Strangelove wrote: Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist says the opinions of the SDs are seldom recorded by the Swedish press.
She is widely discredited in Sweden; has been fired from several papers. Now runs her own online publication Dispatch International, which is part of the counterjihad movement, ie a loose grouping of anti-Muslim organisations. And SD is all over the media, albeit most of the media disagrees with them. They even receive govt funding for their own newspaper, Fria Tider.
Strangelove wrote: The opinions of the SDs reflect the opinions of a large number of Swedes no?
Define large number. They received 12.86% of the vote in the last general election. 87% of voters chose parties that embrace traditional democratic values.
There is certainly a pool of Swedes that are skeptical to immigration that they can draw from. Some 40 percent. But some 62% of Swedes polled in May 2016 were either fairly or very positive to immigration from non-EU countries (such as eg Canada and Syria).
(Sverige means Sweden, green is positive, red negative, grey undecided)
https://public.tableau.com/views/Euroba ... y_count=no
https://www.europaportalen.se/2016/08/s ... ivast-i-eu
(And no, this is not white-washing, look at the results for some of the other EU countries! Sheesh!
)
But it’s not that easy for someone to just go from being skeptical of Sweden’s immigration policies to fully embrace the Sweden Democrats. You have to realize that the Sweden Democrats are not just any political party; their roots lie in the neonazi white power movement of the 1980’s. Their origin is an organization called Bevara Sverige Svenskt (Keep Sweden Swedish), basically a bunch of racist skinheads in Doc Marteen’s and bomber jackets that attacked foreigners and wanted to deport all immigrants, including those with Swedish citizenship, by force, to preserve the purity of the race. They motivated their opposition to a NATO membership with fear of American negro soldiers setting foot on Swedish soil and fraternizing with Swedish women. In one of their pamplets they wrote: “Immigration is a threat to the Swedes. Every year the Swedes become fewer and the immigrants more. In four generations there will be no Swedish Sweden. The immigrants and their offspring will have completely occupied Sweden. With perhaps a Turk as dictator and a negro as foreign minister. The population will consist of chocolate coloured mongrels, who do not speak Swedish but a hodge podge of other languages.”
In 1988 the movement regrouped and became a political party, the Sweden Democrats. At first they maintained their openly racist line of arguments, but gradually they have tried to present a more polished façade. The bomber jackets have become three piece suits, they no longer use the nazi salute at public meetings, and they work had to talk about cultural differences rather than race. They officially have done away with their earlier anti-semitism, and instead focus on Muslim-bashing, but ever so often the older members let their tongue slip. Björn Söder (one of those who still shaves his head), who, representing the third biggest party has been named second vice speaker of the Swedish parliament, has stated that those who identify as Jews or Sami can never be fully Swedish. That means he questions the Swedishness of national icons such as Börje Salming, Ingemar Stenmark and Anja Pärsson, as they are all part Sami.
Börje Salming himself commented: “If you say something like that, when everyone knows the Sami are an indigenous population of Sweden, there must be something wrong upstairs.” I fully agree.
http://www.dn.se/sport/johan-esk-ar-ste ... t-svenska/
Söder is part of “the gang of four”; Åkesson, Karlsson, Söder and Jomshof, who are at the forefront of the party. They have been working hard at making the party appear as just another right wing party, but they all joined the party in the 1990’s, when the nazi roots were still fairly visible. There can be no question that they did not know what they were joining. In 1993 the president of the SD youth organization was arrested with a hand grenade, just meters away from the leader of the Left Party, who was holding a May day speech. There is video footage of Åkesson participating in the merry singing of a drinking song about the murder of Olof Palme.
This doesn't play too well with the blue collar workers they try to win over, and for whom Olof Palme is a hero.
The Sweden Democrats have a point in that immigrants are overrepresented in Swedish crime statistics, but they speak less about the fact that the conviction rate of Sweden Democrat MPs is worse than that of immigrants:
Convicted of all crimes:
Swedishborn with Swedishborn parents 5.0%
Second generation immigrant 7.9%
Foreignborn 10.0%
SD MP 10.2%
Convicted of assault
Swedishborn with Swedishborn parents 1.4%
Second generation immigrant 2.4%
Foreignborn 4.1%
SD MP 4.1%
Convicted of drug related crimes:
Swedishborn with Swedishborn parents 0.5%
Second generation immigrant 1.1%
Foreignborn 1,0
SD MP 2,0
http://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/article20042384.ab
And it’s likely to get worse as SD MP Kent Ekeroth is currently being charged with assault and SD MP Anders Forsberg with embezzlement (it’s party funds he has embezzled though, so really, no harm done…)
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/sd-led ... nstledigt/
So it seems if it is someone we should fear, it’s really the Sweden Democrats.
Strangelove wrote: SD is the largest political party in Sweden no?
No.
Third in the elections, behind the Social Democrats and the Conservative Party. In some polls (I know you don’t believe in polls, but never mind) they have reached 20% and passed the Conservative Party, but sometimes voters punish their party in the polls, and then return when the election actually takes place, so we’ll see in 2018. I hope they will start shrinking and fading away. I’m not particularly found of racists or neo-Nazis, even when they dress up and look like preppies.
Strangelove wrote: If they talk about the immigrant crisis "from waking up till going to bed" it must be a major problem no?
They think so. I don’t. And neither do most Swedes according to the Eurobarometer survey of May 2016. See above.
Strangelove wrote: Ingrid says that the press muzzles what the SDs have to say about the immigrant crisis... because, ridiculously, they equate any such talk with "hate speech".
I know you have a crush on Ingrid, but you know, when she tweets stuff like “Muslims lack conscience” or “Immigrants are too stupid for democracy”, it’s no wonder she gets in trouble.
You can talk about immigration without resorting to racism. Ingrid and several Sweden Democrats have a problem doing that, but most people should be able to. That being said, it has surely happened that people who try to discuss it in a reasonable tone have been accused of racism just the same, but that’s part of the mud slinging that seems inevitable in politics, but would not hold water in court.
Strangelove wrote: Even over here across the pond, it's hard to find anything in the media about what the SDs are saying.
Not really. A lot of the stuff that Alex Jones, Breitbart et al, even Fox News, say about Sweden originates either from Fria Tider or Avpixlat. The former is a newspaper published by SD, the second a website with very close ties to the party.
And seriously, when was the last time you read something about what any of the other seven parties in the Swedish parliament said? Not counting Carl Bildt, who is retired from Swedish politics but connected to several prestigious think tanks and stuff, so he’ll get enough coverage. But someone still active in Swedish politics, and not in government? I’d be seriously surprised if you have ever read any article on that.
Impress me!
Strangelove wrote: Two leading Swedish politicians have a message for President Trump’s critics: He’s right.
Per Jimmie Akesson and Mattias Karlsson, both leaders of the Sweden Democrats, penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday supporting Trump’s characterization of a Muslim immigrant-led crime crisis in Sweden.
Of course they say this. That is their bread and butter message. That is what they have been trying to convince the Swedish people of for 20+ years now. With mixed results.
Btw, Mattias Karlsson has stated that Zlatan Ibrahimovic, born and raised in Malmö, is not really Swedish.
Yeah, right. Try to get a majority of Swedes to support that statement. Effing racist!
