebody slaps one of your cheeks, turn the other cheek to them”, so that they can slap that cheek too, if they wish.

Aha! So the first slap did not bother you. You are already prepared to take another one.

Stop there, and you will finish as the stronger one. Even if you have to take one more slap, which you most likely won’t have to. Because there are other tools in the toolbox, other arenas to win on, than that of violence. Have your opponent shoot you to death on camera, while you lie face down and hands out screaming for mercy, and you have certainly won. You lost on the arena of violence, of course, but you won on all the rest: The moral one, the legal one, the media one, public opinion one… Should there be such a thing as the Doomsday or Karma, you won there as well. But more importantly, you won what you were fighting for, which, of course, wasn’t to reach Gaza, or to bob around in peace in international waters, but to illustrate how incredibly unjust the occupation and the occupation powers are!...

And precisely because your opponent also realizes that, this method also happens to be what gives you your best chances of survival. They know that your victory will be more absolute if they kill you, than if they only commit the smaller crime of imprisoning you. In the latter case, they can at least claim that they treated you humanely, and that you are just lying if you say differently. But a corpse can not be narrated away.

As it were, 9 people died on the last Ship to Gaza trip. Most people have not fallen for the absurd tale that the Israelis acted in self defense, but some they managed to fool. I sincerely hope that nobody dies this time around. But if it should happen still, don’t let the loss be on you! Make sure you play it is such a way that if they shoot you, it is their own ship they shoot in the sink. If they shoot you, may your victory be absolute.