Left is right

Today is election-day in our country. We're gonna elect members for our parliament and government for the next four years. I have to make up my mind about which party to vote for.

The election is serious stuff. That’s when we do our duty as citizens. We dress up in our best suit and tie and walk with dignity to the poll place. Not anymore. That’s the way my grandparents did it, the generation who had lived through the war, and really understood the value of democracy.

But it’s still important to vote, even though we show up in washed-out jeans and black T-shirts, to put the ballot in the brown envelope. I agree with the election analyst in radio who said: If you don’t vote, you effectively give half of your vote to the guys you don’t like.

Our political landscape Is quite different from e.g. the United States, where the options are only right wing (Democrats) and ultra-right wing (Republicans). We have a much richer fauna of political parties to choose from. We have the right-wing parties (two of them), the Christian-democrats, the social democrats, the socialist party, the left-liberal party, the environmentalists, and the communists.

Usually, but not always, I have voted for the social democrats, the Labor Party. They’ve been in the government office for eight consecutive years now, and I think they need a break. Some years in opposition would be good for them.

I support the general idea of a society of equal opportunities, free education and free health care, and just distribution of wealth and prosperity (and I’m happy to pay about 50% income tax). Therefore, I can’t really imagine voting for the right wing, or any party in their coalition.

So who should I vote for?

Maybe I should vote for the communists this time. I like some of the ideas of Marx and Engels, but experience has shown that the system doesn’t work very well in practice. Marxism doesn’t fit with human nature. I don't want to be ruled by the communists, but it’s good to have one or two of them in the parliament, as watchdogs and whistleblowers, when the bonds between right-wing politicians and Big Corp become too tight.

Yes, I think I’ve found a solution.

But wait, we have two communist parties; the China-communists and the real (Soviet) communists. Hmm … there’s still a choice I need to make.

And after all, the ballot is secret; I won’t tell what I’m actually going to vote >:)

(I took the picture last week, in the Russian ghost town Pyramiden. The Lenin statue is still there, more than 20 years after the fall of the Soviet regime. I guess nobody have bothered to remove the statue in such a remote location.)

Last trip to Moscow

I just came back from Moscow. My one-year multi-visa to Russia expires on 24th of August, and this was the last chance to use it. I have used it a lot, and hope I don’t need another one.  At least that’s what it feels like right now.

This time, it was almost impossible to find a hotel room in Moscow, because of the Track&Field World Championship going on. One evening we went to the Luzhniki Olympic Stadium  to watch.

The stadium was built for the 1980 Olympic Games, which were boycotted by most Western countries due to the Soviet invasion in Afghansitan. 

This was my first time ever on a major track&field event. It was fun and well worth the 2200 Rubles for the ticket. The atmosphere was amazing when Isinbayeva won the pole-vault gold medal in front of a home-crowd of 50.000 people.

We had some interesting but tiresome meetings; BigOil (that’s us) on one side of the table, HugeOil on the other. Words were flying back and forth, in English and Russian, with simultaneous translation. Everything needs to be said twice; first in English, then in Russian, or vice versa.

There were three translators in action, sharing the task. It’s probably an exhausting job, being a bilingual echo of the conversation. Most of the time, they do a great job. Occasionally, the translators mess up the science terminology a bit.

The main topic was science, but in practice it becomes a delicate soup spiced with business strategy, politics and the Law of the Sea Treaty.  

It was sunny and warm, and in the evenings it was time to enjoy Moscow, with good Russian food and drinks. I usually eat fish in Murmansk and meat in Moscow. This time I made an exception, eating pike from the Russian rivers. I haven’t tasted this since I was a kid. It was better than my memories of childhood pike-cakes.

The Russian beers are always good, much better than the boring beers that you get all over the world, Heineken, Bud and stuff like that. The Russians don’t seem to agree. They prefer the imports.

Russia is a proud country, huge in size, and with remarkable historic sights. Stunning palaces and churches of the Tsar era, giant monuments and buildings of the communist era, and events of great merits and sacrifices in war. Neither Napoleon nor Hitler made it to Moscow.

Napoleon was stopped in the battle of Borodino, depicted in literature by Tolstoy (War and Peace) and in music by Tchaikovsky (1812 overture).  Hitler got as far as to IKEA.  By the Leningradskoye highway, there’s a impressive memorial where the German nazi-army was forced to retreat.

However, when it comes to consumer goods, everything made in Russia is considered inferior; They prefer German cars, American electronics, Italian fashion, and Dutch beers, even though the Russian ones are twice as good and half as expensive. 

It’s kind of strange, but there are things about Russia that are not easy to understand

(Picture taken at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow. Track&field, like downhill skiing, is best to watch in TV, and you have to watch the big screens to see what's going on.  But it was fun to be at the venue.)

Super yachts and communists

Last week, when we were in Nice, down on Cote de Azur, I picked up the September issue of the free monthly magazine “That’s Nice”. On page 8, there was an article with this headiline:

"Super yachts are back on the shopping list"

Here are some highlights from the article (I inserted the conversion sfrom meters to feet):

"When the global financial crisis hit, the luxury yachting industry took a major blow ... Yachts are once again the must have toys of high society... 108 super yachts - yachts over 24m (80 feet) - were sold between January and June this year... And it’s the sale of really big yachts - 50 to 70 meters (160 to 230 feet) – that have seen the most dramatic rise... It appears the endless supply of cash is back and perhaps the big business people aren’t feeling too bad this year about lashing out on luxury goods..."

Personally, if I had enough money to buy a super yacht, I would feel better if I bought just a regular yacht, for instance a 2nd-hand 44-feet Princess at $400.000, and gave the excess money to the Salvation Army.

My first thought, when I read that article, was that these business-idiots didn’t learn a damn thing during the financial crisis in 2008. But maye that’s what they did? They learnt that the next time the stock market and banking system breaks down, the US president, and the EU leaders will save their asses once again. In the mean time, let the party go on, in Nice, Cannes and Monaco and other crazy places.

Last Saturday, in downtown Nice, I happened to observe a big demonstration coming down Avenue Jean Medicine. It was a protest against the French government, and their proposed changes in the retirement system, organized by the French Communist Party and the workers unions. The news in TV said it was 10.000 people participating, the organizers claimed it was 30.000.

It was great to see this big demonstration. In a place where people have super yachts on the shopping list, they definitely need a strong communist party to keep things in balance.