Riding along in the car...

Throughout the recent spate of political and economic upheaval here on the LavaLump, there's been an unending series of analogies likening Iceland to a ship.

Which to me doesn't make sense anymore.

I mean, sure, Icelanders pride themselves on being sailors and fisherfolk but come on? A better analogy would be to a car, as gas-guzzling luxury SUVs first managed to surpass fishing boats and factory trawlers as symbols of Icelandic success, and then managed to be an embarrassing reminder of past excess.

So imagine the Icelandic government as a car.

Now, the old, Independence Party government would be a luxury SUV. Its bigger than strictly necessary, expensive to fuel, and full of pricey extras that while serving no real purpose make it look really cool.

Of course, there isn't enough room for everyone in it. Men sit up front, women in the back, and foreigners have to hang on to the roof-rack or cling to the bumper, even if they've paid for their fare share of the gas. The thing's covered with corporate logos.

At some point, it runs out of gas, breaks down, crashes into a wall, or some combination thereof.

And we all get out on the streets.

We light fires. We pound on pots and pans, blow horns, throw eggs and skýr and whatnot. The old car is broken, we want a new one.

Now, out there in the seething surging crowd of egg-chucking pot-banging fire-lighting folk, there are a lot of different and conflicting ideas about what kind of car we should get.

Some want to scrap the car idea and invest in a train, big enough for everyone to ride in.

Some want a police car, a big ol' paddywagon so they can feel safe and secure.

Some want a limo.

Some want a tractor.

Some want a tank.

Some want a smart new hybrid.


Some of us just think 'Fuck it, I'll ride a bike'.


What we get is the exact same car.

Sure, they let the women move up front, even put one in the driver´s seat. And sure, they let a few foreigners in, but oddly enough not the ones who´d already paid for the gas.

Mostly though, they just scrap the plan to armor-plate the thing and slap a new coat of paint on it.

Red and green of course.

If the Revolution ain't dead yet, its on life-support.

Tootin' me own horn.

Maybe it was my upbringing, maybe I have self-image issues, whatever. As a rule I'm more prone to make fun of myself than to brag, more likely to doubt myself than believe I can accomplish anything.

'Cept when I'm drunk of course.

Which kinda proves my point.

But despite the general malaise on the Lava Lump at the mo', I'm feeling surprisingly vindicated. I'm a trend-setter, practically a prophet.

For years now, I've been talking about the possibility of farmers converting their manure into a second cash crop, mainly methane.

For years now, I've been talking about major constitutional change being necessary, short of a complete revolution.

For years now, I've been one of the voices crying out in the new-liberal wilderness for the re-nationalization of fisheries.

Ditto crying out for the elimination of the parasitic state-sponsored middlemen in the food trade, instead advocating direct farm-to-customer sales.

I've told anyone who will listen how much more sensible employee-owned co-opts are.

I've pointed out time and again that nothing was going to change until people made their voices heard.

A few weeks after the Economic Collapse of DOOOMMMMM!!!!! my friend Jimmy and I founded La Brigada Negra Cacophonica, reasoning that if the powers that be won't listen, we need to pump up the volume. Admittedly, we were told to hush up at first, but people finally got the point after the ridiculous and downright embarrassing silent protests during the Xmas season, they finally pulled out the pots and pans and had themselves a revolution.

All these things have either come to be, or at least are on their way.

Now, unlike some, I stake no claim on having caused any of this. Hell, I doubt I even inspired or informed that much.

But its nice to know that I'm right almost as often as I'm wrong.

They can put out the fires in the streets, but not the fires in our hearts.

Enough blogging. You won´t be hearing from me for awhile.

They've gassed people.

Beaten them.
Sprayed them.

Arrested children.

Beaten old folks.

All so they can keep their stranglehold on power. All so the rich stay richer while the poor get poorer, paying off the debts of the very people who sank a nation into bankruptcy. The PM complains of "violence" when his (publicly funded) car is hit with eggs and surrounded by protesters, and yet he lauds the police for doing a good job when they beat and gas people to "protect" a building. A building, no matter how historical, how symbolically important IS NEVER WORTH INFLICTING INJURY ON YOUR FELLOW MAN. I don't care if windows are broken, but broken bones are a different story. Know this: All of this could have been prevented. If those in power would taken the responsiblity they have been so generous compensated for and STEPPED DOWN, none of this would have happened, and what's coming, the darkness ahead, could have been avoided. In any other nation, stones and bottles would have been flying weeks ago. We've tried to be reasonable. But one can only kneel for so long before one has to rise up.

To the police of Iceland: BACK OFF! You are out numbered, unsupported, and fighting a loosing fight. The very institutions you work to protect are working to sell you, your children, and your children's children into debt slavery in order to line their own pockets. Don't pour more petrol on this fire. You can't put it out.

Totally TMI

Weird fact.

9 times out of 10, whenever I get online for anything more than five minutes, I wind up needing to take a dump.

I don't know why.

My current theories include colon-specific radiation from internet sites, the usually rather hunched position I type in, or, most likely, my body having to make room for all the bullshit coming off the web.

Garbage in, garbage out, non?

Brave New Year

Hello dearest darling blogodytes.

Miss me?

So I'm sitting in what should be the first class I can attend of my shiny new career as a grad student, but oddly enough, no one is here.

This is in keeping with the trend so far, whereby the few courses I can attend have either been canceled at the last minute or conflict with each other's schedules.

Oh well.

Try not to freak.

That's kinda my mantra for this brave new year.

Try no to freak.

Thing is, it dawned on me during the dark days of December that the one overriding theme of my 2008 was fear.

I was afraid of getting hurt, so I cocooned myself in with those friends I knew I could trust, and locked everyone else out.

I was afraid of getting my heart broken, so I dallied in meaningless flings and avoided anything that might have become real.

I was so afraid of screwing something up, that I didn't get anything done. Not at school, not at work, not fixing the apartment, not nothing.

And the fear grew. It got big and got teeth and started to insinuate itself into my dreams, into my consciousness, so that suddenly I was avoiding protests for fear of being thrown out on the country and barely making it to work on time because I had to go back and check that everything was locked up. The fear tried to spoil my one brave act of the year (going to Spain) by filling my head with all the things that could go wrong. On the way there I worried about getting lost or getting in trouble with customs, on the way back I freaked out about the Icelandic authorities trying to deport me.

A whole year went by and I let fear define it, and let that fear render me nearly useless.

Which stops now.

I'm not going to let my fears hold me back any more.

So I'm back at school.

So I'm working on the apartment.

So I'm going out and meeting new people.

Fuck fear, fuck it right up its furry little bottom.

Look out 2009, Da Sma is back!

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing Crying "Wolf!"...

So it finally happened.

Yesterday, during a new session of Parliament, 30 some odd protesters attempted to get into the balcony reserved for members of the public in Alþingi. The guards barred access, but two pushed through and shouted at the Parliamentarians to get out.

At which point seemingly every police officer in Reykjavik spend to the scene to remove the protesters from the stairway where they had been stopped by the guards.

And a scuffle broke out.

State television as well as the newspapers report that two policemen were injured (bites and bruises) and one guard (bumped into a radiator). There are no reports, except from the protesters themselves, of injuries to protesters.

The cops didn’t gas anyone.

Of course they didn’t. The reek of corruption in that place makes pepper-spray a deodorant.

Now we’ll have to listen to the ruling class bitching and moaning about “violence”.

Why the quotes you ask?

Well, let’s just say that the Icelandic ruling class has a very peculiar definition of “violence”.

Like when a police car was driven through a crowd of environmental protesters, and one of said protesters was charged with ‘attacking police property” after slamming his hands on the hood of the vehicle. Never mind that the car posed a threat to life and limb, we can’t have “violent” protesters “hurting” police cars.

Or during the trucker’s protests last year. When several large trucks boxed in the Prime Minister’s (gas-guzzling luxury) car (illegally parked in a handicapped spot) while Geir attended a meeting about Iceland’s image. He got all high and mighty about it, telling the press in his best George Bush that the Icelandic State would not negotiate with people who use such “violent” tactics. This was pre Gas! Gas! BTW.

Then there were the Falun Gong protests of yesteryear, when the Icelandic police rounded up hundreds of dangerous protesters (apparently doing Tai Chi is “violence”) and either forcibly deported them or denied them entry to the country so as to ensure that a visit by a genocidal foreign president would not embarrass the country.

Back in 2001, there was the case of the admittedly rather wacky head of a rather wacky far-left party who was threatened with life imprisonment for making “terrorist threats” when he pointed out that thanks to a tiny cabal of Icelandic plutocrats signing the entire nation onto the Coalition of the Willing in direct opposition to the will of 80%-90% of the population, Iceland could expect to be a target for terrorist groups.

During the early stages of Rvk’s game of musical chairs with the mayoral seat, a large group of legitimately angry people filled the viewing platform at city hall and angrily and loudly denounced the markedly undemocratic events taking place. The papers immediately filled with politicos denouncing this “violent” attempt at overthrowing democracy.

Not to mention the environmental activists who slopped green skýr on some aluminum execs being charged with assault and terrorism or some such nonsense.

In the recent round of protests, the throwing of eggs and skýr and rotten fruit at the Parliament house have been called “violence” by members of the ruling class and their deluded supporters.

The only “violence” that might justify removing the quotes involved smashing in the doors to the police station.

But as far as I’m concerned, that’s not violence either. Property damage is sabotage at best, vandalism at worst, but as inanimate objects feel no pain and have no rights, one cannot inflict violence on them. Moreover, the property is question was public property, which was being used against a member of the public for political purposes, and therefore, to my mind, fare game.

On the other hand, apparently spraying a crowd with a chemical weapon designed and formulated to cause intense pain is not violence. It’s “keeping the peace”.

This is sadly true of any government anywhere, and one of the reasons I’m an Anarchist. All governments claim a monopoly on the use of force, thereby justifying violence against “their” citizens by claiming that they are “preserving public order” or “keeping the peace” or “weeding out undesirables” or “solving the Jewish problem”.

Meanwhile any civilian who defends themselves against the state, even if said defense poses no threat to the State (like when simply owning a gasmask during the ’98 Seattle WTO protests was criminalized to prevent people from preventing the police from gassing them) will be persecuted and prosecuted.

So when a group of protesters walk through an open door and attempt to enter an area reserved for the public, that’s “violence”, but when a group of armed men with dogs kick in doors (to which they could have got keys if they wished) handcuff people in a state of undress, ransack dwellings, confiscate money and ID, regardless of probable cause, that’s “keeping the peace”.

When a police officer gets bitten, or a guard shoved while preventing members of the public from accessing a publicly owned building, that’s violence. When people are thrown to the ground, pinned down, trussed up like Christmas turkeys and manhandled out of the building for standing up for their rights, that’s not “violence”. That’s “keeping the peace”.

Just like they did in Tiananmen Square.

The problem is that many of the very people protesting have been deluded into thinking that the very government they’re protesting really does have a monopoly on force, and so to prevent them from using it, hold ultra-peaceful protests the likes of which astound people from other lands, where the public is less fully domesticated than here. Protests that involve a lot of talking and sign-waving, but nothing much that will actually force a group of people who have stated flat out that they will not listen to the protesters to resign.

After all, its just skrilæti.

Icelanders tend to be very proud of being “peaceful”, after all, the only people here who want an army are a deluded fascist bootlicker with a uniform fetish and his supporters, who magically get re-elected year after year. But this love of “peace” is in fact a fear of confrontation, one that shows itself throughout Icelandic society. Icelanders, for example, tend to be very passive aggressive, preferring to voice their frustrations to a third party rather than taking it up with the party frustrating them.

Unless their drunk.

This leads to a very handy dynamic for those in power. All they have to do is wait until things get “a little out of hand”, and the public, afraid of “violence”, will stop supporting protesters and try to distance themselves from them. This happened after the Gas! Gas! incident, when a bunch of drunken teens and some legitimately angry truckers clashed with riot cops. Now, the cops got a black eye, coming across as a bunch of trigger happy incompetents, but the public, fearful of “violence” quickly went from supporting the truckers to whingeing about them.

The same could happen now.

And the hypocrisy of it galls. If I call for a hundred people to show up with shields and armor, no clubs, no sprays, no stones, guns, Molotov cocktails, or any other offensive weapon, just shields and armor to protect us against clubs and sprays and rubber bullets, I’d in all likelihood be accused of inciting people to violence. Meanwhile the cops petition for Tazer torture guns, attack dogs, bigger paddy-wagons and probably (very quietly) for water cannons for their neither confirmed nor denied “defense force” in order to “ensure the peace”.

Who the fuck is kidding who here?

I’m not afraid of violent protesters. The protesters I’ve met and talked to, marched with and chanted with, even the most radical among them are not violent people. They have no plans to burn down buildings or assassinate anyone. No one is bringing Molotovs. I feel considerably safer in the presence of my fellow protesters than I do walking down Laugarvegur on a rowdy night.

I do fear violent policemen. I fear men who are convinced that they not only have the right, but the duty to inflict violence on others, imprison them, and harass them. I fear that those who hold a hammer long enough will begin to see nails all around them. I fear the “superiors” such men answer too, and their willing help in the media, who could convince this nation that those fighting for political, economic, and social justice are somehow public enemy number one.

I don’t fear “violence”. I fear “keeping the peace”.

Europris Bastards

So I have to amend my previous post.

Thanks to my idiotic decision to shop at the Walmart of Northern Europe, Europris, I find that my wish list requires the following additions.

Not that anyone has to buy this shit for me, just that if they want to, they can.

I won't complain.

I want a bike. More to the point, I want a bike that isn't held together by cheap plastic painted to look like metal. Like my Europris bike, Sid the Vicious Cycle. I've replaced one set of brakes (cheap plastic shattered), a seat (metal cracked) and recently had a petal break off (due to a "metal" rod snapping off to reveal its plastic interior). Add all that to the number of times the brakes have needed adjusting and the fenders fallen off and yeah, I need a new bike.

I also need some snow boots, preferable quite high above the ankle, black, and with a zipper. Unlike my Europris snow boots, which have laces, the hooks for which started to snap after two days wear. I'd like my Xmas boots to have a nice warm insulating interior, unlike my Europris boots that wore away after a week, forcing me to buy insoles so I wasn't walking on rubber ridges.

Thirdly, I'd like a snow suit, or kuldagalli, which is the single most proletarian piece of attire one can sport in Iceland now that krúttkynslóð appropriated the lópapeysur. Unlike the red and black one I bought from Europris, I'd like a snow suit equipped with a zipper that doesn't shred itself into uselessness after a month's use.

Finally, I'd like Europris to shove its collective head up its collective ass and burn in the fiery pits of Hades. With holly crammed up their nostrils and Xmas lights wired around their collective genitals.

Merry friggin Xmas.