Iceland Report: Election - for anyone who is interested..

[angry]

Election now, counting almost done.
Result: We keep the right wing gov. wich we have had for 12 years holds, god help us...

[Subcomandante Marcos]

how many people vote on Iceland ?(excuse my ignorance).

Maybe you should try to provide a little more background information for your country, I dont know anything about Iceland (sorry) and a little information wouldnt hurt.

[Dhul Fiqar]

That's my homecountry, too, and I can't tell you how fucking PISSED OFF I AM RIGHT NOW!!! :(

Did you hear, Angry, that Ingibjörg Sólrún is out?! That means there is NO chance of forming a leftist government, even though they have just enough seats in parliament to do an alliance with the center-party of Halldór Ásgrímsson.

OK, for those not in the loop, here's the deal:

It's a small country, population of 270.000 or so. Relatively medium-aged-population, relatively high election turn out.

However, democracy is not working for us. For the past 12 years we've had a dictator who refuses to abide by the laws of the state and is basically king of the country. If you're a journalist and write something about him he doesn't like, you are blacklisted and never get an itnerview with any top officials again. Say goodbye to your career.

Last year he decided to commission a state run organization to take a poll of the population and ask them: "Would you like to give up our country's independance and join the EU" and then listed a few reasons why it would be VERY dangerous to join the EU. Surprise surprise, a majority didn't want to join. This he proclaimed was a valid result, even though it was the most leading question ever proposed in a public poll.

To make a long story short he just won the elections by a HAIR margin, and is drunk as a skunk on TV making jokes and mocking his opposition. I really hate that fat fucking midget with a bad afro....

He needs to be assassinated, ASAP!

--- G.

[Dhul Fiqar]

Oh, and in case you didn't guess yet, the fat guy with the afro is the leader of the main Right-Wing coalition that dominates Icelandic politics (and society).


--- G.

[atlanticche]

this guy really sounds like an asshole
your country is fucked up unfortunately you dont have enough to back a revolution SORRY

[Dhul Fiqar]

We will prevail in the end! Knowing my people, the revolution will be funded with Visa cards, we never pay for anything in advance ;)

--- G.

[Dhul Fiqar]

This is him! KILL THIS MAN!

http://forsaetisraduneyti.is/interpro/for/for.nsf/Files/david-oddsson/$file/david-oddsson.jpg

[angry]

ugh..ingibjörg is still in for becoming a minister of somekind..it is very likely that Halldór will be given the chance to form a nother goverment..but the current gov. has now four men majority so it is almost no possibility for a leftist gov...
about Ingibjörg, she is a complete scumbag wich is not to be trusted (ref. borgarstjórnarmálið), she goes and preaches leftist politics but underneath it all she is a cappie bastard..traitor to Vinstri Grænir (the left wing party here), stabs Steingrímur J. Sigfússon in the back and tries to overthrow the gov. on her own..wich is not possible..

[Dhul Fiqar]

Well, the so-called "Leftist-Greens" are really not all that great when you look at their actual policies. They act like a bunch of nationalistic peasants with puritanistic values, Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir is verifiably insane. "Pornography leads to child abuse because it depicts women with pruned pubic hair" is just an argument I will not vote for ;)

Anyway, Icelandic politics is all shit. It would be a slight improvement to see Halldór replace Davíð, though... He may be an idiot, but believe it or not he tries to stay informed, and at least he's not the Anti-Christ like David.

--- G.

[Dhul Fiqar]

P.S. , ekki þekkiru Erp eða strák sem heitir Kári Gylfason og var í MH? Þetta er svo lítið samfélag vinstrimanna þarna heima... ;)

[angry]

Erp Eyvindar..?, Pabbi þekkir Eyvind..hef talað við Erp einu sinni eða tvisvar..er Kári í ungum sósíalistum hérna heima..??

[Dhul Fiqar]

Jamm, Erpur Eyvindar. I've only met him a few times, he's a friend of a good friend of mine, and I've met them together a few times. He's pretty hard-core leftist and revolutionary, has met the Zapatista rebels and has apparently travelled all over speaking to different revolutionary groups and such.

Of course he also threw a Molotov Cocktail at the U.S. embassy, which makes anyone a cool guy in my book ;)

Kári is indeed a member of the Young Socialist Party, he's an old classmate of mine and an influence on my political thought. His dad is also heavily involved in far-Leftist politics, pretty cool guy.

Með kveðju,

--- Gunnar

[apathy maybe]

I pity you blokes. Where is the independent media in Iceland. Where are the police and national army, can't you stage a coup or something?
In Australia we have had the same right-wing government (federaly) since 1996 (I was in grade 5 so that is more then half of the years of my education). But we have the ABC and SBS (both gov broadcasters) who give a fair assesment of things mostly.

[Subcomandante Marcos]

Another dictatorr, and oh yeah, Thats One Ugly Dude !!!!, what up with his hair, ilaughed really hard.

Anyway, what you need is a strong party with a strong leader and then the revolution will start, you must all unite into one big opposition and overthrow this dictator, show him that the people are the ones in charge and you wont stand more crap.

[Dhul Fiqar]

The media is officially independent, but the newspaper that everyone reads (untill recently the only daily newspaper that came in the morning, EVERYONE reads it) is a mouthpiece of the government. All of it's editors and top journalists are members of the ruling party.

The police are corrupt as hell, the son of our last police chief was a drug dealing gangster who owned a nightclub. When there was a murder committed in the nightclub, exactly five minutes of the security tape were erased before the trial and other evidence started vanishing. The guy was later murdered himself, and his dad retired and handed the department over to an authoritarian who built police cameras everywhere and preached zero-tolerance.
There is no national army, but guess who has a military base on Iceland? Yup, that's right, we're an official military colony of the United States, and they keep everything the way it is, nice and stable and unfair and boring.

The worst part is that only about a quarter of the population at the very most seems to care about any of this. Almost the entire nation is so gripped by consumerism that the credit card has almost replaced our nationa currency and getting into debt is now a lifelong venture.

Seriously, if there's one thing that defines the country it's consumerism and over-working. We work on average way more than most industrialized nations (people do as much overtime as is possible in many cases), and yet we still always seem to spend a lot more than we earn. Every weekend it's off to the pub to get sloppy drunk in the clothes you bought this week, wearing the jewlery you won't be able to pay for untill you're 55.

Man, I'm glad I'm not home right now ;)

--- G.

[Dhul Fiqar]

This is thrilling stuff! Show some interest, people! ;)

[Harmless Games]

I'm interested, but i dont know quite what to say, go umgh, err... aque,..... go leftists! wohoo

[Dhul Fiqar]

Haha, indeed ;)

Anyway, if anyone has a small to medium sized guerilla/paramilitary force, including mobile weapons platforms and well armed infantry forces, let me know. We'll sort this little place out in a weekend ;)

--- G.

[angry]

how old is kári now..? is he the one with long hair and kinda stutters sometimes.., if that´s him he´s nice..talking about the molotov thing..didn´t he get some months on parole..? nearest i´ve ever come to doing that was when me and my friend went one evening and throwed rocks and eggs at it when the war began..(the cop was sleeping in his car while we were doing it hehe)..but yeah..to stick to the subject..what can i say..the nation is kinda brainwashed after having the same garbage gov. for 12 years..but something is going to happen soon i think..just a thought..

[Dhul Fiqar]

Hmn, no, it's probably not the same guy, he never had long hair and doesn't stutter. The one I'm talking about is an '81 model, making him 21-22 now.

Anyway, sounds like fun with the police car, did ya get caught? ;)

--- G.

p.s. I think Erpur settled it and indeed got some parole, but he was apparently threatened with prison at first

[CV]

Iceland is still really cool. At least it's not like the US eh? Also a leftist government has a better chance to win than any other European country, so at least you have that.

I want to learn Icelandic.

[Dhul Fiqar]

It's a waste of time, one of the smallest speaking populations in the world, and none of them that don't speak English are really worth talking to...

In any case, it's not really a cool country. It just has this glossy hip new image since Björk and all them got famous... In actuality it's a really closed minded and old fashioned place, totally corrupted by capitalism at every level. Almost as badly as the U.S.

--- G.

[angry]

u now, it is actually quite amazing how true dhul is talking discribing iceland..everything that he has said is the truth about the political form of iceland..
No, I didn´t get caught..:)
btw, there is a slight possibility that Dóri will become PM in two years or so..that would be a change, maybe not a very good one..but at least we get rid of Davíð the King..;)

[Dhul Fiqar]

Haha, I'm bitter but I try to be accurate :)

I was actually hoping our king would step down because he'd need to give the seat to Dóri in order to keep the government together... But I guess since they didn't get a comfortable majority along with the 'leftists', they're in a weaker position.

A deal like you are proposing actually sounds very likely, Dave will step down to run some huge bank, probably the main currency reserve one (Seðlabankinn). He'll get a massive salary and never have to show up (like all top politicians do in Iceland once they leave government, these positions are used as bargaining chips amongst the parties).

Then I'm sure he harbours dreams of taking the presidency away from his nemesis, our beloved former communist piglett, Óli ;)

--- G.

[apathy maybe]

All this in a country with the longest on going democracy (it is isn't it?).

[Dhul Fiqar]

No, the longest ongoing parliament, there is a big difference but Icelanders never explain this to foreigners ;)

It was started under the Feudal system, where warlords basically owned land and the peasants on it, and violence and intimidation were the tools used to get into a good political position. If you showed up with enough men and started killing everyone in the middle of a trial (parliament was also the only court) you could "run it up" as they called it.

This means everybody in parliament basically says: "Fuck this, I'm going home!" and the matter is dropped. This is what wealthy warlords usually did when accused of any wrongdoing or when laws they didn't like were about to be passed.

Then of course there was nearly a millennium of occupation, under which the parliament was just a puppet institution of Norway and later Denmark. But we still brag about it ;)

--- G.